Quapaw

The Quapaw, who call themselves Ogáxpa, the "Downstream" people, are a Siouan-speaking nation whose historic heartland lay where the Arkansas River meets the Mississippi. Their Illinois neighbours called them Akansa, and French travellers turned that word into the name of the Arkansas River and, later, the state. Removed from Arkansas in 1834, they are today the federally recognised Quapaw Nation, with about 6,000 citizens and its capital at Quapaw in north-eastern Oklahoma.

The Quapaw belong to the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan peoples, together with the Omaha, Ponca, Osage and Kaw, all of whom are thought to have moved west and south from the Ohio valley after about 1200 CE. Quapaw oral history says they parted from their kin near the meeting of the Missouri and Mississippi because game was scarce, and that the group heading downriver took the name Ogáxpa while the Omaha went upstream. When they arrived in Arkansas is much debated, a puzzle scholars call the "Quapaw Paradox". Language studies suggest a separation anywhere between 950 and 1513 CE, and some archaeologists link the fortified town of Pacaha, visited by Hernando de Soto's expedition in 1541, to their ancestors, though others disagree.

Marquette and Jolliet reached Quapaw villages by canoe in 1673 and were warmly received. La Salle came in 1682, made peace and claimed the region for France. Europeans usually described four villages, which match four Quapaw divisions still recognised today. At Quapaw request, Henri de Tonti founded Arkansas Post close to where the Arkansas joins the Mississippi in 1686, giving them access to French firearms against enemies armed by the English. Around 1697 a smallpox outbreak killed most women and children in two of the villages. The Quapaw fought beside the French against the Natchez from 1729 and in the Chickasaw Wars. After the Seven Years' War Spain took over the territory, and relations grew more strained before a treaty restored good terms. Many French traders married into Quapaw families.

After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the United States in 1818 acknowledged Quapaw ownership of some 32 million acres, then required them to cede almost all of it, leaving about 1.5 million acres between the Arkansas and Saline rivers. In 1824 they gave up that land too. Officials blocked their plan to join the Caddo in Louisiana, and after floods brought starvation many drifted back to their old homes. In 1834 the federal government removed them to the north-east corner of Indian Territory. The early twentieth-century Catholic Encyclopedia put their numbers at about 3,200 in 1687, 476 in 1843 and 307 in 1910, reflecting epidemics, war and removal.

The Quapaw Nation is governed under resolutions approved in 1956, which replaced the older system of chiefs; citizens elect a tribal council and a chair for two-year terms, and a general council of all adult citizens meeting each Fourth of July weekend. It runs its own court, police and fire services. Two casinos in Quapaw and the Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, opened in 2020, fund health, education and welfare. In 2023 the nation took charge of cleaning up the Tar Creek Superfund site, the first tribe to lead such work in the United States.

The annual July powwow, first held soon after the American Civil War, marked its 150th year in 2022 and features dances, hand games and traditional foot races. The Quapaw language is dormant, but the nation teaches classes at its museum, has built an online audio lexicon from old recordings and set up a language department in 2024.

Our 1492, 1530, 1600, 1650, 1700 and 1715 maps draw an approximate Quapaw homeland around the lower Arkansas River, labelled Quapaw or O-ga-xpa Ma-zhoⁿ; the map years do not mark when the Quapaw arrived. The Wichita and the Natchez are among their neighbours on the same maps.