The Caddoan tribes were consolidated enough by 1834 that the American
agents had begun to treat them as though they were a single group. The
term Caddo, an abbreviated cover term for Kadohadacho, one of the larger
groups, began to cover _all_ the tribes in the American Period. It was
this amalgam of tribal units with which the United States decided to deal.
[Illustration: Caddo Indian Treaty of Cession, July 1, 1835. Mural in
Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, Shreveport.]
On June 25-26, 1835, some 489 Caddo gathered at the Caddo Agency seven
or eight miles south of Shreveport on Bayou Pierre and on July 1, 1835,
they agreed to sell to the United States approximately one million acres
of land in the area above Texarkana, Arkansas, south to De Soto Parish,
Louisiana (Swanton 1942). Two chiefs, Tarsher (Wolf) and Tsauninot, were
the leaders of the Caddoan groups present at the land cession.
Present also at the land cession was their interpreter, Larkin Edwards,
a man they regarded so highly that they reserved him a sizable piece of
land (McClure and Howe 1937; Swanton 1942). Further, the treaty reserved
a sizable block of land for the mixed Caddo-French Grappe family.
Descended from a Kadohadacho woman and a French settler, François Grappe
had served his people well. His efforts to protect not only the Caddo,
but also the Bidai and others in East Texas, from American traders had
resulted in his termination as chief interpreter for the American agents.
The Caddoan people continued to respect and honor him.
The Caddo were to be paid $80,000, of which $30,000 was in goods
delivered at the signing, and the remainder in annual $10,000
installments for another five years. Immediately Tarsher led his people
into Texas and settled on the Brazos River, much to the chagrin of Texas
authorities (Gullick 1921). Another group, led by Chief Cissany, stayed
in Louisiana. They lived near Caddo Station in 1842 (seven years after
the land cession). Texicans actually invaded the United States to insist
that the Caddos disarm, the rumor in Texas being that the American
agent had armed the Caddo and made incendiary remarks regarding the new
Republic. The Louisiana chiefs offered to go to Nacogdoches as hostages
to show their good faith, but the Texicans refused them on the grounds
it might mean recognition of Caddoan land rights and polity in Texas
(Gullick 1921).
Eventually these Louisiana Caddo left—their credit was cut off by local
merchants, their payments ended, and the United States protection was
failing—and headed for the Kiamichi River country in Oklahoma. The
Caddoan presence in Louisiana, after a millennium, or more, was over.
CADDOAN TRIBAL LOCATIONS AND ARCHAEOLOGY IN LOUISIANA
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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