The Wichita Indians: Traders of Texas and the Southern Plains, 1540-1845 (review)

The Wichita Indians: Traders of Texas and the Southern Plains, 1540-1845. By F. TODD SMITH. Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University, no. 87. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. xiii, 206 pp. Cloth, $32.95.

This is a basic, straightforward, and well-documented narrative history of the Wichitas' relations with other Indians and especially non-Indians. It spans the years from the arrival of Spaniards to the U.S.-Mexico War.

The term "Wichitas" refers to related but autonomous Caddoan-speaking groups who lived in villages in the southern Great Plains. These groups moved, combined, and/or split as their relations with other groups changed. The Wichitas' relations with the Osages, Comanches, Lipan Apaches, Cherokees, Spaniards, French, Mexicans, and Texans, among others, created an ever-dynamic situation in which trading, raiding, warfare, gifts, loyalty, and revenge were abundant. In contrast, well-deserved trust between groups was rare. Thus, while the Wichitas certainly sought trade, the title of this volume highlights only one aspect of their relations with other groups, as this book clearly shows.

In addition to being an eminently readable narrative, this work is well documented. Smith cites archival sources in French, Spanish, English, and recent archaeological research. He reports specific encounters involving diplomacy, trade, raiding, and warfare in wonderful detail. When the author generalizes or extrapolates from the documentary or archaeological evidence, he gives clear accounts of his reasoning, especially when making the ever-perilous population estimates.

Smith concentrates on Wichitas' relations with non-Indians and how these affected their relations with other groups, whether Indian or non-Indian. This book also stresses how changes in these relations led Wichita groups to move about, sometimes over fairly large distances. Here is one prosaic example he provides: "Because of Osage pressure and their desire for French trade," one subgroup of Taovaya Wichitas moved from the Verdigris River to join two subgroups of Guichita and Iscani Wichitas along Deer Creek, and the French called them all Panis Piques (p. 25).

The division of chapters reflects both the book's strictly chronological organization and its concentration on relations with non-Indians. Fittingly, the title of each chapter refers to a country and a time period, for example, "The Wichitas and Mexican Texas, 1821-1835." Smith might stress more fully how peripheral the Wichitas were from the perspective of Spanish, French, Mexican, and U.S. leaders (not Texan) during most of this period. Still, local representatives of these colonial powers had a surprising amount of interest in and interaction with the Wichitas, and the narration leads the reader, perhaps errantly, to suspect that the Wichitas perceived their influence to be nearly central.

While Smith carefully distinguishes among Wichita groups and even subgroups, he unfortunately does not delve much into how the Wichitas' internal relations and practices changed with these changing fortunes. For example, how did their religious practices evolve? Indeed, we get more information about the attitudes, changing organization, and global context of non-Indians than of the Wichitas. This is likely due in large part to the nature of the documentary evidence, but archaeological evidence, ethnographic analogy, oral histories, and informed conjecture can help to address such issues. Readers should not expect an overtly analytical or critical framework.

In short, this is a fine, if modest, introductory work. As Smith notes, it leaves plenty of topics for other researchers to flesh out or react to. It should appeal particularly to historians—academic or not—who have interest in the further reaches of northern New Spain, Louisiana, or early Mexico; in independent Texas; or in the Indian groups of the southern Plains.