Omaha's location near the confluence of the Missouri River and Platte River has long made the location a key point of transfer for both people and goods. Since the 17th century, the Pawnee, Otoe, Sioux, and Ioway all variously occupied the land that became Omaha. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries when they were the most powerful Indians along the stretch of the Missouri River north of the Platte, the Omaha nation moved on the western edge of present-day Bellevue, Nebraska.