The Caddo, now resident in southwestern Oklahoma and regarded as a single tribe, are the descendants of something like twenty-five tribes which at the time they first became known to Europeans formed three or more confederated groups beside some units that held themselves apart. Their territory included what is now northeastern Texas, southwestern Arkansas, and part of Louisiana.

The increased immigration which followed the acquisition of Louisiana pushed them westward, and in 1835 their first treaty was made in which they "agreed to move at their own expense beyond the boundaries of the United States, never to return and settle as a tribe." The hostility of the Texas settlers, further aggravated by the raids of the Comanche, made it necessary for the Caddo to make a forced march of fifteen days in the heat of July 1859 in order to escape a threatened massacre. After losing more than half their stock and possessions, they were safely settled on a reservation set apart for them near Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, where they became a part of what was known as the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes.

Like other Indians of the Southeast, the Caddo were agriculturists, cultivating tobacco, sunflowers, beans, squash, and corn. Corn was their basic food, and its cultivation figured importantly in their economic, social, and ceremonial life. They were known for the excellence of their pottery.

In summarizing the ethnology of these Indians, Swanton finds "the connection of the Caddo with the Southeastern tribes is evident in every respect of their lives-material, social, and ceremonial-such differences as existed being in matters of detail and never in fundamentals." They have been described as being industrious, intelligent, sociable, courageous, brave in war, and friendly to visitors.

At the beginning of the Civil War, a treaty was signed with the Commission of the Confederate States to the Indian nations and tribes. The Caddo with other tribes of the Wichita Agency were counted with the five civilized tribes in the "United Nations of the Indian Territory." While some Caddos served as scouts and rangers in the Confederate army, a large portion of Caddo remained loyal to the Union and moved to Kansas. They returned in 1867 to the old Wichita Agency and their locations near Fort Cobb.

In 1901 every man, woman, and child was allotted 160 acres when the Wichita-Caddo reservation was allotted in severalty and the surplus lands were opened to white settlement.