Chapter 1 | Section 1
Oklahoma History Is Native History
To understand that Oklahoma history is Native history and what that means, you have to think like a historian and ask questions about the past. Doing so can be rewarding, as it has been for Jeri Redcorn, and can help us better connect the past to the present.
Removal of Native nations to Oklahoma. Different forces made tribes move to Oklahoma at different times. As this map shows, most of the tribes that live in the state today came from somewhere else.
Courtesy of Brad Watkins, PhD.
This place was Indian Country long before it became the state of Oklahoma. Artifacts found at the Cooper Bison Kill Site in present-day Harper County provide clues into prehistoric Indigenous cultures. A spearpoint (also called a Folsom point) shows how prehistoric people hunted. The site also provides evidence of some of the food they ate, including seeds, nuts, and bison meat. Indigenous inhabitants such as the Wichitas, Caddos, and Tonkawas resided here for centuries. Other Indigenous peoples such as the Comanches, Apaches, Kiowas, Osages, and Quapaws converged here. Some were of this place and others including the Five Tribes or Five Nations—the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Muscogees (Creek), and Seminoles—were forcibly removed here. Native nations have a much longer history than the United States, since the history of First Americans dates from time immemorial.
First Oklahomans
Several thousand years ago, various cultural groups lived in what is today Oklahoma. In western Oklahoma, bison-hunting groups lived in seasonal camps and used spear points to hunt. In contrast, the peoples in eastern Oklahoma in the Red and Arkansas River Valleys lived in villages while hunting game such as deer and elk and harvesting wild plants. Those villages that farmed grew corn, beans, and squash together in the Three Sisters Planting Method. Such companion planting led to a population increase. Technological innovations included the bow and arrow, ceramic production, and architectural innovations such as the ceremonial mound centers in eastern Oklahoma.
Using the Three Sisters Planting Method, Indigenous farming communities plant corn, beans, and squash next to one another. The plants provide nutrients, shade, and protection. This sketch shows how the plants intertwine with one another.
Courtesy of the National Park Service.
Spiro Mounds
The Mississippian people were the largest and most complex society to develop in the eastern half of North America between the years 800 and 1650. Living near rivers in the Midwest and Southeast and as far west as present-day eastern Oklahoma, the Mississippians created highly developed farming communities consisting of small villages and larger fortified ceremonial centers that contained large earthen mounds and broad plazas. The largest such center was Cahokia, located in Illinois across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri. Others included Moundville, near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Etowah, northwest of Atlanta in Georgia.
Locations of mounds constructed by Mississippian tribes. Just like the people living in Spiro, other Mississippian tribes built mounds. In addition to those at Spiro in Oklahoma, there are mounds in Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and Illinois.
Courtesy of Brad Watkins, PhD.
For about 350 years, Spiro Mounds, located in the heart of the Caddoan world, about five miles south of today’s Interstate 40 along the Arkansas River in Le Flore County, Oklahoma, served as the center of religious and political activity on the western edge of the Mississippian culture. The twelve ancestral mounds at Spiro contained the largest amount of engraved, embossed, and carved objects of any presently known Mississippian site in North America. The objects included images of people, deities, and animals.
Spiro seems to have been the center of an extensive trade and acquisition network extending along the Arkansas River and other waterways that brought objects to Spiro such as trade beads from California and conch shells from Florida.
In 2016, artist Herb Roe reconstructed this scene of Spiro as it existed centuries ago. In this landscape, a visitor would observe eighty-five acres of earthen monuments that Indigenous communities had built over five centuries.
Courtesy of Herb Roe.
Much of what we know of Spiro and its Mississippian culture today comes from artifacts, many of which were looted from the Spiro Mounds in the 1930s. Hoping to sell objects to private dealers and museums, a group of relic hunters leased the site and began excavating the largest mound. To save what remained of the Spiro site, Oklahoma passed the state’s first antiquities law in 1935. Excavations and research continue today in partnership with the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, the Caddo Nation, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Arkansas.
This Monolithic Axe, or P-i-ta-ni-wan’-ha—“To Have Power”—was created out of stone in 2019 by Wayne Earles, a member of the Caddo Nation. It is a modern-day recreation of similar artifacts found at Spiro dating from 1300 to 1400 AD. The monolithic axe was one of many symbolic and sacred weapons made by Mississippian people, who would likely have used them in ritual performances led by medicine leaders.
Courtesy of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
This Spiro-inspired etched conch shell, created in 2017 by Dan Townsend, an artist of Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee descent, features a drawing of the supernatural character Birdman. Medicine cups like this one carried spiritual significance, and Birdman imagery is found across North and Central America. Birdman is spiritually representative of the day sky and above world in Mississippian culture. Townsend’s cup is a modern-day recreation of similar artifacts found at the Spiro Mounds dating from 1100 to 1250 AD.
Courtesy of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Who are the descendants of the Mississippian people? They are members of the Caddo Nation, the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, and the Osage Nation. They are members of the Cherokee Nation, Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation, Seminole Nation, and the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma.
The mission of the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS), a state agency, is to collect, preserve, and share the history and culture of the state of Oklahoma and its people. Many of the images that appear in this book are from the OHS Research Division. Visit “The Gateway to Oklahoma History,” an online repository, to learn more.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.