Nebraska

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NEBRASKA

Admitted to the Union as the thirty-seventh state on March 1, 1867, Nebraska is located in the western north-central United States, midway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Nebraska shares boundaries with South Dakota in the north, Kansas in the south, Iowa, Missouri, and the Missouri River in the east, and Wyoming and Colorado in the west. Nebraska is spread across 77,335 square miles, making it the sixteenth largest state. Its population of approximately 1.6 million people ranks thirty-sixth among the fifty states. Omaha is the state's most populous city, while Lincoln is its capital.

Nebraska was acquired by the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1804 the federal government commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to map the newly acquired territory, catalog its wildlife, and establish relations with local inhabitants. Lewis and Clark's expedition took them along Nebraska's eastern border. Two years later Zebulon Pike crossed southern Nebraska during his own expedition. These expeditions stimulated fur trade in the region, and the U.S. Army built a fort in Nebraska to protect traders from hostile Native Americans.

Native Americans grew more hostile as white settlers began encroaching upon their lands. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 opened land for white settlement in the Atlantic states by authorizing federal troops to relocate Native Americans from the southeastern United States to the so-called Indian Territory comprised of land in Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Thousands of Native Americans suffered great hardships as they were forcibly uprooted from their homelands and driven westward in what has become known as the Trail of Tears.

Native Americans were next forced to cede land for white settlement within the Indian Territory. In 1854 most Native Americans were excluded from eastern Nebraska, while the Sioux and the Cheyenne peoples remained in the western half. Skirmishes between the two tribes and federal troops broke out when the U.S. Army opened a trail to Montana that crossed Sioux and Cheyenne hunting grounds in the west. In 1869 Congress ratified a treaty agreeing to abandon the trail in exchange for the Sioux's promise to leave Nebraska and relocate their peoples to a reservation in what is now South Dakota.

But many Sioux refused to move, arguing that the federal government had deceived them into signing the treaty. Fighting resumed between U.S. troops and the two tribes. On June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876) led a Seventh Cavalry attack against the Sioux camps of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse on the banks of Little Bighorn in Montana. Custer and most of his cavalry were killed during the attack. However the army chased down Crazy Horse in northwestern Nebraska, where the Sioux leader surrendered. All but approximately 12,000 Native Americans were ultimately removed from Nebraska, with small numbers of Santee Sioux, Omaha, and Winnebago tribes remaining.

Nebraska also played a role in the events preceeding the American Civil War (1861–1865). The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and allowed the residents of each territory to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery. The act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had outlawed slavery in the North. But following the act's passage Nebraska showed little interest in establishing slavery. However violence erupted in Kansas between slavery proponents and abolitionists. The slavery debate eventually divided the nation as a whole, leading eleven southern states to secede from the Union.

Nebraska voters rejected statehood during the Civil War, but narrowly approved a state constitution in 1866. In 1867 Congress admitted Nebraska to the Union over the veto of President Andrew Johnson (1829–1837), who contended that the state's admission process was unconstitutional. Two federal laws attracted settlers to the new state. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave 160 acres of land to families that resided in the state for five years and paid a nominal fee. The 1862 Pacific Railroad Act authorized construction of a transcontinental railroad passing through Nebraska. Huge tracts of land along the proposed railway were sold to settlers. The Union Pacific Railroad debuted in 1869 with an eastern terminus at Omaha. Nebraska's population swelled from 30,000 in 1860 to almost a million by 1890.

Most of the families that settled in Nebraska during this period were of European descent. Throngs of immigrants from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Ireland, and Italy made Nebraska their home in the late 1800s. A century later little had changed in the state's demographics. The 1990 census revealed that approximately 90 percent of Nebraska residents identified themselves as white persons descending from German, Irish, Czech, Swedish, or Danish ancestry. For the most part these ethnic groups have acclimated well within the state; they have formed closely-knit, thriving communities. However, during World War I (1914–1918) a number of German Americans in Nebraska had their loyalty and patriotism questioned by state officials who feared they might be spies or saboteurs.

Once primarily a rural state, nearly two-thirds of Nebraska residents now live in urban areas. Yet 95 percent of the state's land is used for agricultural purposes, and close to one-half of the state's labor force work in farm-related fields. Known as the Cornhusker State, Nebraska produces 4 billion bushels of corn each year, second only to Iowa. It is also a leading cattle-raising state. But Nebraska's strong economy is bolstered by non-agricultural businesses as well. The state's tourism industry generates about $2 billion a year in gross revenue, while the insurance, telecommunications, real-estate, and healthcare sectors help keep Nebraska's unemployment rate among the nation's lowest.

In terms of political institutions, the Cornhusker State's most distinctive feature may be the government's unicameral legislature, the only one of its kind in the United States. The single house has 49 senators who are elected in even-numbered years to serve four-year terms without designation of political party. The state maintained a bicameral legislature for 68 years before amending its constitution in 1934. Voters hoped the amendment would rein in governmental spending during the Great Depression (1929–1939).

See also: Kansas-Nebraska Act, Missouri Compromise, Railroad Industry