page_title: Pike-Pawnee Village Site
section_title: Nebraska versus Kansas
hierarchical_section_title: Pike-Pawnee Village Site / Rediscovering the village / Nebraska versus Kansas
caption_attribution_description: English: Pawnee Indian Museum State Historic Site, located near Republic, Kansas; seen from the southeast. The museum is in the left background. In the right foreground is a monument built on the site in 1901. The site is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
context_page_description: The Pike-Pawnee Village Site, or Hill Farm Site, designated 25WT1 by archaeologists, is a site near the village of Guide Rock in Webster County, in the south central portion of the state of Nebraska, in the Great Plains region of the United States. It was the location of a village of the Kitkehahki band of the Pawnee people, in a region of the Republican River valley that they occupied intermittently from the 1770s to the 1820s.
  In 1806, the village was visited by a Spanish expedition led by Lieutenant Facundo Melgares and, soon after, by an American expedition led by Lieutenant Zebulon Pike. At the village, Pike persuaded the Pawnee leaders to haul down a Spanish flag that they had received from Melgares, and to raise the flag of the United States in its stead.
  The location of the village visited by Pike was not known for many years. In the early 20th century, two sites were proposed: this one in Nebraska, and one in Republic County in northern Kansas. A dispute between the historical societies of the two states ensued, titled "The War Between Nebraska and Kansas". The dispute was eventually resolved in favor of the Nebraska site.
context_section_description: By 1927, Hill and the NSHS were persuaded that the Webster County site was the scene of the Pike flag incident. In that year, they challenged Kansas's claim. A full issue of the Society's journal, Nebraska History, was devoted to the matter. The issue, provocatively titled "The War Between Nebraska and Kansas", included articles by representatives of the Nebraska society and of the Kansas Historical Society, each claiming the Pike site for his own state.
  More than historical accuracy was at stake. In a 1901 address delivered at the Republic County site, Katherine S. Lewis of the Kansas Daughters of the American Revolution had declared that "we have been seeking out antiquity for Kansas; we felt that our state was too new to be interesting". In 1927, Kansans still regarded their Pike site as a focus of state pride, and were unwilling to give it up: in the Nebraska History issue, George Morehouse of the KHS wrote, "It is now very strange that ... our Nebraska friends should become so enthusiastic in trying to take from our Pike's Pawnee Republic Village its halo of glory."
  In their articles, the champions of each state argued that Pike's account of his route supported their site, and entirely ruled out the other. Both sides also argued that Pike's description of the local topography matched their site and differed significantly from the other.
  The proponents of the Nebraska site cited the artifacts that had been recovered from their village. These included a Spanish peace medal dated 1797 and bearing the image of Charles IV, an American peace medal of the type issued after 1801, and soldier's buttons and brass medallions bearing 15 stars, one of which bore the number "1", that of Pike's infantry regiment.
  The Kansans had no such artifacts to show. However, they argued that the Nebraska village postdated the Pike episode. The Kansas village, they stated, had been the one visited by Pike, and was occupied by the Pawnees until they were driven north by the Delawares in the early 1830s; the fleeing Pawnees had then established the village on the Republican, where they had been devastated by smallpox. In this account the epidemic, and not long habitation, explained the number of graves found by Hill; the medals had not been buried with their original owners, but had been treasured by the band for decades, until the time that the pestilence was blamed on "evil gifts from the whites" and they were cast away.
  Further work at both sites strengthened the case for Nebraska. Kansas supporters gave ground reluctantly: a major celebration was held at the Republic County site in 1933, and as late as 1947, an article in the Kansas Historical Quarterly spoke of the issue as "debatable ground". Today, however, the Webster County site is generally acknowledged as the true one: an exhibit at the Republic County site states as much, and a Kansas historical marker near the 1901 monument states that "the village was long believed ... to be that visited by Zebulon M. Pike".
  Although Elizabeth Johnson was mistaken about the Pike village site, her mistake is held to be a fortunate one. The Webster County site had been subjected to decades of cultivation and relic hunting. The Republic County site was not entirely pristine, due to surface collecting and possibly to amateur excavation; but it was far better preserved. Today, the Kansas Historical Society operates a museum on the site, built in 1967 over one of the excavated earth lodges.
caption: Pawnee Indian Museum and restored 1901 monument at Republic County site
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