Massacre Canyon

The Pawnee had a long tradition of living in present-day Nebraska. The Pawnee had been the most populous and perhaps the most powerful tribe in the Nebraska area, with a population of 10,000 to 12,000 around the year 1800. However, smallpox epidemics and increasing Sioux raids on villages beginning in the early 1800s and worsening in the 1830s left the Pawnee in a vulnerable position. In a 1833 treaty with the United States, the Pawnee ceded all of their land south of the Platte River, a vast territory between the Loup, Platte and Republican rivers in Nebraska and south into northern Kansas. According to the terms of the 1833 treaty, this land was to remain a "common hunting ground" for the Pawnee and other "friendly Indians," meaning that the Pawnee had non-exclusive treaty rights to hunt buffalo in their former territory. The Massacre Canyon battlefield near Republican River is located within this area. They had suffered continual attacks by the Sioux that increased violently in the early 1840s. No explicit mention is made of the "common hunting ground" established from previously-ceded Pawnee lands as established in the 1833 treaty. These actions by the Pawnee scouts did not improve relations between the Pawnee and Sioux. In 1868 the Sioux entered into a treaty with the United States and agreed to live in the Great Sioux Reservation in present-day South Dakota. By Article 11 they received a right to hunt along the Republican River, in the same area that the Pawnee retained non-exclusive hunting rights to, almost 200 miles south of their new reservation. Because both tribes had signed treaties explicitly giving power of mediation to the United States government, there was an attempted peace negotiation in 1871 with the United States as intermediary which ultimately failed. In July 1873, a month before the massacre, the Oglala Sioux had been stopped from attacking the Utes in retaliation for stolen horses and the killing of a Sioux man by Antoine Janis, the sub-agent for the band. ==Lead-up to the battle==

A Pawnee hunting group—roughly 400 men, women and children All Sioux tipis in the area got the news. A boy eyewitness recalled many years later that "instantly all the warriors began to get ready to go on the warpath." In his understanding, the warriors were defending their hunting grounds. However, neither the Sioux nor the Pawnee had exclusive right to the hunting grounds. During the day around 1,000 warriors set off for the Pawnee to make a joint, quick attack and prevent the enemy from striking first. ==Trail Agent Williamson's account==

John Williamson, aged 23, was assigned as the Pawnee trail-agent at the Genoa Agency on the Pawnee reservation. He accompanied the Pawnee on their August 1873 hunt. He wrote his recollections of the battle decades after the incident."On the fourth day of August we reached the north bank of the Republican River and went into camp. At 9 o'clock that evening, three white men came into camp and reported to me that a large band of Sioux warriors [was] camped 25 miles [40 km] northwest, waiting for an opportunity to attack the Pawnees for several days, anticipating that we would move up the river where buffaloes were feeding. Previous to this, white men visited us and warned us to be on our guard against Sioux attacks, and I was a trifle skeptical as to the truth of the story told by our white visitors. But one of the men, a young man about my age at the time, appeared to be so sincere in his efforts to impress upon me that the warning should be heeded, that I took him to Sky Chief who was in command that day, for a conference. Sky Chief said the men were liars; that they wanted to scare the Pawnees away from the hunting grounds so that white men could kill buffaloes for hides. He told me I was squaw and a coward. I took exception to his remarks, and retorted: 'I will go as far as you dare go. Don't forget that.' The following morning August 5, we broke camp and started north, up the divide between the Republican and the Frenchman Rivers. Soon after leaving camp, Sky Chief rode up to me and extending his hand said, 'Shake, brother.' He recalled our little unpleasantness the night previous and said he did not believe there was cause for alarm, and was so impressed with the belief that he had not taken the precaution to throw out scouts in the direction the Sioux were reported to be. A few minutes later a buffalo scout signaled that buffaloes had been sighted in the distance, and Sky Chief rode off to engage in the hunt. I never saw him again. He had killed a buffalo and was skinning it when the advance guard of the Sioux shot and wounded him. The Chief attempted to reach his horse, but before he was able to mount, several of the enemy surrounded him. He died fighting. A Pawnee, who was skinning a buffalo a short distance away but managed to escape, told me how Sky Chief died." ==The battle==

The morning of August 5 the Pawnees went up a canyon. Men looking for game took the lead and the families followed with loaded down packhorses. A number of the Pawnee huntsmen in front seem to have been the first fatalities, lured into a Sioux trap by a decoy. Dog Chief managed to bring the necklace to safety. The Pawnee version of the Massacre Canyon battle tells of a few individuals' fate and relates some peculiar incidents. The Sioux greatly outnumbered the Pawnee. Women threw hides, dried meat and saddles from the packhorses and the Pawnee started a disorganized retreat. "The withdrawal was a rout as the Sioux shot from both banks of the canyon into the fleeing Pawnee". In Culbertson, ten miles east of the battlefield, the residents heard the sound of gunfire. Near the town of Culbertson, Capt. Charles Meinhold with his small command from Fort McPherson were camped. All through the morning Pawnee survivors found the camp as well as Williamson and Platt, who had made his escape early during the fight. The Pawnees got instructions to proceed further east. ==The next hours and days==

The US cavalry soldiers rode up the canyon in the afternoon. "The first body we came upon was that of a woman", remembered Platt. For one reason or another, a number of the dead women lay naked. Sometime after the battle the Sioux warriors rode into camps. "One of the men in advance was waving a scalp. This caused great excitement. The men paraded around the village ... Everybody appeared to be happy and rejoicing". Eastes reported that at least one Sioux was killed and others were badly wounded. News of the defeat reached the remaining Pawnees in the reservation on August 8 through a runner. "This produced intense excitement in the village, sorrowful wailings were heard all day". The Pawnee survivors traveled 80 miles or so to Plum Creek near the Platte where Dr. William M. Bancroft treated the wounded. By train they arrived at Silver Creek, around ten miles south of the Pawnee Agency. The last tribal buffalo hunt of the Pawnee in Nebraska ended soon after. ==Afterwards==

The last week of August, Williamson was back in Massacre Canyon. He covered the dead with dirt broken down from the banks. A source often quoted is Agent William Burgess, who stated that "20 men, 39 women and 10 children" were killed. Pawnees taken captive by the Sioux were released at the behest of the whites to rejoin their tribe. Following the massacre, the Pawnee received $9,000 for the loss of more than 100 horses, 20 tons of dried meat and all sorts of equipment. On a local level, Maj. Gen. George Crook "dispatched a small force" to protect the Pawnee Agency. The presence of troops did not stop the Sioux raids. The Pawnee Indians talk about "The hunters that were massacred". Dog Chief, being young, gave the bear claw necklace of his dead brother, Sky Chief, to the son of the Indian Agent Burgess for safekeeping. When some Pawnees tried to get it back, they failed. In 1920, Chawi Pawnee chief Lone Chief visited Burgess in Chicago and brought the necklace back. It was half a century after the battle before the Pawnee and the Sioux smoked the pipe of peace during the Massacre Canyon Pow Wow in 1925. ==Monument==

The Massacre Canyon Monument was dedicated on Sept. 26, 1930. It was the first historical monument erected in Nebraska by federal grant. It stands on a three-acre (1.2 ha) plot, three miles (4.8 km) east of Trenton off U.S. Route 34, after having been moved from its original location overlooking the Republican River valley. The monument, a large stone obelisk, was constructed from Minnesota pink granite from a quarry in St. Cloud by R.P. Colling, Indianola, Nebraska. The shaft of the obelisk is high. The base measures by across; the bottom of the shaft is five feet (1.5 m) across, tapering to near the top. The entire monument weighs 91 tons (83,000 kg). The monument features a marker which reads:"The adjacent stone monument erected in 1930 was first placed about a mile south of this area. Originally on the highway overlooking the canyon, it was moved to this location after the highway was relocated. Massacre Canyon is the large canyon about half a mile west of here. The battle took place in and along this canyon when a Pawnee hunting party of about 700, confident of protection from the government, were surprised by a War Party of Sioux. The Pawnee, badly outnumbered and completely surprised, retreated into the head of the canyon about two miles northwest of here. The battle was the retreat of the Pawnee down the canyon to the Republican. The Pawnee reached the Republican River, about a mile and a half south of here, and crossed to the other side. The Sioux were ready to pursue them still further, but a unit of cavalry arrived and prevented further fighting. The defeat so broke the strength and spirit of the tribe that it moved from its reservation in central Nebraska to Oklahoma."Several aspects of this telling of the battle are disputed by the historical record. Sources disagree about what role, if any, the cavalry played in stopping the violence. The United States government had agreed to protect the Pawnee as per the 1857 Treaty signed between the two governments. The Sioux and Pawnee had been in occasional conflict since the Sioux migrated into the Great Plains in the 18th century but the added pressure of encroaching settler-colonists, the coerced cession of Pawnee lands, and the withholding of promised resources by the United States government made the situation untenable for the Pawnee. The monument is located in a small park area with picnic tables and a visitor center and museum that features exhibits about early pioneers, the tribal customs of the Sioux and the Pawnee people and a gift shop. ==See also==