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The Caddos, the Wichitas, and the United States, 1846–1901 by F. Todd Smith |
In this new volume, F. Todd Smith picks up the narrative he began in his 1995 book The Caddo Indians: Tribes at the Convergence of Empires, 1542–1854.
Although the Wichita Indians, of Caddoan stock, had separated from the Caddos proper around 1500, the two peoples maintained close ties. Both tribes also developed ties with the Europeans—to obtain firearms, clothing, and tools. This dependence, which had served them well during the years of European exploration and colonization, had by 1846 made them vulnerable to the demands of the young American nation for more and more land for settlement. Both tribes—the Wichitas voluntarily, the Caddos under duress—headed west.
Smith documents the process by which the Caddos and Wichitas increasingly lost control of their own fate and came to be governed by the whim of the federal government. He relates the political history of the two tribes, details life and agricultural work on the reservation, chronicles federal attempts to introduce an education system to the Indians, and traces the effect of hostile tribes and unscrupulous whites on the reservation experiment.
Using primary documents, Smith traces the history of the Wichitas and Caddos through the Civil War, when they were forced to take refuge in Union-controlled Kansas, to the sharing of reservation land with their former enemies, the Kiowas and Comanches.
Throughout the book, Smith analyzes how the successful adaptation of the tribes to white demands undermined their power and future. In the end, Smith shows, the Caddos and Wichitas used the Euroamerican legal system to fight their last battle and ended up losing the very basis of tribal life, shared land.
F. TODD SMITH is an assistant professor of history at Xavier University in New Orleans.
Number Sixty-four: The Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students,Texas A&M University
The Caddos, the Wichitas, and the United States, 1846–1901
ISBN 0-89096-708-3
$29.95
LC 96-26186. 6x9. 198 pp. 10 b&w photos. 6 maps. Bib. Index.
American History. Native American History.
Publication Date: November 1996.
F. Todd Smith's previous book, The Caddo Indians, was a Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 1995.
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