Half-Breed Tract

The tract was a first. William T. Waters, writing in the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, calls the 1830 treaty the first in which Congress authorized allotting land to Native people in severalty, and the tract was ceded Otoe-Missouria land. So many mixed-descent claimants qualified that each received 320 acres instead of the 640 first suggested, and 389 people received patents. The surveyor, John Calvin McCoy, son of the Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy, had founded Westport in the 1830s, and in November 1838 he joined the company that bought the site of the Town of Kansas, today's Kansas City.

What the plaque says

Half-Breed Tract It was an accepted custom for many early fur traders to marry into Indian tribes. As the Indians ceded their lands, the rights of the half-breed descendants were not always identified. This situation was recognized by the government in 1830, by the Prairie Du Chien Treaty which set aside a tract of land for the half-breeds of the Oto, Iowa, Omaha and Santee Sioux tribes. This tract was located between the Great and Little Nemaha rivers. In 1838, the land was surveyed by John C. McCoy, who placed the western boundary eight miles west of the river instead of ten miles as specified. This caused problems, as later white settlers were to settle on Indian lands west of McCoy's line. Congress ordered the land resurveyed, and in 1858 the McCoy line was made official. On September 10, 1860, Louis Neal received the first patent. The owners were never required to live on their property and many eventually sold their lands to whites. One of the original survey lines is now partly identified by the Half-Breed Road which runs in a southeast direction from here. The descendants of some pioneer fur traders still live in the area. Auburn Junior Woman's Club Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brownville — 8.7 mi
  A Missouri River town of 1854 that bet on a railroad and lost, kept its arts through the decline, and now has Nebraska's oldest repertory theatre and a 1932 steam dredge on the bank.
• Indian Cave State Park — 19 mi
  Wooded Missouri River bluffs in the old Nemaha Half-Breed Reservation, with carvings of animals cut into a sandstone shelter, the ghost town of St. Deroin and miles of trail.
• Arbor Lodge State Historical Park — 20 mi
  J. Sterling Morton's estate in Nebraska City, a four-room house of 1855 grown to 52 rooms among the trees he planted, home of the man who proposed Arbor Day in 1872.

More markers nearby

• Auburn Post Office Mural — 0.9 mi
• Nemaha County Courthouse — 1.3 mi
• Peru State College — 7.3 mi
• The Nebraska State Teachers' Association — 8.5 mi