Growing up, Alaina Tahlate visited with her great-grandfather nearly every week. A language worker, he inspired Tahlate’s current role as the Caddo Nation’s language preservationist. She would listen intently as he, a native Caddo speaker, recorded and documented the endangered language once spoken widely across modern-day East Texas. Tahlate went on to study Native American language revitalization and now teaches Caddo to children and adult members of the Caddo Nation. “He was such a cool old man,” she says.
While the Caddo Nation currently counts more than 6,000 enrolled members, the majority of whom live in Oklahoma, only two native speakers of the Caddo language remain. The story of the Caddo and their language is tightly intertwined with the formation of the state. Historians believe the name “Texas” is derived from the Caddo word “taysha,” meaning “friend.” The state motto, “Friendship,” adopted by the Legislature in 1930, was also a nod to the Caddo. In the late 17th century, the Spanish established missions near present-day Caddo Mounds State Historic Site. “When the Caddo and Spanish first encountered one another, the Spanish called them the “Texas Indians” because the Caddo introduced themselves as friends and allies,” Tahlate says. The Caddo Nation’s impact on Texas extends far beyond the state’s name, and Tahlate and other Caddo members are working to ensure that history isn’t forgotten.
Dating to at least A.D. 800, the Caddo occupied an area of more than 100,000 square miles through what is now Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. The Caddo Nation comprises multiple communities connected through families. One such group, known as the Kadahodacho, primarily lived along “The Great Bend” in the Red River, while the Hasinai inhabited the Neches and Angelina river valleys near what’s now Nacogdoches. At the height of their civilization, “the Hasinai were the most highly advanced society within the boundaries of present-day Texas,” says anthropologist Lauren Haupt, a Caddo Nation member and co-steward at Caddo Mounds State Historic Site.
Enjoying this article?Caddo communities once lived in dome-shaped homes made of tall wooden poles and sheathed in switchgrass. Considered the area’s first farmers, they grew a variety of plants including maize, beans, and squash. Caddo hunting bows, made from strong and flexible Osage trees, took down large game. Those bows were prized trade items for the Spanish missionaries.
The mounds acted as burial places for prominent community members, and the historic site is the only publicly preserved Caddo burial site in Texas. The mounds also served as civic and ceremonial centers, with temple structures placed atop the platforms along the Camino Real, a historic trade route. When French explorers first came across the Caddo, Haupt says, they described the route as “rivaling the finest roads in Paris.”
Throughout the 1700s, epidemics attributed to Spanish settlement decimated the Caddo population, once believed to have numbered more than 200,000 people. In 1835, following the passage of the federal government’s 1830 Indian Removal Act, the Caddo reluctantly signed a treaty with the U.S. ceding the entirety of their lands, including what would become part of Texas. Over the following decades, increasing Anglo settlement in East Texas and hostility toward the Caddo from the newly formed Republic of Texas pushed Caddo communities west toward the Brazos River Valley. “It was a bloody, bloody time for both the Indians who were trying to survive and the Texans who were trying to settle,” says Phil Cross, a Caddo Nation member and historian.
Under the direction of the federal Indian agent placed in Texas, Maj. Robert S. Neighbors, the roughly 1,000 remaining Caddo established a village in 1847 at the federally managed Brazos Indian Reservation near present-day Graham.
Conflict between the new Texans and the area’s Indigenous groups continued. Comanche raids were blamed on the Caddo and other tribes living on the reservation. In 1859, John R. Baylor, who published an anti-Native American newspaper called The White Man, led roughly 250 settlers in an attack on the Brazos Indian Reservation. Neighbors confronted Baylor with U.S. troops, and as Baylor retreated, he killed a Native American woman who was tending to her garden as well as an older man. Residents of the Brazos reservation subsequently followed Baylor and his men to a nearby ranch, where a battle ensued.
Fearing for the long-term safety of the Brazos Reservation members under his protection, Neighbors led the remaining Caddo on a two-week trek north to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Shortly after returning to Texas, Neighbors was murdered by a man many historians believe to be a Baylor sympathizer at Fort Belknap, near the shuttered Brazos Indian Reservation. “Neighbors set the standard of what it means to be a taysha,” Tahlate says, citing his dedication to protecting the remaining Caddo members.
A memorial marker acknowledges Neighbors in a small, shaded cemetery near the Fort Belknap Historic Site. On Memorial Day, many Caddo make a pilgrimage to the Belknap cemetery, spread blankets for a picnic lunch, pray, and make offerings to Neighbors.
As the Caddo rebuilt their communities outside of Texas, they strove to maintain their culture and language. From the 1860s to the 1960s, many Caddo children were forced to attend federally run boarding schools, where they were punished for speaking their language. Tahlate says her grandfather could understand Caddo but couldn’t speak the language. Tahlate’s mom, a Caddo artist, is not a speaker. “Back then, Caddo parents didn’t encourage their kids to learn and use Caddo,” Tahlate says. “They felt, you’ve got to learn English in order to get a good job and support your family.”
The full history of the Caddo is inextricably tied to their language, Tahlate explains. Within the words of the ceremonial Caddo dance, for example, is the origin story of their people. Tahlate takes hope for the language from working with Caddo children. Sometimes, she overhears them speaking it as they play together. “I love how bold they are,” she says. “There’s no hesitation or fear when they’re speaking.”
From ‘Taysha’ to ‘Texas’
International phonetic alphabet pronunciations and history provided by Alaina Tahlate
Taysha, IPA: 
the original Caddo pronunciation.
Texas, IPA: 
the Spanish mispronunciation of the original Caddo, plus an added -s.
Tejas, IPA: 
the Spanish mispronunciation of the original Caddo, plus -s. The sound changed as Spanish shifted from early modern to late modern Spanish.
Texas, IPA: 
the American mispronunciation of the Spanish mispronunciation.
