The Pawnees have also acquired horses and…

1719 CE

The Pawnees have also acquired horses and metal weapons from French traders by 1719, when Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe leads an expedition to Caddoan lands at the mouth of the Arkansas River, and they are attacking Apaches in turn, destroying their villages and carrying off Apache women and children.

La Harpe had left France, along with forty men, and established a trading post in April 1718 on the Red River near what is now Texarkana, Texas.

This was near the center of the Caddo Confederacy.

La Harpe had hoped to establish trade relationships with more distant and unknown native tribes and, thus, on Aug 11, 1718, he had set off with nine men, including three Caddo guides, and twenty-two horses loaded with trade goods to visit a Wichita village to the northwest. (This same year, another French explorer, Claude Charles Du Tisne also journeyed west to visit a different Wichita village in Kansas.)

La Harpe had followed the Red River upstream, probably to the vicinity of present-day Idabel, Oklahoma.

He then turned north to cross the rugged east-west ridges of the Ouachita Mountains which rise more than three hundred meters (nine hundred and eighty feet) above the intervening valleys.

While in the mountains, La Harpe had encountered an Osage war party and narrowly avoided a fight.

He also found evidence that a "Cancey" (Apache) war party was in the area.

On September 3, after twenty-three days of traveling, La Harpe and his party reached a large settlement.

Opinions differ as to its location, but after a dig at the Lasley Vore Site in 1988, University of Tulsa anthropologist George H. Odell will claim that archaeological evidence points to it being located about thirteen miles (twenty-one kilometers) south of Tulsa, Oklahoma near the western bank of the Arkansas River.

The settlement La Harpe visited consisted of several villages overlooking the river.

He estimated the population to be six or seven thousand people of whom the majority were Tawakoni.

Other Wichita sub-tribes, especially the Taovaya, were also present.

The presence of various Wichita tribes suggests that the village was a melting pot and probably a trade center for the entire region. The Wichita had given La Harpe a friendly reception, so friendly that two black slaves in his group wanted to stay with the Indians rather than return with La Harpe.

La Harpe noted that the Wichita had horses, were excellent farmers, and that game in the area was abundant.

The Wichita told him they were cannibals.

While in the Wichita village, a Chickasaw trader visited.

This was disturbing to La Harpe, as the Chickasaw, who live in Mississippi, are allies of the British.

La Harpe left to return to his starting point on Sept 13, 1719 and arrived on October 13.

En route, a native man and woman traveling with him had been killed by Apaches and La Harpe became lost in the mountains and had to eat his horses.

The importance of La Harpe's exploration is that it is one of the two first-known French contacts with the Wichita and Apache Indians and the first known French expedition to set foot in the future state of Oklahoma.

La Harpe's account of the expedition includes much information about the land he traversed and the natives he met.

The Wichita were probably grouped in such a large village as a defense from slave raids by the Osage and Apache.

Within two or three decades, the Wichita will move south to the Red River where they will become allies with the Comanche.