Omaha Tribe

The Umóⁿhoⁿ kept the line of 1854 in court. That treaty left them a reservation of about 330,000 acres, and in 2006 the Omaha Tribe amended its beverage control ordinance and sought to apply it to liquor sellers in the village of Pender. Pender, joined by the State of Nebraska, argued that an act of 1882 opening reservation land to non-Native settlers had shrunk the reservation. On March 22, 2016 a unanimous Supreme Court, in Justice Clarence Thomas's opinion in Nebraska v. Parker, held that it had not: the disputed land, Pender included, lies within the Umóⁿhoⁿ reservation.

What the plaque says

Omaha Tribe This was the homeland of the Omaha Tribe long before white settlers came to the Great Plains. By 1750, the Omaha occupied a large region in north- eastern Nebraska and northwestern Iowa. The name "Omaha" means "those going against the wind or current" and may refer to a traditional migration up the Missouri River by the ancestors of the present tribe. Lewis and Clark, in 1804, recorded that the Omaha lived here and noted the grave of Chief Blackbird. By a treaty in 1854, the Omaha gave up much of their territory, except for the area of the present reservation. The Omaha were a peaceful people who lived by agriculture and hunting. During the trying years in the nineteenth century, they were guided by such forward-looking and influential leaders as Big Elk and Joseph La Flesche (Iron Eye). The tribe never took up arms against the flood of white settlers. A number of Omaha served in Nebraska military units as early as the Civil War. Today, the Omaha people continue to live on their traditional homelands where their ancestors farmed, hunted, and are buried. Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blackbird Scenic Overlook — 0.4 mi
  A pull-off on US-75 at Macy on the Umóⁿhoⁿ reservation, looking over the Missouri valley toward the hill where Wazhiⁿga' sabe, Blackbird, was buried after the smallpox of 1800.

More markers nearby

• Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital — 6.6 mi
• Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital — 7.5 mi
• Winnebago Scouts — 11 mi
• Bancroft — 13 mi