Caddo Nation of Oklahoma
Traditional Territory
The Piney Woods ecoregion of the Southeastern Woodlands, including northeast Texas, western Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, and southeastern Oklahoma. The Caddo Confederacy was divided into three confederacies: Natchitoches (northern Louisiana), Hasinai (East Texas), and Kadohadacho (Texas-Oklahoma-Arkansas border region).
Overview
The Caddo people comprise the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Binger, Oklahoma. The Caddo Confederacy was a network of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands who historically inhabited much of what is now northeast Texas, western Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, and southeastern Oklahoma. Prior to European contact, they were the Caddoan Mississippian culture, who constructed huge earthwork mounds and flourished about 800 to 1400 CE.
Historical Notes
Caddoan Mississippian culture flourished about 800 to 1400 CE. Caddo people were forced to a reservation in Texas in the early 19th century and removed to Indian Territory in 1859, but remain present today as the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma.
Language and Culture
The Caddo Nation of Oklahoma speak a language belonging to the Caddoan language family, with historical presence recorded across Texas, documented from 800 to present. Language family affiliation is one of the primary means by which historians and anthropologists identify historical connections between Indigenous peoples across time and geography.
Federal Recognition
The Caddo Nation of Oklahoma hold federal recognition from the United States government, administered through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Federally recognized tribes have a government-to-government relationship with the United States and are eligible for services and protections under federal Indian law. There are currently 574 federally recognized tribal nations in the United States.
Indigenous peoples had inhabited North America for at least 15,000 years before European contact, developing complex societies across every region of the continent. The Mississippian culture, centered on the city of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis, reached its peak around 1100 AD with a population estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 — larger than contemporary London. The Ancestral Puebloans built multi-story stone complexes at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde between the 9th and 13th centuries. The Iroquois Confederacy, formed between roughly 1450 and 1600, united five nations under a constitution that influenced later American democratic thinking. Across the eastern woodlands, the Great Plains, the Pacific Coast, and the Southwest, hundreds of distinct nations maintained sophisticated trade networks, agricultural systems, and governance structures. European contact beginning in the late 15th century introduced epidemic disease — smallpox, measles, influenza — which devastated Indigenous populations by an estimated 50 to 90 percent within a century.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia.
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