These brothers could not have been closer!
By Bob Ford Special to
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The Platte River was a flowing highway used to head West. The California, Oregon and Mormon Trails straddled both sides of the river along with the Pony Express and Union Pacific Railroad to develop this country.
As white civilization rolled, we interrupted centuries where the Native Indians maintained a way of life.
The Spanish, Francisco Coronado in 1544, were the first Europeans to be uninvited guests but at least they introduced the horse to the plains. Thanks to Hollywood it’s hard to envision Indians without horses, but they survived without them for 1,000 years.
Native American traditions, culture and routine were brutally interrupted by the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Signed by President Andrew Jackson, the act authorized the government to “negotiate” with native tribes to re-locate, forcing them to leave their ancestral lands in the Southeast to “reservations” west of the Mississippi River.
Talking with my friend Col. Jon Boursaw, director for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Topeka. His tribe was relocated during that period from Michigan to Kansas.
In the late 1700’s French trappers and traders prospered in Michigan where the Potawatomis were encouraged to do business and intermarry, thus Jon’s last name.
Unfortunately the Potawatomi fought with the French in the French and Indian War, further alienating the tribe from any kind action of the U.S. government.
“When we were removed from our homeland to Kansas, we called the journey, Trail of Death,” Jon laments.
In a podcast I asked Jon,”when you hear so many other minorities rage about how they are now or have been mistreated in the past, what goes through your mind?” He paused, but didn’t take the bait, ”people just like to complain.”
All native exoduses were overseen by the U.S. military, these poor humans had no choice. The thousand mile walk initially involved 60,000 souls from 18 different tribes, the journey known today as the “Trail of Tears.” This proceeded other savage acts of broken treaties and military cruelty in which the government has since apologized, oh ya thanks!
“The government might have more merciful put to death everyone under the age of 1 and over the age of 60 rather than choosing the expensive and painful way to exterminate these poor people.” so stated missionary Daniel Botrick, who traveled with the evicted Cherokee.
As centuries passed, the Souix and Cheyanne learned to deal with the white settlers along the Platte River in today’s Nebraska. The Trails went right through their ancestral lands. Tribes began trading with the immigrants and even learned to repair their wagons for profit.
As the invasion continued, tribal pride diminished while buffalo herds slowly vanished. Cultures were compromised and some young Souix and Cheyenne had had enough.
Raids and attacks on homesteaders who settled along the Platte flared in the late 1860’s long after the first wagon trains crossed the prairie.
George Martin and his family settled along the River. His boys, Robert, 12, and Nathaniel, 15, were putting up hay one afternoon when a Cheyenne raiding party attacked. The natives were out for revenge against these randomly chosen unarmed boys.
Their dog warned them something wasn’t right. Quickly they climbed on their nag riding double trying to get back to the safety of their home, but they didn’t make it. The Indians unloaded a barrage of arrows striking the boys as they tried to gallop away. Four arrows pierced them in the legs and shoulder but the last one struck with incredible force, striking Nathaniel in the back, going through his body and entering brother Robert, pinning the boys together.
They tried to ride on but fell off the horse together. For some reason the attackers let them lay. Either thinking they would be dead soon or wanting to continue the attack on their sod house, they rode off.
The boys were found the next day, attached but still breathing. They survived the removal of the arrows but Robert suffered from daily chronic back pain, dying at the age of 47. Nathanial went on to live a full life, staying in the area, sharing their harrowing tale to his grandchildren, passing on in 1927 at 79.
A bronze monument of the Martin boys trying to flee is just off Interstate 80 in Kearney Nebraska. The memorial is in front of the impressive Archway Museum.
If you have to drive to the mountains and usually take Interstate 70, here’s your reason to go another way. Just as you’re getting bored to tears, coffee’s not working and you haven’t seen a tree in 100 miles, what’s that in the middle of the highway?
From a distance it looks like a mirage, but once you’re on it, how cool is that! It spans the interstate, you drive under it! In all the states I travel, I’ve never seen anything like it. I had to exit, well you know me, I’ll stop and check out a dead squirrel.
Opened in 2000, with the state’s support, the first two years the museum thrived with over 200,000 visitors per, even President Bill Clinton visited. Then reality kicked in. The Archway project floated a $60 million bond to build the place, but interest payments could not be met. They must have used creative Cornhusker projections on this project.
With just 49,000 paying customers in 2012, the Archway filed for bankruptcy. The museum reorganized and reduced its debt to $22 million, concentrating on education and history while giving management over to the City of Kearney.
Today walking through the museum, it’s a welcome break from the road.
So the next time you “head west young man,” consider I-80 and Nebraska. The further west you go, yes it’s incredibly dull but one thing is certain, it’s better than Kansas!
