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good afternoon my name is Deb irons and I am a senior museum curator here at the Nebraska State Historical Society and i'd like to welcome you all to our July 2004 brown bag lecture series program I'd like to mention before introducing our speaker today that the taping for this series is provided by the Nebraska State Historical Society foundation and I'd also like to mention that today's presentation is part of the BIA tourists in your own hometown promotion here in Lincoln this is a promotion that encourages people to visit the various museums and cultural attractions in Lincoln and you can pick up a passport and get stamped at each location and then be eligible for prizes at the July third no September third saltdogs gain so welcome today's presentation and today's presenter is Jim Potter jim has been working for the Nebraska State Historical Society for about 37 years and he has been archivist senior editor of the Nebraska history magazine and currently he is our senior research historian and today Gems presentation is Paper Towns Wildcat banks and carpetbag governor's territorial Nebraska in the 1850s so if you would please give a warm welcome to gym thank you very much Deb for that generous introduction as you all know this year marks the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the act that created the territories of Nebraska and Kansas in popular terminology the kansas-nebraska act when it was signed into law by President Franklin Pierce on May thirtieth 1854 the Act established Nebraska as a political entity and initiated it's nearly 13 year experience as a US territory I suspect however that the annual observance of statehood day has fixed march first 1867 in many Nebraskans minds as the genesis date in our history what happened here between 1854 and 1867 should not be overlooked because the territorial years molded and refined the state of Nebraska to be along with her leaders people economy politics and institutions what's more the history of those years is fascinating filled with intriguing personalities carpetbag politics volatile journalism and financial chicanery historian Roy Nichols termed the territorial system quote one of the most inspired inventions of the American political genius end quote after the American Revolution Congress was faced with how to secure and develop new lands to the west of the original colonies the plan Congress came up with under the ordinance of 1787 provided the basic methodology for creating new states in the federal union first by organizing them as territories during the territorial period despite a sensible control from Washington the people would learn to govern themselves in what was essentially a grassroots operation and once the necessary population had been achieved and the basic institutions of self-government were in place the people of a territory could draft a constitution and apply for statehood 30 one of the 50 states were once territories and during most of our history the process of transforming politically unorganized lands into territories and then in two states went smoothly at least by comparison with Nebraska and Kansas by 1854 a series of complex moral economic social and political factors on the national scene divided the nation over how or even if these territories should be organized the most contentious issue was whether slavery would be allowed in the lands west of the Missouri River because the outcome of this decision threatened to upset the tenuous balance of power between north and south according to professor Nichols the conflict that ensued over the organization of Nebraska and Kansas was quote the most spectacular act in the drama of territorial history I'm not here today to discuss the political history of the kansas-nebraska Act which is a fascinating story in its own right for that there are many sources including an article by Ross Drake in the May 2004 issue of Smithsonian entitled the law that ripped America and to instead today I want to review briefly how the territorial system worked during Nebraska's early years bear in mind that Nebraska's territorial history was very different from that of her sister to the south Bleeding Kansas as it came to be known was wracked by violence between Free Soil and pro-slavery forces seeking control of the territorial government and thus the right under the doctrine of popular sovereignty to determine whether Kansas would be slave or free such intense political turmoil and outright guerrilla warfare had no counterpart here the basic framework of territorial organization provided for the administration in Washington to appoint a governor Secretary marshal and Supreme Court judges and pay their salaries and those of the legislature which was elected by the people the people also elected a non-voting delegate to Congress but they could not vote for president under the patronage system the appointed officials were from the party in power and during the early years of Nebraska territory all of them were Democrats in fact Nebraska did not have a two-party system or formal party organizations until the late 1850s when hostility to Democratic policies both nationally and in the territory sparked the rise of the new Republican Party which was dedicated to the abolition of slavery because true political partisanship was lacking during the first years of Nebraska territory most issues involve sectionalism and personality heavily tinged with the quest for power and money among other issues Nebraskans contended over the location of the territorial capital for the seats in the legislature and for territorial delegate individuals and special interest groups often sought to use the mechanisms of government to help them profit through speculation in real estate the granting of special charters for ferries and colleges and the creation of cities many of which existed only on paper these features of territorial politics also underpinned the economy only later did agriculture Overland frating and other more dependable pursuits replaced political self-aggrandizement and speculation as the basis for Nebraska development in 1854 white settlement became legal in the new Nebraska territory which as you can see from the map was a vast region it became legal virtually overnight everyone who came here was an outsider including the politicians the president chose for leadership positions these appointments were often a reward for past political service or were made to cushion a party loyalists from the effects of a recent political setback most a point he saw them as opportunities to advance their political careers or enhance their economic status the first governor of Nebraska territory was the South Carolina Democrat name Francis Burt a former newspaper man and lawyer lawyer who had served in President Pearson's administration he went to bed at Bellevue immediately upon his arrival in Nebraska and died two days after taking the oath of office the arduous trip from South Carolina had literally killed him some thought he had planned to name Bellevue as the territorial capital verts death opened the doors for another carpetbagger to make momentous decisions about Nebraska's future he was Thomas becoming the 25 year old territorial secretary who hailed from Iowa and who was in league with Council Bluffs speculators poised to profit from the opening of Nebraska territory they particularly favored development directly across the Missouri River at the fledgling settlement of Omaha city which had been laid out by the Omaha and Council Bluffs ferry company of which coming was a member as one of his first official acts coming called the territorial legislature to meet at Omaha city to the outrage of Bellevue residents who realized the territorial capital was likely to end up wherever the legislature was first gaveled into session moreover coming ordered a census and disregarding that morn abrath scans live south of the Platte River the north of it apportioned the legislative districts to favor the North Platte section another way to ensure that the first legislature would like would be likely to fix the capital at Omaha which it did at its first session early in 1855 these decisions sparked a full-blown sectional rivalry that would be the leading feature of territorial politics for the rest of the decade with the great prize of the Capitol and perhaps the terminus of the future Transcontinental Railroad hanging in the balance contentious wrangling about relocating the Capitol somewhere anywhere but Omaha marked each of the first four sessions of the territorial legislature according to an early Nebraska history quote every other act of the legislature was subordinate and subsidiary to this one measure and motive of creating something for a Commonwealth composed mostly of speculators and carpetbaggers end quote close on the heels of territorial organization came the establishment of newspapers primarily mouthpieces for the rival towns and sections and regularly used to blast political or sectional adversaries in the most vituperative language since the South Platte section had lost the capital to Omaha at least temporarily its papers such as the Nebraska Palladium at Bellevue and the Nebraska City News continually hurled verbal bombshells against North Platte politicians and the newspapers that supported them after the first legislature had voted Omaha as the territorial capital the Palladium charged that the decision had been made quote against the wish of the great majority of the people located for the pecuniary and personal benefit of Tom coming and his brother bribers located at a place without any natural advantages and one totally barren of anything save whiskey shops and drunken politicians and quote one of the most prolific prolific writers on the political scene was the useful Jay sterling Morton only 23 when he came to Nebraska and whose pan could skewer an opponent with exquisite sarcasm for a time Morton edited the Nebraska City paper and also wrote numerous resolutions newspaper articles and tracks calculated to keep the political pot boiling one example was Morton's authorship of resolutions condemning governor coming for calling the legislature into session at Omaha the resolutions adopted at a convention of South Platte delegates in Nebraska City charged quote acting governor coming is neither an upright honest nor honorable man that he is an unprincipled Dave and that he seeks rather to control than consult the people and quote the convention went on to call on President Pierce to replace coming but to no avail not to be outdone the Nebraska Palladium opined quote all the political renegades from every state are by brotherly affection collected around the governor and our by his aide foisted upon the people as Nebraska man and our constituted lawmakers in Nebraska while small brained man of large pretensions are put into the house of representatives for the same reasons and in the same way end quote the Palladium was on the mark regarding the origins of many Nebraska officials and lawmakers several of them had never established residents in the territory and probably did not intend to do so until they determined what advantages they could gain many quote were mere sojourners driftwood temple temporarily stranded on this farther shore of the westward stream of population but destined soon to be caught by its constant onward flow and carried off to the boundless country beyond end quote the territorial legislature was a fractious body everyone looking out for his own interests or those of his town or section little influenced by the needs or opinions of the broader constituency which in fact was hard to gauge according to a Nebraska historian quote the first legislature worked under abnormal conditions and without the restrictions of organized society there could be no appeal to public sentiment through public discussion the present criterion and referee of public measures because there was as yet no public and quote a local journalist left a description of the second territorial legislature quote it is a decidedly rich treat to visit the General Assembly of Nebraska you see a motley group inside of a railing in the small room crowded to overflowing some behind their little schoolboy desks some seated on the top of desks some with their feet perched on top of their neighbors chair or desk some whittling Honorable mr. a gives mr. be a severe lecturing because he didn't vote as he agreed to mr. B says mr. a lies is no better than he should be and reckons he ain't much afraid of him mr. C comes to the rescue and speaks in concert pitch half an hour and says nothing then a thirsty member moves adjournment and in a few minutes the drinking saloons are well patronized although both bodies have about seven days more to sit only four bills have been passed and quote like several of the legislators and the governor's the territorial delegates to Congress were often non-residents as well the first to be elected Napoleon giddings was a Missourian who came to Nebraska only two weeks before the election and was described as having brought no other property with him except a carpetbag bird be Chapman the second delegate was a resident of Elyria Ohio and never established Nebraska residents residency at all in the early years the delegate elections played out based on whether the candidates were aligned with the north of the Platte or south of the Platte sections election irregularities were epidemic three of the first four delegate elections in the territory were contested and ultimately decided by the US House of Representatives as an early nebraska historian put it quote a legally formal election on Nebraska frontier in the 1850s was about as rare and impracticable as a social function with Parisian manners in the same region and quote the constant battling over who was entitled to the delegate seat meant that Nebraska territory rarely had a sitting delegate in Congress to look out for her interests coming served as the Acting Governor until the President appointed his successor Mark W izzard who quote was not endowed with shining talents according to a newspaper in his home state Ezard was a political hack who presided over the territory during a period when rampant speculation in real estate propped up by paper money issued by unregulated wildcat banks promised a rosy future but ended in financial collapse his erds messages to the legislature were bombastic and optimistic effusions little connected to the reality of life in the new territory in his first he spoke of prosperous inhabitants quote happy in a degree here too for an example in the history of the settlement and organization of former territories beautiful and fertile prairies fast being converted into productive fields giving good promise of a rich reward to the toiling husbandmen end quote now Martin who sometimes referred to the chief executive as governor lizard could not resist a response quote and he's referring to the speech the governor gave this document is characterized by that super abundance of sagacity superfluity of patriotism and superlative degree of candor which has ever distinguished from the vulgar herd the chivalric and classic sons of Arkansas through its sentences one can hear the tread of a mighty intellect as it strides majestically through the labyrinthine ramifications of politics and marches along the corridors of thought and as he hears his soul's tongue whisper in all the governor approaches end quote notwithstanding this skewering by Morton's pan governor Ezard was even more optimistic in his 1857 message delivered after the six wildcat banks chartered by the 1856 legislature and approved by the governor had been for nearly a year pumping out thousands of unsecured bank notes that fueled the plotting and sale of thousands of lots in scores of new cities that the legislature had incorporated admittedly on paper to fill the vacant Nebraska landscape governor Isard credited Nebraska with 15,000 people and spoke quote of our broad and beautiful prairies being thickly dotted with comfortable farmhouses and well cultivated fields yielding they're rich treasures to the hand of peaceful industry the appreciate appreciation of property has far exceeded the expectations of the most s
nguine business lots upon streets where the wild grass still flourishes are readily commanding from five hundred to five thousand dollars each and quote a Nebraska historian noted of this speech this year's fulmination excelled the other in grandiose verbosity end quote Martin parodied the governor's praise of the speculative frenzy as follows quote no citizen of Nebraska can cast his optical luminaries over the Plains and prairies of our beautiful territory without the involuntary exclamation lots is rinse escaping from his lungs with the force and spry cleanness of a gopher from his hole or a buck from the thicket end quote in fact despite the governor's praise of prairies dotted with farmhouses and well cultivated fields agriculture had been largely neglected another troublesome issue was the construction of a permanent capital building in Omaha the federal government had appropriated the then enormous sum of fifty thousand dollars and the City of Omaha had contributed a similar amount although governor Izzard reported in 1857 that all funds had been spent the building remained unfinished and not ready for occupancy an additional fifty thousand dollars would be required from Congress to make the Capitol quote an ornament to the territory and an object of just pride to her people Martin again responding in his parody of the governor's address said quote the Capitol building during the past years progressed upward at an average speed of one inch per day and at a cost of eighty-seven dollars and fifteen cents per inch and quote almost ignored by both governor legislature were the territorial treasures and auditors reports which revealed that virtually no tax revenues had flowed into the territorial coffers although the federal government paid territorial officers and legislators salaries and other major expenses taxes were required to fund local government schools and public improvements but in an economy based on speculation in unimproved real estate without any underlying productivity few taxes could be collected a major problem was the slow development of Agriculture which eventually promised to produce a surplus to reduce Nebraska's reliance on imported foodstuffs and merchandise but as Morton later noted quote the greater portion of the summer of 1856 was consumed in talking and meditating upon the prospective value of city property young Chicago's in Crescent New York's precocious Philadelphia's and infant London's were duly staked out lithograph divided into shares and puffed with becoming unction and complacence the mere mention of using such valuable lands for the purpose of Agriculture was considered an evidence of verdun see holy unpardonable and entirely sufficient to convict a person of old fogey ism in the first degree and quote the day of reckoning was soon to come when the failure of Eastern financial institutions dated the nationwide financial panic of 1857 Nebraska territories banking system collapsed along with the speculative bubble in real estate after the collapse and inventory of the assets of one of the so-called wildcat banks the bank of Tacoma found quote a little shanty 10 by 12 and its furniture consists of an old table and a stove the whole institution was attached on last Saturday to secure two hundred and seven dollars and quote it turned out that the bank's indebtedness total nearly a hundred thousand dollars quote which is all of course in the hands of a people that have placed implicit confidence in the bank and quote the winner of 1857 58 was severe and Nebraskans were mired in the depths of depression and poverty Martin estimated that on january first 1858 there was not on average two dollars and fifty cents in case for every resident of the territory finally the people realized in Martin's words quote that the new way of making money by chartering wildcat banks had proved a most unprofitable delusion and an unmitigated humbug we thought that building large cities without any inhabitants therefore was a singularly crack-brained species of enterprise and furthermore that everybody could not live in town who lived in the territory unless the towns were laid off in 80 acre or quarter section lots and quote with this financial disaster however came the realization that Nebraska's economic future lay in agriculture the fumbling mark Izzard resigned to return to Arkansas in the fall of 1857 at this juncture Nebraska got a new governor one who was truly qualified by experience to be the chief executive he was William a Richardson of Illinois a former congressman who had helped lead passage of the kansas-nebraska act in the house Richardson did not suffer fools gladly immediately upon his arrival in Nebraska he refused to recognize the actions of a Porsche of the legislature that had seceded from Omaha and held an unauthorized session at Florence during another of the almost endless debates over the capital relocation issue Richardson called a special session to make up for the lack of action during the regular session he was aided in his administration by the new territorial secretary jay sterling Morton who had won the appointment when his rival Thomas becoming died in August 1858 the special session the fifth legislature and actually the first that did not consider a bill to relocate the Capitol actually enacted some needed legislation nevertheless the lack of decorum continued on occasion once in trapping Governor Richardson in the Legislative hijinks quote at one time the house while waiting for the arrival of the speaker to change from a session of the committee of the whole back to the regular session took a lunch of which a not unusual incident in those times the liquids bore an undue ratio to the solids and in the naturally succeeding confusion the Chairman benjamin p Rankin announced that he would reckon recognize anyone on the floor who was sober whereupon Dean with much difficulty an unsteadiness of attitude and speech at once a rose and claimed the right to recognition according to the Chairman's conditions then Jim Stewart begins shouting who has the floor who has the floor and the chairman retorted hotly and a general melee followed secretary Morton who was a bystander always ready for a lark rushed back to the governor's office and told him that the house had adjourned and was in a devil of a rah-rah Richardson who himself had / taken of enough of the lunch to temporarily unsettle his custom cautious dignity rushed into the eye of the legislative chamber and instant Orion tones thundered peace peace god damn you peace then seeing that mr. Bennett the speaker had taken the chair and was presiding over the house in good order Richardson who was a stickler for parliamentary propriety and for the observation of the distinct prerogatives of the several departments of the government bow most apologetically end quote although richardson proved to be the most effective Nebraska governor to date his term beef he resigned in opposition to the pro-slavery policies of the National Democratic administration another sign of the fracturing of that party into administration and Stephen a Douglas wings one vinyl sectional crisis played out in the history of the Nebraska territory it came to a head in 1859 when mass meeting south of the Platte led to calls for that region's annexation to Kansas the latter territory was seemingly nearing statehood and to the frustrated Nebraska South platters they saw annexation as a way to end once and for all the vexations they had suffered at the hands of Omaha and its adherence Nebraska delegates to the Kansas Constitutional Convention made their case for annexation which was rebuffed by a large majority although Nebraska's sectional animosities were downplayed in the aftermath of formal party organization and true partisan contests in the later territorial years the issue was not dead and capital relocation was as you know finally consummated when Nebraska achieved statehood in 1867 although I've only scratched the surface I hope this brief introduction may have whetted your appetite to learn more about the history of Nebraska between 1857 1854 rather and 1867 the territorial system was a unique feature of American democracy the people of each new territory were given a basic framework within which they enjoyed considerable latitude in working out the details of self-government in Nebraska the road was often rocky filled with obstacles such as personal ambition fierce sectional and political rivalries financial indiscretions a primitive economy and itinerant population and an often unforgiving environment the end Nebraska's founding fathers for women were then excluded from politics as young and inexperienced as many of them were in 13 years managed to prepare Nebraska to take her place as an equal partner in the federal union in conclusion I would just like to remind those of you who don't know that are mentioned to those of you that don't know that if you'd like to read more about various aspects of the history of Nebraska territory I happen to author two little article that appeared in the winter Nebraska history issue which is entitled Nebraska history on Nebraska territory a reader's guide and this essay tries to summarize what I believe are some of the better articles on Nebraska territory that have appeared over the last 40 or 50 years in Nebraska history magazine so it's it's a way to get access to some of the articles in areas that you might be interested in the other thing you might like to do if you haven't done so is to visit the headquarters building up at 15th and are to view the exhibit called sowing seeds for statehood Nebraska territory 1854 to 1867 which has some of the same documents and early photographs and other interesting objects that relate to this period some of which have never been on exhibit and the exhibit is in the rotunda at headquarters building so you can view it every day that the building is open from eight to five I believe with that I would conclude and be glad to try to answer any questions you might have ma'am is that building in Omaha is that still standing no it isn't then in fact the place where this building and there was actually an earlier first territorial capital building but place where this building stood is now the site of omaha central high school and the build the high school building is of course there on that hill so it's called capitol hill there's a state historical marker up there so if you go by omaha central high school you'll see where this capital building stood yeah and their early photographs of omaha which i didn't happen to have in here that really show the capital on the outskirts of town up on this Hill looking looking down on primitive Omaha well he went back to Arkansas and I think he did in fact die young all I don't have much much further information on him there is a county in in Arkansas named after the family and I'm not sure it's pronounced Ezard or easier door what but I was in Arkansas about a month ago looking around at some Nebraska related sites in the Civil War period and there is a county in Arkansas name for this same family and doubt that it's the actual man that was governor Nebraska I think we did briefly during the territory appear that was very common for early counties which fluctuated both in location and size to be named after some of these guys and those those names have disappeared from our political landscape currently but I think Cynthia's right there was at one time at wizard County Nebraska probably good that we don't have any more little little cumbersome to pronounce and would you want to live in is root can t do anything else man there must not have been territorial and I wonder if you could talk there was an attack space well pretty much anything when and of course it was up to the actually up to the first territorial governor to do something to get some kind of basic entrance infrastructure in place and that ended up being coming because Bert died so soon but what I think the first legislature did was more or less adopt the the civil and criminal code of Iowa with the understanding that they would modify it but they needed something in place I don't know specifically about a long liquor might my guess would be if they had any it was probably to encourage it rather than to prohibit it there were course local officials and it wasn't there were no laws or no requirements for taxation is just nobody had any money plus within the primitive state of communications the local officials often I guess didn't even know they were supposed to collect taxes for this or that so there were laws on the books that required certain kinds of property taxes and other taxes it's just that they were so difficult to collect when the population was so sparse flung all over the place and it just was a very fluid situation I suspect that some of those people that might have been in a place one day we're in some other territory or gone back home to the States as they said to another so it just was hard the census was obviously even suspect they they counted two thousand some people when they took the first census in 1854 that's probably moderately accurate on that given day but a week later there might have been half that many or twice that many and who knew so they were learning how to do this and there were no laws obviously as and I didn't make it explicit but you can tell from from the discussion there were no laws requiring you'd be a resident of this territory for any period of time before he ran for office or served in any public public body so quite a different world I've heard about a picnic that took place on capitol hill after the passing of the kansas-nebraska act Iowa resident emo toasting this newfound territory and the defective was then broken up by my Indians is there truth I recall that I know that I know there was a gathering and I think the only part of it that I've actually heard I've never really looked into the detail is that they did have at least a fourth of July celebration there and it is true that well I should retreat from that and say that the Omaha actually had been summoned to Washington Washington before the kansas-nebraska act was passed to extinguish title too much of their Nebraska land so I can't tell you for sure one way or the other I guess my supposition is it might not have been quite that that dramatic yes ma'am did they start settling down and becoming more orderly well I think about the time that Richardson was governor after this financial panic had sort of gotten over with Morton more tonight talks about how it took a great shock to make people in Nebraska realized that there was no get rich quick going to happen and they had to be farmers and they had to till the soil and work hard and then governor Richardson who was even though a short-lived governor was a practical man and he guided some some legislation through I think they did start revising the criminal codes and some of those things so I suppose certainly by the time other things came into play like Overland frating out of Nebraska City that became a stimulus to the economy by the lady to 1850s and early 1860s you started having more stability both politically and economically of course the Civil War then came along which sort of disrupted everything again to some extent but war also brings economic growth most of the time so I think certainly some Nebraskans profited from from the war it took a while but they eventually worked it out so so they had enough stability at least by the mid eighteen sixty they thought they were ready to become a state or we did we knew brassicas by then there were probably more people that could say they at least been here for a few months if not a few years whereas in 1854 the only people that lived here very long were Indians and a few fur traders anything else South Carolina how did he get here yeah I mean why was he well he was a hesitant he was chosen under the political spoils system he was had have done something for President Pierce or he'd worked in some capacity and the Pierce administration and since these were all political appointees the president like presidents today do if they have certain political offices they can pass around and I guess Burt must have wanted to be
overnor Nebraska or thought he could make some money at it so President appointed him but it took him so long to get out here was such a hard trip out here no railroads maybe I'll maybe some little railroad he could have written part of the way from from South Carolina but then it was mostly steamboat wagon trips he was sick when I got when he got to st. Louis I believe or yeah I think st. Louis he took took a little time off there it just broke him down so bad to get up here when he got here he he went right to bed and never got up and seeing those days right off the bat you had nobody had nobody except maybe a few fur traders no white people that it ever lived here so that is one of the complaints you see in this political rhetoric in the newspapers is 11 paper supporting one side is Blaine is calling for the dismissal of like governor coming or other other official because there they have no Nebraska interests they're only here for their own self-interest well the papers on the other side of the plant would say the same thing about the other group of politicians and I think they all were kind of here because they saw something to be gained from it then took a while before people started feeling true ownership of Nebraska to be a Nebraskan meant something besides it's just the political or economic benefit they could gain I think that would be true probably of all new territories or many of them although probably not not as men not all of them were we're sort of one day vast unsettled indian territory as they called it the next eh it's open to settlement of course when you have a territory as large as Nebraska was I don't think anybody even had any pretensions of governing anybody that lived beyond 10 miles from the Missouri River and there weren't many that did so there was no way that there was any administrative authority over the part of Nebraska territory that was today's Montana again there were no willing a white folks up there except a few fur traders so they probably didn't even know it had become a territory didn't he went back to illinois i believe and actually trying to remember if he ran for congress again a lot of these guys didn't there were there a few i mean obviously Jay sterling Morton is one of these he's now considered one of Nebraska's sort of founding fathers he stayed in Nebraska there are quite a few that did but a lot of them minute they either lost their appointment or decided they weren't going to make their fortune here they left about the only the largest group of these early territorial officials that state of Nebraska were the ones that died here during the period they were officials so they didn't have any way to get home Burt though he Francis bird didn't stay here he made it he made a round trip 11 trip on the way out here when he was still alive in the second going back to South Carolina and a coffin full of alcohol I suppose and he's buried in that we know where his grave is one of my my colleagues who used to be a colleague here went down there's quite a few years ago and took pictures is his marker in this little cemetery at Pendleton South Carolina and I don't know that they have anything there that tells that he once was governor of Nebraska for two days the other interesting little sidelight and then I'll quit because I never liked to last till till one o'clock he wasn't the first choice to be the first governor of Nebraska the first governor of Nebraska who didn't take the job or the first person asked to take the job was a military officer from Kentucky or a former military officer named William Orlando Butler he turned down the president Pierce's request him to be governor Nebraska but somehow the word had gotten out or because he was a war hero or something in the I suppose Mexican War we do have a county named after him Butler County is named after this Butler although many people who are from Butler County probably think it's named after the first state governor david butler but that County was named long before David Butler came on the scene so it's actually named for this non governor who never came to Nebraska anything yes ma'am in significant numbers was that at this time and clear up until nineteen twenty four American Indians were residents at sovereign nations but were not citizen in the United States so therefore they had no wait what don't know and in some ways we're really treated as well and then when is exactly right that up to a point i don't know was late 1870s or about then did did the US government stopped treating native tribes as foreign governments and they abandon the treaty system at that point but up to that period they at least gave lip service to the fact that they were negotiating with with sovereign nations that's why they called them treaties so most of the the Indians have lived here except of course the Omaha's and the pawnees and some of them on the eastern edge of the territory most the Western tribes it probably took him a while to even figure out that their identity and he changed I mean they'd already seen the army and stuff they'd already seen the immigrants going across the trail so it wasn't like they had never been touched by by the white hordes but as far as the political change I'm sure that if they understood what it meant few of them hurt had heard about it so well they as I say they continue to negotiate on that basis until I think sometime in the 1880s and then the Congress stopped concluding treaties so they they stop considering them quite in the same sovereign way as they had before in the government more or less said from now on we're going to dictate rather than negotiate so i'm not i'm not an expert on that but i think that's the way it was you know when you just had a session and we talked about stuff but i don't know if that ever came up at port rob there was some supreme court decision that the tortured produced some sort of tortured language that that made it sound like they were a little bit sovereign but still subject to the control of the federal government and I I don't remember what the exact term internal dependent nations or something like that so that's a whole nother subject that we could spend many many hours on anything else well thank you very much for your well yeah that's about it Fort Randall is up there and then it wasn't too long niobrara the area around Niobrara settled up a little bit there was a little settlement there very early but no I think beyond beyond the the federal forts you mentioned Fort Randall and of course there were ports on up the river port union was a fur trading post up in today's Montana that was going at the time but those little towns all came along pretty much right after 1854 and some of them obviously still exist two came well they probably did although most of the I mean the governor apportioned these districts as I mentioned earlier kind of the suit himself into favor the north platte so I don't think each little town per se was entitled to a representative but they probably worked it out so that the logic was that the representative would come from the areas largely the most settlement and that would be these little villages and most of those towns that really took off were of course steamboat towns on the river inland there wasn't much going on away from the river for quite some time well we took one more question after you applauded so you don't have to applaud again thank you again you
