History

George Washington (Sho-we-tat, Little Boy)
A leader of the Whitebead Caddo
Photo taken about 1872

History Before Formation of the Wichita Agency

The Wichita Indians, of Caddoan stock, had separated from the Caddos proper about 1500 B.C., but the two peoples maintained close ties.  In 1846, the various Indian tribes of Texas signed a far-reaching treaty with the United states.  Both tribes were forced further westward, until in 1854 the Wichita were settled together with the Caddos, Wacos and Tawakonis on the Brazos Reserve (now Young County, Texas). This location proved to be doomed, because of hostile Northern Comanches who competed for hunting land and white settlers who competed for farm land.

At that time large numbers of the three Caddo confederacies (Kadohadacho, Natchitoches and Hasanai) joined the Whitebead village near Fort Arbuckle in the Indian Territory.  Here they were successfully raising crops, and began making attempts to adopt to the white ways, shown by the leader Showetat, when he took the name George Washington.

The Tonkowas who were living in Texas with the Caddo and Wichita joined with the Republic of Texas against the Peneteka Comanches, Wichitas and Caddos, thus dooming any trust with those tribes.  A common leader was accepted here who was called Iesh.  Unsettled Northern Comanches were raiding both the Brazos Reserve and white settlements, resulting in white settlers becoming opposed to the Reserve Indians as well, and to oppose their existence.   By 1859 many of the Wichita abandoned their village in the Reserve and joined the Whitebead in Indian Territory.

Later that year a treaty was made to move the entire population to the Leased District of Indian Territory.  On July 31, 1859, the remaining tribes gathered together to begin their journey , leaving forever their traditional homes south of the Red River.  In the party were 1,049 Indians - 462 Caddos, 344 Wichitas and 243 Tonkawas.  There were also at least 1,000 horses and 500 head of cattle, and all were accompanied by U.S. troops, provided for protection from hostiles.  They traveled over 150 miles in 17 days, with 6 deaths on the trail, one birth, and transportation of the tribes' livestock and property without damage.

An agency, called the Wichita Agency, was constructed in the new settlement.  Military protection was again provided, because of fears from hostile Comanches and Kiowas.  New villages were set up, all between three and 10 miles from the agency.  The Wichita set up two villages near Fort Cobb.  One was Isadowa's Taovayas, and Kichais joined Acaquash's Wacos and Ocherash's Tawakonis.  The Caddos all moved near the mouth of Sugar Creek, and the chiefs of the three bands - Iesh of the Nadacos, Tinah of the Kadohadachos, and George Washington of the Whitebeads - had log cabins built for them.  Also living in this area were the Shawnees and Delawares.

The outbreak of the Civil War in 1862 forced the Caddos (all except Washington's Whitebeads) and Wichitas to flee to Union-controlled Kansas, where they spent 5 years depending on rations from Union forces, because they were unable to raise crops or hunt buffalo.  Hunger, exposure and disease caused both tribes to experience great population losses.  By 1866, the 200 Washington's Whitebeads had also joined the Kansas party, along with 300 Penateka Comanches.  The 5 miserable years the Caddos and Wichitas spent together in Kansas worked to tighten the bonds between them, ensuring that their fates would be intertwined for many years to come.

The return to the Wichita Agency occurred in 1867, and the tribes' reservation experience was begun, to last another 34 years.
 

• Caddo County USGenWeb Site - hosted by Mel Owings.  This site contains many items that relate to Wichita and Caddo genealogy.
• Oklahoma Resource Page
• OKGenweb Counties, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory Sites
• Indian Territory Archives

Books and Publications

• "The Caddos, the Wichitas, and the United States, 1846-1901" by F. Todd Smith, Texas A&M University Press
• Letters received by the Office of Indian Affairs from the Wichita Agency.  National Archives Microfilm Publication M234, Rolls 928-930 (1857-1878)
• "Establishment of the Wichita Reservation." Chronicles of Oklahoma II (December, 1933); 1044-1055.
• "Dissolution of the Wichita Reservation." Chronicles of Oklahoma 22 (Summer, 1944); 192-209, 22 (Autumn, 1944); 300-314
• "Caddo Indians - Where We Come From" by Cecile Elkins Carter

Lookups

All County Courthouse address are available in the Vital Records link at the top of the OK Resources. If you have resources, books, records, or any documentation, and would volunteer to do lookups for researchers, please contact one of the hosts to be listed here.

USGenWeb History

In March and April, 1996, a group of genealogists organized the Kentucky Comprehensive Genealogy Database Project - The KYGenWeb Project. It began as a discussion on the Internet mailing list, KYROOTS-L. (Hosted at the University of Kentucky, and is coordinated by Roseann Hogan of Frankfort, Ky. the author of "Kentucky Ancestry".)

The idea was to provide a single entry point for all counties in Kentucky, where genealogical data about each county could be easily found. In addition, the data on all county sites would be indexed and cross-linked, so that a single search in the master index could locate all references to a given surname across all pages and databases associated with the project. The discussion quickly turned into a reality, and the project snowballed so quickly that by mid-July all the Kentucky counties had pages.

Contribute to the Archives

Volunteers are recruited to either donate their existing transcribed documents, or to actually commit to transcribing data, such as census records, marriage bonds, wills, etc.  This project will also help preserve the information stored in musty old courthouse basements and attics on fading, crumbling paper.  NO GEDCOMS, but things like wills, cemetery records, census records, basically anything of interest to the general public. Public domain records that are in courthouses or not anywhere sometimes, like the occupants of that old cemetery down the road. Military rolls, you name it. Anything but personal family history.

Caddo Nation Archives
Wichita Tribe Archives

If you would like to adopt an OKGenWeb site, please visit here.