Nebraskaland

October 2025 • Nebraskaland 31 of North America, the French began withdrawing from the Louisiana Territory. France's departure resulted in the Pawnee becoming increasingly vulnerable to attacks by their Sioux and Osage enemies, who had allied with the British. Subsequently, the encroachment of hostile tribes became a major factor impacting the Pawnee way of life, as well as the effects of colonialism and the westward movement of Euro- American settlers that overtook the Plains into the 19th century. Disrupted Foodways By 1850, smallpox and cholera had reduced the Pawnee population to about 6,000. When missionaries Gottlieb Frederick Oehler and David Zeisberger Smith visited the Pawnee in eastern Nebraska in 1851, they found a starving people whose traditional foodways were being dismantled. Oehler and Zeisberger's account of the visit was reprinted in the winter 2006 issue of "Nebraska History." Despite allying with the U.S. Government, who had promised resources and assistance in exchange for lands that enabled westward expansion, the missionaries described the Pawnee's plight as thus: "The road of the emigrants lies through the country belonging to the Indians; their hunting grounds are traversed by the long lines of white- covered wagons, and the buffaloes, the principal subsistence of the Indians, are thereby chased away to more distant and more secluded pastures … and they have thereby been reduced to poverty and want. For all these privations they have been promised presents, as a compensation, from our Government, but thus far they have received nothing." The final blow came in 1874-1875. Increasing pressures and conflicts with Nebraska settlers resulted in the Pawnee's decision to move to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma, where the Pawnee Nation now resides. This displacement was more than geographical. Not only did they lose many traditions and ceremonies, some that were tied to the cycles of the seasons in their homeland, the Pawnee diet also was completely changed to rations and unfamiliar foods. Chef Anthony Warrior, the Indianpreneurship director at the Nebraska Indian Community College in Santee, explained the predicament: If you take ancestral varieties of pumpkin, corn or beans that thrived in the Great Lakes or the Great Plains regions, and try to grow them in Oklahoma, they would fail because the soil and climate are completely different. "And that's how you conquer people," Warrior said. "When you take people's food systems away, you destroy them ... . When you can sever that tie, you then invite [the body] to disease and depression — and control." Warrior pointed to the argument for eating according to one's genetics, a field of study called nutrigenomics, which explores the complex relationship between our genes and the foods we eat, and how it impacts our health outcomes and risk of diseases. Even Oehler and Zeisberger recognized this breaking nearly 175 years ago, that want and hunger had "shak[en] that tenacity and attachment so strongly developed in the Indian character, for long cherished customs, and making them more pliable in adopting the arts of civilization." The Seed Warriors For Native Americans living on reservations, displacement and assimilation came at the high costs of poor health and the loss of access and knowledge of their traditional foodways. After generations of eating nutrient-deficient, processed foods such as fry bread, a food created during hardship using meager Miller, Alfred Jacobs. "Pawnee Indians Watching the Caravan." 1858-1860. Watercolor. 10 7/16 x 9 7/16 in. Commissioned by William T. Walters.

• Cover