The interpreter called the Quapaw the "Akansea," the word for Quapaw in his language. Marquette and Joliet used that term for these people and the river along which they lived.

Editor’s Note: With the Saracen Casino Resort coming to Pine Bluff next year, many have been researching the Quapaw Tribe, whose group, Downstream Development Authority, is backing the operation.

The Quapaw Nation has spent 11 years remediating the ghost town Picher, Oklahoma, which covers 80 percent of their reservation, in an effort to give their land an agricultural future. “It will ...