Welcome to the Caddo Nation Archives of the State of Oklahoma!

Caddo Nation

The name 'Caddo' is a contraction of Kadohadacho, which means "real chiefs." The Caddo tribe is part of the Caddoan linguistic group. Because of their trading relations, they also became experts in using sign language to converse with other tribes.

The prehistoric mounds of the "Earth House People" in southeastern Oklahoma are said to be of Caddoan origin. Yet archeologists disagree about whether the tribe migrated here from the Southwest or the Mississippi Valley. In 1541, the Spanish found a wide territory of Caddo Indians in the present-day Texas. A famous highlight, they were visited by LaSalle in 1687.

With their settlement in Louisiana, the Caddo came under the influence of the French, an influence which was continued even after Louisiana was ruled by Spain. Following the U.S. government's purchase of Louisiana in 1803, several Caddo tribal bands voluntarily located north of the Red River in Indian Territory. they eventually settled on the Washita River in 1834. With the beginning of the Civil War, though, many tribal members moved north to Kansas, where they remained as refugees until 1867. The following year they returned to their reservation on the Washita River, where the Caddo still live today, in and around the town of Binger.

 Caddo Nation Archivist: Lola Withrow

Oklahoma State Archivist:  Gene Phillips

Linda Simpson-Indian Nations/Indian Territory Archivist 

Help the Caddo Archives grow, kindly submit your data.

If you have any cemetery records, bible records, deeds, applications for citizenship in the Caddo Tribe, land patents, probate records, allotment records, etc, that pertain to the Caddo Tribe, please send them to me as an attachment in an e-mail to Lola Withrow. Please be sure to identify that it is for the  Caddo Tribe. It also needs to be a plain text file, no HTML. This ensures that everybody will be able to read it, no matter what kind of web browser.

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