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5. Negotiating Borders: The Southern Caddo and Their Relationships with Colonial Governments in East Texas
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5 / Negotiating Borders The Southern Caddo and Their Relationships with Colonial Governments in East Texas P. Shawn Marceaux and Timothy K. Perttula Introduction Caddo groups inhabited areas covering parts of modern Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma , and Arkansas for at least eight hundred years before the first but intermittent European contacts that took place in circa a.d. 1542 (see Hudson 1997:353–379). A variety of written accounts from the time of sustained contact, more than 140 years later, along with archaeological investigations beginning in the early 20th century , have informed and influenced our understanding of the social, political, and economic organization of the Caddo peoples. It is known from those historic accounts that the southern Caddo were organized into three loosely affiliated groups, probably kin related: “the Hasinai groups lived in the Neches and Angelina River Valleys in eastTexas, the Kadohadacho groups on the Red River in the Great Bend area, and the Natchitoches groups on the Red River in the vicinity of the French post of Natchitoches established in 1714” (Perttula 1992:16) (see Figure 5.1). In this chapter, we first provide a historical sketch of Caddo and colonial relationships , based primarily on trade, but always imbued with underlying political and social machinations of both the Caddo people and the various colonial governments (cf. Barr 2005, 2007; Smith 2005) in east Texas from circa 1775 to the middle of the 19th century, the temporal focus of this volume. Following a review of the archaeological record for this period, which is unfortunately still not very well known, we turn to pertinent historical research on the Caddo peoples (Carter 1995; Lee 1998; Smith 1991, 1995, 2005) and original documents (Bolton 1914; Jackson 2000,2003;Kinnaird1949),suchasadministrativecorrespondences, declarations , directives, and official inspection diaries. These documents illuminate the course and character of the different Caddo groups during this period of expand- Negotiating Borders 81 ing market economies.The scarcity of archaeological sites identified from the area dating to this period makes it difficult to contextualize, but along with our discussion of Indian-colonial economies, we attempt to elucidate how Caddo groups in east Texas maintained cultural identities while adapting to the changing political and economic landscape, especially the land-grabbing proclivities of European Americans after the first decade of the 19th century (Smith 2005:96). A Historical Sketch Less than a decade after the first permanent European settlement within the present boundary of Texas (Chipman 1992), missions San Francisco de los Tejas and El Santísimo Nombre de María (1690) were founded among Caddo groups near the Neches River in east Texas (see Table 5.1 and Figure 5.1). The early missions in east Texas (which lasted until 1693) were established to block both the real and 5.1. The distribution of Hasinai, Kadohadacho, and Natchitoches groups and other related tribes [18.221.187.121] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:22 GMT) 82 P. Shawn Marceaux and Timothy K. Perttula perceived threat of French encroachment and to attempt to Christianize the Caddo peoples. However, the difficulty of supplying these frontier posts, reestablished in 1716 and 1721, the Caddo rejection of and indifference to the bumbling and illconceived Spanish missionizing and diplomatic efforts (Barr 2004, 2005), as well as changing international politics led to the abandonment of the missions in fewer than 80 years (Barr 2007; Carlson 1996). With the end of the French and Indian War (1754–63) and theTreaty of Paris, France ceded the territory of Louisiana to Spain and eastTexas became an interior province—at least as far as the colonial Spanish government was concerned. For the Caddo, these eastTexas lands were their sacred homelands and had always been viewed that way: “the Spanish presence in ‘Texas’ often had little relevance to the region’s predominant native political and economic relations” (Barr 2005:150). Spain, aware that Louisiana was never financially profitable, still sought to deter British expansionism (Chipman 1992). However, Spain’s initial inability to govern in Louisiana led them to leave the administration largely in the hands of French agents. According to Bolton (1914:72), the decision to carry on the French system of annual presents and a network of French and Creole traders was the “line of least resistance,” and after a few years the system extended to include the Caddo tribes of Texas.The Caddo were already known to the French and Spanish as active traders , eager to obtain material goods. As Gregory et al. (2004...