The Villasur expedition, sent to the Pawnees…

The Villasur expedition, sent to the Pawnees in 1720 in an attempt to wean the tribe away from their French connections (which had been greatly magnified in Spanish imagination), makes its way northeast through present-day Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska.

Guided mainly by Apaches, and led by an officer without experience of native tribes, the expedition approaches the Skidi Pawnee villages along the outflow of the Loup River into the Platte River in modern Nebraska.

Using Francisco Sistaca, a Pawnee enslaved (and renamed) by the Spanish, Villasur makes several attempts to negotiate with natives in the area.

Sistaca disappears from camp on August 13.

Nervous about the possibility of attack and the increasing number and belligerence of the Pawnee and Otoe, Villasur camps that night just south of the Loup/Platte confluence, near what is now Columbus, Nebraska.

A large Pawnee and Otoe force (possibly aided by French traders) attacks the Spanish camp the following morning (August 14), shooting heavy musketry fire and flights of arrows, then charging into combat clad only in paint, headband, moccasins and short leggings.

The attackers quickly kill Villasur, thirty-four of his soldiers, Naranjo and ten other Pueblo scouts in a brief battle, the survivors flee.