Nebraska Emigration and Immigration: Difference between revisions

Permanent white settlement began at Bellevue in the region south of present-day Omaha. The Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 reserved the rest of [[Nebraska Genealogy|Nebraska]] as part of Indian Territory. Mormon Pioneers were permitted temporary settlement at Winter Quarters from 1846 to 1847, but Nebraska was not officially opened for white settlement until passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854.  

 

Between 1834 and 1854, an estimated 350,000 pioneers passed through the Platte Valley along the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails. Most continued westward rather than settling in Nebraska.  

 

After the Civil War, many Union veterans and other settlers arrived from the eastern United States to claim lands available under the Homestead Act of 1862. These settlers generally were from Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Missouri.  

 

Immigrants from Europe also arrived in search of land. The largest overseas groups came from Germany, Sweden, the British Isles, Bohemia, Canada, and Denmark. In addition, many Germans immigrated from Russia. Small groups of Polish and Italian settlers settled in Omaha in 1885.  

 

Blacks were in Nebraska before the Civil War, but many more arrived in the late nineteenth century, especially in the Omaha area. American Indians had largely been dispossessed of their Nebraska lands and removed to present-day Oklahoma by 1880, but Santee Sioux, Omaha, and Winnebago Indians still live on two small reservations in the state.  

 

New settlement virtually ceased in the 1890s, although a large section of northwest Nebraska was not completely homesteaded until after World War I.  

 

From the 1860's through the early 1900's, many New York City orphans came by train and were adopted by Nebraska families. Information on the orphans' trains is being collected for the Nebraska State Historical Society by Eloise Thomsen, 5843 Grant Street, Omaha, NE 68104.