In the recent report of the Commissioner for Indian Affairs, he says, “The agent states that the Omahaws waited on him, previous to their starting on their summer hunt, and most earnestly begged for arms and ammunition to enable them to defend themselves against their enemies, declaring, ‘If our great father will now furnish us arms and ammunition, we will defend ourselves.’ The agent remarks, further, ‘The Sioux, from all that we can learn, are resolved on exterminating this little band of Indians. Some few days after the visit of the Omahaws, above spoken of, I was called on by an express from the Omahaw camp, asking for the assistance of the troops to defend them against their enemies, and to retake thirty-six horses, which the Sioux had taken in a skirmish, a few days previous.’ He adds, that, ‘until the fierce and bloody war now prosecuted by the Sioux shall subside, it will be in vain to try to prosper the Omahaws in agricultural pursuits.--Owing to the game receding, the Omahaws have to seek food in the more distant prairies, which makes them the more accessible; and unless they can be provided for in agricultural pursuits, where they will be more remote from their harassing enemy, the same fierce and cruel war, in all probability, will continue. The Omahaws have this season returned to their old village, near the Missouri River, and, from present appearances, they will have to abandon it again.’”
The Pawnees own an extensive country on the Great Platte River, lying west of the Otoes and Omahaws. They still retain their fondness for savage life, and keep up among them many of their old customs. Various treaties have been formed with them, but, as yet, they evince no desire for civilization. They are divided into the Grand Pawnees, the Tapage Pawnees, the Wolf Pawnees, or Pawnee Loups, and the Republican Pawnees. They were formerly a numerous nation; but the small-pox being introduced in 1832, by the fur-traders and whisky-sellers, swept off ten thousand or more of them, in a few months, so that they do not now number more than ten or twelve thousand. They are a warlike people, and live in four villages, several miles apart, having their allies, the Omahaws and Otoes, so near them, that they may act in concert in case of invasion. The Pawnee chief who visited Washington, at the time before alluded to, in company with Major O’Fallon, like the Omahaw chief, declined the offer of teachers, on the ground that the Great Spirit made them for the chase, and intended them “to go to war, to take scalps, steal horses, and triumph over their enemies.”