Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 1-142Powell, John Wesley
History
Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico: Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 1-142
Powell, John Wesley
Indians of North America -- Languages; Indians of North America -- Languages -- Bibliography
The pristine territory of this family was mainly in one body, the only
exceptions being the habitats of the Biloxi, the Tutelo, the Catawba and
Woccon.
Contrary to the popular opinion of the present day, the general trend of
Siouan migration has been westward. In comparatively late prehistoric
times, probably most of the Siouan tribes dwelt east of the Mississippi
River.
The main Siouan territory extended from about 53° north in the Hudson
Bay Company Territory, to about 33°, including a considerable part of
the watershed of the Missouri River and that of the Upper Mississippi.
It was bounded on the northwest, north, northeast, and for some distance
on the east by Algonquian territory. South of 45° north the line ran
eastward to Lake Michigan, as the Green Bay region belonged to the
Winnebago.[86]
[Footnote 86: See treaty of Prairie du Chien, 1825.]
It extended westward from Lake Michigan through Illinois, crossing the
Mississippi River at Prairie du Chien. At this point began the
Algonquian territory (Sac, etc.) on the west side of the Mississippi,
extending southward to the Missouri, and crossing that river it returned
to the Mississippi at St. Louis. The Siouan tribes claimed all of the
present States of Iowa and Missouri, except the parts occupied by
Algonquian tribes. The dividing line between the two for a short
distance below St. Louis was the Mississippi River. The line then ran
west of Dunklin, New Madrid, and Pemiscot Counties, in Missouri, and
Mississippi County and those parts of Craighead and Poinsett Counties,
Arkansas, lying east of the St. Francis River. Once more the Mississippi
became the eastern boundary, but in this case separating the Siouan from
the Muskhogean territory. The Quapaw or Akansa were the most southerly
tribe in the main Siouan territory. In 1673[87] they were east of the
Mississippi. Joutel (1687) located two of their villages on the Arkansas
and two on the Mississippi one of the latter being on the east bank, in
our present State of Mississippi, and the other being on the opposite
side, in Arkansas. Shea says[88] that the Kaskaskias were found by De
Soto in 1540 in latitude 36°, and that the Quapaw were higher up the
Mississippi. But we know that the southeast corner of Missouri and the
northeast corner of Arkansas, east of the St. Francis River, belonged to
Algonquian tribes. A study of the map of Arkansas shows reason for
believing that there may have been a slight overlapping of habitats, or
a sort of debatable ground. At any rate it seems advisable to
compromise, and assign the Quapaw and Osage (Siouan tribes) all of
Arkansas up to about 36° north.
[Footnote 87: Marquette’s Autograph Map.]
[Footnote 88: Disc. of Miss. Valley, p. 170, note.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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