Four hundred years ago the valleys and tributaries of the Ouachita, Red, Sabine, and Neches Rivers in what is today known as the Ark-La-Tex region were home to an extraordinary society of people. They were farmers, warriors, potters, and traders with a unique culture, the ancestors of the people known today as the Caddo Indians.
The Brewer lives in the shadow of a hill in Johnson County known as Caddo Peak. When I was a kid you could drive up there and I found my very first arrow head on what used to be an important site to the Caddo who had been relocated here in the 1800's.
Before my town Joshua was named after the Biblical hero that took the promised land, our community was actually known as Caddo Grove and was a stone throw from my house on what would be the Chisholm Trail and much later farm and market road 1902.
Native Texan
At one time the Caddo were a powerful and heavily populated people, who formed a society that early Spanish explorers highly regarded as civilized and friendly in comparison to other neighbors. Sadly, this initial respect did not spare the Caddo from the common fate of so many of the native folk who came into contact with European diseases, guns, and agendas. In less than two hundred years, the mighty Caddo were reduced to a few hundred refugees who were uprooted again from Johnson county and assigned tiny parcels of land in the Oklahoma Indian Territories before being up rooted yet again in the Oklahoma land grab.
Like the ancient Jews before them, against all odds the Caddo survived the 1800s and today, according to the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, number more than 4000. An interesting thing about the Caddo is that they don't live on a reservation and most of them don't even live in Oklahoma. They live in houses and apartments all throughout America working as police officers, nurses, lawyers, electricians, artists and the whole gamut. It seems that the Caddo have always been the friend of America even though America has not always been the friend of the Caddo.
Tejas is the Spanish spelling of a Caddo word taysha, which means "friend" or "ally." In the 17th century the Spanish knew the western most Caddo people s as "the great kingdom of Tejas" and the name lived on to become the name of the 28th state of the United States and the coolest place on the planet -Texas. The tradition continued all the way through and became the official motto of the state of Texas -Friendship.
How ironic that the name Texas comes from the word meaning friendship from a people that Texas would not be the friend of. Sometimes you are the friend of somebody that isn't really your friend at all.
Indian Giver
Not only am I the key pounding coffee drinker that churns up newspaper columns, but I am also the Senior Pastor of Open Door Ministries in Joshua, TX. One of the things I have a hard time convincing people is that Jesus Christ is your friend; He's the kind of friend to us that the Caddo Indians have been to Texas.
What I mean to say - is that Jesus has been feared because He's different than us, blamed for things he didn't do, hated because his presence doesn't go along with our life styles and ultimately kicked out of our lives, yet He is famous for friendship.
He didn't just die for you. He died and went to hell for you, slapping death in the face because you and I couldn't. He has proven Himself to be the kind of friend that only He can be. Let's not do to him what we as Texan have done to our friends the Caddo Indians. Let's keep Jesus close and not throw him out of our lives.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
(John 15:13).
Contact: The Brewer welcomes your input at FreshFromTheBrewer@OpenDoorMinistries.org or by phone at 817-297-6911. Please visit us online at http://www.opendoorministries.org/
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