Caddo Nation Archives
Wichita Tribe Archives
Wichita & Caddo Nation, Oklahoma Territory
Welcome. My name is Cindy Harvey.
I host the Wichita and Caddo Nation page of the OK/ITGenWeb, a part of
the USGenWeb Project. Most of the research has been provided by Nancy Charlton, whose research is also on the Caddo County
site. I hope you find the site informative and useful in your
genealogical research. I appreciate anything of interest that I could
add to the site. If you have any comments, or know of resources
that are available, please e-mail me. If you are interested in hosting
a Nation contact project coordinator Ann Maloney.
History
George Washington (Sho-we-tat, Little Boy)
A leader of the Whitebead Caddo
Photo taken about 1872
History Before Formation of the Wichita Agency
The Wichita Indians,
of Caddoan stock, had separated from the Caddos proper about 1500 B.C.,
but the two peoples maintained close ties. In 1846, the various
Indian tribes of Texas signed a far-reaching treaty with the United
states. Both tribes were forced further westward, until in 1854
the Wichita were settled together with the Caddos, Wacos and Tawakonis
on the Brazos Reserve (now Young County, Texas). This location proved
to be doomed, because of hostile Northern Comanches who competed for
hunting land and white settlers who competed for farm land.
At that time large
numbers of the three Caddo confederacies (Kadohadacho, Natchitoches and
Hasanai) joined the Whitebead village near Fort Arbuckle in the Indian
Territory. Here they were successfully raising crops, and began
making attempts to adopt to the white ways, shown by the leader
Showetat, when he took the name George Washington.
The Tonkowas who were
living in Texas with the Caddo and Wichita joined with the Republic of
Texas against the Peneteka Comanches, Wichitas and Caddos, thus dooming
any trust withthose tribes. A common leader was accepted here
who was called Iesh. Unsettled Northern Comanches were raiding
both the Brazos Reserve and white settlements, resulting in white
settlers becoming opposed to the Reserve Indians as well, and to oppose
their existence. By 1859 many of the Wichita abandoned
their village in the Reserve and joined the Whitebead in Indian
Territory.
Later that year a
treaty was made to move the entire population to the Leased District of
Indian Territory. On July 31, 1859, the remaining tribes gathered
together to begin their journey , leaving forever their traditional
homes south of the Red River. In the party were 1,049 Indians -
462 Caddos, 344 Wichitas and 243 Tonkawas. There were also at
least 1,000 horses and 500 head of cattle, and all were accompanied by
U.S. troops, provided for protection from hostiles. They traveled
over 150 miles in 17 days, with 6 deaths on the trail, one birth, and
transportation of the tribes' livestock and property without damage.
An agency, called the
Wichita Agency, was constructed in the new settlement. Military
protection was again provided, because of fears from hostile Comanches
and Kiowas. New villages were set up, all between three and 10
miles from the agency. The Wichita set up two villages near Fort
Cobb. One was Isadowa's Taovayas, and Kichais joined Acaquash's
Wacos and Ocherash's Tawakonis. The Caddos all moved near the
mouth of Sugar Creek, and the chiefs of the three bands - Iesh of the
Nadacos, Tinah of the Kadohadachos, and George Washington of the
Whitebeads - had log cabins built for them. Also living in this
area were the Shawnees and Delawares.
The outbreak of the
Civil War in 1862 forced the Caddos (all except Washington's
Whitebeads) and Wichitas to flee to Union-controlled Kansas, where they
spent 5 years depending on rations from Union forces, because they were
unable to raise crops or hunt buffalo. Hunger, exposure and
disease caused both tribes to experience great population losses.
By 1866, the 200 Washington's Whitebeads had also joined the Kansas
party, along with 300 Penateka Comanches. The 5 miserable years
the Caddos and Wichitas spent together in Kansas worked to tighten the
bonds between them, ensuring that their fates would be intertwined for
many years to come.
The return to the Wichita Agency occurred in 1867, and the tribes' reservation experience was begun, to last another 34 years.
QUERIES can now be posted to the following sites at Rootsweb.com
Resources
Census Records
Maps
Caddo Links
Wichita Links
Native American Links
Oklahoma Resources
Books and Publications
"The Caddos, the Wichitas, and the United States, 1846-1901" by F. Todd Smith, Texas A&M University Press
- Letters received by
the Office of Indian Affairs from the Wichita Agency. National
Archives Microfilm Publication M234, Rolls 928-930 (1857-1878)
- "Establishment of the Wichita Reservation." Chronicles of Oklahoma II (December, 1933); 1044-1055.
- "Dissolution of the Wichita Reservation." Chronicles of Oklahoma 22 (Summer, 1944); 192-209,22 (Autumn, 1944); 300-314
- "Caddo Indians - Where We Come From" by Cecile Elkins Carter
Lookups
All County Courthouse address are available in the Vital Records link at the top of the OK Resources.
If you have resources, books, records, or any documentation, and would
volunteer to do lookups for researchers, please contact one of the
hosts to be listed here.
USGenWeb History
In March
and April, 1996, a group of genealogists organized the Kentucky
Comprehensive Genealogy Database Project - The KYGenWeb Project. It
began as a discussion on the Internet mailing list, KYROOTS-L. (Hosted
at the University of Kentucky, and is coordinated by Roseann Hogan of
Frankfort, Ky. the author of "Kentucky Ancestry".)
The idea was to
provide a single entry point for all counties in Kentucky, where
genealogical data about each county could be easily found. In addition,
the data on all county sites would be indexed and cross-linked, so that
a single search in the master index could locate all references to a
given surname across all pages and databases associated with the
project. The discussion quickly turned into a reality, and the project
snowballed so quickly that by mid-July all the Kentucky counties had
pages.
In June,
as the Kentucky Project was coming to completion it was decided to
extend the concept to all of the United States and the UsGenWeb Project
was established. Volunteers were found who were willing to coordinate
the collection of county pages for a state page. As of 31 December,
2,239 out of 3,109 or 72% of the counties in the US had a USGenWeb page
up and running! There are now about 2,000 volunteers contributing their
time to this project. Queries are coming in at the rate of about 5,000
per week and approximately two million names have been indexed. The
Archives now contain more than 50,000 pages of primary documents. You
can visit the USGenWeb Archives
and see what's there, and maybe get a better idea of what is desired.
If you would like to contribute your data or create a county page
within a given state, please contact the person responsible for
maintaining your state page. Volunteers were found who were willing to
host the State Projects and coordinate the County pages. The Indian
Territory GenWeb Project
has evolved from these roots. If you would like to contribute your data
or host a Nation page in Oklahoma IT, please contact ITGenWeb
Coordinator Ann Maloney.
Contribute to the Archives
Volunteers are recruited to either
donate their existing transcribed documents, or to actually commit to
transcribing data, such as census records, marriage bonds, wills,
etc. This project will also help preserve the information stored
in musty old courthouse basements and attics on fading, crumbling
paper. NO GEDCOMS, but things like wills, cemetery records,
census records, basically anything of interest to the general public.
Public domain records that are in courthouses or not anywhere
sometimes, like the occupants of that old cemetery down the road.
Military rolls, youname it. Anything but personal family history.
Caddo Nation Archives
Wichita Tribe Archives
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This page last updated 07/14/2003
Send Comments or Suggestions to Cindy Harvey
Native American and Metis 
