Caddo Voices

In 1859 official representatives of the United States presented Caddo chiefs and headmen with the Arbuckle Agreement that assured Caddos they would occupy a country belonging to the United States, and not within any State, where none could intrude upon them; and they would remain, they and their children, as long as the waters should run, protected from all harm by the United States. The Superintendent of Indian Affairs defined boundaries for that country that were adequate. The certain promise of permanency and protection satisfied the Caddos' greatest need. In accord with the agents for the United States government, the chiefs and headmen accepted the Arbuckle Agreement on July 1, 1859. Upheaval created by the Civil War soon canceled the Agreement's certainty.

During the white man's war most Caddos spent five debilitating years as refugees in Kansas. Others sought protection with the Seminole Nation or at Whitebead Hill in the Chickasaw Nation. It was 1867 before all returned, only to find their houses ruined, fields and fences destroyed, livestock stolen and large sections of their assigned territory taken away. Houses could be rebuilt, fields replanted, and new livestock raised, but it was not possible to gain self-sufficiency through farming, hunting, and trade without the security of a permanent location with adequate acreage.

Even as the main body of Caddos were returning to their Washita River valley home sites, U. S. agents were negotiating a peace treaty that gave the southern half of the Leased District to warring Comanches and Kiowas. The treaty ignored the Arbuckle Agreement that assigned all of the land from the Chickasaw line to the 100th meridian and from Red River to the Canadian River to peaceable Caddo, Wichita, and affiliated tribes. The Agreement was ignored again in 1869 when an Executive Order located Cheyennes and Arapahoes on a tract overlapping Caddo territory below the Canadian River.

Caddo leaders defended their land boundaries as best they could. They held Council with Agents, pooled their meager funds, sent representatives with interpreters to plead their case at the nation's capitol. But, the last years of the 19th Century passed without a secure land title. During that time, much was learned about coexistence in a world dominated by Americans endowed with skills yet to be acquired by Caddo people.

Jose Maria, Iesh, the Anadarko whose balanced leadership and wisdom guided Caddos, Hainais, and Anadarkos during turbulent years in Texas, died before the end of the Civil War. Guadelupe, Nah-ah-sah-nah, was the accepted leader following the Civil War. Born in 1825 near Natchitoches, Louisiana, he died in 1877. Caddo George Washington (Sho-ee-tat), the recognized leader of the Whitebead Caddos before, during, and after the Civil War, died in 1883.

In 1865 Indians from all of Indian Territory gathered for a Peace Council held in an area on the Washita River that covered the entire present city of Verden, Oklahoma. Disorder and uncertainty had ruled the Territory since the beginning of the Civil War. The grantees of protection by the Federal Government was withheld. The Confederate Government made elaborate offers of protection that seemed, in the beginning, a better chance for the Indians to maintain their existence. Indian leaders soon learned that Confederate promises were never more than spoken words, real protection did not exist. Errant Plains Indian bands and Texas bandits drove off herds of Indian cattle and horses without hindrance. The white man's war created dissension among some tribes. There was fear that the Plains Indians would go on the war path against settled, agricultural tribes. Indian leaders realized that inter-tribal unity was imperative if they wanted to survive.

The 1865 Peace Council was called to organize an Indian league. A compact was signed by George Washington, Tiner, and two other delegates from the Reserve Caddo Nation. It was also signed by delegates from the Five Civilized Tribes in the eastern Territory, Osages from the north, Delawares, and the Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches, Cheyennes and Arapahoes (called the Plains Indians from the west). Texas officials, who had considered the possibility of an alliance with all the Indians in order to help Texas protect her frontier, sent representatives but they played no part in the council.The compact incorporated a motto--the great principal of Confederate Indian tribes-- "An Indian shall not spill an Indian's blood."

As soon as federal boarding schools for Caddo children were opened in 1870-1871, Guadelupe and Caddo George Washington not only insisted that boys and girls attend, they kept close tabs on their progress. Children were taught math, geography, the reading and writing of English as well as New Testament and Genesis lessons by members of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Caddo elders traditionally schooled a future caddi (cah-de, a principal leader, chief) from early childhood. By the time he assumed his hereditary leadership position, he was prepared with the necessary knowledge and skills. Forward-looking leaders in 1870 viewed English language skills as vital for the preparation of the next generation of leaders. Their nation's most recent history warned against blind acceptance of oral and written words that led to misunderstanding. Every council with Americans required an interpreter; every treaty marked with an X at the end of unreadable names had failed to meet expectations. Some failures were the result of hidden meanings or untranslatable English words that were ineffectively expressed by the interpreter. Words often had different meanings for people of different languages. There were times when even the most trusted, competent, interpreter was unable to transmit the nuance of a word or phrase. Many interpreters were thought trustworthy, but Caddo interests were not their prime concern. Wisdom demanded that future Caddo leaders be as adept in English as well as their native language.

George Washington died in 1883; Guadelupe in 1887. Caddo Jake, Hah-cah'-yo kee na say a ("once lived in white house") was generally recognized as principal chief 1890-1902). Community headmen, also hereditary leaders, played an increasingly prominent roll in protecting and guiding the rebuilding the nation whose culture was nearly a thousand years older than that of the United States of America they were compelled to accommodate.

Major communities grew, much as they always had, from a nucleus of related families. A man who married a woman from another community usually went to live as part of her family group. All lived in substantial log or frame houses on farmsteads of ten or more acres. Women kept the houses clean and tidy and tended garden patches; men labored fencing fields, cultivating, and raising cattle and horses. Lack of industry and effort did not slow their progress toward self-sufficiency. Blizzards, drought, and poor soil; a pestilence of grasshoppers and epidemics of whooping cough, measles, and influenza; Comanche raids, and Texas horse thieves did.

Rations distributed from the Agency staved off the possibility of starvation and provided a vague semblance of former days spent in hunting deer and chasing of buffalo. The Agent made a yearly census listing the names of headmen and the number of men, women, boys, and girls in their "band". Headmen were appointed "beef chiefs." Traveling ten or more miles on horseback, in wagons, or in hacks, families arrived to set up overnight camps. Each "beef chief" was given a ticket showing his name, the name of his band, his number on the census roll, the number of persons in his family, the total number of rations they were entitled to receive at each issue, and the dates of the issues.

These tickets were turned over to the women who were admitted in line at one door of the commissary, exited at another. Their task was about as pleasurable as standing in a long check out line at Super Wal-Mart. An issue clerk stationed with an interpreter near the entrance punched out the date on the ticket and called out something like "one of flour, two of sugar, one soap, and one baking powder." The women passed the sacks they brought across a counter to an assistant clerk who filled them with the measured amount of flour, sugar, salt, beans, rice, baking powder, and soap to which they were entitled.

High spirits roused when the beef was issued. The cattle were in a corral where all could see them. Clerks recorded weights as herders ran them over scales. They then turned them into a narrow chute that opened onto the prairie. The issue clerk, assisted by an interpreter, called out the names of beef chiefs and pointed out the cattle apportioned to them. The gate was thrown open and as cattle cleared the chute, two to ten mounted Indians fell behind each one. The average turnout was one per minute. Boys on ponies let out a yell and shot arrows in the flank and neck. Men raised their revolvers or Winchesters to spurt up dust, then shot a bullet to make the steer stagger on three legs. When the animal fell, women rushed out to begin the butchering. Thin strips were cut and hung to dry over camp fires.

Camping was a favored pastime. Two or three days, even a week of camping was usual while visiting the homes of friends or attending a dance. Someone like the "rich widow" Caddo Jennie would say, "I'm giving a dance" and families from miles around would come to camp, eat, socialize, and dance to the drum of old songs sung since time before memory. The dances were not the dances pictured by people who have only seen movies or gone to intertribal powwows. They were, and still are, family affairs. Songs carrying stories about the beginning of the Caddo people and important historical events validate Caddo existence; frivolous songs cheer dancing couples; morning songs greet the sun at the beginning of a new day.

When the Ghost Dance was introduced to Caddos in 1890, they adapted it to long held religious beliefs. They had their own songs, and they had a pole. From the time of the oldest ancestors, Caddos believed: Ah-ah-ha'-yo, father above, hears our daily prayers; he provides and protects us; there is a world beyond this one where our people gather after leaving mother earth. The pole was carved from the heart of a tall cedar tree. Painted black on one side, green on the other, it was erected with the black side facing north, the green side south. The leader stood on the invisible dividing line at the west side of the pole. Facing east, he began the first song telling that the feather signifying the right to lead the Ghost Dance was given to seven men. Sometimes a person in the dance-in-a-circle would fall in a trance. On waking from a trance the person would tell of a vision and a new song would be made. Sometimes healing miracles occurred.

The Ghost Dance began in January 1889, when a Paiute man named Wavoka (Jack Wilson) had a vision during a total eclipse of the sun. He foretold of a coming natural disaster that would swallow up the Whites and allow Indians to return to their lands and way of life. Wavoka's vision spread quickly among diverse groups across the Plains and beyond. John Moon-head Wilson, from the Caddo tribe, was one of the charismatic leaders who helped spread the Ghost Dance in 1890. By taking part in the five-day dance, Indians believed that they would be reunited with their loved ones in the ghost world. The speed and fervor with which the movement spread sparked panic among white settlers and authorities and figured prominently in the events that led to the massacre at Wounded Knee.

Ghost dancing relieved uncertainty that clouded the hopes of Caddo people. The songs were a form of communication with the great Father Above. White people did not understand and wanted to take it away. Failed attempts to gain permanent title to the land they lived on made them apprehensive that the "Great Father" in Washington would take it away if he chose to do so.

Combining two Indian nations—Wichita and Caddo—under an Agency titled Wichita and Affiliated Tribes in 1859 has since tended to confuse anyone unfamiliar with their separate histories. References to the Wichita Agency and the Wichita Reservation compounded the confusion. It implies the close association of unrelated members. The Caddo, the Wichita, and Delaware were affiliated but Caddos, Anadarkos, and Hainais were never affiliates, they were all of one blood. Likewise, Wacos, Tawakonis and Keechis were never affiliates of the Wichita, they were all of one blood.

In 1889 the federal government began appointing commissions to "negotiate" with Indian tribes holding large territories to break these up into small individual allotments (160 or 80 acres) for each adult member of the tribe and open up everything else to white settlers. In addition to taking more Indian land, the process had the intended effect of destroying tribal governments and forcing the integration of Indians into American society. At the same time Indian children were being separated from their parents and being forced to attend boarding schools where they were taught in English and forbidden to speak their native tongue.

The commission that dealt with Caddo and Wichita lands was called the Cherokee or Jerome Commission, after its chairman, David H. Jerome. The Jerome Commission, Presidential appointees charged with the task of negotiating with the Wichitas on the subject of accepting allotment of their lands in severalty, actually had to deal with two individual Indian Nations—Wichita and Caddo—each unwilling to accept the government's proposal. Allotment in severalty meant giving each member possession of a 160 or 80 acres, breaking up Indian Nations, and opening unalloted land for white settlement.

Chairman Jerome opened the council in May of 1891 with words that echoed those heard by Caddos before signing the treaty that ceded their Louisiana homeland to the U.S. in 1835. Jerome's statement, another commissioner's remarks and the response of Caddo Jake, Caddo principal leader, are in the record of the proceedings.

The government's will could be stalled, but it would prevail. The Caddo Nation would falter, but it would survive. Strength lay in the people's ability to hold on to distinctive Caddo traditions that bound them while throwing away old ways that no longer worked.