The Brazos Indian Reservation began as an effort to provide native Texans with a homeland and ended with a trail of tears as the battered remnants of the First Nations fled for their safety. This is a travel article about a place and a people that left few traces for modern visitors to see.
The Caddo Indians and associated tribes once inhabited the northeastern corner of Texas and portions of present-day Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Thousands of the tribesmen lived in villages, spending their days growing crops and hunting game.
As Europeans began arriving in the 1600s, the French wanted to trade with the tribes, the Spanish wanted to save their souls, and the Americans wanted their land. It took the Americans less than 50 years to reduce the Caddo Nation to a few thousand individuals.
Largely agricultural and peaceful, the East Texas tribes were inundated by the flood of settlers headed west, beginning with the California gold rush of 1849, who brought disease, war, and poverty. Depredations on both sides of the conflict led to a lack of trust and open hostilities.
In 1854, the state legislature decided to permit two reservations administered by the federal government in unoccupied northwest Texas for the Comanche, Apache, and East Texas tribes. The more successful of these was the 37,152-acre Brazos Indian Reservation, encompassing both sides of the Brazos River south of present-day Graham.
The Caddo, Anadarko, Waco, and Tonkawa established governments, schools, and police forces and served as scouts for the military. Despite building friendships with many of the new white settlers, the American Indians were terrorized by a small faction of whites that could not stand their presence, no matter how remote.
The experiment ended in the summer of 1859, when Major Robert S. Neighbors, the federal supervising American Indian agent for Texas, led 1,420 Texas Indians to Anadarko, Okla. Soon after he returned to Texas, Neighbors was shot in the back outside of Fort Belknap.
The former reservations were opened to settlers in 1873. Fort Belknap, which was built to protect the American Indians, was closed in 1867. It is now a recreation area and museum. Much of the former reservation was inundated by Possum Kingdom Lake, but the names of creeks and landmarks still honor the tribes.
The few clues of the Brazos Reservation’s short existence are posted on historical markers in Young County. The Old Post Office Museum & Art Center in Graham has a small exhibit on the reservation. The Wildcatter Ranch Resort and Spa and Paradise on the Brazos, an RV park and bed & breakfast, have landmarks from the era on their properties.
After leaving Texas, the tribes survived and prospered in western Oklahoma. The Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Okla., provides a window into the culture of a group of people nearly exterminated.
953rd in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of “Day Trips” 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.
This article appears in October 9 • 2009.
