History of Nebraska

Nebraska was visited by the French fur-traders in the late 1600s. The first permanent European settlement in the state was established at Bellevue in 1823.

Pre-European and European History

The region around Nebraska has been inhabited for thousands of years. Many indigenous tribes, like the Omaha, Missouria, Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, and Lakota lived in the region before European colonization.

These people were hunter-gatherers who lived by cultivating beans and corn. The continuous droughts and dust-storms in the area forced the people to vacate the area in the later fifteenth century. After the departure of these tribes, Indian tribes from the East made their way to the region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The first Europeans to explore the region were the men under the Spanish explorer Francisco Vàsquez de Coronado.

The French entered the region in the eighteenth century for fur trade. They stayed for a while and subsequently the land passed on to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804) and the explorations of Stephen H. Long, John C. Fremont, and Zebulon M. Pike had already explored the land before it became part of the US. The first trading post in the region around Nebraska was established in 1813 by a fur trader, Manuel Lisa.

Statehood

The United States established its first army post at Fort Atkinson in 1819, which was abandoned in 1827 and the army moved westward. However, it was only after the California Gold Rush that the European-American settlements began. The Kansas and Nebraska territories were created on May 30, 1854 by the US Congress under the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Omaha was made the capital of the territory of Nebraska.

The passing of the Homestead Act paved way for thousands of new settlers to enter the state. This growth in the population was sufficient to apply for statehood. Nebraska entered the Union on March 1, 1867, just two years after the American Civil War. The capital was shifted from Omaha to Lincoln, the present day capital.

Twentieth Century

The early twentieth century in the state was marked with heavy economic distress. The dust storms in the 1930s, accompanied by drought, and heat caused heavy damage to the agriculture sector. The economy boomed during the Second World War when military airfields and industries began to develop. The revenue from the agriculture sector increased with use of hybrid seed, pesticides, fungicides, chemical fertilizers, and irrigation.

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