Before the Line Volume Iii Caddo Indians: the Final Years

BEFORE THE LINE VOLUME III CADDO INDIANS: THE FINAL YEARS BEFORE THE LINE VOLUME III CADDO INDIANS: THE FINAL YEARS Jim Tiller Copyright © 2013 by Jim Tiller All rights reserved Bound versions of this book have been deposited at the following locations: Louisiana State University, Shreveport (Shreveport, Louisiana) Sam Houston State University (Huntsville, Texas) Stephen F. Austin State University (Nacogdoches, Texas) Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas) Texas General Land Office (Archives and Records) (Austin, Texas) Texas State Library (Austin, Texas) University of North Texas (Denton, Texas) University of Texas at Austin (Austin, Texas) To view a pdf of selected pages of this and other works by Jim Tiller, see: http://library.shsu.edu > Digital Collection > search for: Jim Tiller Electronic versions of Vol. I, II and III as well as a limited number of bound sets of the Before the Line series are available from: The Director, Newton Gresham Library, Sam Houston State University, PO Box 2281 (1830 Bobby K. Marks Drive), Huntsville, Texas 77341 Phone: 936-294-1613 Design and production by Nancy T. Tiller The text typefaces are Adobe Caslon Pro and Myriad Pro ISBN 978-0-9633100-6-4 iv For the People of the Caddo Nation Also by Jim Tiller Our American Adventure: The History of a Pioneer East Texas Family, 1657-1967(2008) (with Albert Wayne Tiller) Named Best Family History Book by a Non-Professional Genealogist for 2008 by the Texas State Genealogical Society Before the Line Volume I An Annotated Atlas of International Boundaries and Republic of Texas Administrative Units Along the Sabine River-Caddo Lake Borderland, 1803-1841 (2010) Before the Line Volume II Letters From the Red River, 1809-1842 (2012) Jehiel Brooks and the Grappe Reservation: The Archival Record (working manuscript) vi CONTENTS Preface . ix Acknowledgements . xi Part I Early Nineteenth-Century Caddo Settlements in the Sodo Lakes Region .................. 1 List of Illustrations . 2 Chapter 1 Caddo Village Sites in the Historical Record .............................. 5 Introduction . 5 Caddo Village Sites North of the Sodo Lakes Complex . 5 Caddo Village Sites South of the Sodo Lakes Complex ................................. 6 Probable Caddo Village Sites . 9 Possible Caddo Village Sites . 9 Summary Comments . 10 Chapter 2 Dehahuit’s Village ................................................... 25 Introduction . 25 Joseph Valentin’s 1840 Statement on the Location of the Caddo Villages ................... 25 Jehiel Brooks’ 1840 Comment on the Location of Dehahuit’s Village ...................... 26 The 1805 Statement of John Sibley ................................................. 28 The January 6, 1837 Caddo Memorial . 30 Additional Considerations ....................................................... 34 Summary Comments . 46 Chapter 3 The Myth of Timber Hill .............................................. 47 Introduction . 47 Was the Jim’s Bayou Site the Home of Dehahuit? . 47 Was the Jim’s Bayou Site the Last Caddo Village in the Sodo Lakes Region? ................ 48 Was the Jim’s Bayou Site Timber Hill? . 53 Spreading the Timber Hill-Dehahuit Village Myth ................................... 54 Summary Comments . 55 Part II The Land Cession and its Aftermath . 57 List of Illustrations . 58 Chapter 4 The Inevitable Land Cession ........................................... 59 Introduction . 59 Contributing Factors ............................................................ 59 vii The Land Cession ............................................................. 68 Summary Comments . 69 Chapter 5 The Early Post-Land Cession Years ..................................... 71 Introduction . 71 The Men with Sticks ........................................................... 71 Caddo Depredations in Frontier Texas, 1836-1838 . 76 The 1836, 1837 and 1838 (Scott) Caddo Annuities . 80 Leaving Eastern Harrison County ................................................ 83 Summary Comments . 84 Chapter 6 The Shreveport Caddo . 85 Introduction . 85 The 1838 (Sewall)-1839 Caddo Annuities .......................................... 85 The Search for a Permanent Home ................................................ 89 Summary Comments . 94 Part III End Materials .................................................................. 95 List of Illustrations . 96 Appendixes .................................................................... 97 Endnotes ...................................................................... 137 Chapter Text ................................................................. 137 Appendixes .................................................................. 165 Maps/Graphics ............................................................... 170 Bibliography ................................................................... 173 Index ......................................................................... 181 viii PREFACE During the late 1700s, the Kadohadacho (hereafter be discussed at some length in Chapter 2, lay in today’s referred to as the Caddo), a peaceful tribe of agriculturists Harrison County, Texas. Despite evidence of the presence and hunters weakened by near-constant pressure from the of multiple Caddo sites south of the Lakes, twentieth- more war-like Osage and the ravages of various epidemics, century authors have, almost without exception, tended to began migrating from their traditional homeland near ignore or misrepresent evidence of the existence of these the Great Bend of the Red River south into East Texas southern villages, apparently in an effort to make the and adjacent northwestern Louisiana along the undefined case that the primary Caddo village and probable home border between Spain and France. At the time, the area of Dehahuit was the same site noted on William Darby’s was essentially uninhabited due to the isolation created by 1816 map of Louisiana. Spanish (and later Mexican) prohibitions against settling In the early 1990s, an historic-era village site north near the border with France and later the United States, of Caddo Lake on Jim’s Bayou was discovered. In the the Great Raft of the Red River, and the fact the Sabine archeological report prepared by the Texas Historical River was by-in-large un-navigable in its middle and Commission, the historical research was clearly developed upper reaches. to support a north-of-the-Lakes thesis. By entitling the By the time the United States purchased the region from report Finding Sha’chahdínnih (Timber Hill): The Last France in 1803, the Caddo had relocated to a number of Village of the Kadohadacho in the Caddo Homeland, the villages both north and south of modern-day Caddo Lake. Commission assumed the site was the location of Timber Under their caddi or great chief Dehahuit, whose village lay Hill and that it was the last Caddo village in the East near the western end of Cross Lake, the tribe sought to live Texas-northwestern Louisiana region. In fact, neither in peace with Spain and the United States. Although both assumption is correct. As will be developed in Chapter 3, countries attempted to secure the allegiance of the tribe there is no period material that connects the Jim’s Bayou with gifts and trade, the United States, working through settlement, or any other known Caddo Lake village site, its very competent agent John Sibley, was ultimately able to with the name Timber Hill. Nor is there any evidence solidify American influence over Dehahuit and his people. that I am aware of that suggests the Jim’s Bayou village was the last Caddo settlement in the Caddo Lake region. In Part I, I will examine the more prominent early Those wedded to the thesis that the Jim’s Bayou site was nineteenth-century Caddo settlements in the Sodo Timber Hill and the location of the last Caddo settlement Lakes region. We begin in Chapter 1 with a discussion in the area are urged to give consideration to the materials of village sites known to have existed in the years developed within these pages. immediately preceding the July 1835 treaty between the Caddo Nation and the United States. Recent literature In Part II, the final years of the Caddo in their East suggests that Louisiana was the home of the Caddo in Texas-northwest Louisiana homeland will be discussed, the years leading up to the land cession. While the tribe beginning with an examination of conditions that led certainly settled and laid claim to lands west of the Red the tribe to the decision to sell their lands to the United River in the northwestern section of the state, by the time States in the summer of 1835 (Chapter 4). In Chapter of the treaty only one of their major settlements was to 5, I will develop the archival record in an effort to bring be found within the bounds of Louisiana. The balance more fully into focus events that led to the removal of the of their villages, including that of Dehahuit which will tribe from the region in early 1838. Chapter 6 examines ix the record as it relates to the so-called Shreveport Caddo, the region were in serious need of revision. These included a group of approximately 160 men, women and children the location of tribal villages south of the Lakes (and in (representing some one-third of the Nation) who, upon particular the location of the village of Dehahuit), the returning to Louisiana in the fall of 1838 as the Indian myth of Timber Hill and the post-land cession activities of wars in the Republic of Texas were gathering intensity, the tribe. The reader will observe that a revisionist

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