American West

The settlement of Nebraska

The word "Nebraska" is derived from the name given by the Oto Indians to the Platte river. Although this area was traversed by the trappers and the traffickers during all the 18th century, its economic interest appeared only after the purchase of Louisiana by the United States. A station of trade of the furs was established, since 1813, close to the current town of Omaha. Bellevue, a little in the south of Omaha, became the point of anchoring of the settlement of this territory and, in the years 1840, the road of the pioneers towards the West, Overland Trail, passed by the valley of Platte.

In 1844, the proposal to organize Nebraska in territory started again the controversy of the extension of slavery. Since 1820, the "Compromise of Missouri" had excluded slavery from the area, but certain politicians of the South asserted that the territories which depended on the State of Louisiana in the beginning, had, like this State, to authorize the possession of black slaves. "Kansas-Nebraska Act" of 1854, which left with the territories faculty accept or reject slavery, settled this question and organized the Territory of Nebraska by fixing its borders: of 40 degrees of latitude, in the south, to the border of Canada, in north, and of Missouri, in the east, to the watershed, i.e. tops of the Rocky Mountains, in the west. The creation of the Territories of Colorado and Dakota, in 1861, reduced the limits of Nebraska so that they are about currently. In 1862, the northern border, delimited by the Niobrara river, was brought back to the parallel 43ème. Slavery was not allowed in Nebraska because the majority of its colonists came from the States of North, hostile at the institution. In the Territory of Kansas, which formed the southern border of Nebraska, the opposition between slave and free trade degenerated into true civil war between the colonists come from the South and North. It was the prelude of the American Civil War.

In Nebraska, the first method authorized to acquire a document of title on a ground was defined by a law voted in 1841. It provided that any old individual of at least 21 years, that it is a head of family, a widow or a single person, citizen of the United States or expressing the will to become it, which did not have already 320 acres (approximately 130 ha) of grounds in the United States, could be established on the public domain and acquire 160 acres of grounds, by arranging them, by installing its house there and by paying 1,25 $ the acre with the federal Government. A one year deadline after the establishment was granted to carry out the payment.

This law, known as of "Pre-emption", prohibited the transfer or the transfer of this right. The occupant gave up simply his ground and this one was recovered by the government. The only means for a pioneer of selling a ground, which it had or not development, was to go with the purchaser to the registry office. The new occupant recorded the ground with his name right after the preceding occupant gave up his right.

When Victor Vifquain settled in Nebraska with his wife Caroline, July 11, 1858 (or on May 1, according to the sources), it profited from the law of "Pre-emption". The first inhabitants were installed on the lowlands, near water and of the forests. Water was the source of energy used in particular for the mills and the sawmills and wood was used as fuel and building material. The colonists made more tardily had to be satisfied to colonize the highlands, of the immense meadows, punts, stripped of trees, pastures of the bisons and hunting ground of the Indians.

The sale of the grounds of the Public Domain began on September 8, 1858. All those which, like Victor Vifquain and his wife Caroline, had been installed before this date on the territory of Nebraska and there had arranged their ground, were to be made record and pay it.

Victor was the first to be established in the county of Saltworks and, during nearly one year, there remained the only inhabitant of this area. The name of Saltworks had been given to the county by the first legislature of the Territory of Nebraska, in January 1855, its limits being fixed by the second legislature, in December of the same year.

The only relations of Victor Vifquain, for this period, were those which it could tie with the emigrants pushing further towards the West, who borrowed the old track going of Nebraska City from Fort Kearny, to join the track of California. This road crossed Big Blue in Camden, in the county of Seward, not far from the northern limit of the county of Saltworks, and, in the first times, skirted the property of Vifquain. Later, this same road would be borrowed by the gold diggers at the time of the rush towards Pike' S Peak, in Colorado.

March 25, 1859, Victor was the first to celebrate a marriage in the county of Saltworks. He links Orion Johnson in Isabella West in their house, located close to his farm. He then exerted the functions of Justice of the Peace for the county of Otoe because, according to the law of the Territory of Nebraska, Saline was attached to the county officially organized nearest in the east (Otoe). The same year saw the first birth of the county: the first wire of Victor, fore-mentioned Victor-Emmanuel, born on October 21, 1859. Meanwhile, Victor had returned to Europe to assist, the capacity as witness, to the marriage of his sister, July 22, 1859, with a tradesman tournaisien, Eugene Duvergnies, originating in Quiévrain.

Pawnees

Before the arrival of the White in Nebraska, the area where Vifquain settled was occupied by tribes pawnees. These tribes occupied a territory of hunting which covered the current States of Nebraska and Kansas. The heart of this territory, which was located along Platte, was delimited by Republican River in the south and Blue River in north. In the years 1820, Pawnees were one of the most powerful nations of the large plains, with a population estimated at 25 000 men, women and children. The raids which they carried out led them to the Mexican stations of Rio Grande. Thirty years later, the 30 million acres of their territory had been yielded to the government of the United States for compensations estimated at less than 600 000 $ and their population was confined in a reserve of less than 300 000 acres, along the Wolf To rivet.

Pawnees were above all the farmers. The corn was their principal production. They planted also beans, pumpkins, marrows and sunflower. Twice per annum, in June and November, after harvests were garnered, Pawnees left their villages of ground huts, to drive out the bison in the high plains, along Republican and of Arkansas until Smoky Hills. These hunting grounds were traversed by many tribes: Sioux Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Omaha, Kansa and Osage.

The winter, Pawnees were wandering, traversing the plains in the search of pastures for their many herds of horses. They did not turn over in their villages before April, when the local pastures made it possible to nourish the horses. The summer, the dryness which exhausted these pastures again forced them to carry out same displacements. Pawnees benefitted from these two periods of the year, the summer and the winter, to trade with the other Indian tribes and the runners of French and American wood, close to Saint-Louis.

Such was their way of life until the summer 1831, when an epidemic of small pox exterminated in a few months half of their population. According to what the heads of the time to the White told, this first epidemic killed all Pawnees of less than 33 years. Other epidemics, of small pox, in 1837 and 1838, and of cholera, in 1849, completed to decimate these people which, by losing toutesa youth had to give up his power definitively. From 1833, many treaties were concluded between Pawnees and the White and, each time, they had to yield territories that their increasingly sparse population did not allow them any more to control.

The practice of Pawnees, strongly anchored in their traditions, to fly of the horses was at the origin of the hostility of the other tribes towards them. The reputation of a warrior was measured with his faculty to bring back horses stolen to the other tribes. This tradition alienated to them the majority of the tribes of the plains and contributed, very as much as the epidemics, to destroy them. A ceaseless war and without mercy, punctuated of massacres, marked the decades preceding the arrival by Vifquain in Nebraska. In 1840, it did not remain any more that 6 500 Pawnees, constantly pursued by the other tribes and dispossessed little by little of their last hunting grounds by the immigrants.

About 1850, they gave up their territory located at the north of Platte and, in 1857, they yielded the remainder, except for the end of ground along the Loup river, where they had established their last villages, which became their reserve. To remain, they had to beg along the tracks traced by the pioneers and to fly in the farms of the colonists. When Vifquain arrived with his wife at Nebraska, Pawnees wandered in small bands, in what was their old hunting grounds, incompetents to decide to move in in the reserve which had been assigned to them along the Wolf To rivet.

In August 1859 took place a battle between Pawnees, whose head was Peternasharrow (or Pitalesharo), and Kiowas and Comanches, under the command of Yellow Buffalo. Pawnees were beaten and pushed back on the territory of their reserve. On the way of the return, Comanches and Kiowas passed by the farm of Vifquain. Victor missed, in Belgium for the marriage of his sister. The morning, very early, Caroline Vifquain intended her herd of cattle to approach the house. Looking at outside, it saw the thrown into a panic cows, thorough in its court by a band of 300 Kiowas. One of the heads showed him his crucifix and Caroline, in return, showed him it his, which ensured of the "cordial" relations. The Indians asked him for an ox. Nothing of this only it could say or make making them change opinion, it had to be solved to make them gift of an ox, which they took along along the river to kill it and make it roast. In the evening, they brought back a beautiful side of meat to him and suspended the skin of ox, carefully cleaned, with the fence so that it dries there. The next morning, they left towards north, promising to him to return in the ten days, which they forgot to do, omission of which it was extremely grateful to them.

C'est peut-être à la suite de cet incident que Victor Vifquain mina sa maison, se tenant prêt à la faire sauter en cas d'attaque des Indiens. Heureusement, il n'eut jamais à recourir à cette solution extrême !

Dans les années qui suivirent, les hostilités entre les Pawnees et les autres tribus continuèrent, en particulier avec les Sioux. Un dernier massacre par les Sioux, en 1873, amena les Pawnees à abandonner leur réserve du Nebraska pour se réfugier en Territoire Indien. En 1875, le dernier Pawnee libre avait quitté le Nebraska.

La politique

1860 était une année électorale. Cette campagne électorale, qui allait amener Abraham Lincoln à la Maison Blanche et précipiter le pays dans la guerre civile, n'en était qu'à son début. Victor Vifquain se rangea du côté des Démocrates du Nord. Le 15 août, il se rendit à Omaha, à la convention tenue par les membres du parti démocrate du Territoire, en vue de désigner les candidats du Nebraska pour les élections au Congrès des Etats-Unis.

A l'automne précédent, Vifquain avait été désigné comme candidat représentant démocrate des habitants du comté de Saline, par seize voix, tous les votes s'étant portés sur lui. Seize votants semblent peu de choses pour tout un comté, mais il faut savoir que, selon le recensement de 1860, la population de tout le Territoire atteignait seulement 28 841 habitants, dont 28 696 Blancs, 67 Noirs libres, 15 esclaves et 63 Indiens, disséminés dans 29 comtés. Parmi ces comtés, neuf seulement dépassaient le millier d'habitants et trois villes avaient une population supérieure à 500 âmes.

Le comté de Saline n'était occupé que par six familles : les Vifquain, installés au nord-ouest du village de Crète, et les autres, le long de la rivière, au sud-est du comté. Selon le même recensement, la population du comté de Saline se composait en tout et pour tout de 29 personnes : 18 hommes et 11 femmes. Seize d'entre eux avaient entre 20 et 40 ans, cinq avaient plus de 40 ans, et cinq seulement étaient nés hors d'Amérique. Trente acres de terres étaient effectivement cultivés, mais 450 acres étaient revendiqués par les familles qui s'y étaient installées. Le cheptel comprenait 15 chevaux, 41 vaches, 29 boeufs, 12 autres têtes de bétail et 5 porcs, le tout évalué à 2 610 $. Ce n'était plus tout à fait une région vide d'habitants mais bien ce que l'on appelait à l'époque "l'Ouest sauvage".

Le recensement de 1860 donne les noms des 29 habitants du comté de Saline, dont :

- Mary Vasquin, 24, born in France (Marie-Caroline);

- Susan Vasquin, (5/12), born in Nebraska (Victor-Emanuel ?).

Après que son certificat de délégué ait été examiné, Victor Vifquain, "un Français entreprenant et intelligent", comme le décrit la presse locale démocrate à l'époque, fut admis à prendre part à la convention. Le comté de Saline, nouvellement constitué, était ainsi représenté pour la première fois à une convention pré-électorale.

Après délibération de l'assemblée, Vifquain fut reconnu comme représentant dûment accrédité du comté. Suite à ce vote, il fit un discours assez bref mais qui situe admirablement le personnage haut en couleurs qu'il allait être tout au long de sa vie :

J. Sterling Morton fut élu par la convention démocrate comme candidat au Congrès des Etats-Unis, tandis que la convention républicaine, tenue à Plattmouth le 1er août, désignait un certain Samuel G. Daily.

Lors des élections de l'automne 1860, les Démocrates l'emportèrent au Nebraska par 2 957 voix en faveur de Morton contre 2 943 pour Daily. Mais le bureau territorial des agents électoraux rejeta les votes de neuf comtés, dont ceux du comté de Saline, et modifia la représentation d'autres comtés. Les comtés éliminés le furent pour ne pas avoir été organisés de manière officielle à la date des élections. Après avoir écarté les votes illégaux, les nouveaux comptes firent finalement pencher la balance en faveur de Daily, le candidat des Républicains.