The Coushatta Tribe: Heritage and Origin

Historically the Coushatta Tribe was known as Koasati. The tribe was part of the Creek alliance known to have been established in villages near the junction of the Alabama, Coosa, and Tallapoosa Rivers near the present-day Wetumpka, in northwest Alabama. They were gradually pushed off their land by colonial expansion and migrated to Louisiana in the 1760s. Many members continued on to Texas, but a small group remained behind inhabiting Indian Village near the town now known as Kinder in Allen Parish, Louisiana. Some other Koasati who did not move to Louisiana and Texas were taken to Oklahoma during the Indian Removal of the 1830s.  The Koasati or Coushatta now consists of three federally recognized tribes, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, and the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town in Wetumpka, Oklahoma.

By 1861 the Louisiana tribe was living along the Calcasieu River near Kinder. As land-hungry settlers forged into that area, the tribe purchased land near Elton in Allen Parish and moved there in 1884. Tribal members live in both locations today, continuing to follow their matriarchal clan system like their Creek ancestors.  The clans are family units among the tribe in which each clan has its own speaker who in turn works with the chief.  The seven large Coushatta clans still in existence are those of the Deer, the Panther, the Beaver, the Daddy Long Legs Spider, the Bear, the Turkey, and the Bobcat.

The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana boasts of maintaining its culture and heritage. Their emphasis on the maintenance of the Koasati language, emphasis on the clan system, their heritage and culture, and agriculture are inherent in their present day lives. Many of today’s Coushatta still craft baskets, use medicinal plants to supplement modern medicine and supplement their strong Christian faith with traditional beliefs. Today’s Louisiana Coushatta still speak the Koasati language of their ancestors. Remarkably, of the 175 indigenous languages remaining on the entire North American continent, only 20 are spoken by people of all ages as vigorously as the Coushatta. Koasati language is taught to all ages in their language school and is spoken in offices, homes and at social gatherings. The Koasati Language Center Training Program is among the most prominent of all North American Tribes.

Losing their Land and their Recognition: The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana

The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana was formally recognized by the United States Congress as a sovereign nation on June 27, 1973.

A form of federal recognition first came in 1868, when 160 acres of land was placed in trust for the tribe. Federal educational and medical assistance programs and an elementary school were received by 1930, but in 1953 the Bureau of Indian Affairs termination policy halted services to the tribe and removed the land from trust. Legally this meant the Coushatta Tribe no longer officially existed. 

In 1965 members of the tribe formed the Coushatta Indians of Allen Parish, Inc., a tribal arts and craft business. They made baskets and other crafts, sold them to the business and in turn, they were sold to the public. “That was their living,” recalls tribal elder Florine Pitre. They had lost their services. This venture also provided a gathering place for tribal members, and in so doing laid the groundwork for the push to regain federal recognition.

Coushatta members appealed to the Louisiana state legislature for recognition and received it in 1972. That same year federal officials agreed to resume medical services to the tribe. The tribe then formed Coushatta Alliance, Inc., which drafted a tribal constitution and sought funding for governmental development and a tribal office. Their federal recognition was granted in 1973. Two years later by federal proclamation the tribe received fifteen acres of land as their tribal reservation. The Coushatta were once again rooted to an area by soil.