Nacogdoches, TX, Natchitoches, LA and the Caddo

The oral traditions of the Caddo suggest that they developed their culture in Arkansas and spread out to the south and west from there. Between 500 and 800 AD the Caddo emerged as a distinct and separate nation. The Caddo tribes were divided into three confederacies, which were linked by a common language; the Hasinai, Kadohadacho, and the Natchitoches.

The Haisinai and Kadohadacho lived in what is now East Texas and the Natchitoches in what is now Northwestern Louisiana. The Haisinai lived in the land from the Nacogdoches,Texas which was originally a Caddo settlement area to the Neches River. Nacogdoches is the oldest town in Texas. Paleolithic settlement of Nacogdoches began about 10,000 B. C. with early ceramic evidence starting about 2,000 B.C. The area of the downtown, between the LaNana and the Banita Creeks, became a Caddoan site somewhere around 700 B.C.

The Haisinai were given the name Tejas by Spanish Explorers, based on the Caddo word táysha?, “friend”, and this later became the source of the name “Texas”.

The Kadohadacho settled the land from the Caddo Lake area to the Red River. The Nachitoches settled around Natchitoches, Louisiana, which was originally a Caddo settlement, and in the Cane River Valley.

Legend has it that the Indian towns of Nacogdoches and Natchitoches were founded when a Caddo chief on the Sabine River sent one of his twin sons three days to the west and the other three days to the east.

The settlements they established were Nacogdoches and Natchitoches, Spanish and French spellings of the same Indian tribe.

from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caddo

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