The Oto and Missouri Agency

The agent the plaque quotes was a young Quaker. During President Grant's peace policy, Albert Lamborn Green of Chester Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania was appointed in 1869 as agent to the Confederated Otoe and Missouria, the Jiwere and Nutachi, today the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, and served until 1872. He married Sarah Cadwallader Lightfoot in 1871 and settled in Beatrice. Green lived until 1947. Late in life he wrote down from memory the Otoe social life and customs he had seen, and his papers at Swarthmore keep notes on the Otoe language and letters of 1934 and 1935 about the 1870s.

What the plaque says

The Oto and Missouri Agency After 1854 the Oto and Missouri Indian village and agency were located near here. For many years the two tribes had been living along the lower portion of the Platte River, but when Nebraska became a territory they relinquished all claims to those lands. In exchange they received yearly cash payments, agricultural equipment and other goods in addition to a reservation of approximately 250 square miles around the village. According to Indian Agent Major A.L. Green the community in 1870 consisted of 40 earth lodges plus several bark houses and tipis. There were also a combination school and church and a two-story frame house for the agent. South of the village were a blacksmith shop, a steam-powered saw mill and grist mill and residences for the other agency employees. In the early 1870's the Oto and Missouri expressed a desire to move to Oklahoma. The reservation was sold, and by 1881 the two tribes had left Nebraska for their new home. After the Indians left, Francis M. Barnes opened a store near here to accommodate the settlers. The community of Barneston was named in his honor. Barneston Village Council Barneston Bicentennial Committee Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Homestead National Historical Park — 21 mi
  Daniel Freeman's claim on Cub Creek near Beatrice, one of the first filed under the Homestead Act, with a one-room school, a homesteader's cabin, restored prairie and the land's earlier owners.

More markers nearby

• The Oketo Cutoff — 13 mi
• Marysville — 14 mi
• Hollenberg Ranch Pony Express Station — 17 mi
• Homestead Movement — 19 mi