Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

NUMBER 30 133
effective enticements dangled before the Tawakoni
by the French on Red River in persuading
the Indians to move south in the 1730s. The
supply of European items for those remaining on
the Arkansas River increased at times in succeeding
decades, but the arrival of traders was unpredictable.
The Wichita must have enjoyed their
first great wealth of trade items circa 1750-1752
during the French hunting activity when, between
European wars, the French Louisiana ports
were crowded with ships of the trans-Atlantic and
Gulf trade. At the beginning of the French-Indian
war in the Ohio River valley in 1754, this bonanza
ended (M. Wedel, 1981:47-48). So, when
the last of the Wichita left the Arkansas River
basin, the highly-regarded trade items had not
yet supplanted many native-made stone and bone
artifacts or pottery, if the archeological evidence
from Deer Creek and Bryson-Paddock sites is
being correctly interpreted.
Benard de La Harpe, Jean-Baptiste
1718-1720. Journal du voyage de la Louissianne fait par
le S"^ Bernard [sic] de La Harpe et des decouvertes
qu'il a fait dans la party de I'ouest de cette colonie.
Mss. frangais 8989, folios 1-36, Bibliotheque Nationale,
Paris.
Boimare, A.-L., editor
1831. Journal historique de I'e'tablissement des franqais a la
Louisiane, compiled by J-B. Benard de La Harpe.
New Orleans and Paris: Hector Bossange.
Bolton, Herbert E.
1916. Spanish Explorations in the Southwest, 1542-1706.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
1949. Coronado: Knight of Pueblos and Plains. Albuquerque:
Whittlesey House and University of New Mexico
Press.
Castaiieda de Najera, Pedro de
1596. [Copy of] Relacion de la Jornada de
Cibola. . .donde .se trata de aquellos poblados y
ritos y costumbres, la qual fue el aiio de 1540.
Rare Books Room, New York Public Library,
New York.
Delisle, Claude
[1702]. Memoires de M"" le Sueur, 1699-1702. No. 2jj56-
9, Archives de la Marine, Archives Nationales,
Paris.
Literature Cited
Once the Wichita received European trade
goods, their appetite was whetted for more. Promised
a reward of this nature, they were sometimes
persuaded to engage in cooperative activities with
Europeans or in hostile actions against mutual
enemies. The Indians developed their firmest ties
in the 18th century with the French, but these
relationships were not always dependable, a fact
illustrated by the murder of four Frenchmen in
1752 by Arkansas River Wichita (M. Wedel,
1981:47).
Although these Wichita had been affected in
numerous ways between 1541 and 1750 by the
European presence in North America, they continued
to maintain a remarkably high degree of
independence because of the distance of their
homeland from the main areas of contention
between France, England, and Spain. Their role
at this time in the political maneuverings of the
Europeans was not merely as political pawns.
Dorsey, George A.
1904. Mythology of the Wichita. Carnegie Institution Publication,
21.
1906. Pawnee: Mythology (Pt. I). Carnegie Institution Publication,
59.
Fletcher, Alice C.
1904. The Hako: A Pawnee Ceremony. Twenty-second
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology,
1900-1901, 2:5-372.
Hammond, George P., and Agapito Rey
1940. Narratives of the Coronado Expedition 1540-1542. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press.
1953. Don Juan de Ofiate: Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595-
1628. 2 volumes. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press.
Informacion contra Coronado
1544. Seville, A.G.L, Justicia, leg. 1021, pieza 4. Transcript,
Bolton collection, Bancroft Library, University
of California at Berkeley.
Murie, James R.
1981. Ceremonies of the Pawnee, Part I: The Skiri.
Douglas R. Parks, editor. Smithsonian Contributions
to Anthropology, 27:1-182.
Newcomb, W.W., Jr.
1961. The Indians of Texas from Prehistoric to Modern Times.
Austin: University of Texas Press.