Caddo Nation

A nation today

Hot thermal water collecting in a stone basin at Hot Springs National Park, steam rising from the surface.
daveynin (Flickr), Wikimedia Commons (file 24336138618) · CC BY 2.0

Background

Caddo people are descendants of agriculturalists, and the Nation's own history gives them an intimate understanding of the world, the stars, the sky, the earth and the world below the earth from which they emerged, an understanding handed down by the Creator. The bands making up the large confederacies of the Nation's ancestors built the flat-topped earthen mounds on which structures were raised. When Hernando de Soto's expedition entered the region in 1542, Caddo communities were distributed along the Brazos, Trinity, Neches, Sabine, Red and Ouachita rivers, playing economic and diplomatic roles through the colonial era. A removal treaty signed on July 1, 1835 at what became Shreveport, Louisiana, was made by the Caddo of northwestern Louisiana under principal chief Tsauninot. One group settled among the Choctaw and Chickasaw in south-central Indian Territory near present-day Paul's Valley, Oklahoma, and gave the small town of Whitebead its name. Another, led by Nadako chief Jose Maria, known as Kahdii Haish, was held on the lower Brazos reservation and was moved by Indian Agent Major Robert S. Neighbors in 1859. Government dates to 1938. The Tribal Council has eight members: a Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, Secretary, Treasurer, and representatives for Anadarko, Binger, Fort Cobb and Oklahoma City, elected to four-year terms from four districts with high Caddo populations.

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Visit and learn

Caddo Nation's own site

Tribal lands have their own laws. Check the nation's site before you visit.

Parks on its homelands

Hot thermal water collecting in a stone basin at Hot Springs National Park, steam rising from the surface.Hot Springs National Park

The Caddo Nation names Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma as its ancient homelands, where archaeologists still study its material culture. The same page says the Kadohadacho, Natchitoches and Hasinai confederacies, and every band within them, came together in one place as a consequence of Indian removal. Source

Programs

  • Caddo Nation Language Preservation Program

    Started on August 1, 2022 with the Nation's language revitalizationist, whose stated goal is to halt and reverse the loss of the critically endangered Caddo language. All Caddo members and descendants are invited to record Caddo language, history, stories, culture and songs into the Nation's Caddo language archive, and the preservationist travels to record elders. The program builds new learning resources, develops lessons, and works through community events. The Nation's language page places Caddo in the Caddoan family alongside Pawnee, Wichita, Arikara and Kitsai, notes that the tribes in that family remain culturally, historically and archaeologically separate nations, and records that native speakers know the language as Hasinai.

    https://mycaddonation.com/language-preservation·language

Sources

Checked September 2026.

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