The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, previously known as the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma. Their ancestors historically inhabited much of what is now East Texas, Louisiana, & portions of southern Arkansas & Oklahoma. They were descendants of the Caddoan Mississippian culture that constructed huge earthwork mounds at several sites in this territory. In the early 19C, Caddo people were forced to a reservation in Texas; they were removed to Indian Territory in 1859.
The Caddo are thought to be an extension of Woodland period peoples, the Fourche Maline & Mossy Grove cultures, whose members were living in the area of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, & Texas between 200 BCE & 800 CE. The Wichita & Pawnee are related to the Caddo, as both tribes speak Caddoan languages. By 800 CE, this society had begun to coalesce into the Caddoan Mississippian culture. Some villages began to gain prominence as ritual centers. Leaders directed the construction of major earthworks, serving as temple mounds & platforms for residences of the elite. The flat-topped mounds were arranged around leveled, large, open plazas, which were usually kept swept clean & were often used for ceremonial occasions. As complex religious & social ideas developed, some people & family lineages gained prominence over others. By 1000 CE, a society that is defined by archaeologists as "Caddoan" had emerged. By 1200, the many villages, hamlets, & farmsteads established throughout the Caddo world had developed extensive maize agriculture, producing a surplus that allowed for greater density of settlement. In these villages, artisans & craftsmen developed specialties. The artistic skills & earthwork mound-building of the Caddoan Mississippians flourished during the 12C & 13C.
The Spiro Mounds, near the Arkansas River in present-day southeastern Oklahoma, were some of the most elaborate mounds in the United States. They were made by Mississippian ancestors of the historic Caddo & Wichita tribes, in what is considered the westernmost point of the Mississippian culture. The Caddo were farmers & enjoyed good growing conditions most of the time. The Piney Woods, the geographic area where they lived, was affected by the Great Drought from 1276–1299 CE, which covered an area extending to present-day California & disrupted many Native American cultures.
Archeological evidence has confirmed that the cultural continuity is unbroken from prehistory to the present among these peoples. The Caddoan Mississippian people were the direct ancestors of the historic Caddo people & related Caddo-language speakers who encountered the first Europeans, as well as of the modern Caddo Nation of Oklahoma.
Caddo oral history of their creation story says the tribe emerged from a cave, called Chahkanina or "the place of crying," located at the confluence of the Red River of the South & Mississippi River in northern present-day Louisiana. Their leader, named Moon, instructed the people not to look back. An old Caddo man carried with him a drum, a pipe, & fire, all of which have continued to be important religious items to the people. His wife carried corn & pumpkin seeds. As people & accompanying animals emerged, the wolf looked back. The exit from the underground closed to the remaining people & animals.
The Caddo peoples moved west along the Red River, which they called Bah'hatteno in Caddo. A Caddo woman, Zacado, instructed the tribe in hunting, fishing, home construction, & making clothing. Caddo religion focuses on Kadhi háyuh, translating to "Lord Above" or "Lord of the Sky." In early times, the people were led by priests, including a head priest, the xinesi, who could commune with spirits residing near Caddo temples. A cycle of ceremonies developed around important periods of corn cultivation. Tobacco was & is used ceremonially. Early priests drank a purifying sacrament made of wild olive leaves.
Centuries before extensive European contact, some of the Caddo territory was invaded by migrating Dhegihan-speaking peoples, Osage, Ponca, Omaha, & Kaw, who moved west beginning about 1200 due to years of warfare with the Iroquois in the Ohio River area of present-day Kentucky. The Iroquois took control of hunting grounds in the area. The Osage particularly fought the Caddo, pushed them out of some former territory, & became dominant in the region of present-day Missouri, Arkansas, & eastern Kansas. These tribes had become settled in their new territory west of the Mississippi prior to mid-18C European contact.
Most of the Caddo historically lived in the Piney Woods ecoregion of the United States, divided among the state regions of East Texas, southern Arkansas, western Louisiana, & southeastern Oklahoma. This region extends up to the foothills of the Ozarks. The Piney Woods are a dense forest of deciduous & pinophyta flora covering rolling hills, steep river valleys, & intermittent wetlands called "bayous". Caddo people primarily settled near the Caddo River.
When they first encountered Europeans & Africans, the Caddo tribes organized themselves in three confederacies: the Natchitoches, Hasinai, & Kadohadacho. They were loosely affiliated with other neighboring tribes including the Yowani a Choctaw band. The Natchitoches lived in now northern Louisiana, the Haisinai lived in East Texas, & the Kadohadacho lived near the border of Texas, Oklahoma, & Arkansas.
The Caddo people had a diet based on cultivated crops, particularly maize (corn), but also sunflower, pumpkins, & squash. These foods held cultural significance, as did wild turkeys. They hunted & gathered wild plants, as well.
The Caddo first encountered Europeans & Africans in 1541 when the Spanish Hernando de Soto Expedition came through their lands. De Soto's force had a violent clash with one band of Caddo Indians, the Tula people, near present-day Caddo Gap, Arkansas. This historic event has been marked by the modern town with a monument.
French explorers in the early 18C encountered the Natchitoche in northern Louisiana. They were followed by fur traders from outposts along the Gulf Coast, & later by missionaries from France & Spain, who also traveled among the people. The Europeans carried infections such as smallpox & measles, because these were endemic in their societies. As the Caddo peoples had no acquired immunity to such new diseases, they suffered epidemics with high fatalities that decimated the tribal populations. Influenza & malaria also devastated the Caddo.
French traders built forts with trading posts near Caddo villages, that already were important hubs in the Great Plains trading network. These stations attracted more French & other European settlers. Among such settlements are the present-day communities of Elysian Fields & Nacogdoches, Texas, & Natchitoches, Louisiana. In the latter two towns, early explorers & settlers kept the original Caddo names of the villages.
Having given way over years before the power of the former Ohio Valley tribes, the later Caddo negotiated for peace with the waves of Spanish, French, & finally Anglo-American settlers. After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, by which the United States took over the former French colonial territory west of the Mississippi River, the US government sought to ally with the Caddo peoples. During the War of 1812, American generals such as William Henry Harrison, William Clark, & Andrew Jackson crushed pro-British uprisings among other Southeast Indians, in particular the Creeks. Due to the Caddo's neutrality & their importance as a source of information for the Louisiana Territory government, they were left alone. In the 1830s, the federal government embarked on a program of Indian removal of tribes from the Southeast in order to enable European-American settlement, as new migrants pressed from the east.
In 1835 the Kadohadacho, the northernmost Caddo confederacy, signed a treaty with the US to relocate to independent Mexico (in the area of present-day East Texas). Then lightly settled by Mexican colonists, this area was being rapidly transformed by greatly increased immigration of European Americans. In 1836, the Anglo-Americans declared independence from Mexico & established the Republic of Texas, an independent nation. The name "Texas" is derived from the Hasinai word táysha, meaning "friend".
On December 29, 1845, Texas was admitted to the US as a state. At that time, the federal government forced the relocation of both the Hasinai & the Kadohadacho as well as remnants of allied Delaware (Lenape) & Yowani onto the Brazos Reservation. Pressures increased on the Brazos Reservation Indians to remove north, culminating in a violent attack on December 26, 1858 on a Caddo encampment just off the reservation. This vigilante group led by Captain Peter Garland was a vigilante force from Erath County. The Caddo group was led by Choctaw Tom who was a Yowani Choctaw married to a Hasinai woman, who was killed in this fight along with twenty-seven other Indians. In 1859, many of the Caddo were relocated again to Indian Territory north of Texas, in present-day Oklahoma. After the Civil War, the Caddo were concentrated on a reservation located between the Washita & Canadian rivers in Indian Territory.
In the late 19C, the Caddo took up the Ghost Dance religion, which was widespread among American Indian nations in the West. John Wilson, a Caddo-Lenape medicine man who spoke only Caddo, was an influential leader in the Ghost Dance. In 1880, Wilson became a peyote roadman. The tribe had known the Half Moon peyote ceremony, but Wilson introduced the Big Moon ceremony to them. The Caddo tribe remains very active in the Native American Church today.
Congress passed the 1887 Dawes Act to promote assimilation of tribes in Indian Territory. It authorized distribution of tribal communal landholdings into allotments for individual households in order for them to establish subsistence family farms along the European-American model. Any tribal lands remaining after such allotments were to be declared "surplus" & sold, including to non-Native Americans. The allotment system was intended to extinguish tribal Native American land claims to enable admission of Oklahoma as a state & assimilate Native Americans into the majority culture. At the same time, tribal governments were to be ended. The territory had already been settled by numerous European Americans outside the tribal territories.
The Caddo vigorously opposed allotment. Whitebread, a Caddo leader, said, "because of their peaceful lives & friendship to the white man, & through their ignorance were not consulted, & have been ignored & stuck away in a corner & allowed to exist by sufferance." Tribal governments were dismantled at this time, & Native Americans were expected to act as state & US citizens. After some period, the adverse effects of these changes were recognized. The Caddo & other Native American peoples suffered greatly from the disruption of the loss of their lands & breakup of their traditional cultures.
