Living in north-eastern Oklahoma today are the remnants of a people
whose place in American history has never been fully recognized. The
Quapaw Indians deserve a better fate. Originally they lived along the
Mississippi River in what is now Arakansas, and during the eighteenth
century both France and Spain looked to the tribe to uphold their imperial
ambitions west of the Mississippi. Reservation life was tramatic for the
Quapaws. In 1893, the Quapaw unilaterally allotted their reservation and
all but abandoned their tribal life in common.