INDIANS AND EMPIRES CULTURAL CHANGE AMONG THE OMAHA AND PAWNEE, FROM CONTACT TO 1808

The Great Plains is in the middle of everywhere. It has been crossed and recrossed for tens of thousands of years. Because of its central location, the region served as a historical laboratory where people were forever imagining new environments and trying to muscle them into being. l In what is now the state of Nebraska-the very center of the middle-divergent groups of Native Americans claimed vast territories and created dynamic cultures. Among these peoples were the Omaha, who settled on the Missouri River, and the Pawnee, who lived in the Platte Valley. Four empires-Spain, France, Great Britain, and the United States-also forced their way into the Great Plains beginning in the sixteenth century. They saw the region as a geopolitical buffer zone and a potential source of wealth. Their worldviews of the region would have been very hard for the Omaha or the Pawnee to understand. While three of the empires claimed to own Nebraska, in reality, before the nineteenth century, it was Indian territory

INDIANS AND EMPIRES CULTURAL CHANGE AMONG THE OMAHA AND PAWNEE, FROM CONTACT TO 1808

The Great Plains is in the middle of everywhere. It has been crossed and recrossed for tens of thousands of years. Because of its central location, the region served as a historical laboratory where people were forever imagining new environments and trying to muscle them into being. l In what is now the state of Nebraska-the very center of the middle-divergent groups of Native Americans claimed vast territories and created dynamic cultures. Among these peoples were the Omaha, who settled on the Missouri River, and the Pawnee, who lived in the Platte Valley. Four empires-Spain, France, Great Britain, and the United States-also forced their way into the Great Plains beginning in the sixteenth century. They saw the region as a geopolitical buffer zone and a potential source of wealth. Their worldviews of the region would have been very hard for the Omaha or the Pawnee to understand. While three of the empires claimed to own Nebraska, in reality, before the nineteenth century, it was Indian territory

IMMIGRATION, THE AMERICAN WEST, AND THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: GERMAN FROM RUSSIA, OMAHA INDIAN, AND VIETNAMESE-URBAN VILLAGERS IN LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

The North American West is a culturally and geographically diverse region that has long been a beacon for successive waves of human immigration and migration. A case in point, the population of Lincoln, Nebraska -- a capital city on the eastern cusp of the Great Plains -- was augmented during the twentieth century by significant influxes of Germans from Russia, Omaha Indians, and Vietnamese. Arriving in clusters beginning in 1876, 1941, and 1975 respectively, these newcomers were generally set in motion by dismal economic, social, or political situations in their sending nations. Seeking better lives, they entered a mainstream milieu dominated by native-born Americans -- most part of a lateral migration from Iowa, Illinois, and Pennsylvania -- who only established their local community in 1867. While this mainstream welcomed their labor, it often eschewed the behaviors and cultural practices ethnic peoples brought with them. Aware but not overly concerned about these prejudices, all three groups constructed or organized distinct urban villages. The physical forms of these enclaves ranged from homogeneous neighborhoods to tight assemblies of relatives, but each suited a shared preference for living among kinspeople. These urban villages also served as stable anchors for unique peoples who were intent on maintaining aspects of their imported cultural identities. Never willing to assimilate to mainstream norms, urban villagers began adapting to their new milieus. While ethnic identity constructions in Lincoln proved remarkably enduring, they were also amazingly flexible. In fact, each subject group constantly negotiated their identities in response to interactions among particular, cosmopolitan, and transnational forces. Particularism refers largely to the beliefs, behaviors, and organizational patterns urban villagers imported from their old milieus. Cosmopolitan influences emanated from outside the ethnic groups and were dictated largely but not exclusively by the mainstream. Transnationalism is best defined as persistent, intense contact across international boundaries. These influences were important as the particularism of dispersed peoples was often reinforced by contact with sending cultures. Adviser: John. R. Wunde

Shaping Nebraska: An Analysis of Railroad and Land Sales, 1870-1880

O n December 23, 1878, Ohio resident D. F. Vanniss wrote to George P. Cather, the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad\u27s land agent in Red Cloud, Nebraska. He asked Cather to buy for him the best 160 acres of R. R. Land in your county, and just to be clear he emphasized, I want it before somebody else gets it. Cather received many such breathless letters, urgent, pleading, and intense inquiries about the lands the railroad had for sale. Nearly all wanted to know the position of the all-important railroad. Almost all inquired about the availability of the all-important resource: water. Another buyer, an Illinois man, wrote Cather about a map of the B + M R. R. Lands which showed some full sections are unsold. He requested a particular section of land shown on the map with a stream nearby, and he asked Cather to confirm if there really was living water there. Still another man wrote to explain that he was considering pulling up stakes in Indiana and heading west. He predicted that some of his neighbors would follow him if he went, while others were too cowardly. He expressed great confidence in the country and was especially enthusiastic about the prospects of the railroad. I am well pleased that we are geting [sic] a rail road through our County, he wrote, and would like to know where it is going through. I think it will be the making of that County. The people here thout [sic] kind of curious that I would go and by [sic] land so far from the railroad

United States Patent: 609 Buffalograss

A vegetatively reproduced buffalograss cultivar, named 609 Buffalograss, is distinguished by its excellent overall turfgrass quality, rate of establishment, good cold tolerance, high density, and excellent color. This cultivar is adapted to low maintenance conditions and has the ability to maintain growth and color later into the fall than other warm season grasses

United States Patent: Buffalograss Plant Named ‘NE91-118’

A vegetatively reproduced buffalograss cultivar named \u27NE91-118\u27 is distinguished from other commercially produced buffalograss varieties by its excellent turfgrass color, cold tolerance, high density, low growth habit, and rate of establishment. \u27NE91-118\u27 is also distinguished by molecular markers and nuclear DNA content. \u27NE91-118\u27 is suitable for use in low to medium maintenance situations in arid and semi-arid climates of United States and Canada