Preface: "More than 120 years ago, Frederick Jackson Turner commented on the closing of the American frontier as a defining characteristic of America. Today, “parts unknown” and “terra incognita” are not terms we normally associate with our knowledge of the modern United States. Over these six score years, the country has been mapped by geographers, its natural resources have been documented by geologists, and its Native peoples, both prehistoric and historic have been studied by anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians. Yet, in some
corners of the country, our knowledge of these aspects of our past is slim to nonexistent, a tabula rasa. The interior of deep south Texas-Hidalgo, Starr, and Zapata Counties- is one such region. "
Certain to become a standard reference in its field, Indians of the Rio Grande Delta is the first single-volume source on these little-known peoples. Working from innumerable primary documents in various Texan and Mexican archives, Martin Salinas has compiled data on more than six dozen named groups that inhabited the area in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Depending on available information, he reconstructs something of their history, geographical range and migrations, demography, language, and culture. He also offers general information on various unnamed groups of Indians, on the lifeways of the indigenous peoples, and on the relations between the Indian groups and the colonial Spanish missions in the region.
"The purpose of this monograph is to survey the literature pertaining to the group of American Indian languages included under the label Hokan-Coahuiltecan (also sometimes referred to as Hokal-tecan), with specific emphasis on the evidence adduced for their common genetic origin. These languages are most highly concentrated in the present state of California, but have representatives spread over a wide geographical area - as far south as Nicaragua and as far east as Texas and northeastern Mexico..."
In 1821, although Spain claimed what is now Texas, American Indian groups occupied it. Less than forty years later, they had been largely displaced, and their subsistence economy, supplemented by raiding and trade, had been replaced by an Anglo-Texan agricultural economy linked to a rapidly expanding and industrializing capitalist system. For the Karankawas and the Tonkawas, the period from 1821 to 1859 was particularly devastating. Once thriving communities, the Karankawas survived only as scattered individuals after a small remnant on the banks of the Rio Grande was massacred, and the few remaining Tonkawas had been pushed across the Red River into Indian Territory. Kelly Himmel has written an account of this conquest that gives new understanding of the processes. He explores geopolitical and economic factors, as well as the role of individual and collective human actors and the effects of cultural orientations of the conquered and conquering groups toward each other. Among his findings is the importance of geopolitical location. During the early Spanish period, the coastal Karankawas offered a buffer against French, English, and Anglo-American intrusion into Texas. Later, during the early days of Anglo-American settlement, the Tonkawas provided a barrier against the Wichitas and Comanches. For both groups, when the threat to their European-origin allies ended, so did the alliances. In considering the social construction of the "other," he describes how early trade patterns predisposed Anglo-Texans to characterize Karankawas as cannibals, while viewing the Tonkawas, for whom much stronger evidence of cannibalism exists, as harmless beggars and petty thieves. Through the detailed analysis of factors such as these, Himmel not only portrays a period in the history of these two peoples that has been largely unstudied, but also offers lucid explanations of the framework of Anglo-Texan conquest. Historians, sociologists, and anthropologists will find new insight and information in this valuable addition to the literature on Texas Indians and Texas history.
"Newcomb's book is likely to remain the best general work on Texas Indians for a long time." -- American Antiquity "The Indians of Texas, by W. W. Newcomb, Jr., is an excellent and long-needed survey of the ethnography of the Indian tribes who resided within the present limits of Texas since the beginning of the historic period.... The book is the most comprehensive. scholarly, and authoritative account covering all the Indians of Texas, and is an invaluable and indispensable reference for students of Texas history, for anthropologists, and for lovers of Indian lore." -- Ethnohistory "Dr. Newcomb writes persuasively and with economy, and he has used his material very well indeed.... his presentation makes good reading of what might have been a book only for the specialists." -- Saturday Review
Despite the significant role they have played in Texas history for nearly four hundred years, the Lipan Apaches remain among the least studied and least understood tribal groups in the West. Considered by Spaniards of the eighteenth century to be the greatest threat to the development of New Spain's northern frontier, the Lipans were viewed as a similar risk to the interests of nineteenth-century Mexico, Texas, and the United States. Direct attempts to dissolve them as a tribal unit began during the Spanish period and continued with the establishment of the Republic of Texas in 1836. From their homeland in south Texas, Lipan migratory hunter-gatherer bands waged a desperate struggle to maintain their social and cultural traditions amidst numerous Indian and non-Indian enemies. Government officials, meanwhile, perceived them as a potential danger to the settlement and economic development of the Rio Grande frontier. Forced removal from their traditional homelands diminished their ability to defend themselves and, as they attached themselves to the Mescalero Apaches and the Tonkawas, the Lipans faded from written history in 1884. Thomas Britten has scoured U.S. and Mexican archives in order to piece together the tangled tribal history of these adaptable people, emphasizing the cultural change that coincided with the various migrations and pressures they faced. The result is an interdisciplinary study of the Lipan Apaches that focuses on their history and culture, their relationships with a wide range of Indian and non-Indian peoples, and their responses to the various crises and burdens that seemed to follow them wherever they went.
A third book in the series is scheduled for publication this fall. CANNIBALS AND Robert Lee Maril, a professor at Texas Southmost College, has recently written a book that explores the Texas coast and the diverse people who call it home considering the many ways Texans have altered these lands. In Cannibals and Condos: Texans and Texas along the Gulf Coast Maril talks with rich, poor, and in between to show how today's decisions will affect future lives. For eons the Texas Gulf Coast stretched undisturbed for nearly four hundred miles of quiet wetlands and long beaches. The Karankawa Indians, often maligned as cannibals, once lived there in harmony with land and sea. Today the coast is rapidly being changed--being forced to give up its limited resources. At tremendous economic risk, condominiums and whole communities are being built there on shifting sands that offer little to support the demands of large, permanent populations. Maril's book is a personal exploration of that coastline as seen through the eyes of a professional researcher, traveler, and resident of the Texas Coast. He describes the region's unique beauty and its appeal for those who want to escape crowded cities and colder climes. In exploring the coast, its people, and its social myths, Maril offers modest solutions to its problems: oil spills and toxic pollution, hurricanes, the displacement of those who make their living from the sea, and, most importantly, the destruction of the land itself in the name of development.
Lipan Apache culture was studied by Morris Opler, one of the most eminent anthropologists of the twentieth century, but many questions remain. This book seeks to complete a comparative analysis of traditional Lipan Apache culture, combining information from Opler's theories with the insights of four eighteenth and nineteenth century observers.
This book tells the story of the Lipan Apaches, once one of the largest and most aggressive tribes of the Rio Grande region. The story of the history of the Lipan Apaches is a tale of survival and preservation in the face of incredible challenges.
Winner of the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award in History, 2013. Winner of the Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez Award, Historical Society of New Mexico, 2014. First runner-up for a Zia Award from New Mexico Press Women, 2015. This history of the Lipan Apaches, from archeological evidence to the present, tells the story of some of the least known, least understood people in the Southwest. These plains buffalo hunters and traders were one of the first groups to acquire horses, and with this advantage they expanded from the Panhandle across Texas and into Coahuila, coming into conflict with the Comanches. With a knack for making friends and forging alliances, they survived against all odds, and were still free long after their worst enemies were corralled on reservations. In the most thorough account yet published, Sherry Robinson tracks the Lipans from their earliest interactions with Spaniards and kindred Apache groups through later alliances and to their love-hate relationships with Mexicans, Texas colonists, Texas Rangers, and the US Army. For the first time we hear of the Eastern Apache confederacy of allied but autonomous groups that joined for war, defense, and trade. Among their confederates, and led by chiefs with a diplomatic bent, Lipans drew closer to the Spanish, Mexicans, and Texans. By the 1880s, with their numbers dwindling and ground lost to Mexican campaigns and Mackenzie's raids, the Lipans roamed with Mescalero Apaches, some with Victorio. Many remained in Mexico, some stole back into Texas, and others melted into reservations where they had relatives. They never surrendered.
In River of Hope, Omar S. Valerio-Jiménez examines state formation, cultural change, and the construction of identity in the lower Rio Grande region during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He chronicles a history of violence resulting from multiple conquests, of resistance and accommodation to state power, and of changing ethnic and political identities. The redrawing of borders neither began nor ended the region's long history of unequal power relations. Nor did it lead residents to adopt singular colonial or national identities. Instead, their regionalism, transnational cultural practices, and kinship ties subverted state attempts to control and divide the population. Diverse influences transformed the borderlands as Spain, Mexico, and the United States competed for control of the region. Indian slaves joined Spanish society; Mexicans allied with Indians to defend river communities; Anglo Americans and Mexicans intermarried and collaborated; and women sued to confront spousal abuse and to secure divorces. Drawn into multiple conflicts along the border, Mexican nationals and Mexican Texans (tejanos) took advantage of their transnational social relations and ambiguous citizenship to escape criminal prosecution, secure political refuge, and obtain economic opportunities. To confront the racialization of their cultural practices and their increasing criminalization, tejanos claimed citizenship rights within the United States and, in the process, created a new identity. Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University.
Revising the standard narrative of European-Indian relations in America, Juliana Barr reconstructs a world in which Indians were the dominant power and Europeans were the ones forced to accommodate, resist, and persevere. She demonstrates that between the 1690s and 1780s, Indian peoples including Caddos, Apaches, Payayas, Karankawas, Wichitas, and Comanches formed relationships with Spaniards in Texas that refuted European claims of imperial control. Barr argues that Indians not only retained control over their territories but also imposed control over Spaniards. Instead of being defined in racial terms, as was often the case with European constructions of power, diplomatic relations between the Indians and Spaniards in the region were dictated by Indian expressions of power, grounded in gendered terms of kinship. By examining six realms of encounter--first contact, settlement and intermarriage, mission life, warfare, diplomacy, and captivity--Barr shows that native categories of gender provided the political structure of Indian-Spanish relations by defining people's identity, status, and obligations vis-a-vis others. Because native systems of kin-based social and political order predominated, argues Barr, Indian concepts of gender cut across European perceptions of racial difference.
The history, architecture and historic designations of the Lower Rio Grande Heritage Corridor.
The Texas coast was home to one of the most misunderstood peoples of North AmericaB -- the Karankawa. Made up of five different tribes who shared a common language and cultural traditions, the Karankawa are often regarded as a warlike, violent tribe. This reputation, however, is only a small piece of the story of this extinct culture. This book explores the history and traditions of this intriguing tribe of Native Americans.
Popular lore has long depicted the Karankawa Indians as primitive scavengers (perhaps even cannibals) who eked out a meager subsistence from fishing, hunting and gathering on the Texas coastal plains. That caricature, according to Robert Ricklis, hides the reality of a people who were well-adapted to their environment, skillful in using its resources, and successful in maintaining their culture until the arrival of Anglo-American settlers. The Karankawa Indians of Texas is the first modern, well-researched history of the Karankawa from prehistoric times until their extinction in the nineteenth century. Blending archaeological and ethnohistorical data into a lively narrative history, Ricklis reveals the basic lifeway of the Karankawa, a seasonal pattern that took them from large coastal fishing camps in winter to small, dispersed hunting and gathering parties in summer. In a most important finding, he shows how, after initial hostilities, the Karankawa incorporated the Spanish missions into their subsistence pattern during the colonial period and coexisted peacefully with Euroamericans until the arrival of Anglo settlers in the 1820s and 1830s. These findings will be of wide interest to everyone studying the interactions of Native American and European peoples.
Academic Texas history falls short from the Native American perspective. With only oral traditions, for historic Native people caught up in a rapidly crumbling world, priorities shifted to self-preservation rather than the keeping of stories, belief systems, tribal affiliations, and language. The Native language records of the Texas missions and other sources in the 1800s are sparse, but had it not been for them, even the few surviving words of the Karankawa, Chitimacha, Atakapa, Coahuilteco, Cotoname, Comecrudo and other groups in this volume would have been lost forever. The first part of this fascinating book is a short but compelling memoir which chronicles Alexander Joseph Perez's journey as he discovers and uncovers his ancestors' languages, unspoken since the 1880s, then undertakes the monumental task of resurrecting and collecting them into this volume. The second part of the book is the important southern Texas Native language compilation which he calls Ah'leen Kadla. "Ah'leen" is a Karankawa word meaning "tongue" and "kadla" translates to calico, multi colored, or in this context, "mixed." Alexander took on this important work to aid fellow Native Americans in revitalizing their languages, and increasing connectivity to the land, their ancestors, and one another. By speaking these forgotten languages, life is breathed back into the words, providing a rare opportunity for collective healing. But he hopes all readers will come away with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for Native American cultural revitalization efforts, and the diverse languages, cultures, and history of Native Americans.
Step into a colorful pageantry of the powerful people who once ruled and still influence the great state of Texas. From the Caddo in the Piney Woods, the Lipan Apache in the Southwest, the Wichita at the Red River, and the Comanche across the Great Plains to the Alabama-Coushatta in the Big Thicket, five nations come alive through myth and history in Jane Archer's vividly written book about the first Texans.
Here is the oral history of the Apache warrior Chevato, who captured eleven-year-old Herman Lehmann from his Texas homestead in May 1870. Lehmann called him "Bill Chiwat" and referred to him as both his captor and his friend. Chevato provides a Native American point of view on both the Apache and Comanche capture of children and specifics regarding the captivity of Lehmann known only to the Apache participants. Yet the capture of Lehmann was only one episode in Chevato's life. Born in Mexico, Chevato was a Lipan Apache whose parents had been killed in a massacre by Mexican troops. He and his siblings fled across the Rio Grande and were taken in by the Mescalero Apaches of New Mexico. Chevato became a shaman and was responsible for introducing the Lipan form of the peyote ritual to both the Mescalero Apaches and later to the Comanches and the Kiowas. He went on to become one of the founders of the Native American Church in Oklahoma. The story of Chevato reveals important details regarding Lipan Apache shamanism and the origin and spread of the type of peyote rituals practiced today in the Native American community. This book also provides a rare glimpse into Lipan and Mescalero Apache life in the late nineteenth century, when the Lipans faced annihilation and the Mescaleros faced the reservation.
Resource is also available online from the Smithsonian: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/15429/bulletin1271940smit.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
