by Wesley Harris
The Caddo Indians of Louisiana
by Clarence H. Webb and Hiram F. Gregory, LA Dept. of Culture, Recreation & Tourism
Originally published in 1978.
For a short booklet, The Caddo Indians of Louisiana covers a remarkable amount of history. Clarence H. Webb and Hiram F. Gregory trace the Caddo people of northwestern Louisiana from their prehistoric roots through encounters with Spanish, French and American explorers, traders and missionaries.
The booklet was prepared as Anthropological Study No. 2 by the Louisiana Archaeological Survey and Antiquities Commission, part of the state Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism. Its purpose was public education, and that remains one of its strengths. Webb and Gregory summarize decades of archaeological and historical research in language meant for ordinary readers rather than specialists.
Both authors brought deep experience to the project. Webb was a Shreveport physician and pioneer in Caddo archaeology, while Gregory taught anthropology at Northwestern State University. Together, they had spent more than six decades studying the Indigenous cultures of northwestern Louisiana.
The authors begin before European contact, using pottery, settlement patterns, and other archaeological evidence to trace recognizable Caddo traditions back to about A.D. 800 or 900. Pottery is especially important because changing vessel forms and decorations help archaeologists follow cultural continuity across many centuries.
The book places Louisiana’s Caddo communities within a larger world extending into eastern Texas, southwestern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. The Red River and its tributaries formed the heart of this region. Fertile river valleys supported farming communities that raised crops, maintained trade networks, and developed complex ceremonial and political traditions.
Later chapters discuss groups associated with Louisiana, including the Natchitoches, Adaes, Doustioni, Ouachita, Yatasi and Kadohadacho. The authors combine archaeological discoveries with written records to explain where these communities lived and how European expansion affected them.
The booklet does not romanticize contact. Disease, warfare, trade pressures and colonial settlement caused population losses and forced communities to move or consolidate. Still, the book’s strongest point is continuity: Caddo history did not begin when Europeans arrived.
Because the publication is brief, many subjects receive only an introduction. Readers seeking a fuller account of Caddo religion, removal, modern history or oral tradition will need other sources. The book also reflects the language and scholarship of the 1970s. Some terminology is dated, and current studies place greater emphasis on collaboration with Native nations and the perspectives of living Caddo people.
That distinction matters. The Caddo are not simply an archaeological culture from Louisiana’s distant past. The Caddo Nation remains a living sovereign nation whose citizens continue to preserve their history, traditions and ties to ancestral lands.
Even with those limitations, The Caddo Indians of Louisiana remains a useful and readable introduction. It also preserves the work of scholars who documented sites before many were damaged by development, farming, river changes and looting.
Best of all, the book is available free online because it was produced by a Louisiana state agency. The easiest place to read it is the Louisiana Anthology, a website established by longtime Louisiana Tech English professor Bruce Magee.
Magee created the Anthology to make Louisiana literature, historical documents, government publications and other public-domain material available to everyone at no charge. The site is especially valuable for teachers, students, journalists, and casual readers who want access to older or hard-to-find Louisiana works. See louisiana-anthology.org.
Readers who visit for this booklet should also browse the Anthology’s many other free selections in Louisiana history, fiction, poetry, memoir, and culture.
The Caddo Indians of Louisiana is not the final word on its subject, but it is an excellent first step in easy-to-read language. More importantly, it reminds readers the history of North Louisiana and the Red River Valley rests on a much older Caddo foundation.
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