The American Indian Exposition, held annually during the first full week in August at the Caddo County Fairgrounds in Anadarko, Oklahoma, is one of the oldest and largest intertribal gatherings in the United States. Sponsored by fifteen tribes (Apache, Arapaho, Caddo, Cheyenne, Comanche, Delaware, Fort Sill Apache, Iowa, Kiowa, Osage, Otoe-Missouri, Pawnee, Ponca, Sac & Fox, and Wichita), representatives from up to fifty other tribes participate in any given year.
History
The Exposition began with the All-Indian Fair first held in 1924. It was the successor to the Craterville Park Indian Fair, which had been held from 1924 through 1933 near Cache, Oklahoma. A group of people calling themselves the Southwest Indian Fair (SWIF) had met after the Caddo County Free Fair in 1935 to discuss their dissatisfaction with the Craterville Park demonstrations of Indian culture, which they felt was too ethnocentric and white-oriented. They felt that the Indian participants were treated as merely figureheads. The leaders of SWIF wanted to separate the dance performances from the county fair, and wanted the Caddo County Free Fair board to give them creative and management freedom over the production.
Notes
References
External links
- Library of Congress
- Anadarko Indian Expo
- Anadark Chamber of Commerce
- Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - American Indian Exposition