Kaskinampo Tribe: Meaning unknown, though -nampo may be the Koasati word for “many.”
Kaskinampo Connections. The Kaskinampo were probably closely related to the Koasati, and through them to the Alabama, Choctaw, and other Muskhogean people.
Kaskinampo Location. Their best-known historic location was on the lower end of an island in the Tennessee River, probably the one now called Pine Island. (See also Arkansas.)
Kaskinampo History. There is every reason to believe that this tribe constituted the Casqui, Icasqui, or Casquin “province” which De Soto entered immediately after crossing the Mississippi River, and it was probably in what is now Phillips County, Arkansas. We hear of the Kaskinampo next in connection with the expeditions of Marquette and Joliet but do not learn of their exact location until 1701, when they seem to have been on the lower end of the present Pine Island. We are informed, however, by one of the French explorers that they had previously lived upon Cumberland River, and there is evidence that, when they first moved to the Tennessee, they may have settled for a short time near its mouth. Both the Cumberland and the Tennessee were known by their name, and it stuck persistently to the latter stream until well along in the eighteenth century. After the early years of the eighteenth century we hear little more of them, but there is reason to believe that they united with the Koasati.
Kaskinampo Population. Our only clue to the population of the Kaskinampo is in an unpublished report of Bienville, who estimates 150 men, or a total population of about 500.
Connection in which they have become noted. The Kaskinampo are distinguished only for the prominent part they played in the De Soto narratives and for the application of their name for a time to Tennessee River.