Prior to their first contact with the French explorers Marquette and Jolliet in 1673, the Quapaw Tribe lived in four villages near the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers. It is postulated that the Quapaw (referred to historically as the Akansa or Akansea, hence the state name of Arkansas) originally resided in the Ohio River Valley, along with other tribes of the Dhegiha Sioux. At some point, the Quapaw abandoned their original homeland and moved southward into present-day Arkansas, displacing the Tunica and Illinois tribes. The name Quapaw itself is a derivative of the tribal term Ugakhpa, which means, “downstream people.”

As with nearly every other Native American tribe, diseases inadvertently imported by Europeans proved a major source of trouble for the Quapaw. In the late 1600s, the Quapaw numbered about 5000 people. After just eighty years the tribe consisted of a mere 700 individuals. That dramatic decline was largely the result of a smallpox epidemic subsequent to the introduction of the disease into the tribe in 1699. Tragically, much of Quapaw tribal history and oral tradition died along with those 4700 Native Americans.

The Quapaw developed strong trading and diplomatic ties with the French, who were attempting to establish hegemony over the North American continent. During the struggles for North American control, the Quapaw also served militarily, attacking the enemies of the French, as well as their Native American allies (such as the Chickasaw). However, after their defeat at the hands of the British during the French and Indian War (1763), the French ceded their lands to the Spanish. Warned by the French not to attack them, the Quapaw established, if reluctantly, ties with the British, largely because the British offered cheap high-quality trade goods.

In 1801, the French regained their North American possessions. Napoleon's dream of a French empire in the New World, however, faded as his need for financial capital intensified. Thus, in 1803, Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States. After the acquisition of the 828,000-square-mile territory in 1803, the Quapaw were increasingly pressed for their traditional lands. After ceding property in 1818 and 1824, the Quapaw were forcibly removed by the United States government to the Caddo Reservation in northwestern Louisiana. In 1834, they were removed once again to a newly established reservation in the northeastern portion of present-day Oklahoma.

There are approximately 2000 registered members of the Quapaw Tribe, a quarter of which reside within thirty miles of their headquarters in Quapaw, OK. Although the last pureblood, Robert Whitebird, Sr., died in 2005, traditional ways are still preserved, as evidenced by the continuing popularity of the Quapaw Pow-Wow; over 120 years old, the Pow-Wow is among the oldest such celebrations for American Indians.