By the 1830s, the United States government had adopted policies and made treaties with the intent of taking American Indian lands, removing Native Nations to reservations, and forcing cultural assimilation. Faced with these challenges, leaders of Native Nations were forced to make difficult choices about maintaining their people's stability and security without compromising tribal culture and sovereignty.
The four confederated of the Nation, who called themselves the , , , and , claimed as their homeland the central plains encompassing parts of what is now called Nebraska and Kansas. The nineteenth-century Pawnee, like other Native Nations, had tough choices to make regarding their physical and cultural survival. Around the 1830s the Pawnee experienced a variety of .
First, the United States pushed tribes from the East into Pawnee lands, causing tribal conflict.
Second, in 1831 a devastating epidemic struck, taking with it about half of the Pawnee population. Third, of white settlers and displaced Indian tribes made it difficult to hunt enough buffalo to sustain themselves. In October, with few alternatives, the Pawnee Nation agreed to meet with a U.S. .
In an effort to make more Indian lands available for white settlement, the U.S. assigned a displaced eastern tribe, the , a portion of traditional hunting lands on the plains. When a Lenape party entered the area to hunt buffalo, a Pawnee force drove them off, killing several of them. U.S. government officials decided to resolve the conflict that they had created with a treaty that would accomplish two goals.
First, they wanted to acquire a large portion of Pawnee territory and turn it into a common hunting ground for the Pawnee and other Indians displaced by the .
Second–to support the United States' and missionaries' campaigns of –the U.S. intended to the Pawnee to a and religious–conversion program.
The Pawnee were struck by numerous epidemics in the nineteenth century. In 1831 a devastating smallpox epidemic swept across the northern plains. The Pawnee suffered enormous loss. The epidemic reduced the Pawnee population almost by half and made the Pawnee vulnerable to attacks from neighboring tribes and encroachment from settlers pushing west.
“Your Great Father knows the game is every year becoming scarcer and will soon be gone. When the game is gone, What will you do? You must cultivate the ground or starve. The Otoes and Omahaws with whom I have talked have agreed to give up the chase, work on their lands, build themselves log houses, raise cattle, corn, beans, potatoes, squashes and other things. You are nearer the buffaloe than they are; but the buffaloe will soon be a great distance from you. You will I am sure be happier at home than at the chase, if you can have enough to eat.”
The United States president knows that the buffalo will soon be gone. When the buffalo are gone you will have to abandon the hunt and become farmers or you will starve. Other tribes have agreed to give up hunting and become farmers. Your tribe is closer to the buffalo herds; but the buffalo will soon be gone. Then you will be happy that you decided to become farmers because you will have enough food to eat.
Bison hunting on the plains was critical to the Pawnee's way of life. Depending on the season, communities would focus on in their villages or travel west to hunt. by white settlers and other Indian tribes on the hunting grounds created a severely diminished population. A growing market for bison products and the use of horses and firearms further contributed to the near extinction of bison in the late nineteenth century. In official government reports, the military also spoke of destroying the bison as a way to eliminate the major food source of Plains tribes.
