1. THE CADDO DECIDE TO SELL THEIR LAND

At the beginning of the second quarter of the nineteenth century the Caddoes informed Brooks, their agent, that they were willing to sell their lands. Why they decided to dispose of the territory that had been inhabited by their ancestors from their earliest time is of immediate concern. At least three factors had a direct influence on their decision. First, the white settlers were moving down Red River valley from the Arkansas territory settling on the Caddo lands regardless of the federal laws prohibiting such action. In 1823 George Grey was ordered by the war department to remove all settlers from the Caddo lands. In 1825 Grey wrote the war department as follows: "I enclose you a list of the names of persons that were ordered off the Caddow lands, by order of the former Secretary of War, who have since laid in claims for donations on the Caddow lands. I mention this that our Government may be apprized of their improper claims to the Caddow lands." The names of persons claiming donations under the donation act of Congress on the Caddo lands were Leonard Dyson, Samuel Norris, B. Paira, Henry Stockman, Peter Stock man, Philip Frederich, Moses Robertson, James Faris, Caesar Wallace, John Armstrong, Old Lay, James Wallace, James Coats, Charles Myers, and Manuel Treshall. The whites continued to settle in the Caddo prairies, regardless of government and Indian titles, and when removed from the land became hostile towards the agent commanded to perform the act. In a letter from Brooks to the Commissioner of Indian affairs, he said:

I am informed that persons are engaged at Natchitoches taking the depositions of every old resident from this quarter, to prove that the Caddo nation have no right to the country they occupy, two of these settlers who have thus deposed, hold settlement rights themselves that would be good under the laws, provided, the government decide that the nation has no claim.

This matter is already exciting unfriendly feeling among the Caddoes, who are instigated, by some of the parties concerned, to lay the blame entirely on me.

Thus, between the Indians on the one hand, and the evil minded whites on the other, I consider my present situation quite embarrassing.

Not only were settlers from the United States moving into the Caddo region, but individuals from Texas seemed determined to divide the country among themselves in the face of repeated warnings from the officials in charge. Brooks as agent attempted to discharge his duties faithfully, but was looked upon by these frontiersmen as an enemy to the settlement and improvement of the region. When Brooks informed the Caddoes of the various claims set up by white men to portions of their lands, where located, and of the attempts made to settle thereon, they unconditionally objected, and requested that their objections be communicated to the government.

Another factor that influenced the Caddoes to sell their lands, was the government policy of settling in the territory claimed by the small bands of Indians driven from other sections by the west ward expansion of the whites. At first the Caddoes permitted small bands such as the Coshattos, Delawares, Cherokees, and Alabamas, who had migrated from east of the Mississippi to settle in their territory, hoping to use them as allies against their common enemy, the Osages. As early as 1763, and perhaps earlier, some of the Choctaw left their homes in Mississippi and Georgia, and migrated west of the Mississippi where they evidently encroached upon the Caddo, for in 1780 some of them were at war with that nation. About 1809 a Choctaw village was known to exist on Bayou Chicot and by 1820 another existed near Pecan Point, both villages being located in the Caddo Country. In 1805 Sibley said, "The Caddoques (Caddo) complain of the Choctaws encroaching upon their country; call them lazy, thievish, etc. There has been a misunderstanding between them for several years, and small hunting parties kill one another when they meet." The Caddoes did not seem to object to small bands from different nations settling in their country if they were well behaved and served as allies.

On January 19, 1825, the Quapaw tribe made a treaty with the United States giving up all their lands in Arkansas and agreeing to move to the Caddo territory. Article four of the treaty reads as follows, "The Quapaw tribe of Indians will hereafter be concentrated and confined to the district of country inhabited by the Caddo Indians, and form a part of said tribe. The said nation of Indians are to commence removing to the district allotted them before the twentieth day of January, eighteen hundred and twenty six." A short time after this agreement the Quapaw chiefs visited the Caddoes and with the consent of the Caddo chief selected a location on which to settle, about half a mile from the Red River agency on Treache Bayou. To facilitate removal the United States agreed to furnish them corn, meal, meat, and salt for six months. By March, 1826, the Quapaws began moving to Louisiana under the direction of Antoine Barraque. As soon as they reached the Red River country they suffered reverses. The Caddoes refused to amalgamate with them and had given them a poor location near the Red River raft. They were nearly drowned by successive floods, and most of them wandered back to their old haunts in a starving condition. They were temporarily taken care of, but by a final treaty in 1833 the last foot of ground they owned among the Caddoes was given up and they agreed to move to the Indian Territory The Quapaws lived nearest the whites in the Arkansas territory and were removed from their lands because their presence was a bar to the white men's going there. Immediately after their removal, their country was thrown open to settlement and when they returned to Arkansas they were considered as intruders.

George Gray advocated the settling of all the small bands in Louisiana on the Caddo lands for this would place them away from the influences of the white settlers. He talked with the Caddo chief relative to the proposition and found that he voiced no objections to their settling on his lands, as it was the wish of the government. The chief said that he had never sold any land to the government, but had permitted the Quapaws and other Indians that had sold their lands to reside among his people, and he thought the government should give him a small annuity, for which he would be thankful. Grey stated that in his opinion a small annuity to the old chief would have a good effect, as his influence among the small bands of Indians both in Louisiana and in the Spanish provinces was great. On November 16, 1825, McKenny, commissioner of Indian affairs, instructed Grey to defer assembling the small bands of Indians in Louisiana, as he had proposed, in order to secure their assent to a removal upon Caddo lands, but if they accepted the invitation extended to them by the Caddo chief to receive them as a part of the charge of his agency. The secretary also authorized Grey to give the Caddo chief an annuity of fifty dollars, and to tell him that it was as a token of the good will of his greatfather, the president of the United States, as a small return for his kind feelings towards the Quapaw, in giving them a home upon his lands, and for the offer he had made the bands now in Louisiana to come and join them. This idea of consolidating the small tribes was carried out, for in 1829 practically all of the small bands in Louisiana were living in the country claimed by the Caddo between Red River and the Mexican border. The Caddo still exercised considerable influence over the tribes near them. These small bands of Indians, together with thousands of individuals of different and discordant tribes that the federal government had settled on the Red and Arkansas rivers, soon exhausted the game supply within the Caddoes territory, so by 1835 the Caddoes wanted to retire from their old homes, be cause it was almost impossible to procure enough food from the chase to maintain their existence.

A third factor that influenced the Caddoes to dispose of their lands was the insistence on the part of the Spanish, that they move to Texas. Pierre Rublo and Joseph Valentin, farmers and in habitants of Natchitoches parish, reported that in 1821 the Governor of Monterey sent a messenger express to the Caddo tribe, inviting them to move to that country, and offered liberal pay to any whites that would conduct them into Texas. In August, 1821, according to Rublo and Valentin they accompanied a deputation of eighty-three Caddoes to Monterey. During a conference with them the governor learned that they were willing to migrate into Texas, and desired a tract of land on which to settle, and, according to Rublo, made them an assignment on the Guadalupe River, commencing where the upper road from San Antonio to Nacogdoches crosses that stream, and running up the Guadalupe to its source. Valentin said that the reason the Caddoes did not move immediately was because of the Texas Revolution and the illness of one of the old Indians, much respected, whom they did not want to leave behind. He further stated that they had decided to go when Brooks became agent, but their departure was checked because Brooks offered inducements to them to remain. In 1826 Sibley wrote to Austin, saying:

Our government is placing above us on the waters of Red River and Arkansas more than fifty thousand Indians of different and discordant tribes. I do not like the Policy, not for the reason only, that it will hasten their extinction. The Caddos and Quapaws, are going to settle above you on the same River. -They will be peaceable, but unprofitable neighbors.

From the contents of this letter it seems that Sibley was aware of the fact that the Caddoes had been granted land in Texas. In 1835 Colonel Many, an officer stationed at Fort Jesup, reported that he understood from good authority, that the Caddoes had been granted land by the Mexican government, and that a number of them had already gone into that country to settle. He said that he had been informed, and did not doubt the truth of the in formation, that these Indians were more attached to the Spaniards than to the Americans, and that the only thing that had kept them from going into the Spanish country was the few presents they had received, and the work that had been done for them by the gunsmith furnished by the United States. Colonel Brooks in a communication to the Secretary of War stated that he was enclosing a paper which he had obtained from the Caddo chief, purporting to be a grant of land made +o the Caddo nation of Indians by a former governor at San Antonio. l The fact seems to be well established that the Spanish authorities had assigned a tract of land to the Caddo Indians, and that the Caddoes had been desirous of going since 1820, but their departure had been delayed by the presents given, and the promises made them by United States Indian agents.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the Caddoes were urged to remain on American soil, but by 1830 conditions had changed and they were then urged to sell their lands. In 1834 Brooks, in a letter to Judge E. Herring, commissioner of Indian affairs, said:

Since the practicability of removing the obstructions to the navigation of Red River has been established, much excitement has been manifested respecting the river lands throughout the region of the raft, embracing a considerable scope of the Caddo territory, and is already a fruitful source of trouble to me and uneasiness to the nation. This state of things was anticipated by me from the first, and was the occasion of my suggesting to the President, when last at Washington, the necessity of extinguishing the Indian title to all such land prior to the removal of the raft.

As I have reason to believe that some branch of the Government has been addressed in regard to the lands, and as there are frequent attempts of late to encroach upon them, I have felt it my duty to apprise the register of land for this district of the occurrences, and now take leave to re new the suggestion, through you, whether it would not be best to negotiate for these lands at once, before the further progress of the work shall open the eyes of the tribe, as to their importance to the whites, or before their true interest shall be surrendered to the cupidity of the evil advisers who surrounded them.

I beg, further to suggest that, if the Government approve of the above views, I believe the safest and best course of accomplishing the object will be between the Secretary of War and a delegation of the nation, at Washington City. By such a course of procedure, justice may be done between the parties without any of the embarrassments sure to at tend a negotiation here.

In another letter to the commissioner of Indian affairs dated July 1, 1834, Brooks informed the commissioner that in anticipation of the speedy opening of the river navigation, speculators were flocking to, and settlements were being made on, the Caddo lands, regardless of government and Indian titles. Evidently Colonel Brooks had been urging the Caddoes to sell their lands in order to relieve the embarrassing situation that he related in his letters of March 20, and July 1, to the commissioner of Indian affairs, for in January 1835 they sent a memorial to the President of the United Stated indicating that they would sell their lands. In this memorial they informed the President that according to their traditions they were living in the same region they had inhabited since the first Caddo was created; that they had been promised by the French, the Spanish, and later the Americans that no white man would ever be permitted to settle on their lands; that the agent at Natchitoches in their first council with representatives of the United States had told them that they could not sell their lands to anybody except their great father, the President; that Brooks had informed them that they would no longer have an agent, gun smith, or blacksmith and that he was at a loss to know what the government intended to do with them. In reply they said:

This heavy news has put us in great trouble; we have held a great council, and finally come to the sorrowful resolution of offering all our lands to you which lie within the boundary of the United States for sale, at such price as we can agree on in council one with the other. ...

The Caddoes further urged that the President would expedite measures to treat with them in order that they might obtain relief from their deplorable condition.

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