William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

Caddo, as might be expected from her origin, is radical, not to say revolutionary, in her politics. The Negroes and their Zambo offspring not being Indians, and having no part in the Indian system, the people of Caddo wish to change the whole existing order of things — the separate Indian nationality; the distribution of Indians into tribes and families; the exclusion of strangers from the Indian country; the abolition of Indian blood-feuds, despotic chiefs, and the common property in land.

“What do you want to have done by way of change?” I ask a Negro politician.

“By way of change?” replies the Black radical. “Let us change everything. We want to put down tribes, to found a regular government, to open the Territory to labour and capital, to abolish the rule of chiefs, the sale of squaws, and the common property in land. That's what we want for others; but we want a few things also for ourselves. Well, hear ·.me out. As yet we have acquired no rights. You find us here in Caddo, but we are living here by sufferance, 3co ”