A tribe now nearly extinct, but formerly one of the most important of the lower Mississippi region, occupying several villages about the mouth of the Arkansas,

The name "Quapaw" is a derivative of the tribal term Ugakhpa, meaning "down stream people." These people belong to the Dhegiha subdivision of the Sioux. It is believed that this group originally resided in the Ohio Valley. The tribe left this region following the Ohio River downstream to the Mississippi River and eventually to the land which is now Arkansas.

Arkansas is also named after the Quapaw. In the mid 1600's the French explores, Marquette and Joliet, when traveling down the Mississippi used the Illini Indians as their guides. The guides referred to the Quapaw tribe as "Akansea" - People of the South Wind. This was the name the Illini Indians had given them in their own language, and that was how the French had written it down on their maps.