Missouri Tribes


FEDERALLY RECOGNIZED TRIBES IN MISSOURI
(Federal List Last Updated 5/16)

Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma (NOTE: tribe has members in Oklahoma as well as Missouri, tribal office is in Missouri)

STATE RECOGNIZED TRIBES
(Not recognized by the Federal Government)

Chickamauga Cherokee Nation

Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory, Letter of Intent to Petition 2/19/1992

UNRECOGNIZED / PETITIONING TRIBES

Amonsoquath Tribe of Cherokee. Letter of Intent to Petition 02/17/1995. Also in California.

Cherokee Nation West of Missouri & Arkansas (formerly Cherokee Nation West – Southern Band of the Eastern Cherokee Indians of Arkansas and Missouri). Letter of Intent to Petition 5/11/1998. (Missouri and Arkansas).

Dogwood Band of Free Cherokees

Lost Cherokee of Arkansas & Missouri. Letter of Intent to Petition 02/10/1999; letter returned, marked “in dispute” between two different addresses. (Missouri and Arkansas).

Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory. Letter of Intent to Petition 02/19/1992.

N. Cherokee Tribe of Missouri

Northern Cherokee Tribe of Indians of Missouri and Arkansas. Letter of Intent to Petition 07/26/1985. (Missouri and Arkansas)

Ozark Mountain Cherokee Tribe of Arkansas and Missouri. Letter of Intent to Petition 10/19/1999. (Missouri and Arkansas).

Sac River and White River Bands of the Chickamauga-Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri Inc. (formerly Northern Chickamauga Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri). Letter of Intent to Petition 09/05/1991. (Missouri and Arkansas).

Saponi Nation of Missouri (Mahenips Band). Letter of Intent to Petition 12/14/1999.

Southern Cherokee Indian Tribe. Letter of Intent to Petition 12/01/2006.

Western Cherokee of Arkansas/Louisiana Territories. Letter of Intent to Petition 10/05/2001.(Missouri and Arkansas).

Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri. Letter of Intent to Petition 05/01/1998. (Missouri and Arkansas).

The Wilderness Tribe of Missouri. Letter of Intent to Petition 8/16/1999.

FIRST CONTACT TO PRESENT

The peoples who inhabited the area during the era of exploration and settlement were semi-nomads who were attracted by the forests and prairies in the lower part of the Missouri River valley, which abounded with game.

They lived about half the year in villages, growing crops.

Most powerful and numerous were the Osage, who lived along the Osage River. North of the Missouri lived the Oto, and a village of the Missouria people was located at the confluence of the Grand and Missouri rivers.

The name of the village was applied to the people, the river, and finally the state.

The Iowa and, later, the united Sac (Sauk) and Fox drove out the other groups by the early 19th century.

The Spanish moved some Shawnee and Delaware to Missouri temporarily, but all of the Native Americans had been forced out of the state by 1837.

PRE-CONTACT MISSOURI TRIBES

PRE-HISTORIC CULTURES IN MISSOURI

Early Man Period (?–12,000 B.C.) – Some archaeologists accept this period and point to the Shriver site in Daviess County as evidence for a stone tool technology that pre-dates Clovis point tool technology.

Other archaeologists have questioned if the Daviess site has been correctly dated and interpreted.

Paleoindian Period (12,000–8,000 B.C.) – This time period is associated with a specific variety of hunting tools called a fluted point; in Missouri, Clovis fluted points and Folsom fluted points have been discovered at a variety of sites.

Clovis points were found at the Kimmswick site (Mastodon State Historic site) directly associated with an extinct species of elephant called a mastodon.

Dalton Period (8,000–7,000 B.C.) – This time period is a transition between the Paleoindian cultures and the Archaic period.

During this period, changing patterns of rainfall and seasonal temperatures triggered changes in plant and animal communities. This meant that diet and hunting strategies had to adapt to the new conditions.

An important technological marker for this period is the Dalton serrated point with beveled edges. Scientific studies of this class of artifacts suggest that they were used as knives for butchering deer.

Another distinctive tool associated with this period is a woodworking tool called a Dalton adze.

Plant food processing is indicated by the presence of mortars, manos, grinding slabs, cupstones, and hammerstones.

Early Archaic Period (7,000 B.C.–5,000 B.C.) – This time period is marked by the introduction of many new shapes and forms of stone tools including the Graham Cave side notched, Hidden Valley stemmed, Rice lobed, Rice contracting stemmed, Rice lanceolates, and St. Charles notched.

Middle Archaic Period (5,000 B.C.–3,000 B.C.) – This time period coincides with a period of warm and dry climatic conditions. Evidence indicates that the prairies expanded at the expense of the forested regions.

Deer herds may have decreased, and the diet included a greater amount of birds, fish, and rabbits.

Tool technologies associated with this period include the Jakie stemmed, Big Sandy, and a variety of ground stone axe called full grooved.

Late Archaic Period (3,000 B.C.–1,000 B.C.) – This time period is associated with climate changes that brought the return of forest species (both plant and animal) to areas where prairie species had penetrated during the Middle Archaic period.

A wide variety of new stone tool types (Nebo Hill lanceolate, Sedalia lanceolates, Smith basal notched, Table Rock stemmed, Stone square stemmed, Big Sandy notched, Etley, and Afton points) appear during this period.

Groundstone axes of the three-quarter-grooved variety are another technological hallmark.

The Late Archaic is the first time that pottery vessels were manufactured; pottery would not become commonplace for another 1000 years.

This time period marks the first documented use of domesticated plants: the squash (Cucurbita pepo) and bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria).

Social changes occurred during the Late Archaic period as reflected by the first large village sites and the first elaborate burial rituals.

The Hatten mound, constructed in northeast Missouri during the Late Archaic, is the oldest documented burial mound in the state.

Different burial patterns and variations in stone tools reflect three or four distinct tribes distributed across the state.

Early Woodland Period (1000–500 B.C.) – This time period saw a continuity of tool technology for some of the Native-American cultures, but also innovation and change for others.

One of the few changes in technology occured in the northern half of the state where Black Sand incised ceramics have been identified.

Middle Woodland Period (500 B.C.–A.D. 400) – This time period is associated with widespread changes that are linked to technological and social changes that also occurred in Illinois and Ohio.

New stone tool types include Snyders, Mankers, Ensor, Castroville, Frio, Gary, and Dickson.

Pottery produced during this period was often tempered with grit (pieces of crushed gravel) or grog (recycled pieces of pottery). Some, not all, of the pottery is decorated with designs created by stamped designs, cord-wrapped impressions, small hollow-reed impressions, incised lines, and bosses.

Clay was used for both pottery and small figurines representing human and animal forms.

Late Woodland Period (A.D. 400–A.D. 900) – This time period appears almost as a decline in terms of pottery decoration and design.

A significant change in the tool technology is reflected by arrowpoints.

Variations in pottery styles, burial practices, and stone tools may reflect eight or nine specific tribes distributed across the state.

Mississippian Period (A.D. 900–A.D. 1700) – This time period is marked by large permanent villages where populations relied upon corn cultivation for a major component in their diet.

A handful of the villages grew in population and wealth until they became large, fortified towns with impressive temple mounds, plazas, and astronomical observatories.

Tool technology during this period included shell-tempered pottery and small triangular arrowpoints. A few elite individuals possessed embossed copper plates and conch shells from the Gulf Coast.

The powerful towns and hundreds of villages and hamlets declined during the 13th and 14th centuries.

New populations with distinctive pottery and stone tool technology immigrated into Missouri during the 14th century. Termed Oneota culture by archaeologists, the new population identified themselves as the Wah-Sha-She and Niutachi. Today, they are known by the names Osage and Missouria.

Immigrant Period (A.D. 1700–1830) – This period is marked by the arrival of new immigrant groups of Native-American tribes from the Northeast (Kickapoo, Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, Peoria, Potawatomi), Euro-Americans (French, Spanish, and English) and African-Americans (free and slave).

The Euro-Americans created settlements at Fort Orleans, Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis, and St. Charles.

Treaties signed in 1808 and 1825 resulted in the migration of the Osage from Missouri to Kansas, and eventually to Oklahoma.

In 1820, Missouri was admitted as a slave-holding state to the United States of America. Flint lock rifles were used for hunting and defense. Copper and iron kettles were used for cooking. Imported china and glass bottles were rare.

RESOURCES
Genealogy:Sources of records on US Indian tribes