Ponca Fort

Nanza is the Ponca name for what is now called Ponca Fort. It was a fortified village built by the Ponca in the vicinity of present-day Niobrara, Nebraska, USA, in circa 1700 and occupied until about 1865.

The site of Nanza is located at the fork where Ponca Creek meets the Niobrara River, west of the Niobrara River's entry into the Missouri River. It is located in what is now Knox County, Nebraska, near the town of Verdel.

Nanza was a principal settlement for the Ponca and was built to protect the Ponca against the Arikaras, Cheyennes or Apaches. It contained earth lodges and was surrounded by several cemeteries, probably created during disease outbreaks after European contact. Today Ponca Fort lies on private property. The site is renowned among archaeologists for its resemblance to Middle Mississippian fortified towns found in Ohio which date from 800 through 1550.

Nanza comprises numerous earth lodge sites encircled by a protective wall perhaps six feet high. Today the fortification is still visible. Archeological excavations have determined there was originally a ditch three feet deep and ten feet wide surrounding the berm. An earth embankment supporting a post palisade was discovered inside the ditch. Guns, hatchets, knives, beads, kettles, cloth and other European goods have been recovered from Ponca Fort, and serve as a testimony to the village's important position in the local fur trade. There is also evidence of extensive trade with other tribes. Pottery, stone mauls, meeling slabs and maulers, bone knives, hoes, tubes, shaft wrenches and picks, and strip bark in rolls from as far away as the Southeastern United States.

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Ponca

The Ponca (Páⁿka iyé: Páⁿka or Ppáⁿkka pronounced [pãŋꜜka]) are a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan language group. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. Their traditions and historical accounts suggest they originated as a tribe east of the Mississippi River in the Ohio River valley area and migrated west for game and as a result of Iroquois wars.

The term Ponca was the name of a clan among the Kansa, Osage, and Quapaws. The meaning of the name is "Cut Throat".

Early history

At first European contact, the Ponca lived around the mouth of the Niobrara River in northern Nebraska. According to tradition, they moved there from an area east of the Mississippi just before Columbus' arrival in the Americas. Siouan-speaking tribes such as the Omaha, Osage, Quapaw and Kaw also have traditions of having migrated to the West from east of the Mississippi River. The invasions of the Iroquois from their traditional base in the north pushed those tribes out of the Ohio River area. Scholars are not able to determine precisely when the Dhegian-Siouan tribes migrated west, but know the Iroquois also pushed tribes out from the Ohio and West Virginia areas in the Beaver Wars. The Iroquois maintained the lands as hunting grounds.