Native Peoples of the Great Plains

Early Occupations of the Great Plains

According to archeologists, people began occupying the Plains by at least the Clovis Period, 14,000 years ago. Artifacts associated with these widely dispersed sites suggest that these hunting and gathering populations stalked various types of mega fauna and gathered locally available plants. Sophisticated bifacial tools made of fine-grained lithic material were used to dispatch mega fauna.

As climatic conditions became dryer, temperatures increased, grasslands expanded, and once flourishing streams transformed into marshy areas and small lakes. These environmental changes aided the range expansion and herd size of bison. Predictably, indigenous populations began to focus on ungulates. Innovative hunting techniques led to the ability to mass harvest bison. Corrals and cliff jumps began to appear in the archeological record. In addition, a number of archeological sites evidenced the successful storage of perishable meats over a long period.

Around 2,000 years ago, pottery and evidence for small-scale farming began to appear along rivers in the eastern Plains. Some of the domesticates grown included corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. As time went on, many more varieties of corn and beans were developed. It is estimated that the Arikiras, residing along the Upper Missouri River, grew 18 varieties of corn and 10 types of beans. The Arikiras are a Caddoan-speaking population that represent the northernmost migration of Caddoan-speaking communities that had originated in eastern Texas.

Migrations of Indigenous Peoples into the Great Plains

As Caddoan-speaking populations, such as the Arikiras and the Pawnees, migrated into more northern portions of the Great Plains, small communities of Apaches also began to make their first entrance into the region. Around the 1700s, however, numerous Native communities began to migrate into the region. Two events accelerated these later migrations: the impact of colonial expansion further east and the ability to mass harvest bison through the use of firearms and horses. This was the period in which the Lakotas,Omahas, Poncas, Osages, Comanches, [Page 1681]Kiowas, Cheyennes,Arapahos, Otos, Missourias, and Quapaws entered the region.

Expansion of Colonial Nations into the Great Plains

Colonial nations accelerated their expansion into the Great Plains after the 1700s as well. In the Southern Plains, Spanish, French,British, and, later, American entrepreneurs, administrators, and in some cases, missionaries moved into the area. The immigration of these peoples as well as substantial numbers of nomadic populations disrupted earlier trade networks, subsistence schedules, and ultimately the availability of key resources, such as bison.

Transport routes developed along major rivers in order to ease the passage of settlers moving farther west, the ability traders expanding their sphere of influence west, and the provisioning of these new markets. Traffic along the Arkansas, Platte, Missouri, and Red Rivers contributed to the spread of devastating diseases. By the late 1700s, smallpox, measles, typhoid, cholera, diphtheria, and flu were causing demographic havoc among indigenous communities. In general, the elderly and the very young succumbed to these diseases in greater numbers than the rest of the population.

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