Quapaw - History

History

The Quapaw tribe (known as Ugahxpa in their own language) are believed to have migrated from the Ohio River valley after 1200 CE as a result of wars with invading Iroquois from the north. They moved to their historical territory, the area of the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers, by the mid-17th century. The state of Arkansas was named after the Quapaw, who were called Akansea or Akansa, meaning "land of the downriver people", by other Native Americans. This exonym was adopted by the French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet and others following. During years of colonial rule of New France, many of the French traders and voyageurs had an amicable relationship with the Quapaw, as with many other tribes. Many Quapaw women and French men married and had children together. Pine Bluff, Arkansas was founded by Joseph Bonne, a man of half-Quapaw and half-French ancestry.

French colonists were important in the history of South Arkansas, as it was first part of New France. Écore Fabre (Fabre's Bluff) was started as a trading post by the Frenchman Fabre and was one of the first European settlements in South Central Arkansas. Later it was renamed Camden, after increased American settlement following the Louisiana Purchase. Chemin Couvert (French for "covered way or road") was later mispronounced "Smackover" by Anglo-Americans. They used this name for a local creek. Founded by the French, Le Petit Rocher became Little Rock after it passed into United States control following the Louisiana Purchase.

There were numerous variations in accounts of tribal names. Some sources listed Ouachita as a Choctaw word, whereas others list it as a Quapaw word. Either way, the word spelling reflects transliteration into French.

The following passage is taken from the public domain Catholic Encyclopedia, written early in the 20th century. It describes the Quapaw from the non-native perspective of that time.

"A tribe now nearly extinct, but formerly one of the most important of the lower Mississippi region, occupying several villages about the mouth of the Arkansas, chiefly on the west (Arkansas) side, with one or two at various periods on the east (Mississippi) side of the Mississippi, and claiming the whole of the Arkansas River region up to the border of the territory held by the Osage in the north-western part of the state. They are of Siouan linguistic stock, speaking the same language, spoken also with dialectic variants, by the Osage and Kansa (Kaw) in the south and by the Omaha and Ponca in Nebraska. Their name properly is Ugakhpa, which signifies "down-stream people", as distinguished from Umahan or Omaha, "up-stream people". To the Illinois and other Algonquian tribes, they were known as 'Akansea', whence their French name of Akensas and Akansas. According to concurrent tradition of the cognate tribes, the Quapaw and their kinsmen originally lived far east, possibly beyond the Alleghenies, and, pushing gradually westward, descended the Ohio River -- hence called by the Illinois the "river of the Akansea" – to its junction with the Mississippi, whence the Quapaw, then including the Osage and Kansa, descended to the mouth of the Arkansas, while the Omaha, with the Ponca, went up the Missouri."