Arkansas Indian Tribes
These
Indians are treated under the five following heads:
Adai and the
Natchitoches Confederacy in Louisiana,
Eyeish and the Hasinai Confederacy
in Arkansas, and Kadohadacho Confederacy in Texas. Tribes of the Kadohadacho Confederacy are the only ones known to have lived in Arkansas.
One of
the tribes connected with the Kadohadacho Confederacy (under
Texas).
Some
Cherokee lived in this State while they were on their
way from their old territories to Oklahoma, and a tract
of land in northwestern Arkansas was granted them by
treaty in 1817, which in 1828 they re-ceded to the
United States Government. (See Tennessee.)
Chickasaw
passed through Arkansas on their way to Oklahoma but
owned no land there. (See Mississippi.)
The
Choctaw had a village on the lower course of Arkansas
River in 1805 and they owned a large strip of territory
in the western part of the State, granted to them by the
treaty of Doak's Stand, October 18, 1820. They
surrendered the latter in a treaty concluded at
Washington, January 20, 1825. (See Mississippi.)
When
Europeans first descended the Mississippi an Illinois
division known as Michigamea, "Big Water", was settled in northeastern Arkansas about a
lake known by their name, probably the present Big Lake in Mississippi
County. They had probably come from the region now embraced in the State
of Illinois only a short time before, perhaps from a village entered on
some maps as "the old village of the Michigamea." Toward the end of the
seventeenth century they were driven north again by the Quapaw or
Chickasaw and united with the cognate Kaskaskia. (See
Illinois.)
This
tribe appears to have been encountered by De Soto in
what is now the State of Arkansas in 1541. (See Tennessee.)
See
Illinois above.
See Ofo.
If these
are the Mosopelea,
as seems assured, they appear to have lived for a short time near the end
of the seventeenth century in the neighborhood of the Quapaw on the lower
course of Arkansas River before moving farther south. (See
Mississippi.)
The Osage
hunted over much of the northern, and particularly
northwestern, part of Arkansas and claimed all lands now
included in the State as far south as Arkansas River.
They ceded most of their claims to these to the United
States Government in a treaty signed at Fort Clark,
Louisiana Territory, in 1808, and the
remainder by treaties at St. Louis, September 25, 1818, and June 2, 1825.
(See Missouri.)
Meaning
"downstream people." They were known by some form of
this word to the Omaha, Ponca, Kansa, Osage, and Creeks.
See Quapaw Location
From some names given by the chroniclers of De Soto it is probable that
the Tunica or some tribes speaking their language were living in
Arkansas in his time. In fact it is not unlikely that the Pacaha or
Capaha, who have often been identified with the Quapaw, were one of
these. In later historic times they camped in the northeastern part of
Louisiana and probably in neighboring sections of Arkansas. (See Mississippi.)
Like the
Tunica this tribe probably camped at times in
northeastern Louisiana and southeastern Arkansas, but
there is no direct evidence of the fact. (See
Mississippi.)
Resources:
Notes About the Book:
Source: The Indian Tribes of North America, by John R. Swanton, 1953, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 145, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and then ocr'd. Minimal editing
has been done, and readers can and should expect some errors in the textual
output.
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