page_title: Pawnee people
section_title: Increasing contact with English-speakers, ongoing tribal warfare
hierarchical_section_title: Pawnee people / History / Increasing contact with English-speakers, ongoing tribal warfare
context_page_description: The Pawnee are a Central Plains Indian tribe that historically were based in Nebraska and Kansas and currently are based in Oklahoma. Today they are the federally recognized Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, who are headquartered in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Their Pawnee language belongs to the Caddoan language family, and their names for themselves is Chatiks si chatiks or "Men of Men".
  Historically, the Pawnee lived in villages of earth lodges with adjacent farmlands near the Loup, Republican, and South Platte rivers. The Pawnee tribal economic activities throughout the year alternated between farming crops and hunting buffalo.
  In the early 18th century, the Pawnee numbered more than 60,000 people. They lived along the Loup and Platte river areas for centuries; however, several tribes from the Great Lakes began moving onto the Great Plains and encroaching on Pawnee territory, including the Dakota, Lakota, Cheyenne. The Arapaho also moved into Pawnee territory. Collectively, the Pawnee referred to these tribes as cárarat or cahriksuupiíruʾ. The Pawnee were occasionally at war with the Comanche and Kiowa farther south.
context_section_description: A Pawnee tribal delegation visited President Thomas Jefferson. In 1806 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, Major G. C. Sibley, Major S. H. Long, among others, began visiting the Pawnee villages. Under pressure from Siouan tribes and European-American settlers, the Pawnee ceded territory to the United States government in treaties in 1818, 1825, 1833, 1848, 1857, and 1892. In 1857, they settled on the Pawnee Reservation along the Loup River in present-day Nance County, Nebraska, but maintained their traditional way of life. They were subjected to continual raids by Lakota from the north and west.
   Until the 1830s, the Pawnee in what became United States territory were relatively isolated from interaction with Europeans. As a result, they were not exposed to Eurasian infectious diseases, such as measles, smallpox, and cholera, to which Native Americans had no immunity. In the 19th century, however, they were pressed by Siouan groups encroaching from the east, who also brought diseases. Epidemics of smallpox and cholera, and endemic warfare with the Sioux and Cheyenne caused dramatic mortality losses among the Pawnee. From an estimated population of 12,000 in the 1830s, they were reduced to 3,400 by 1859, when they were forcibly constrained to a reservation in modern-day Nance County, Nebraska.
  The Pawnee won a "hard fought" defensive battle around 1830, when they defeated the whole Cheyenne tribe. A Pitahawirata Pawnee captured one of the most sacred tribal bundles of the Cheyenne, the Sacred Arrows, and Skidi Chief Big Eagle secured it quickly. The Cheyennes stopped fighting at once and returned to their own country.
  The Pawnees in the village of Chief Blue Coat suffered a severe defeat on 27 June 1843. A force of Lakotas attacked the village, killed more than 65 inhabitants and burned 20 earth lodges.
  In 1852, a combined Indian force of Cheyennes and invited Kiowa and Kiowa Apaches attacked a Pawnee camp in Kansas during the summer hunt. First when a Pawnee shot a very reckless Cheyenne with an arrow in the eye, it was discovered he wore a hidden scale mailed armor under his shirt. The killing of this notable Cheyenne affected the Cheyennes to the point, that they carried their Sacred Arrows against the Pawnee the following summer in an all-out war.
  Warriors enlisted as Pawnee Scouts in the latter half of the 19th century in the United States Army. Like other groups of Native American scouts, Pawnee warriors were recruited in large numbers to fight on the Northern and Southern Plains in various conflicts against hostile Native Americans. Because the Pawnee people were old enemies of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, and Kiowa tribes, they served with the army for 14 years between 1864 and 1877, earning a reputation as being a well-trained unit, especially in tracking and reconnaissance. The Pawnee Scouts took part with distinction in the Battle of the Tongue River during the Powder River Expedition (1865) against Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho and in the Battle of Summit Springs. They also fought with the US in the Great Sioux War of 1876. On the Southern Plains, they fought against their old enemies, the Comanches and Kiowa, in the Comanche Campaign.
caption: Pawnees in a parley with Major Long's expedition at Engineer Cantonment, near Council Bluffs, Iowa, in October 1819
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