Arkansas is also named after the Quapaw. In the mid 1600's the French explores, Marquette and Joliet, when traveling down the Mississippi used the Illini Indians as their guides. The guides referred to the Quapaw tribe as "Akansea" - People of the South Wind. This was the name the Illini Indians had given them in their own language, and that was how the French had written it down on their maps.

     Several hundred years ago, the Quapaw were a division of a larger group known as the Dhegiha Sioux. They split into the tribes known today as the Quapaw, Osage, Ponca, Kansa, and Omaha when they left the Ohio Valley. The Quapaw moved down the Mississippi River into Arkansas, displacing the Tunica and the Illinois. This is the origin of the word "Ugaxpa," as the Quapaw were known to other tribes, which means (roughly) "the downstream people." The downstream people settled in the area where the Arkansas River met the Mississippi, where the meandering of the two massive rivers had deposited nutrient-rich soil conducive to farming. They settled into four villages at the mouth of the Arkansas River. This is where the Quapaw stayed until they were pushed out by Euro-Americans several hundred years later.

    Like many other Native Tribes, the Quapaw experienced a severe population reduction due to European diseases. The Native Tribes were susceptible to many types of diseases because they had never been exposed to them (therefore had never built a resistance to them). Also, they were all genetically very similar and had similar immune systems. So, when the diseases hit, the Natives were highly affected by them. Some estimates say that there was a 95% drop in population all over the continent. In other words, for every 100 Native Americans, only 5 survived. In the late 1600s, the Quapaw were estimated to have a population greater than 5000. Over a period of 80 years, their population had dropped to 700 due to a smallpox epidemic in 1699. Sadly, because of this massive population drop, much of early Quapaw history and lore, which was passed on orally, died with its storytellers. Even today the Quapaw tribe doesn't have as many members as it did in the early 1600s. By 1720, the Quapaw had abandoned one of their villages because there simply were not enough people to maintain all four of their original villages.

    The French were the first Europeans to contact the Quapaw. They had colonies in the northeastern part of North America and were interested in finding a trade route to the Pacific Ocean. Two Frenchmen, Jaquis Marquette and Louis Joliet, followed the Mississippi River in 1673, hoping that it might lead to the Pacific Ocean. They stopped at a Quapaw village, where they learned that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. They returned home after spending some time with the hospitable Quapaw.

     In 1682, Robert De La Salle and Henri De Tonti were the next Frenchmen to contact the Quapaw. When they arrived at a Quapaw town, they spoke Illinois (an Algonkian language, the same language family spoken by tribes near French colonies in the northeast) to an Illinois captive and asked who the people in the town were. The captive responded in Algonkian that these people were the "Akansa." This was the origin of the name of the state of Arkansas.

    La Salle, interested in having an ally in an area he felt might become important in the struggle for dominance of the continent, established relations with the Quapaw. The Quapaw were happy to become allies with a powerful colonizing nation who could supply them with weapons. The Quapaw were faithful to their French allies in the tumultuous century that followed, when the major Europeans powers were vying for control of the continent. The European powers often used their Native allies to attack both their enemies and tribes allied with them. This struggle ended with an English victory over the French in the Seven Years' War (also known as the French-Indian War), when France ceded all land East of the Mississippi to the Spanish (1762). For all intents and purposes, the French, whom the Quapaw had faithfully aided, were no longer a presence in the Americas.

    The time of Spanish Rule was marked by Spanish and English competition for the allegiance of the Quapaw. While withdrawing, the French warned the Quapaw not to attack the English. The British recognized, as had the French, that the Quapaw would be valuable allies. They tried to win the Quapaw over with gifts and high quality trade goods. As for the Quapaw, they were at first hesitant to deal with the British. For many years their allies, the French, had told them bad things about the English. Also, their bitter enemies, the Chickasaw, were allied with the British. Despite these differences, the Quapaw favored the English over the Spanish because the English had cheap high-quality trade goods.

    No longer encouraged by the French to make war on tribes allied with the British, the Quapaw ended their long rivalry with the Chickasaw in 1784. This treaty started a welcome period of peace between the Quapaw and their neighbors.

   In 1801, the area the Quapaw lived in returned to French ownership, due to Napoleon, who had conquered most of Europe at the time. Napoleon wanted to build a North American Empire but, two years later, in 1803, recognized the futility of his dream and sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States of America. The Louisiana Purchase occurred when Thomas Jefferson was President.




















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