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.