He would discover that the Quapaws and their chief, Cazenonpoint, had views of authority very different from those of Spaniards like himself. The Quapaw villages had traditionally ruled themselves separately, and each village had two or three of its own chiefs. While it is difficult to reconstruct the details of eighteenth-century Quapaw social structure, there seem to have been two moieties, the Sky People and the Earth People, and twenty-one clans. Each group had specific rights and responsibilities for rituals and practices within the villages and the community at large. Representatives of the moieties and clans came together to make political decisions for the whole. This decentralized structure depended on mutual obligations and reciprocity, not a hierarchical change of command. Thus, Quapaw chiefs did not rule their people. Indeed, a French missionary had called the Chiefs only in name. They created and maintained influence and respect by fulfilling their obligations within the community for instance, by being generous with presents.

European contact had changed the role of chief in Quapaw society. Europeans expected each tribe to have a main leader with whom they could negotiate, and they usually gave the greatest number of gifts to that chief. The Quapaw chief or chiefs responsible for negotiations with the French had probably thereby increased their power within the tribe. In addition, devastating population losses had affected Quapaw political structures. Smaller in number and more vulnerable by the mid-eighteenth century, the Quapaws condensed their towns and moved them closer together. The largely autonomous towns gave way to a more united tribe with one great chief. But the powers of that chief were still very limited. The great chief remained bound by the system of mutual obligations and shared what little power he had with other leaders. Presents and other signs of respect from outside figures of authority such as the Spanish commandant helped a chief to maintain influence within the Quapaw community.

Kathleen DuVal

The education of Fernando de Lebya: Quapaws and Spaniards on the border of empires

The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, pp. 1-30, Arkansas Historical Association 2001 (volume LX, Spring, Number 1)