The two struggling Karankawa missions Refugio and Rosario continued to operate until they were secularized in and An confrontation with Jean Laffite 's pirate colony on Galveston Island marked the next major conflict for the Karankawas. The incident reportedly occurred when Laffite's men kidnapped a Karankawa woman, and the tribe retaliated by assembling a reported warriors to attack the pirate compound.
Laffite's force of men armed with two cannons inflicted heavy losses on the Indians and forced them to retreat. Mexico won independence from Spain in , and the new government encouraged Anglo-American immigration to the sparsely populated province of Texas. Mexican authorities attempted to protect the colonists by making peace with the Karankawas, but their efforts were unsuccessful.
The colonists, spurred by empresario Stephen F. Austin , banded together to rid themselves of the Indian threat. Austin was convinced that extermination provided the only acceptable solution to the Karankawa problem, and in , he personally led an expedition of some fifteen men and encouraged the colonists to attack American Indians.
A priest at the mission arranged an armistice between the two groups. According to terms of the agreement, the Karankawas, led by Chief Antonito, agreed to remain west of the Lavaca River.
Small groups subsequently attached themselves to individual settlers, such as Phillip Dimmitt , who could provide protection against marauding colonizers in exchange for work and trade. The governments of Mexican Texas and the Republic of Texas regarded the Karankawas as enemies, and although no Karankawas deaths are directly attributed to military actions during the rebellion, their status as hostile inhabitants encouraged subsequent exterminations.
Prominent businessmen, including the well-known James Power, promoted the annihilation of the coastal tribes. Anglo-Texans utilized propaganda popularized since to the seventeenth century to legitimize massacres. By the s only scattered remnants of the culture remained along the Texas coast.
Disinformation about the Karankawas remains in circulation, including descriptions as seven-foot-tall giants. Karankawas encountered similar problems south of the Rio Grande. Accused of plundering settlements in the Reynosa area, the tribe came under continued attack from Mexican authorities. By the late s these Karankawas had been pushed back into Texas, where they settled in the vicinity of Rio Grande City.
Local residents did not welcome the tribe, and in a Texan force, led by Juan Nepomuceno Cortina , attacked that small band of Karankawas. Following that defeat, the coastal Texas tribe was considered extinct, but surviving Karankawas across the Gulf Coast retained and passed down aspects of their culture generation after generation.
To be certain, the Karankawa had a striking physical appearance. They were always described as six to seven feet tall. The men wore loincloths or went nude, while the women wore skirts of deerskin or moss.
Both sexes painted and tattooed their bodies. The men also wore cane piercings in one or both nipples and in their lower lips.
The Karankawa were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The men hunted with bows and arrows. The Karankawa were frequently seen with dogs; some historians even assert that the name Karankawa means "dog-lovers" or "dog-raisers. In the late s and early s, there were five clans of Karankawa: Cujane, Coapite, Coco, Copane, and Karankawa, the last one sometimes called "Karankawa proper.
The Karankawa are famously associated with cannibalism. According to reports, they had a war ritual that included tying a live captive to a stake, dancing before him, cutting off slices of his flesh, roasting them in the fire, and eating them while the terrorized victim watched. The Karankawa reportedly believed that feeding off of their enemies in this manner imparted them with their strength and virtue and also prevented the victim from having an afterlife, in which he might avenge himself.
Cabeza de Vaca does discuss some of the war customs of the Texas coastal natives, but he never mentions anything like this. On the contrary, when the starving Europeans who were shipwrecked on the Island of Misfortune resorted to eating the bodies of their dead, the natives were aghast. The natives, Cabeza de Vaca writes, did have a funeral ceremony in which the bones of the dead were ground into a powder, mixed with water, and drunk, but their flesh was not eaten.
Some commentators have used Cabeza de Vaca's account to refute the idea that the Karankawa practiced cannibalism, dismissing the later reports of it as second-hand or third-hand stories designed to instill fear or prejudice against the natives. But, however accurate or inaccurate the later reports of cannibalism may be, Cabeza de Vaca's account cannot fairly be used to contradict them. First of all, the kind of cannibalism the Karankawa were associated with - consuming pieces of a living enemy's flesh in a war ritual - is quite different from the kind that repulsed the natives of Malhado - feeding off the dead bodies of friends and comrades.
Cultural taboos can be highly specific, and they may not be logical to an outsider. For example, a confirmed vegetarian, who considers all acts of carnivorism to be abhorrent, may not understand how a person who enjoys eating meat could express revulsion over the idea of eating his own dead pet dog. To the vegetarian who has strong moral objections to eating any kind of meat, both acts are disgusting, but to the carnivore, it is ridiculous to compare them in any way.
It is entirely conceivable, then, that people for whom eating parts of living enemies was an act of war that denied the victim an afterlife would have been shocked and offended to see someone eating the body of a dead friend. When he and his companions came out of the wilderness at the end of their journey, they campaigned strongly for an end to Spain's practice of enslaving the indigenous peoples of its colonies.
They were probably instrumental in helping get that practice abolished for a time, and Cabeza de Vaca spent the rest of his life - to the detriment of his career - advocating for more benevolent treatment of the natives.
Telling the viceroy of New Spain and the king of Spain that the natives ate people would have seriously undermined his argument for Spain to treat them like humans, not savages. The Carancaquases or Carancaques There arises from their bodies such a stench that it causes one who is little accustomed to them to become sick at the stomach.
The Karankawa did not enjoy a good reputation among Texas settlers, to put it mildly. In , they perpetrated a massacre of La Salle's settlement on Matagorda Bay that appalled the Spanish explorers who found the settlement's remains. Spanish and Anglo settlers generally regarded the Karankawa as fierce, cannibalistic, xenophobic savages who attacked without provocation and could not be reasoned with. Modern historical treatment of them, as one might predict, is much more sympathetic, depicting them as victims of European malevolence, whose few acts of hostility were justifiable, as they were only defending the land and way of life that were their birthright against brutish, deceitful foreign invaders.
A fair treatment of what kind of people the Karankawa were is beyond the scope of this article, and probably even beyond the scope of this web site. Suffice it to say that both of the above views of the Karankawa can be supported by Cabeza de Vaca's account. On the one hand, he and the other survivors owed their lives to the natives' kindness and mercy.
On the other hand, they killed many of his comrades, enslaved the rest, and treated their captives cruelly. If anything, Cabeza de Vaca's account shows that the various clans of Karankawa on the Texas coast had different and sometimes complex values, and the temperament of the people as a whole cannot be succinctly described as either "good" or "bad.
This section takes the nineteen tribes named in Table 1. The Capoques and Han were the first two groups of Texas natives that Cabeza de Vaca and his comrades met. Cabeza de Vaca writes that these were two tribes who spoke different languages and kept different camps, but with regard to their territory, feeding habits, customs, and his interactions with them, he makes no distinctions between them, discussing them as if they were the same. The name of the first group is spelled "Capoques" in Chapter 15 and as "Caoques" in Chapter The other camp was about a league and a half - or approximately five miles 1 - to the west of there.
The boat led by Cabeza de Vaca landed closer to it. Each group of natives befriended the Europeans who arrived closest to them. Within a few days, the two groups of Europeans learned about the other, and they combined. Using sticks or hoes, they pulled roots that were "like truffles" from shallow channels.
They also fished. The Joint Report states that they fished from their canoes, which probably means that they put the canoes in shallow water, stood, and shot arrows at fish that swam by. Despite having these two sources of food, the natives were always hungry.
Come February, the roots could not be gathered, and the fish population dwindled, so the natives boarded their canoes and went over to the mainland, where many creeks drain into the bay, creating a reduced-salinity environment that is ideal for oysters.
Apparently, the two tribes separated at this time. They lived and ate oysters for two or three months in these treeless, mosquito-infested swamps and lagoons. At the end of April, they came back to the seashore to eat blackberries for a month. The expedition chronicles do not say what the natives ate or where they lived from June to September, but the Joint Report states that they also ate "some very large spiders, as well as lizards, snakes, and rodents.
The expedition chronicles do not record any interactions between the Capoques and Han and any other tribes during the five years Cabeza de Vaca and his comrades spent with them, either for warfare, trade, intermarriage, or any other reason. The Joint Report states, "They neither eat corn nor are they able to obtain any," implying that trade with neighboring tribes was minimal or non-existent.
This could mean that there was a degree of geographical isolation between them and their neighbors. Of all the coast-dwelling tribes that the Europeans encountered in Texas, none were more benevolent and kindly disposed towards them than the Capoques and Han.
When Europeans first arrived, the natives did not harm Cabeza de Vaca's scout, Lope de Oviedo, even though they caught him running away with a dog, some fish, and some pots he had taken from one of their huts.
For the next few days, they brought food at regular intervals to the starving Europeans who were still camping on the beach. After the Europeans lost their boat and three men trying to leave the island, the natives wept over their loss and then joyously welcomed the castaways into their village with a celebration of dancing and bonfires.
The Spaniards, aware that some of the natives of South America and Mexico made human sacrifices to their gods, laid awake all night, expecting that this would be their end, but when morning came, Cabeza de Vaca writes, "They gave us such good treatment that we became somewhat assured and lost some of our worry about sacrifices. With as much hunger as there was on the Island of Misfortune, the European guests could not rely on the generosity of the natives forever.
Healers enjoyed an elevated status in their culture, and the natives asked them to serve them in that office. The Europeans resisted, out of fear that the natives would be angry if their attempts to cure them did not work, but when the natives gave them the choice of either becoming their doctors or starving, they opted to give it a try. They performed very little actual medicine, instead operating primarily as faith healers, using rituals such as prayer, making the sign of the Cross, and breathing on the patient's affected area.
Fortunately, their efforts fully satisfied the natives. The Capoques and Han apparently did not engage in the practice of slavery, like many of their relatives down the coast did. Even though the natives did have a sort of "no work, no eat" rule, the Europeans were always free to either find their own food or leave. When the castaways decided to send four of their number down the coast in an effort to reach Mexico on foot, the natives sent one of their own with them as a guide.
Over the winter, the castaways dispersed into several camps, some of whom apparently had no contact with the natives for months. And when spring arrived and a group of survivors were ready to leave, the natives helped them gather their people together and gave them some gifts or supplies for their journey. There is only one passage in the expedition chronicles that alludes to slavery among the Capoques and Han; this is when Cabeza de Vaca, who forsook the Island of Misfortune to live with the natives of Charruco on the mainland, stated that he "was not a slave" with the latter, implying by contrast that he was a slave with the Capoques and Han.
This seems to be a bit of drama, however, considering that he was apparently free to visit his friend Lope de Ovideo on Malhado and then leave again any time he wished, and the reason Oviedo gave for not wanting to leave Malhado was that he feared the danger of the journey ahead, not because the natives were holding him captive.
Cabeza de Vaca writes that he hated the root-pulling work he was given to do by the Capoques and Han; he apparently hated it so much he equated it with slavery, even though he was free to leave it, which he did. The first time Cabeza de Vaca and his people saw the natives on the Island of Misfortune, the Europeans had just arrived after being adrift at sea for days and were weak, exhausted, and hungry.
Hundreds of the native men appeared around them suddenly, with bows and arrows in hand. He gave a more complete description of their appearance later:. We gave this island the name "Island of Misfortune. They have no other weapons than arrows and bows, with which they are extremely adept. The men have one nipple pierced from one side to the other; there are some who have both. They place a cane as long as two and a half hands and as thick as two fingers through the hole they make.
They also have their lower lip pierced, and they put a piece of cane as thin as half a finger through it. The women do a lot of work. This physical description is consistent with later recorded descriptions of the Karankawa, as noted in the previous section, including their size, the men having cane piercings through their lip and nipples, and their use of bows and arrows.
Discussing them further, Cabeza de Vaca relates their manner of dress: the men went nude, the women wore coverings of moss, and the girls wore deer skins. He also writes that when a child died, they mourned for a year and then washed off "all of the paint they wear," 5 confirming their use of body paint.
He does not mention tattoos or grease. The only mention the Joint Report makes of their appearance is that their ears were pierced with pieces of cane. Furthermore, there are places in Chapters 14 and 15 where Cabeza de Vaca explicitly states that he is referring to a broader population of natives, such as when he writes, "All of the people in this country go nude" 6 and "This custom prevails from the island to more than fifty leagues inland.
The "little puppy" that Lope de Oviedo found in one of the native camps comports with the common association between the Karankawa and dogs. Even though Cabeza de Vaca's description of the Capoques and Han is an excellent fit with everything else that is known about the Karankawa, it is not completely clear-cut that this was, in fact, who they were. His statement, "Two manners of language inhabit them. The first are called Capoques, and the others Han," 8 suggests that at least one of them was from a different tribe.
The most likely answer is that one of the clans was Atakapa, a tribe that was similar to the Karankawa, both in appearance and culture. The Atakapa inhabited the Gulf coast from southwest Louisiana to southeast Texas.
The western extent of their range of occupation was Galveston Bay, which was also the eastern extent of the Karankawa. The Atakapa, whose name means "man-eater" in Choctaw, were also reported to be practitioners of ritual cannibalism. Texas historians have long identified Capoques with the Cocos or "Cokes," the easternmost Karankawa tribe of the s and s, whose habitat was from the Colorado River to Galveston Bay.
This identification is compelling, not just because of the similarities in their territories and names, but also because, according to Harbert Davenport and Joseph K. Wells, whose work on Cabeza de Vaca in the early s was more systematic and informed than any that preceded it, the Cocos were "the least barbarous of the Karankawan Indians" and were also on generally friendly terms with their Atakapa neighbors to the east.
Historians associate the Han of the Island of Misfortune with the Akokisa clan of the Atakapa people. On the Texas mainland, adjacent to Follet's Island, where the Capoques and Han lived, were some woods where another group of natives lived. According to Cabeza de Vaca, the woods were called Charruco ch.
The only name he gave for the natives was " los de Charruco ," or "those of Charruco. In this chapter, Cabeza de Vaca explains why he did not leave the Island of Misfortune in April with Dorantes, Castillo, and the others, but instead waited another four years to leave. The chapter has a defensive tone to it and is filled with inconsistencies and clear inaccuracies, such as "The time I spent in this country alone among them was almost six years" 9 and his implication that he was a slave on the Island of Malhado, against so much evidence to the contrary.
He condenses his four years with the De Charruco into a few sentences, and these are more about drawing attention to himself than about describing the natives or the land. In other words, what little he does write about the De Churruco is suspect.
What Cabeza de Vaca does say about the De Charruco is that they did not assign him any hard labor, such as the root-pulling work that he hated so much on the Island of Misfortune, but instead gave him food in exchange for wares that that he obtained by becoming a roving trader.
He traveled over a great distance inland and along the coast, bartering for shells, beads, hides, flints, dyes, and other items the natives wanted. This could mean that the De Charruco had contact with other tribes, and were not as geographically isolated as the Capoques and Han may have been.
Woodlands and forests are found where fresh water is plentiful, such as around rivers and creeks, and in lowlands that are above the reach of saltwater tides. This means that the woods of Charruco could have begun just past the northern edge of Galveston's West Bay and extended inland an undefined distance.
Cabeza de Vaca gives no indication of their location except that they were "on the mainland, facing the island" Based on what little information there is to work with, then, the middle and north sections of present-day Brazoria County, in the neighborhood of Bastrop Bayou, Oyster Creek, and the Brazos River, are as good a place for Charruco as any.
The natives of Charruco may have been Karankawa, Tonkawa, Atakapa, or another tribe. The Deaguanes are the first coast-dwelling tribe Cabeza de Vaca lists after the Island of Misfortune. He refers to them again in Chapter 24, recalling a previously unrelated incident with them. There, he refers to them as " los de Aguanes, " or "those of Aguanes," indicating that, like the De Chorruco, the Deaguanes were named after the territory they inhabited. In Chapter 26, their name is spelled Doguenes.
Some women of the Deaguanes helped Cabeza de Vaca and Oviedo across the pass. The natives on the west side of the pass, the Quevenes, frightened Oviedo so much that he opted to return with the Deaguanes. Cabeza de Vaca moved on, and Oviedo was never seen again. This is why the Deaguanes women helped Cabeza de Vaca and Lope de Oviedo across the pass; they were able to travel and visit other tribes even though the men were at war.
Cabeza de Vaca writes that while he was with "those of Aguanes," their enemies came at midnight in a surprise attack, killing three.
The Deaguanes retrieved all of the arrows that were used against them, followed the Quevenes back to their camp, and killed five in a pre-dawn strike. The women of the Quevenes then came and brokered peace with the Deaguanes, "although," Cabeza de Vaca added, "sometimes they are the cause of the war. Cabeza de Vaca does not state where he and Oviedo met up with the Deaguanes or how far they traveled with them before crossing Cavallo Pass.
The Joint Report states that Dorantes's party encountered natives at the fourth river, which is taken to be Caney Creek, and Cabeza de Vaca does not name any tribes between the Island of Misfortune and the Deaguanes, so this may have been the tribe that Dorantes's party met. In , the four survivors set out on an arduous journey across the present-day states of Texas, New Mexico , and Arizona.
Captured by the Karankawa Natives, they lived in virtual bondage for nearly two years. Only after Cabeza de Vaca had won the respect of the Karankawa by becoming a skilled medicine man and diplomat did the small band win their freedom.
In , the men encountered a party of Spanish explorers in what is now the Mexican state of Sinaloa. They followed them back to Mexico City, where the tale of their amazing odyssey became famous throughout the colony and in Europe. Despite the many hardships experienced by Cabeza de Vaca and his men during their northern travels, their stories inspired others to intensify exploration of the region that would one day become Texas. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
On November 6, , Rutgers beats Princeton, , in the first college football game. The game, played with a soccer ball before roughly fans in New Brunswick, New Jersey, resembles rugby instead of today's football. Note that in the quotations from the accounts I have used throughout, the brackets are part of Krieger's editing and annotations. Scholarly discussions continue about linkages between Indian groups encountered by Cabeza de Vaca and his cohorts in the early s and groups living in the same regions during the second wave of Old World invaders in the late s and early s.
See: Who were the "Coahuiltecans"? In doing so, he documents the presence of seemingly once-distinct bands that the Spanish grouped together for administrative and military purposes under a geographic rubric. They were geographic Coahuiltecans in the sense that they exploited the extensive prickly pear grounds south of San Antonio and north of the Nueces River. The Charruco, with whom Cabeza de Vaca was based for several years when he served as a trader, were not, however, Coahuiltecans, as they occupied inland tracks well to the north and west i.
While the Charruco probably interacted regularly with Coahuiltecan groups, there is little to suggest that they seasonally occupied parts of South Texas. Cabeza de Vaca also wrote about his trading experiences with the Avavares, a decidedly Coahuiltecan group whose homeland encompassed the south-most bend of the Nueces River, well within the South Texas heartland. The four Old World survivors were to become especially familiar with the Avavares after spending eight months in their South Texas homeland before striking out on their way west across south-central North America.
Cabeza de Vaca may have already known the Avavares and neighboring groups from his own participation in trade fairs when he was living with the Charruco. I used to trade with these Indians by making them combs, and with bows and with arrows and with nets.
We would make mats, which are things they greatly need and although they know how to make them they do not want to occupy themselves with anything, in order all the while to look for food.
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