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Otoe-Missouria

Otoe is from the Siouan term wat'ota, meaning "lechers." White people on the frontier called the other band of this tribe Missouria, "great muddy," because they lived along the Missouri River.

According to tribal tradition, the people who became known as the Otoe, along with their relatives the Winnebago and the Ipowa, once lived in the Great Lakes region. In a prehistoric migration southwest in search of buffalo, the Otoe arrived at the mouth of the Grand River in missouri. A quarrel between two of their chiefs led to a seperation into two bands; the one that went upstream became known as Otoe; the other that remained near their first settlement was called the Missouria. Between  1817 and 1841 the otoe lived around the mouth of the Platte River in Nebraska, and in 1829 they were rejoined by the Missouria.  Their lands lying  south from the Platte River in eastern Nebraska, were ceded to the U.S. by a treaty in 1854. A reservation was later established for this tribal group along the Big Blue River on the present Kansas-Nebraska border. By 1881, their reservation was sold and the Otoe-Missouria purchased a new reservation in the Cherokee Outlet in Indian Territory. In 1904, the entire reservation was alloted to tribal members.

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  Last Updated: 29 Aug 2009