Native People and Scotts Bluff

E.A. Hummel, Regional Historian and A.R. Kelly, Chief Archeologist inspect an eroded area near the summit of Scotts Bluff in 1940.

NPS

The First Humans Near Scotts Bluff

The first people to live in the region around Scotts Bluff arrived nearly 10,000 years ago. Anthropologists believe these people were nomadic hunters who continuously traveled in small groups and knew how to manufacture tools made from stone. Archeological discoveries within Scotts Bluff National Monument have unearthed physical evidence of the occupation of this area. It is believed that many of these sites were temporarily used for camping, as archeologists have identified fire pits and stone flakes in these areas. These finds indicate that humans have inhabited the High Plains for a very long time.

 

A Change in Lifestyle

As time went on, the lifestyles of the Native Americans living in the West began to shift as farming proved to be a more dependable source for food. In the following 5,000 years, small groups of farmers lived along the major rivers of the High Plains. Then, somewhat suddenly around the year 1400 AD, the plains were abandoned by farmers and nomadic groups alike, perhaps due to extended drought in the region. Two hundred years later, eastern tribes like the Pawnee, Arikara, Kansas, and Mandan moved westward onto the prairie, developing semi-permanent villages along many major waterways.

 

Introduction of the Horse

It is doubtful that there was ever a considerable or consistent Native American population in the Great Plains region prior to the introduction of the horse. Horses, which either strayed or were stolen from the early Spaniards, greatly facilitated the hunting of bison as well as extensive migrations across the western plains in search of water, fuel, and shelter. Horses reached more eastern tribes, such as the Pawnee, as early as the year 1700, and the Dakota, a more western tribe, by 1740.

 

18th Century Movements

Over the course of centuries, mass migrations and displacements constantly occurred between native tribes. Towards the beginning of the 1700s, an influx of Siouan peoples, a more agricultural group, traveled to the plains regions from the north and east, many from present day Minnesota. As the Dakota division of this group continued to move west, their migration pushed other tribes, such as the Cheyenne and Arapaho, further west towards the Black Hills and the Cheyenne River country in present day South Dakota. The Dakota eventually possessed nearly all of present-day South Dakota by the beginning of the 1800s. The Tetons - the most western division of the Dakota - had driven out most other tribes from Western Nebraska by 1830.

 

William Henry Jackson painted this watercolor image of emigrants in covered wagons crossing the South Platte River near a Native encampment.

From the Scotts Bluff National Monument William Henry Jackson Collection. SCBL-23

The 19th Century

In the beginning of the 1800s, white European Americans began to venture further west into the homelands of many Plains tribes. When the white men arrived, they found tribes such as the Kansas, Omaha, and Ponca Sioux in the Missouri Valley, the Pawnee in South Central Nebraska along the middle Platte and Loup Rivers, the Ogallala and Brule divisions of the Teton Dakota over all the remainder of present-day Nebraska, and the Arapaho and Cheyenne in the Southern Platte Country.

Many of these groups held a very similar culture and way of life during this time period. The usage of the horse in order to hunt bison and lead their nomadic lifestyle was nearly uniform across many of these tribes. They would have made very little pottery, the bison provided everything from food and fuel to shelter, and many were great horsemen, and far-riding warriors. With the exception of the Pawnee, few based their lives around agriculture. Before white men and their diseases arrived there were roughly 40,000 to 50,000 Native Americans living in the region surrounding Scotts Bluff. Of that number, it is estimated that 25,000 of them were Dakota, 10,000 were Pawnee, 3,500 were Cheyenne, and 3,000 were Arapaho. These numbers tragically began to decrease as diseases such as smallpox and cholera took hold.

As the concept of Manifest Destiny grasped the nation, it pushed many white European Americans farther and farther west into the lands historically occupied by many of these tribes. This intrusion forever re-shaped the way of life, the land, the migration patterns, and the health of the people from that point forward.

 

John Robideaux and his family visited Scotts Bluff National Monument in August of 1942. They are likely descendants of a man who operated trading posts near Scotts Bluff in the mid-1800s.

NPS

Native People Living Near Scotts Bluff Today

Starting in the 20th Century, agriculture became a driving economic factor in the North Platte River Valley and the communities of Scottsbluff and Gering, Nebraska were established. Asian Americans and large numbers of European American people settled in the area surrounding Scotts Bluff. Today, Native Americans make up a small percentage of the local population. Still, these people maintain their strong historical traditions and connections to the Bluffs on the North Platte River, known by some as Me-a-pa-te, or "hill that is hard to go around".

Eleven tribal governments are associated with the lands on which Scotts Bluff National Monument is located. The monument consults with them on major projects and plans.