Baton Rouge (LA) Advocate Magazine, June 16, 1996

Reclaiming the Past *** Louisiana Native Americans Seek Federal Recognition

By Sarah Sue Goldsmith, Associate Editor

Editor's note: Four of the five state-recognized tribes are the
Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb and Zwolle, Louisiana Band of Choctaw found in
East Baton Rouge Parish and scattered around the state, Clifton Choctaw of
the Clifton community near Gardner and Caddo-Adai of Robeline. Because of
work schedules and illness, the Clifton Choctaw craftspeople were not
available for interviews or photographs.   The fifth tribe, United Houmas
Nation, will be featured on June 23. Most of the five state-recognized
groups are going through the lengthy process of applying for federal
recognition as sovereign tribes. Seeking state recognition as a tribe is the
Apalachee group near Alexandria.

Choctaw-Apache * Louisiana Band of Choctaw * Clifton Choctaw * Caddo Adai

Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb

Chief Tommy Bolton of the Choctaw Apache Tribe of Ebarb stood in the dry
lake bed of Toledo Bend Lake and made a sweeping motion with one extended
arm.

"When they created the lake, the waters covered a wealth of Indian
artifacts," he said. "Now that the lake has dried up, people are finding all
sorts of things - pottery sherds, arrowheads. The site of an old village is
over there."

He stooped and picked up a pot sherd from ground once covered by water. The
lake is lower now because of lack of rain.

"It's all right to pick one up, as long as you put it back where you found
it. I know it's considered all right to keep anything found on the surface,
but I don't think it's right. It's disturbing what the old people put
there," he said.

The people of his community, who have Spanish and Anglo blood mixed with
their Native American ancestry, arrived in Louisiana toward the middle of
the 18th century, he said.

"In 1760, this community was formed by people run out of Texas by the
Spaniards," Bolton said.

Apaches were captured and used as slaves by Europeans, then after they
escaped or were freed, nobody wanted them around, he said. Eventually they
intermarried with Choctaw people who were removed from their homelands in
Mississippi in 1830, giving the community its combined name.

"Newer families came in 1835. We have 900 members locally and another 900
spread out across the United States, from New York to Minnesota and Nevada.
People left looking for jobs. When we started having powwows, people planned
their vacations to come home. It's not only a family reunion but a chance to
get together with other Indians," he said.

Most people today know very little about their Indian ancestry, he said.
Genealogy and historical research revealed their backgrounds.

"People were chastised for being Indian. One grandfather was listed in the
1795 census as half mestizo (half Spanish, half Native American). By 1805,
he was all Spanish, according to the census."

The Choctaw-Apache were recognized by the state as a tribe in 1978, and
Bolton said he is confident they will be federally recognized in three to
five years. There is such a backlog facing the Bureau of Indian Affairs that
it is not uncommon for the process to take 10 years.

Bolton said he attended a workshop seminar in Oklahoma City about writing a
history of the tribe. It is one of the requirements for federal recognition.
"They told us to write our own history from our own perspective and get it
right. Indian histories are usually written from the white perspective," he
said.

But it isn't easy reconstructing the past when for many years the government
told the people to lose their traditions and act like white people, he said.

"You can't take 200 years of denial (of Native American heritage) and being
put down and expect them to suddenly admit who they are," he said.

Bolton said he'd like to conduct a study to determine what his people's
aptitudes are and then capitalize on those in developing new businesses.

"Phillip Martin of the Mississippi Choctaw said that when he got back from
World War II, more than 60 percent of his people were unemployed. Now they
own several businesses - one that provides audio speakers for Ford cars, a
construction company, a casino and a Hallmark cards business."

He'd also like to provide good nursing homes and educational opportunities,
he said.

"We have a high dropout rate in 8th or 9th grade. Kids see the dead end.
There's no way they can go to college, so they quit school and go to work,"
he said.

"We'd like to be able to provide funds for educational advancement. The
Ebarb school (95 percent Native American students) needs a new cafeteria.
The one they have was built in the '20s. We're trying to raise $85,000 to
build one. The gym is 70 years old. We need to replace it, too," he said.

"People don't realize how many of our elderlies live on $400 a month. Some
couples live on $7,000 a year on welfare. Some live in substandard housing.
One-third of our people lost their homes when the lake came up. We used to
be self-sufficient. We farmed, hunted and fished. But when Toledo Bend Lake
was created, we lost all that land. It's now under water. The people were
paid $25 or $30 per acre for their land. That wasn't enough to buy acreage
anywhere," he said.

Land was lost in other ways, he said.

"They used to buy seeds on credit and pay the bill after harvest. Timber
people would pay the bill and claim the land. In other cases, Indians would
owe property taxes, and a timber company would say, 'Don't worry about it;
we'll take care of it,' then keep the land.

"The parish would raise taxes and not tell the people. Timber companies
would pay the taxes and tell them they could live on the land until they
died. They'd sign a paper. The young ones would come back when the old ones
died and were told the land wasn't theirs.

"If the Indian people of Louisiana got back what was theirs, they'd be
richer than the Arabs," he said.

There is no reservation for the Choctaw-Apache. Many rent their homes, while
others own modest acreage. Nearly everybody is related, Bolton said. They
live far out in the country.

Bolton's Aunt Sally - Sally Sepulvado Procell - still lives in the log cabin
she and her husband built 63 years ago. She is in her 80s.

The small, sturdy house on 20 acres has a small fenced yard, a barn and
several outbuildings. Electricity and water were added years ago. More
recently, Procell's grown children have added an air-conditioning unit and
electric heater for her comfort.

Her four children were reared on the place, wearing meal sacks for diapers,
she said. They raised sweet potatoes, peas, corn and peanuts in the family
garden.

"I wouldn't want to live nowhere else but here. I love the country and my
little shack," she said.

"We had a lot of lakes with clean water before the lake came up. We'd carry
water in jugs - pure, clean, sweet. We used to fish every Sunday."

One of 14 children, she recalled cooking in the fireplace. "I was the cook
for Mama. I was the oldest one. We had cows to milk, hogs and chickens to
feed.

"My mama's daddy taught us how to play bingo. He'd cut up cardboard boxes
and mark them off for bingo, then go out in the barn and get some corn to
use as markers. There were no prizes. That's how we learned our numbers.
He'd say 'Don't stir my Indian blood.' That's the only indication we had
that we had Indian blood. I grew up not really knowing I was Indian. I was
just a human being."

She'd like to know more about her heritage. "Let the people know who they
are," she said.

People in the Ebarb/Zwolle communities are known for their tamales. Locally
owned Zwolle's Tamales markets both hot and mild versions all over the
state.

Louisiana Band of Choctaw

Larry Rainwater would like to put the Louisiana Band of Choctaw back on its
feet after being "dormant" for several years, he said.

The tribe received state recognition in 1972, but members are so spread out
that it's been hard to organize them, he said. He said there are more than
400 members on the tribal roll.

"I sought spiritual guidance to re-establish our tribe," Rainwater said.
"The white buffalo has been born, and the prophecy says the people will
reunite when the white buffalo is born."

Now that he's chairman, the Baker resident has a lot of plans, beginning
with establishing a clan system based on location, not on bloodlines. Each
clan will have its own chief.

One clan has been organized in Farmerville, headed by Janie Thornton, Chief
Yellow Fawn of the deer clan. She is also secretary-treasurer for the
Louisiana Band of Choctaw.

"My main goal is to bring together not only Choctaws but all bands to
preserve our history," she said. "When we all get together we can feel the
same thing as our ancestors felt. We can be proud of who we are and where we
came from."

She said she works for Grand Village in Natchez, making pottery the old way
and firing it in an earth-dug pit, which takes three days. "It's a wonderful
thing to be able to do what my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother
did," she said.

Rainwater plans to have a ceremonial gathering of all Louisiana tribes at
Poverty Point on Saturday, Oct. 26. In ancient times, "Poverty Point was the
hub of the people, like an Egyptian empire," he said. The medicine men will
gather the night before to prepare for the sunrise gathering, he added.

"I do walk the path of practicing Native American religion. I've always been
interested in my heritage. I was very active in the Christian religion, then
had a spiritual awakening. But I was reborn with a Native American vision.
The spirit of a great bird appeared to me. I had been using the gift of
healing in the past. I studied Native American teachings to learn what the
spirit of the hawk meant. I became a warrior for the people in the spirit. I
began to be led into shamatic teachings. I have read books about shamanism
and spiritual teachings," he said.

"Chris Perez (a Houma tribe member) is a very gifted medicine man working
with me. My father preached all his life that the people must work together
or we would become non-existent. I've read that this is a prophecy that will
take place."

Rainwater held several ceremonies to honor the earth and the ancestors,
including one on the LSU Indian Mounds and one at Bayou Sorrell.

His plans include teaching crafts like beadwork, leather working, drum
making and flint knapping to children and adults. He wants to offer lessons
in speaking Choctaw.

Where does he hope the tribe will be 10 years from now?

"I asked Mayor Tom Ed McHugh to find some land for us to establish a
reservation," he said. "I want no casino, no gambling, no liquor sold around
our people. I'd like to build a mock village - a time tunnel - for tourism
with people in traditional dress making crafts," he said.

"There's a lot of state and federal land laying around unused. The school
board has land not in use - like 400 acres on Plank Road. Maybe Dow Chemical
or one of the other big companies would give us land for educational
purposes. Any land we get, we'll want to show how it was long ago."

He visualizes a school on the property to teach children Native American
culture and to prepare them for jobs. He'd also like to set up summer
retreats for children and for troubled children and adults. He believes that
people with alcohol and drug problems will find healing in the ancestral
teachings. "Different races have different ingrained teachings, and when
they turn their backs to their ancestral teachings, a lot of their problems
and how to deal with society are solved," he said.

A lot of the problems faced by Native Americans stem from their denial of
their heritage, he said. "Grandfather told us we couldn't go around telling
people we were Indian. We were persecuted for it if we did," he said. "I
learned that my grandfather was a shaman. He healed with plants and herbs.
If a baby had thrush mouth, full of sores, he would open the baby's mouth,
say a word and breathe into it, and the baby would be healed in a few days.

"Several of my family are gifted, but not all of us accept that they are
gifted," he said.

Tribal member Ralph Murphy lives in Ville Platte now that he's retired, but
when he was an iron worker and ran a gunsmith shop, he and his wife, Gwen,
lived in Baker.

He explained that the Louisiana Band was "made up of different groups of
Choctaws that floated into the Baton Rouge-Baker area. My grandfather's
mother came from around Broken Bow, Okla., and settled in Rapides Parish
There's been a group in that area since historical times. There used to be a
Spanish trading post in that Three Rivers area, and the Tunica-Biloxi also
were there," he said.

"I was tribal chairman at one time. I always tried to be a good leader. I
wrassled with the Legislature to get the Louisiana Band and the Clifton Band
state recognition," he said.

State recognition brought state appropriations for education, he said. The
first year, they got $30,000, "then they kicked it up to $60,000.

Then we had a housing authority bill. Victor Bussie said he was half Choctaw
and had his lobbyist work with us. We connected with HUD so we could build
brick teepees," he joked.

"We don't have the college money anymore. We lost that while Treen was
governor," he said. He is putting his youngest son, Nicholas ("Buck"),
through college at Southeastern, with a major in criminal justice and
computer science. He has five other children.

Murphy, born and reared in Concordia Parish, remembers when Poverty Point
was undeveloped as a tourist attraction.

"We promoted the place. We used to have great dances up there and at
FestForAll. We sold trinkets. We made sure we took off the Taiwan tags," he
said, smiling.

"I was raised in kind of traditional fashion. I was taught to respect
animals. If something wasn't gonna harm you and you weren't gonna eat it,
don't kill it. A teacher wanted me to bring a bow and arrows to class once.
I told her I'd bring a compound bow and aluminum arrows. Choctaw have been
using guns since white men brought them."

He attended school in Acme. Grades 1-4 were in one room, and 5-8 in another.

"They told us Columbus discovered America. Grandpa said, 'Did you ask who
tied up the boat?'"

Clifton Choctaw of Clifton

Floyd Tyler, chairman of the Clifton Choctaw, moved home after he retired
from Hughes Aircraft Company in California. He was a truck driver in the
missile division. As with other tribes, it was difficult to find a good job
where he grew up, so he left the state to seek work.

He said he plans to carry on the efforts of former chief Henry Neal in
seeking federal recognition for the Clifton Choctaw.

The history of the Clifton Choctaw is detailed by anthropologist Hiram F.
Gregory in an article in Louisiana Folklife Vol. VIII, No. 1 (March 1983).
In it, he pointed out that the "piney woods of western Louisiana were a
refuge for people of all kinds. By the late 18th century, Anglo-Americans,
Choctaw and other eastern Indians fleeing English expansion, and mixed-blood
people uncomfortable in the white dominated southern caste system, seeking
solace from poverty and the rigidity of caste, moved here."

The isolated groups of people, including the Clifton Choctaw, learned to
rely on their survival instincts, the article continued, and made quilts,
white oak baskets, carved wooden bowls and finely tanned deerskin.

Theresa Sarpy said quite a few people in the community are excellent crafts
people today, engaging in beadwork, quilting, basket making, wood working
and leather craft. Charles Tyler, an offshore oil worker, makes saddles
during his time off the rig, she said.

"Most of us belong to Caddo tribes," she said, "mixed Choctaw and Caddo. My
three lines are Choctaw, Caddo and Apache. The Lippan Apaches were sold as
slaves by the Caddo to the Spanish and French. Language is one thing we've
totally lost. The old people still speak French. My great-grandmother
refused to speak English and was put in jail in Natchitoches for speaking
French."

The Clifton Choctaw community center is a simple structure with an outdoor
covered pavilion, sitting on 4.7 acres.

"Most people own some acreage of their own," said Tyler. "If we get federal
recognition, we hope to get some of our land back. We are surrounded by
timber companies." State recognition was granted in 1978.

Federal recognition would also enable the Clifton Choctaw to upgrade their
home-health-care service to a mini-hospital to better serve the needs of the
community of 400-500 people, Sarpy said.

"Children go to school in Boyce, 20 miles away. Tutoring is held here. We
should be able to get more tools for education."

When other Louisiana tribes were denied the right to an education, the
Clifton Choctaw had a school for grades one through seven, opening in 1925.

"The school board talked a retired teacher into coming here to teach
reading, writing and math," Sarpy said. "It was listed just as a school, not
as an Indian school. It was listed as a white school in 1930 and later as
Indian."

Alice Tyler said that part-time work for the elderly and unemployed involves
planting tree seeds in flats to be transferred as seedlings to Kisatchie
National Forest.

Some 2,900 trees were planted in flats as part of the reforestation project
at Kisatchie, she said.

"They're begging for trees all over the area," added the chairman.

"We're growing trees for private agencies, too," Sarpy said

Economic development, to them, means building a retirement home, perhaps
getting a factory-outlet mall "where we make the clothes," said Sarpy.

"I could see carrying reproductions of Native American-designed clothes. A
good many of our tribe are seamstresses," she said.

Caddo Adai of Robeline

The first thing the visitor notices on entering Chief Rufus Davis' office is
the feather bustle to his regalia laid out on a table. Slogans on the wall
say such things as "Indians discovered America" and "The Earth does not
belong to us. We belong to the Earth." Paintings, sculptures, a shelf full
of books on Native American history and culture and several plaques proclaim
Davis' Native American heritage.

The office of the Caddo Adai (pronounced A-day-i) chief is a study of
contrasts. Side by side with arrowheads and pottery sherds sits a Fax
machine.

Caddo history has been traced by archaeologists from A.D. 700 to 1835, says
archaeologist George Ward Shannon Jr. in his Caddo Lore, a book that
accompanies a Louisiana State Exhibit Museum hands-on program about
Louisiana's Caddo Indians.In 1540, when the Spanish and the Caddo first met,
there were 25 tribes in the area, all sharing a similar way of life and thus
regarded as one culture. Based on language, they were divided into three
confederations: Caddo (Kadohadacho), Natchitoches and Hasinai. The Caddo
confederation numbered among its subsidiary tribes the Adaes (also Adais),
hence the combined name, Caddo Adai. Closely related were the Natchitoches
and the Ouachita.

The Spanish Mission San Miguel de Linares de Los Adaes was established to
convert the Caddo to Christianity in 1717. The Adais lived in hamlets along
Red River, but little is known of the history or culture, according to The
Caddo Indians of Louisiana by Clarence H. Webb and Hiram F. Gregory
(Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism).

After the mission was moved, a presidio, or fortress, was built at the site
in 1721, and in 1729, Los Adaes became the capital of the province of Texas.

Though the site is now a state commemorative area with a visitors' center
and museum, it is closed to the public while archaeological excavations are
in progress at the site of the old presidio.

In 1835, the Louisiana Caddo sold nearly one million acres of land to the
United States by treaty for $80,000 and moved to Texas, which was still part
of the Republic of Mexico. From there, they moved to Oklahoma, Shannon's
book says.

However, Chief Davis said that some of the tribe remained in Louisiana and
are the ancestors of those living in the community today.

Davis estimates there are 100 people in the Robeline community, 700-800
scattered. "Most of our people live between Shreveport and Natchitoches," he
said.

"We're putting together our history for federal recognition. Most of our
people couldn't read or write. Even non-Indians seldom finished high school
or even went to school," he said.

Assisting Davis in doing genealogical research and participating in
archaeological digs is Jeanette Grant, who lives in Shreveport.

"Los Adaes was the capital of Spanish Texas for 50 years, but it was
occupied by the Adaes Indians before the Spanish came," she said. The dig at
Los Adaes is directed by Claude McCrocklin, chief archaeologist, University
of Texas.

"My parents are from Robeline," Grant said. "They were very proud of where
they came from, but because there were few farming jobs, they moved to
Shreveport when I was 1 year old. I always knew that we were Indian but
didn't know very much about it. Even when I asked my grandfather and
grandmother, they were very evasive about being Indian because it was not
popular to be Indian. Those customs just faded away. I tried to learn more
about it, where the tribe originated. It wasn't until Rufus came along with
the research five or six years ago that I became involved," she said.

"I love the archaeological digs and doing family history research at
Northwestern University. I never knew I had so many cousins. All of us are
related. People I've known for 25 years are related. One man I had known for
years, and when I saw him at a funeral and asked if he was from the area, it
turned out our great-grandfathers were brothers," she said.

"I'm trying to delve into that and bring that back. For the past five years
we've been doing some community educational things. Rufus goes to schools to
talk about the tribe," she said.

"They tried to destroy the Indian in every way in the world," Davis said.
"Serving in World War II started them getting more education. In the Second
World War, they were based all over the country and became career military.

"More than a tribal group, we're kin. They'd come home. If something
happened right now, the whole tribe would know about it in a matter of
minutes. We've lost most of our language. Some of it is written down. The
Caddos in Oklahoma have recorded their language. Our tribe is independent
from the others. We've kept our ethnic identity, beliefs and ways," he said.

"I went to Texas in 1958 to work in construction. I started coming back when
my mother moved to Shreveport to be near her sister."

He gradually discovered that he and his wife, Ann, were spending more and
more time there and decided they could run the construction business from
there just as easily as from Houston.

Now that the contractor has returned home, he lives in his mother's house
while building a new home for his family across the street.

He has bought his grandfather's house where he was born and plans to move it
to his property, a contrast of old and new, modest and impressive.

"I love it here. I don't want to leave. Being in the country is quieter. I'm
doing a lot of work with the tribe and doing things in the parish."

Davis is a commissioner on the Cane River National Heritage Area Commission,
appointed by Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt. "Los Adaes State Park
comes under that. We want to keep the history alive," he said.

"Caddo Mounds, around Alto, Texas, was an active village when the Spaniards
came. San Francisco de Los Texas was the first Spanish mission. Texas meant
friend, and the Spaniards thought that was their name. That's where they got
Texas from," he said.

"When you study one tribe, you learn the history of many, many tribes and
you learn they are interconnected. A lot of tribes have the same religious
beliefs," he said.

He said he grew up in a dual world, "our beliefs and Catholic beliefs.
Priests discouraged the music and dancing, but dancing is part of what you
need, so I started back dancing about 15 years ago. It's like a duck out of
water not to dance. It makes you feel good to participate. I go to a lot of
powwows because I've made a lot of friends around the country.

"I don't like to go to church, but I go. I didn't feel like I had to be in
church to communicate with God. I quit going but went back because church is
the heart of the community. I'm glad I did because it's been rewarding.

"People have the mistaken belief that we worship animals, like the eagle. We
don't worship the eagle but honor it as the Creator's work," he said.