The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska is one of two federally recognized tribes of Ho-Chunk Native Americans. The other is the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. Tribe members often refer to themselves as Hochungra - "People of the Parent Speech". Their historic language is part of the Siouan family. Their documented history goes backl to the 17th century. In the 1620's the Winnebago fought an inter-tribal war with the Potawatomis'. After this war, small pox and measles epidemics reduced the population of the Tribe from about 25,000 people to only about 150 people.

The Winnebago signed their first treaty with the United States in 1816 and signed boundary and cession treaties in the 1820's and 1830's. These treaties resulted in the loss of most of the tribal land. The Tribe was moved from what is now northeast Iowa, to Minnesota to South Dakota, and finally to their current location in Nebraska where the Winnebago Indian Reservation was established by treaties of 1865 and 1874. Following this displacement to the treeless plains of South Dakota, a nocturnal gravitation occurred during which many of the dispossessed Winnebago, under cover of darkness, traveled down the Missouri River to rejoin remnants of their tribe in Nebraska. The General Allotment Act of 1887 resulted in the loss of about two thirds of the Reservation by 1913. The Tribe’s ancestral lands are located in central Wisconsin and northern Illinois.