[2] The members of the Tribe are descendants of Choctaw and Lipan Apache people[3][4] and are required to prove lineal descent as part of their state-approved membership process.
[3] [8][9]: 134 For approximately 50 years, the French and others engaged in illicit trading through Los Adaes of horses, cattle, and Lipan Apache (known as Connechi) slaves.
[9]: 143 Nuestra Señora del Pilar was defended by Mestizo and Spanish soldiers who married local Indigenous women, including those of the Caddo and Adai tribes, as well as formerly enslaved Lipan Apache.
[11] Shortly after the United States purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803, Dr. John Sibley, "the first Indian Agent with jurisdiction over the New Orleans territory",[12] provided refuge to North Louisiana Choctaw in Natchitoches[13] and resettled a few Choctaw families west of Los Adaes on land for farming and raising stock.
[17] [4][3] During the Mexican War for Independence (1810-1821),[18] many Lipan Apache who supported the revolution fled the conflict and moved to the east side of the Sabine River to join their recently enslaved relatives.
Additionally, the Choctaw-Apache, west of the Sabine, sought refuge with their kin on the east side during the 1839 Cordova Rebellion and the Texas Cherokee Wars.
[16]: 192–193 They lived along the east bank of the Sabine River until the states of Texas and Louisiana created a project in the 1960s to dam it for flood control and electricity generation.
[23] A similar dialect has been spoken around Moral, west of Nacogdoches, on the other side of the Toledo Bend Reservoir, which also derives from the Los Adaes settlement.
4791, 4792) of 1994 establishes three ways for a Native American group to gain federal acknowledgment: (1) through the administrative procedures (FAP) outlined in 25 C.F.R.