Bishop Lee's Address to Convention, 1857

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In his convention address, Bishop Lee notes preaching through an interpreter, “to a company of Omaha and Pawnee Indians, encamped in the immediate vicinity of Council Bluffs.”

Indigenous nations in Iowa had been forced to relocate out of the state of Iowa by 1851 and had been pushed onto western lands, including across the river in Nebraska.

According to the Omaha World Herald, “In 1853, the Omaha tribe’s homeland consisted of 5 million acres in northeast Nebraska, including those on which the city of Omaha would be built. In mid-1853, a few eager opportunists living in Council Bluffs jumped the gun and staked illegal claims on the fertile plateau directly across the Missouri River.

In the words of early Omaha historian Alfred Sorenson, “The Indians were made uneasy by these encroachments” and the Bureau of Indian Affairs ordered these claims vacated. Remarkably, its commands were obeyed.” Although by 1882, the Omaha were reduced to occupying only a small reservation in Nebraska and were later forced to share it with the Winnebago tribe of Wisconsin.