A very interesting aspect of living next to northeast Oklahoma is the presence of nine federally recognized Native American tribes within just a two-county area.
Most of these tribes were relocated from east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River – with two exceptions.
The Quapaw Tribe originally comes from the basic general area where the Arkansas River empties into the Mississippi, south of present-day Helena, Arkansas.
The other exception is unique in several ways, and I think their story is fascinating (though to be honest, I think all of the different tribes’ stories are).
The Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma is the only federally recognized tribe in our area to hail from the Pacific Northwest. It is also the smallest official tribe in Oklahoma, with about 200 members.
