With all the pomp the Spanish officer could muster so far from present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico, Lt. Facundo Melgares rode into the sprawling Pawnee village along the Republican River in Nebraska in 1806 with 300 uniformed men. The Pawnee village had a population of nearly 1,000, among the estimated 10,000 Pawnees who resided in Nebraska. Melgares’s orders were to keep the peace. North of him, near present-day Columbus, a Spanish force under Gen. Pedro De Villasur had fallen to Pawnee warri
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