Wichita Indians, a tribe of the Caddoan language family. They were first visited in 1541 by the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was seeking the fabulous Quivira, a land reputed to be enormously rich in gold. He found only the grass huts of the Wichita along the Arkansas River in what is now central Kansas. Later the Wichita moved southward. They made a treaty with the United States in 1835, and in 1867 they were put on a reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).