text:
Bamforth, Douglas B.
1988 Ethnohistory and Bison on the Southwestern Plains: a Minor Correction to Turpin. Plains Anthropologist 33:405-408.
In this article, Bamforth responds to an earlier article by Turpin (1987, below), stating that she made two significant errors in her article. First, she used Espejo's account of the 1582 expedition that he led to New Mexico and back to Mexico. This account is largely conjecture (see Kenmotsu 1994); additionally, the Espejo expedition never entered the Lower Pecos region discussed by Turpin. Second, her interpretation of the density of bison in the Southern Plains does not, in his opinion, fit with the relative scarcity of bison that can be supported by the grasses on these plains nor with the scarcity of archeological evidence to support such a claim. [1]
Berlandier, Jean Louis
1980 Journey to Mexico During the Years 1826 to 1834. Translated by Sheila M. Ohlendorf, Josette M. Bigelow and Mary M. Standifer, Vol. One. The Texas State Historical Association, Austin.
Berlandier was a botanist who received his training in Geneva in the early nineteenth century. Subsequent to his graduation from the Geneva herbarium, he was selected by the Swiss to travel to Mexico to collect floral samples and detail the natural history of that country, particularly the central and northeastern portions. Over a several year period, Berlandier made a number of travels to various parts of the country, often in the company of others. Both he and several of the others kept journals, diaries, and/or wrote short reports of their work. One of his fellow travelers in 1828-1829 was Lt. Jose Maria Sanchez y Tapia whose watercolors of Native Americans are featured in several illustrations in earlier chapters of this report.
While most of this volume deals only with Mexico, the final chapters contain a few pieces of information relevant to the Amistad NRA. They are provided below.
p. 262: "The two tribes who most commonly frequent [Laredo] are the Lipans and the Comanches, who come to camp on the banks of the river."
p. 267: "The waters of the Rio Bravo become troubled after receiving those of the Pecos River and they remain so more or less according to the changeable terrain through which they flow."
p. 268: "During our sojourn in Laredo the Lipans, then at peace, arrived according to their noble custom to pay a visit to the presidio. Before making their entrance they sent messengers to General Bustamante to announce their arrival . . . . They are taken bread and the required bottle of mescal, which for them is the symbol of friendship. Later on when I was at Bexar, Comanches arrived and the same ceremonies of reception were observed."
p. 269: "The Lipans live almost constantly at war with the Comanches, and the dispute over the herds of bison, which constitute the principal food of these indigenes, increases the hatred which is so easy to arouse in them. The former, although more courageous and more warlike than the Comanches, are forced to yield to numbers . . . . The Lipans are the best Indian horsemen, and their skill promptly places them beyond the reach of their adversaries."
p. 271: "The route which leads from Laredo to Bexar is generally little frequented and not very safe; the Lipans and the Comanches infest it at every step."
Boyd, Carolyn E.
1998 Pictographic Evidence of Peyotism in the Lower Pecos, Texas Archaic. In The Archaeology of Rock-Art, edited by Christopher Chippindale and Paul S. C. Tacon, pp. 232-247. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
In this short but concise chapter Carolyn Boyd makes a convincing case for the association between prehistoric rock-art motifs and peyote practices. Using three independent lines of evidence, she focuses primarily on 41VV124, the "White Shaman" rock-art panel located near the confluence of the Pecos River with the Rio Grande. After a detailed formal analysis of the pictographic elements of the panel, Boyd uses ethnographic evidence from the Huichol in northern Mexico to relate, by analogy, elements depicted in the panel with precise details of the procurement, collection, and use of peyote by the modern Huichol. Boyd researched the mythic connections between peyote, deer, and maize among the Huichol, and then reviewed the environmental and ecological relationships that may have fostered similar ritual practices among the prehistoric populations in the Lower Pecos/Rio Grande area. Boyd also discusses the archeological and archeobotanical evidence that substantiate her analogy and interpretation. Apart from the innovative character of the research and conclusions, Boyd makes some statements that are pertinent to the present study.
p. 232: "In this analysis, examinations and analyses of the pictographs were conducted to determine spatial variability and patterns in motif association."
p. 234: "Peyotism in the United States is recognized as having its origins in northern Mexico and southern Texas along the Rio Grande . . . the northernmost reaches of the natural growth range of peyote. During historical times, various Indian groups such as the Comanches and the Kiowas and tribes from Oklahoma journeyed to the Lower Pecos region to harvest peyote for ceremonial use. The Comanches and the Kiowas reportedly collected peyote along the Rio Grande and Pecos River."
p. 237: "Specific elements of the Pecos River Style rock art are analogous to specific elements in the Huichol ritual peyote pilgrimage."
p. 238: Boyd indicates that the elements of the panel suggest that the panel should be read from left to right.
p. 244: "Insight into prehistoric art can be gained when the results of a formal analysis are combined with ethnographic analogy and assessed within the context of environmental and archaeological evidence."
Brown, Maureen, Jose E. Zapata, and Bruce K. Moses
1998 Camp Elizabeth, Sterling County, Texas: An Archaeological and Archival Investigation of a U.S. Army Subpost, and Evidence Supporting its Use by the Military and "Buffalo Soldiers." Archaeological Survey Report, No. 267. Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Partially situated within the right of way of US 87, Camp Elizabeth (properly known as the Camp of the North Concho) was mitigated by the University of Texas at San Antonio under contract to the Texas Department of Transportation. Using both archeological and archival investigations, the researchers detail the history of that camp, which was intermittently occupied during the 1860s and 1870s, largely by Buffalo or Black soldiers. Selected parts of the archival documentation are relevant to this study:
p. 23: "Camp Johnston was established March 15, 1852, on the south side of the North Concho River at latitude 31°30' and longitude 100°51'."
p. 31: "In March 1872, Major Hatch, 4th Cavalry reported that Lieutenant Hoffman had sighted a party of about 150 men, believed to be from the reservation near Ft. Sill. These were reported as divided and operating in San Saba, Lampasas, and Llano counties, and may be the war party that left the reservation."
p. 31: "The ensuing reports indicate that the Ft. Concho troops were rarely required to engage the Indians . . . . [Captain Nolan stated:] 'November 11, 1877 . . . I here interviewed Some of the Settlers as to when Indians were last seen in this Vicinity . . . [and] they informed me that none had been Seen in the last three Years.'"
p. 43: "In August 1870, Major Aenas R. Bliss, 25th Infantry, enlisted a special detachment of black Seminole scouts from a group that had recently arrived at Fort Duncan from northern Mexico. These people represented a portion of the mixed-blood Seminole and black population that had fled to Mexico during 1849 and 1850 to escape American slave traders. They had originally been well received by the Mexican government but eventually had been neglected. An offer of scouting jobs and protection tendered by Captain Frank W. Perry had prompted about 100 to relocate to Fort Duncan, under subchief John Kibbetts. In the following three years, other groups from northern Mexico joined them, raising the black Seminole population to approximate 180 . . . . Fifty scouts were organized as a unit and served for nine years under Lt. John Bullis."
Chipman, Donald E.
1987 In Search of Cabeza de Vaca's Route Across Texas: An Historiographical Survey. Southwestern Historical Quarterly 91(1):127-148.
In this article Chipman reviews and assesses the routes for Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca's trek through Texas between 1528 and 1535 proposed by several researchers. Starting with Bancroft's first musings about Cabeza de Vaca's trek, Chipman illustrates the different versions of the route, and places each particular version of the route and its respective author in historical context. He concentrates on the interpretations of the route and not on the quality or reliability of the translations used or prepared by the various researchers who studied the route. Chipman finally considers the route interpretations of Alex Krieger and T. N. Campbell and T. J. Campbell and the contributions these authors made to the problem.
p.142: "Alex D. Krieger's route interpretation meets the criteria of thoroughness and objectivity."
p.144: Chipman noted that Krieger's "route interpretation for the portion of the overland trek that lay near the Texas-Mexico border is essentially a refinementan important refinement, to be sureof that [route] advanced by Davenport and Wells in 1919."
p. 147: For Chipman, the Campbells' contribution "was essentially new in that they went through all the relevant primary Spanish documents with a fine tooth-comb and sorted out all information about each named Indian group. The synthesized Indian data were used, along with terrain and biotic data, as criteria for their route evaluation. The Campbells disagreed with Krieger regarding the location of the Land of the Tunas which Krieger locates south of the Atascosa River about 30 to 40 miles due south of San Antonio. The Campbells located the tuna fields near the Nueces River, west and northwest of Corpus Christi Bay." Chipman, like the Campbells, recognized that we may never be sure of the exact route of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions but the work of these researchers has provided the best approximation as of this date.
Dunn, William Edward
1911 Apache Relations in Texas, 1718-1750. Texas Historical Association Quarterly XIV:198-274.
Dunn's text for this article was his master's thesis at Stanford University. Fluent in Spanish, he used a large number of documents from Mexican archives pertinent to Spanish/United States borderland studies that had been transcribed by Bolton in the first decade of the twentieth century. Documents from the Bexar and Nacogdoches archives were also employed. Copies of the documents used by Dunn are now housed at Stanford as well as at the Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
The focus on the Apache was undertaken because Dunn recognized that the Apache/Spanish interaction east of New Mexico was an important ingredient in the subsequent history of Texas but had been largely ignored by American historians prior to his study. He was particularly keen on the events that led to the development of Spanish missions for the Apaches on the San Saba and Nueces rivers. In the study, Dunn carefully segmented the Apaches into the bands that the Spanish had recognized and he provided considerable detail on his interpretation of the territories that distinct bands occupied. While some of our interpretations may differ from his, his work is impressive and much of it stands today. The following excerpts from his study are pertinent to the Amistad NRA:
p. 201-202: He defines the "Apaches de Oriente" (a term frequently seen in early Spanish documents) as those east of the Pecos River of New Mexico and Texas.
p. 202: "The Lipan, when first known to the Texans, lived far to the northwest of San Antonio, on the upper reaches of the Colorado, Brazos, and Red rivers, but gradually they moved south before the advancing Comanches, until by 1732 they made their home in the country of the San Saba, Chanas (Llano), and Pedernales. About 1750 some of them established themselves on the Medina, and others pushed on to the Rio Grande."
p. 203: "The Natages and the Mescaleros lived far to the southwestward, in the country of the Pecos and on the Rio Grande. These Eastern Apaches were not numerous, but were led by petty chiefs, which made it difficult to deal with the tribes as wholes."
p. 203: Father Massanet stated, "The Apaches form a chain running from east to west, and wage war with all; with the Salineros alone do they maintain peace."
p. 204: "In the instruction given to Governor Alarcon, in 1718, for the planting of [San Antonio], he was cautioned to be on his guard against the Apaches, and was told to organize the neighboring tribes in a defensive alliance against them."
p. 205: "Aguayo . . . wished to make friends of the Apaches, and as he journeyed from San Antonio to eastern Texas he erected several crosses, in order, as he said, 'to exalt the cross in the midst of so much idolatry, and to leave signs of peace to the Apaches Indians.'"
p. 208: "The fact that they [the military under Captain Flores] went northward five days [pursuing Apache who attacked the presidio at San Antonio in August 1703] before entering the Lomeria and that they returned by way of the San Xavier (San Gabriel), where Father Pita's remains were found, would indicate a generally northward direction . . . . Since they were 19 days returning and traveling 130 leagues, the air-line distance from San Antonio could hardly have been less than 200 miles. This would put the place where the battle occurred somewhere in the region of Brownwood, perhaps."
p. 209: "The Spaniards wished, among other things, to use the Apaches as a bulwark against the French and their Indian allies (the Comanches in particular), and to prepare the way for the development of trade between New Mexico, Espiritu Santo, and eastern Texas, and so strengthen the Spanish hold upon that vast territory."
p. 213: "Father Hidalgo, who was missionary at San Antonio de Valero [in 1723] supported his brother priest. To the latter's statement he volunteered to add his own opinion. The Apaches, he said, could have been converted long before if the presidios had been managed rightly."
p. 217: "Almazan to the viceroy [a document]: Declaracion del Yndio Geronimo. In his declaration made before [the governor], Geronimo stated that he was a native of Rio de Santa Helena, near Fresnillo, and that he had been left an orphan at an early age. While working for a merchant as driver, he had been captured by Tobosos, who kept him for a year, and then traded him to the Apaches in exchange for deer skins, because an Apache chief fancied that the resembled a son of his who had been captured by the Spaniards in an assault upon Rio Grande."
p. 220: "Up to this time very little distinction, if any, was made between the different Apaches tribes, but all were included . . . under the generic name of Apaches. . . . Domingo Cabello, who was governor of Texas in 1784 and who wrote an historical sketch of the Apaches, says that at the time . . . they lived along the Rio Del Fierro, 300 leagues 'from the province of Texas.' The Rio del Fierro seems to be the Wichita. According to Cabello's Statement, the Apaches lived in that region until about 1723, when they were defeated by the Comanches . . . in a nine days' battle and forced to seek safety in flight. Going southward, they chose as their new home the region between the upper Colorado and Brazos rivers."
p. 221: "The range of the Apaches extended much farther south, it is true. During the buffalo season, they were accustomed to move their camps to the southeast, between the middle Colorado and Brazos rivers, where the buffalo were the most numerous."
p. 222: "If [Flores] was correct in his estimate [in 1723] the total population of this [Apache] rancheria could not have been less than eight or nine hundred."
p. 228: "Joseph de Urrutia, writing on July 4, 1733, wondered at [an] alliance between the Apaches and the Jumanes and Pelones because, he said, the Apaches were formerly the enemies of these other tribes and would not admit them to their friendship. This alliance with other tribes may indicate that the Apaches were no longer as independent as they had been and that the Comanches were pressing hard upon them."
p. 232: In 1733, Bustillo traveled northwest of San Antonio (likely in the vicinity of San Saba) and attacked Apaches camped there in four rancherias. He stated that they included the Apaches, Ypandis (Lipan), Ysandis, and Chentis.
p. 236: In Bustillo's report of the campaign, "he declared that there were 37 tribes along the road [from San Antonio] to New Mexico bearing the name Apache."
p. 236: "On November 26, 1732, the viceroy had asked why the Apaches always succeeded in their attacks upon San Antonio . . . . In answer to this, Captain Almazan made a statement . . . explaining that the Apaches confined their raids almost entirely to the presidio of Bexar because of its proximity to their homes . . . . Not only were the Apaches hostile to San Antonio . . . but recently two other tribes, the Yxandi and the Chenti, had joined them."
p. 241: "In 1736 Fray Francisco de Rios . . . was returning from San Antonio to Rio Grande . . . . At a place called El Atascoso, some 14 leagues from San Antonio, they were attacked by a number of Apaches."
p. 241, ff4: "In a letter of June 6, 1735, Don Blas de la Garza Falcon, governor of Coahuila, to the Archbishop of Mexico, an account is given to the effect that the Apaches were frequenting the territory around Saltillo and Monclova."
p. 251: In 1745, "Captain Urrutia went northward from San Antonio, crossing the Colorado River about 70 leagues away. Ten leagues north of this river they found a rancheria of Apaches, 'commonly called Ypandes' (Lipans), whose tents were scattered over a wide area."
p. 253: "In March 1746, "a campaign was being planned by the captains of Rio Grande and Sacramento presidios to punish the Tobosos and the 'Apaches Jumanes,' who had been very annoying."
p. 254: "In 1748 [Apaches] attacked [the San Xavier mission] four times, the fiercest assault being made on May 2, when 60 Apaches appeared at the mission."
p. 255: "These Apache raids, which had continued so long, now became less frequent, due apparently to increased pressure from the Comanches."
p. 256: Pelones, a subdivision of the Apaches, living near the Caudachos [Red] River were forced to give up their lands.
p. 266: "Urrutia says: 'The Natages Indians, reputed among the Indians of the north as true Apaches, lived on this occasion not far from and to the west of the Ypandes. They are fewer in number but prouder and more overbearing than the rest, and their chief man was captain of the Ypandes . . . . The body of these Natages comprises in itself the Mescaleros and Salineros Indians . . . . Their own country [that is, of the Natages] is on the said Rio Salado [Pecos?], where they enter into the jurisdiction of Conchos. The Ypandes, as they are intimate friends and relatives, also go as far as the Rio Salado in the months of June and July, and then in the autumn all go down together to the San Saba, Xianas [Chanas, Llano], Almagre, and Pedernales rivers . . . . The Natages, Santa Ana also said, troubled the Rio Grande country as far west as El Paso, although they numbered less than 100 warriors.'"
p. 267: The Ypandes were located closest to Bexar. "The Ypandes were said to be identical with the Pelones, being referred to [in 1743] as Ypandes alias Pelones."
Emory, William H.
1987 Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey Made Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior. Second edition, Texas State Historical Association, Austin.
The effort to establish a permanent boundary between Mexico and the United States was a long and politically difficult enterprise. Emory was not the first to lead the effort, but he proved to be the successful individual and one who seemed particularly suited to the task. Certainly he was an individual of considerable energy whose writings in these recently re-published volumes suggest that he found great excitement and delight in seeing, studying, and learning about the poorly described lands of West and west central Texas. The volumes are a marvel of information on the native flora and fauna along with geologic descriptions that are quite detailed. To a lesser degree, they provide information about Native Americans, as shown in the following excerpts:
p. 10: Emory arrived in El Paso in 1851 and stated that he considered the area from El Paso to Brownsville to be "a vast extent of country, uninhabited by civilized races, and infested by nomadic tribes of savages."
p. 11: "Although the Rio Bravo, from El Paso to its mouth, has been frequently mapped, it will surprise many to know, that up to the time when I commenced the survey, by far the largest portion of it had never been traversed by civilized man."
p. 24: Emory returned to El Paso December 30, 1853 for the final effort on the boundary survey. After traveling from Indianola to San Antonio and then to El Paso, Emory stated that the party "did not see an Indian on the route, although in front and in rear of us they were committing depredations along the whole road."
p. 39: "That portion of [the boundary] which is formed by the Rio Bravo, below the mouth of the San Pedro, or Devil's river of Texas, makes a boundary, which in the absence of extradition laws, must always be a source of controversy between the United States and Mexico."
p. 43: "The igneous protrusions which occur . . . are traced from the San Saba mountain, by the head of the Leona, to Santa Rosa, in Mexico . . . . At Santa Rosa the Spaniards had sunk extensive shafts and made a tunnel . . . which was not completed when the revolution of 1825 [sic] broke out; since then . . . the country . . . has been a prey to the incursion of banditti and Indians, and at this time Wild Cat and his band of Florida Indians are settled near there."
p. 58: "Having now given the general view of the country on the American side of the first section of the boundary, I will ask the reader to ascend with me the Rio Bravo along the boundary, where I will describe in detail all that is worth noting as high as the mouth of the Rio San Pedro, or Devil's river . . . .
p. 72: "Before leaving the mouth of the Rio San Pedro to ascend the Rio Bravo, I will take a rapid view of the country on the Mexican side . . . . The eastern slope of these mountains forms portions of the States of Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. The area between the Rio Bravo and the bases of these slopes is an arid, cretaceous plain, covered with a spinose growth similar to that on the Texas side."
p. 74: "Having organized a party, and made all preparations at San Antonio, Texas, we proceeded on the road to El Paso, and followed it as far as the Pecos Springs. At this place I determined to leave the road and strike for the Rio Grande, as directly as the nature of the country would permit. Owing to its character, and the necessity of taking wagons along, our route, as shown by the map became somewhat circuitous."
p. 74: "No water, except what collects in the gullies during heavy rains, until you reach King's Springs. This is a large spring of water, deep and clear . . . . While the main part encamped there, a reconnaissance was made in a southwesterly direction for nearly sixty miles, when it was found impracticable to proceed further. The course lay towards the "Los Chisos' mountains."
p. 75: "Numerous trails from the Pecos and the Escondido here unite [along Independence Creek] and form a large broad one, running south to the Rio Grande; there are unmistakable signs of their constant use. Leaving the creek, we ascended the contiguous hills and rose upon a high plain, over which we traveled forty miles, following the guidance of the Indian trail; this was deeply marked although it is difficult to make an impression on the surface . . . . The plain where the main party encamped, and where we first struck the river, made a gradual descent to the water. Here was the first break in the canyon [of the Rio Grande], and the crossing being fordable, formed an accessible pass for the Indians into Mexico. This ford [is] known as the Lipan crossing . . . . The Lipans often visited us here, and made themselves useful as guides."
p. 76: "We had, fortunately, struck the only place, as our examinations afterwards proved, where we could possibly reach the river with our wagons; the route was a circuitous one, in all 140 miles from the Pecos springs."
p. 78: "The Pecos is more deserving of its other Mexican name, 'Puerco,' for it is truly a rolling mass of red mud, the water tasting like a mixture of every saline ingredient."
p. 81: "Comanche Pass, on the Rio Bravo, the most celebrated and frequently used crossing place of the Indians, was found to be just below this Bofecillos range; here broad, well-beaten trails lead to the river from both sides. A band of Indians under the well known chief Mano (hand) crossed the river at the time of our visit; they had come, by their own account, from the headwaters of Red River, and were on their way to Durango, in Mexicono doubt on a thieving expedition."
p. 84: "On a high mesa of gravel, some sixty feet above the level of the river bottom, is situated the old Presidio of San Vincente [south of the Big Bend], one of the ancient military posts that marked the Spanish role in this country, long since abandoned."
p. 86: "The relations between the Indians of this region and several of the Mexican towns, particularly San Carlos, a small town twenty miles below, are peculiar, and well worth the attention of the both United States and Mexican governments. The Apaches are usually at war with the people of both countries, but have friendly leagues with certain towns, where they trade and receive supplies of arms, ammunition, &c., for stolen mules . . . . It seems that Chihuahua, not receiving the protection it was entitled to from the central government of Mexico, made an independent treaty with the Comanches, the practiced effect of which was to aid and abet the Indians in their war upon Durango."
p. 86: "'Bajo Sol' is the title assumed by a bold Comanche, who, as his name signifies, claims to be master of everything under the sun . . . . I have never seen the villain or heard his name on the American side . . . but I did meet one of his lieutenants, who, I have not doubt, was in all respects a worthy disciple . . . . He called himself 'Mucho Toro,' and represented himself as a Comanche, but he was evidently an escaped Mexican peon. It was in the fall of 1852, in making a rapid march across the continent, escorted by only 15 soldiers under Lieut. Washington, as we approached the Comanche Springs after a long journey without water, that we discovered grazing near the spring quite 1,000 animals, divided into three different squads. As we approached we could see with the naked eye a party of 30 or 40 warriors drawn up on the hill overlooking the spring . . . . The party were Kioways and Comanches, returning from a foray into Mexico with nearly 1,000 animals. 'Mucho Toro,' the chief of this party, who spoke Spanish well, stated he had purchased his animals in Mexico, and that he was but the advanced party of several hundred warriors, who were close behind him . . . . The next day, when crossing the dividing ridge between the Comanche and León springs, we discovered the dust rising from the trail which crossed our road as far as the eye could reach, leaving no doubt of the truth of Mucho Toro's statement, that his was but the advanced party of 'Bajo Sol's' four hundred men. The following summer we found that such a party had passed out of Mexico over this road."
Freeman, Martha Doty
1997 A History of Camp Cooper, Throckmorton County, Texas. Aztec of Albany Foundation, Inc., Albany, Texas.
Freeman is a respected historian who frequently works with archeologists (and happily, we might add). Over the years, Freeman's efforts to document the historical events and background of various regions of Texas have been substantial. This report, privately funded by the Summerlee Foundation under a grant to the Aztec Foundation, a group interested in the history of the region where Camp Cooper is located, represents one of her efforts.
Camp Cooper was the United States Army military camp that was assigned to protect and keep watch over the "Upper Reserve" for the Comanche in Texas at the same time that it was to act "as a staging ground for scouting expeditions against hostile, non-reservation Indians" (p. 14). This reservation was established on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River by an act of the Texas Legislature in January 1856. Like the reservation, the camp was short-lived, continuing as a post to protect the Native Americans only until 1859, but then continued as an outpost for the armies of the Confederate and later the United States. It was abandoned in 1874.
p. 21: "On January 2, 1856, in bitterly cold weather, officers and men of the Second Cavalry established the newest of Texas' federal military installations in a wide band of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River . . . . [T]he post was intended to protect the Indians and agents recently settled on the 4-league Comanche Reserve."
p. 21: "Camp Cooper never became the impressive permanent fort that engineers with Department of Texas envisioned."
p. 26: Neighbors wrote to the commander of Fort Belknap that Northern Comanches were at the reserve making it difficult for him to protect the southern Comanches.
p. 27: "On December 4, 1855, Special Orders No. 126 . . . directed that four companies of the Second Regiment of Cavalry would 'take post at or near the Indian Agency in the Comanche reservation.' . . . In the meantime, the Second Cavalry . . . arrived on December 27, 1855 . . . After several days, four companies under Major W.I. Hardee left Belknap and reached the Clear Fork where they established camp."
p. 29: "In June, [1856 General Robert E.] Lee left Camp Cooper [to campaign against Sanaco's Comanches] . . . . Over a distance of approximately 1,600 miles, the troops 'swept down the valleys of the Concho, the Colorado, and the Red Fork of the Brazos to the San Saba country and Pecan Bayou' but encountered only a few Indians before returning to Camp Cooper."
p. 37: "Neighbors believed that the raids [just west of Camp Cooper] had been carried out by Kickapoos, Nokonis, Kiowas, and other tribes."
p. 44: "The fracas at old Camp Cooper was followed by raids on Givens' ranch during which Indians drove off a number of his cattle. About the same time, James Buckner . . . reported that Indians identified as Kiowas had killed four men and driven off cattle."
Goggin, John M.
1951 The Mexican Kickapoo Indians. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 7:314-327.
While conducting ethnographic research on the Seminole Maroons of Nacimiento, Coahuila, Goggin spent several days among the Kickapoo in nearby Musquiz. This brief report contains a summary of the data that he acquired during that visit.
Noting that the Kickapoo were originally situated in western Wisconsin but forced southwardfirst to Illinois, then Missouri, then Kansas, then Texas, and then Mexicoduring the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, he describes their lifeways on the 7,000 hectares of land that they populate at the headwaters of the Rio Sabinas. Their houses are in small fenced plots and consist of several rectangular mat-covered structures surrounded by carefully swept yards. At the time of his visit, they grew their own vegetables and fruits, hunted for wild game, and sold their baskets and other products in nearby Mexican markets, particularly walnuts, chile piquin, and oregano. The following comments are pertinent to the Amistad NRA affiliation study:
p. 315: "[They] relinquished their lands by treaty in 1819 for a tract in southwestern Missouri . . . . [I]n 1830 they requested land in Kansas . . . . This was granted by treaty in 1832 and most of them moved to Kansas. Apparently not all the Kickapoo moved to the Kansas reservation, for a number are [sic, were] reported in Texas. These were joined in 1837 by several hundred members of the Kansas group. However, shortly thereafter these Kickapoo, along with Shawnee and Delaware Indians, were forced out by the Texas, and in 1839 they [moved to Oklahoma]."
p. 315: "[T]hese Kickapoo came into contact with Coacooche (Wild Cat), the celebrated Seminole war leader who . . . was greatly dissatisfied with life under United States supervision. Under his leadership a substantial number of Kickapoo and Seminole made their way to Coahuila in 1848. Two years later a delegation from these Indians went to Mexico City endeavoring to obtain a gift of land. Here a treaty was signed granting their request in return for a promise of aid against the Apache and Comanche who raided northern Mexico. After moving around, the group settled near its present location."
p. 315: "[I]n 1862, the Mexican [Kickapoo were] reinforced by other Kickapoo from the Canadian River. Several years later some left Mexico, and eventually a small group reached the Kansas agency in 1870."
p. 315: "The Kickapoo in Coahuila . . . prospered, and not only successfully fought the Apache and Comanche but also raided across the Texas border for horses and cattle." [See our summary in the Ethnohistoric Review above for another view.]
p. 316: "[I]n 1873 . . . Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie disregarded international law and followed the [Kickapoo] deep into Mexico where he killed or captured all . . . present in their main village. Later in the same year a civilian commission also went to Mexico endeavoring to bring back . . . the Potawatomi and Kickapoo. Most of the former tribe removed, and some of the latter, leaving 280 Kickapoo in Coahuila."
p. 316: "[In the late 1890s,] a number moved south to Mexico where they attempted to obtain land near . . . Nacimiento . . . . [T]he Mexican Government refused them permission, . . . although they were allowed to obtain other land if they wished. Some returned to Oklahoma while others apparently moved to Chihuahua."
p. 316: "Throughout all the time from 1870's to the present, there was constant intercourse between the Oklahoma and Coahuila groups, and people circulated freely from one group to the other."
p. 317: "Every year some Oklahoma people visit the rancheria . . . which lasts several weeks to a couple of months."
Gunnerson, James H. and Dolores A. Gunnerson
1988 Ethnohistory of the High Plains. Colorado State Office, Bureau of Land Management, Denver.
James and Dolores Gunnerson have conducted many years of research into the historic and protohistoric Native American groups occupying the Southern and High Plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and New Mexico. This small publication is devoted to those tribes occupying these regions. Funded as a series of overviews on the archeology and ethnography of this vast region where the Bureau manages thousands of acres, it presents the information on selected tribes that occupied the area in the nineteenth century. Information from earlier centuries is also presented, but it is much briefer in detail and scope. Because the overview is small, the amount of detail is limited. Important events and dates, when known, are presented, but in-depth discussion is not. Moreover, the sources quoted are rarely from original sources. (Certainly, the Gunnersons have done original documentary work, but such was apparently beyond the scope of their contract.) The tribes discussed that have relevance for the Amistad NRA are: the Apache tribes, Kiowa and Kiowa Apache tribes, and the Comanche Tribe. A few pertinent notes are included below:
p. ix.: "[N]ative occupation of the Central High Plains can be summarized as follows. The area . . . in south central Colorado, was dominated throughout the historic period by Utes who joined with Comanche Bands after 1706 to make forays onto the plains. The Central High Plains per se, was dominated by Apaches during the 1500s and 1600s . . . . In the early 1700s the Apaches continued to dominate the Central High Plains but Utes and Comanches moved into the [region]. By the middle of the 1700s, the semisedentary Apaches were forced to abandon their villages . . . . At the beginning of the 1800s . . . tribes from the north challenged the Comanches and by 1820 Arapahos, Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Kiowa Apaches had spread south to the Arkansas River . . . in substantial numbers."
p. ix.: "By the middle of the 1800s, the colorful, exuberant, horse-nomad way of life on the plains had reached its zenith and was already beginning to deteriorate."
p. ix.: "Alliances among the tribes of the plains often shifted; sometimes being allies, sometimes as enemies . . . . Kiowa Apaches, for example, functioned as a band of the Kiowas from before 1700, probably before 1680. This was so much the case that when Kiowas are mentioned after that date, one can be reasonably sure that the Kiowa Apaches were also involved. Likewise when the Apaches are mentioned along with the Kiowas, they were the Kiowa Apaches."
p. 1: "Of the . . . tribes that lived on the Central High Plains after European contact, . . . the Apaches are best known . . . [because they] (1) dominated the major part of the [region] (2) . . . some, if not most of the Apaches in this region lived in semipermanent villages, and (3) these Apaches had contact . . . with Spanish New Mexicans."
p. 1: "The previous homeland of the Southern Athabascans was almost certainly west-central Canada."
p. 2: "Ethnohistorical evidence indicates that the Apacheans arrived in the southwest as nonceramic, bison-hunting nomads . . . . Such people would not have left easily identifiable archeological sites...."
p. 7: "In 1801, the Spanish learned that there were 'Nations of the north' moving toward New Mexico. Among these nations was one that spoke the same language as the Jicarilla and considered themselves to be of the same people. These, of course, were the Kiowa Apache who had been separated from other plains Apaches for a century and who had been living with the Kiowa, another of the Nations of the North . . . . The Spanish were afraid that if these newcomers joined with their Apache kinsmen, it would create a serious threat."
p. 7: "Except for the Kiowa Apaches, who lived farther east on the plains, the Jicarilla are the only Apaches to occupy any part of the Central High Plains after about 1800."
p. 11: "The Kiowa have no close linguistic relatives, but they are remotely related to Tannoan speakers of the Pueblo Southwest. The earliest documentary data has them living in the Black Hills that matches tribal traditions (Mooney 1898:153). Probably before 1700, the Kiowa were joined by Apachean speakers, most likely those known to New Mexicans as the Palomas."
p. 11: "Between 1706 and 1730, the central plains Apaches were forced south and southwest by pressure from the Comanches on the west, and by the Pawnee with French guns . . . from the east."
p. 11: "The Kiowa Apaches, few in number, were cut off from their relatives to the south about 1719. They joined the Kiowa for protection. Although the Kiowa Apaches retained their own language, they functioned as a separate band of the Kiowas."
p. 11: "The Kiowa name for themselves is Ka'I gwu. The Spanish version, usually Gaygua or Caigua, was very similar . . . . They were commonly referred to by the Pawnee name Ga'taqka; Lewis and Clark called them the Cataka in 1805, while La Salle called them Gatacka about 1682. In a treaty with the government, made jointly with the Kiowa in 1837, their name was given as Ka-ta-ka."
p. 11: "In 1733 about 100 families of Genizaro Indians, from various tribes, petitioned the New Mexican government for permission to establish their own settlement at the site of the then abandoned Sandia Pueblo. In addition to the Caiguas (Kiowas) the group also included Jumanos (Wichitas [sic]), Pananas (Pawnees), Apaches, Tanos, and Utes. All had lived in various Spanish and native settlements, essentially as slaves (SANM I, No. 1208; Twitchell 1914 I: 353)."
p. 11: "In the early 1790s the Kiowa still lived in the Black Hills region."
p. 11: "In the [report] . . . prepared from Lewis and Clark's information . . . it is obvious that the Wetepahatoes lived with the Kiowa, and were, therefore, probably Kiowa Apaches."
p. 12: "Lewis and Clark stated that: 'The most probable conjecture is, that being still further reduced, they [Padoucas] have divided into small wandering bands, which assumed the names of the subdivisions of the Padoucas nations and are known to us at present under the appellation of Weteoagaties, Kiowas . . . Katteka, . . . who still inhabit the country to which the Padoucas are said to have removed.' They also noted that some Padoucas traded with New Mexico."
p. 14: "Major Long also met a part of Kaskaias or Bad Hearts [Kiowa Apaches] on the Canadian River about 168 miles east of Santa Fe [in 1823]. They had been hunting near the 'sources of the Rio Brassis and the Rio colorado of Texas, and were now on their way to meet Spanish traders, at a point near the sources of the river [Canadian] we were descending' (James 1823 11:103)."
p. 29: "The Comanches, along with various other Shoshonean speakers, call themselves Numa whereas the name Comanche was applied to them by the Spanish. Mooney gives names applied to the Comanches by various tribes and the names used to designate sub-bands of the Comanche. Unfortunately, he equates the Padouca with Comanche, a common error that has been perpetuated. The Padouca were plains Apaches. This name was most commonly used to indicate the Kiowa Apaches."
p. 29: "By about 1739 the Comanches were in control of most, if not all, of what is called the Central High Plains."
p. 30: "During the last half of the 1700s, the Comanches were an equally serious threat on the Texas frontier, frequently appearing as far southeast as San Antonio de Bexar. Raids were common on European settlements."
p. 32: "The 1814 Lewis and Clark map (Wheat 1954:II: map 316) shows the Li-h-tan Band (Comanches) in the Rocky Mountains, extending south into the Rio del Norte . . . drainage west of the headwaters of the Arkansas River."
p. 33: "Captain Randolph Marcy led another expedition in 1855, this time to explore the Big Wichita River and the headwaters of the Brazos .... Of the Indians, he stated that the most populous tribe in Texas was the Comanches and that they were divided into three major groups. The Southern Comanches ranged primarily within Texas, between the Red and Colorado Rivers. The Middle Comanches, consisting of the "No-co-nies and Ten-na wees" bands, [spent winters in Texas and summers to the north]. The Northern Comanches, whom Marcy considered much wilder than the others and responsible for most of the Comanche raids into Mexico, wintered on the Red and wandered widely during the summer."
Hadley, Diana, Thomas H. Naylor, and Mardith K. Schuetz-Miller (compilers and editors)
1997 The Presidio and Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain, a Documentary History. Vol. 2, Part 2: The Central Corridor and the Texas Corridor, 1700-1765. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
This book is part of a publications series of the Documentary Relations of the Southwest (DRSW), a project of the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona for collecting, storing, and editing Spanish colonial documents. The DRSW has been an enormous effort to collect, archive, and make available documents related to the Spanish empire in the southwestern United States. The museum has collected (in paper and/or microfilm) an abundance of material related to Nueva Vizcaya, Coahuila, Nuevo Mexico, Nuevo León, Taumalipas, Nuevo Santander, and Texas. The material is from Mexican, Spanish, and United States archives and consists of copies of original documents, transcriptions of original documents, and selected maps. Recently, efforts have been undertaken to publish selected parts of these materials. In all cases, the publications contain both transcriptions of original documents and their translations. Introductory material for each document/translation assesses the veracity of the statements in that material and its historical setting.
Previous volumes in the series dealt with material and events tangential to Texas. The present volume consists of documents related to Nueva Vizcaya, specifically the Bolson de Mapimi, and the regions surrounding itNueva Vizcaya, New Mexico, and Texas. As such, it provides some documents not previously translated as well as some that were published in the past, but which merited updated translations. Readers will recognize several of the documents related to Texas, such as de León's effort to identify the location and threat of the French, as well as the material related to the East Texas missions. However, the material related to Nuevo León, the Bolson de Mapimi, and Parras is no less important, but it is much less well known to researchers concerned with the early history and ethnohistory of Texas. Never intended to contain all of the important documents, the volumes offer a range of materials that provides information on important aspects of the regions covered and their history, and are intended to represent various points of view on that region.
The Spanish for all transcriptions (as in the translations) is modernized, allowing readers to focus on the content rather than old script. In each case, the authors expended considerable effort to accurately transcribe/translate texts using authoritative copies of each document. Each document is presented in both Spanish and English, and both were reviewed by native speakers as well as scholars who have conducted extensive research in Spanish archives. The transcriptions and translations are generally excellent and the volume is of enormous value in understanding the sequence of events and their outcome.
As a cautionary note for Texas researchers, the authors' knowledge of native groups east of Nueva Vizcaya and Nuevo Mexico is both limited and erroneous. Since no reference is provided for these interpretations, the reader cannot verify the attribution. Moreover, footnotes and maps contain major errors that will perpetuate inaccuracies (some are from the legacy left by Bolton while others are of the authors' own making) that ignore recent published revisions that clearly refute the conclusions. For example, Taracahitan linguistic affiliations are given to a variety of nations (p. 10) who may or may not be affiliated with this language group (much less native speakers of Taracahitan). Elsewhere, (p. 361) the Sana, Emet, Too, Mayeye, Huyugan, and Cumercai are stated to be a "delegation of the Tonkawan tribes," a statement that ignores recent research showing that the Tonkawa are recent (mid to late seventeenth century) immigrants into Texas from the north. Some maps also contain errors. For example, the figure on page 308 shows Mission San Joseph de los Nazonis in East Texas as south of Purisima Concepción even though on page 421 Pena states that "the San Joseph de los Nasonis mission . . . is eight leagues north of Concepción." These errors suggest that the authors are not familiar with the works of Campbell (1988), Johnson and Campbell (1992), Kenmotsu (1994), Wade (1998) or others. In defense of the authors, Thomas Naylor died during the project, leaving Ms. Hadley the daunting task of completing the work. The deficiencies in assigning Native Americans to specific regions and the general failure to identify the appropriate native group may relate to this unexpected event. Regardless, much of the data are relevant to this study and are excerpted below.
p. 13: editors note (these 'editors' notes refer to the editors of the Hadley et al. volume): "During the twenty-year period initiated by the Pueblo Revolt in Nuevo Mexico, the northern portion of the central corridor became a tierra de guerra. No part was immune from conflict."
p. 13: editors note: "The new military philosophy of the Enlightenment, as expressed in the Bourbon reforms, did not officially make its way to New Spain's northern frontier until the second quarter of the 18th century with Pedro de Rivera's famous inspection tour."
p. 13: editors note: The "'flying companies' of highly mobile mounted troops would have the flexibility to respond quickly and efficiently as events required. The policy makers called for an increase in offensive warfare, the regularization of the employment of Indian auxiliary troops, and the instigation of civilian militias."
p. 19, ff 2: "Mapimi was subject to frequent attack It was entirely or partially abandoned between the years 1616 and 1617, 1654 and 1661, 1683 and 1687, and 1703 and 1711."
p. 43: editors note: "The largest Indian groups in the immediate vicinity of La Zarca [15 leagues south of Cerro Gordo] were the Salineros, most likely speakers of a Uto-Aztecan language. The Tobosos, who occupied the area north of the Salineros and who also frequented the region around La Zarca, were the most feared enemies of the Spanish during the seventeenth century. Other Indian groups mentioned in the area were the Cococlames, Nonoxes, and Laguneros, evidently allies of the Salineros."
p. 84: In a report of Ladron de Guevara, 1739, he stated, "The valley of Pesqueria Grande is eight leagues from the city of Monterey and eight leagues from the . . . valley [Santa Catalina]." Today, the small community is known as Garcia.
p. 84: Ladron stated that halfway between Monterey and Saltillo, the road passed through a narrow canyon "called La Ronconada y Cuesta de los Muertos. The site is 60 to 80 leagues from the homeland of the Toboso and Gavilan Indian nations who reside in the uninhabited area between the provinces of Coahuila and Nueva Vizcaya."
p. 85: editors note: "Las Salinas is today known as Salinas Victoria and in the valley of El Carrizal. San Pedro Boca de Leones is today Villaldama and located 86 km northwest of Monterrey [Ladron]."
p. 89: editors note: "San Gregoria de Cerralvo is today Cerralvo, 80 km northeast of Monterrey [Ladron]."
p. 101: Ladron stated: "[The province of Coahuila] contains three presidios, one of which is in the capital itself. Another presidio was established in 1736 with the name of Sacramento, but as late as 1738 it still did not have a specific location due to the diverse opinions that arose after its founding." ff. states: "The presidio of Sacramento was established at Agua Verde in 1737, but was moved south in 1739 to Santa Rosa in the Sabinas Valley."
p. 101: "The other presidio, named San Juan Bautista del Rio Grande del Norte...."
p. 101: "The province [of Texas] has a good climate and an abundance of wheat, corn, beans, grapes, and cotton, but it has few cattle because Indians of the Toboso and Gavilan nations invade its borders."
p. 126: editors note: "By the 1760s, Apache attacks had intensified to such a degree that many haciendas, including the Aguayos' hacienda of Joya . . . between Saltillo and Monclova were abandoned."
p. 167: editors note: "Captain Joseph de Berroteran knew the intricacies of the northern frontier like few other Spaniards. Of Vizcayan origin, Berroteran entered the military early in life and quickly attained prominence as a local military leader and landowner. His family became so well known in northern Chihuahua that the mountain range now known as the Sierra del Carmen bore the name Berroteran until the late 18th century. During the early 1720s, Berroteran received his first appointment as captain at the presidio of Mapimi. Within a few years, he was transferred to the presidio of San Francisco de Conchos, where he became captain vitalicio (captain-for-life), a position he still held when the presidio was suppressed in 1751 . . . . By 1748, the year in which the following document was written, his 35 years of service had given him a detailed knowledge of the lands and peoples of the region."
p. 170: "When Berroteran received the order to write a report on the condition of the northern frontier in October 1747, he had spent most of the preceding 18 years campaigning against hostile Indians in all parts of Nueva Vizcaya and in neighboring provinces as well. He was in a position to provide his superiors with valuable information that could not be obtained from other sources. In his report, Berroteran continually emphasized his unequaled knowledge of the frontier . . . . Berroteran realized that complete military or spiritual conquest of the nomadic indigenous groups who migrated southward to inhabit that desolate, inhospitable area was next to impossible. Instead, he acted to establish a negotiated peace backed by the force of arms. This required a balancing act for which Berroteran was uniquely suited. As captain-for life of the presidio of Conchos, he served as protector of haciendas and settlements on the desert frontier to the east of the Camino Real that linked Chihuahua with Mexico City. At the same time, however, he was the well-known compadre of at least one prestigious Apache leader and acted as middleman for trade and gift giving with several other unconquered indigenous group[s] that had recently migrated into the area.
p. 188: Berroteran: "In the year 1726, during . . . March, the news arrived that the . . . Indians had advanced as far as the presidio of El Paso with the Apaches and Cholomes who come from the Rio Puerco where it joins with the Rio del Norte from its confluence with [the Conchos?] . They [the first group of Indians] came from Coyame . . . which is 8 to 10 leagues away from the junction of the Rio del Norte and is numbered among [the pueblos of La Junta de los Rios].
p. 189: Berroteran: "all these troops were to reconnoiter the banks of the Rio Del Norte [from San Juan Bautista] as far as its junction with the Rio Conchos."
p. 191: ff. states "Ordinance 187 of the Reglamento of 1729 states that the captains of the presidios from El Pasaje to Conchos should attempt to suppress the Cocoyome, Acoclame, Tripa Blanca, Terocodame, Zizimbre, Chiso, and Gavilan nations."
p. 193: Berroteran: "In 1740, the last missing Indians were reduced to the pueblo of Conchos. In that same year fifty presidial soldiers, a number of settlers who enlisted at the villa of San Felipe el Real, 100 Indians from La Junta del Rio del Norte and 50 more . . . participated in subduing the general uprising of Fuertenos, Mayos, [and others] . . . . In the year of 1741, after the 12 Indians mentioned had returned from the expedition with their families, they left the pueblo of Conchos for the vicinities of Saltillo, Parras, and Coahuila, where they supported themselves by committing murders and robberies at the borders. In their last [attacks] near the presidio of Sacramento, also known as Santa Rosa, they captured [an Indian woman] . . . . I had given orders to Pascual, one of the Apache chiefs, to investigate . . . . [H]e came upon the aggressors in the Sierra Mojada."
p. 194: Berroteran: "On February 12 [1743] at the site of Venado, about twenty-five leagues east of the presidio of Conchos [the Indians were captured by Pascual and a squad of Berroteran's men]."
p. 194: Berroteran (arguing against the proposal before the Crown to close northern presidios): "Everything related up to this point sufficiently demonstrates the past and present need in Nueva Vizcaya for its respective presidios with their captains and soldiers . . . . The brief intervals of respite that the savage, pagan Indians permit this realm to enjoy . . . should be regarded prudently as periods of convalescence from a bad illness and preparation for another more serious one threatened by the Apaches, who have penetrated frontiers . . . . With these [presidios] eliminated, the Apache Indians would have completely free access to the more than 180 leagues that stretch from the presidio of San Jose del Paso to that of San Juan Bautista del Rio Grande."
p. 200: Berroteran (describing his trek from Monclova to Conchos along the Rio Grande): "In [1729, I traveled] from the presidio of San Juan Bautista, along the course of the Rio del Norte . . . by way of the watering hole of Santo Domingo and the San Rodrigo, San Antonio, and San Diego de las Vacas Rivers. Having gone as far as the last without finding a ford across it, I turned back along the south bank and traveled for two days to return to [the Rio Grande]. After crossing to the north bank [in the vicinity of modern Del Rio], I walked for four or five days, slowed by the lack of water for either horses or men. I saw that it was necessary to travel along the south bank because the mountains on the north side impeded our passage . . . . I sent our seven Indian scouts to search the hills and mountains for water holes and a route by which we could continue our march. After seven days, two of them returned with the news that they have found neither a watering hole nor a route, and that they had not had anything to drink for two days. They had seen water, but at such a great depth that it took them four days to find a way to get down to it."
p. 203: Berroteran: "From the junction of the Rio Conchos and the Rio Del Norte to the presidio of San Juan Bautista, there is no place along the reach of either river where a presidio can be built, because pasturage is scarce and the mountains and hills provide no open spaces."
p. 478: editors' note: "Captain Urrutia mounted a campaign during the winter of 1739 that attacked a rancheria in the vicinity of the San Saba."
p. 511: editors' note: "Fray Molina's account [of the San Saba massacre] is significant to presidial history for several reasons. It closes the chapter on Apache depredation in the province, which up to this point had constituted the only serious internal threat, and marks the first confrontation of Spaniards in Texas with the Comanches and Wichitas."
p. 515: Molina: "I went to the courtyard and saw with true wonder and fright that all that could be seen anywhere were Indians armed with rifles and dressed in the most hideous clothing . . . . [T]hey had adorned themselves with the skins of wild beasts, the tails of the animals hanging and dangling from their heads, deer antlers, and other embellishments of various animals; some had plumes on their heads."
p. 518-519: Molina: "I think it is impossible for the Apache Indians to settle down and establish residence on the Rio de San Saba or for many leagues around it . . . . [T]hey are not protected [from the northern tribes] . . . . It is known that they live far away and nearer to our settlements on other rivers."
Hagan, William T.
1976 United States-Comanche Relations The Reservation Years. Yale University Press, New Haven.
As his Preface indicates, Hagan's project was "[T]o trace the order of the Comanches in the reservation years." The book systematically plots the development of the United States policies vis-a-vis the Plains tribes since the 1860s. Hagan notes the difficulties of separating the policies and documentation that affected the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa Apache. He states:
p. xiv.: "The Comanche experience even differed somewhat from that of the Kiowas and Kiowa Apaches, the two tribes party to the same treaties as the Comanches and sharing the same reservation with them. However, these Indians were so closely related in the reservation period that it is some times difficult, if not impossible, to separate the Comanche story from that of the Kiowas and the Kiowa-Apaches."
p.xv: "During the reservation period the agent was not only the key individual in implementing the policies conceived in Washington, he also originated most of the documentation upon which the historian must depend in attempting to reconstruct the relations between the United States and the Indians. Unfortunately, the Indian side of the story is much more difficult to recapture. Documentation in the usual sense is almost non-existent, and Comanche family traditions suffer from the same distortions that family pride and present concerns inflict on white oral history."
On the social organization of the Comanche in 1867, Hagan (p.8) writes: "The term tribe could not then with any accuracy be applied to the Comanches. At any given time they might be found scattered over a region that stretched from western Oklahoma and the central part of Texas westward to the vicinity of the Rio Grande . . . . The band was the basic political unit of the Comanche and in 1867 there were said to be at least nine . . . . Estimates of the number of the Comanche varied widely, from as low as 1,800 to over 20,000. The actual figure probably was around 3,000, although no one could be sure." [2]
Hagan dedicates a good deal of space to the early treaties negotiated between the United States, Texas and some Comanche groups and provides some maps showing the land game that was played with these treaties (maps. 2, 3, and 4, on pp. 22, 40, and 41, respectively). Hagan also recognizes the extent and importance of the Comanchero trade as well as the trade in captives and their ransom practiced by the Comanche, the Kiowa, and the Kiowa-Apache (pp. 24-25, 44-46), which took them from New Mexico to Mexico and across the Rio Grande into Texas.
As the title indicates, Hagan's book concentrates almost exclusively on the reservation period and the late 1800s, thus providing little to elucidate the period of Comanche presence in Texas of greatest concern to this affiliation study. However, the book provides vast information on archival sources for the period and has a good bibliography.
Hester, Thomas R., Stephen L. Black, D. Gentry Steele, Ben W. Olive, Anne A. Fox, Karl J. Reinhard, and Leland C. Bement
1989 From the Gulf to the Rio Grande: Human Adaptation in Central, South, and Lower Pecos Texas. Research Series No. 33, Arkansas Archeological Survey, Fayetteville.
This is one of a series of archeological overviews produced under contract to the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers under the direction of Larry Banks. The monograph deals with the area bounded by the Gulf of Mexico on the east, the Edwards Escarpment on the north, the Pecos River on the west, and the Rio Grande on the south. Given the vast and diverse nature of this region, the monograph is segmented into smaller sub-regions with overviews completed by different authors. The summary of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands (as the Amistad NRA was called within the volume) was authored by Leland C. Bement; the senior author, Thomas R. Hester, completed the historic Native American summary.
Bement begins by describing the history of archeological investigations in the region, most of which occurred prior to 1980, and then classifies sites according to a combination of their physical location (terrace sites, rockshelters, etc.) and cultural material (lithic procurement, stone alignments, kill sites, burial sites, etc.). This discussion is followed by a description of the material culture (lithic artifacts, plant artifacts, etc.) and followed by brief descriptions of the chronological framework for the Lower Pecos. The latter is quite brief, employing the phase sequence first proposed by Turpin and Bement in 1985, but, as of the present, still untested.
The concluding section suggests avenues for future research, and is, perhaps, the most significant. It identifies specific research topics on chronology and other issues that do indeed need to be sorted out for the region. However, the chapter is too brief to offer new insights. It generally continues to characterize the lifeways of residents of the Lower Pecos as one that was stable, and based on adequate exploitation of desert succulents and supplemented with bison during specific epochs (i.e., the Paleoindian and the final portion of the Late Prehistoric/Early Historic).
Hester's chapter discusses the historic Native Americans of the Lower Pecos as part of the larger, generalized group of hunters and gatherers who occupied south, coastal, and south central regions of Texas. While this discussion has elements of the stable, static populations implied in the chapter by Bement, Hester received his bachelor's degree under Thomas N. Campbell and William Newcomb, the foremost ethnohistorians in Texas. Thus, his chapter recognizes that the region was home to an amazing number of small, diverse groups "each with a distinctive name, and with territories (often shared with other groups) used for hunting, plant food gathering, and fishing" (p. 79). While other summaries of the historic period have mentioned the variety of native groups and the works of Campbell, few others have used these materials in a report for an archeological audience and have encouraged archeologists to employ Campbell's data. Relevant information from Hester's chapter for this Amistad NRA study follow:
p. 79: "Coahuilteco is the label first used in the 19th century to refer to a language attributed to numerous hunting and gathering groups in southern Texas and northeastern Mexico . . . . [R]esearch by . . . Campbell (1975, 1977, 1979, 1983) and Ives Goddard (1979) has demonstrated that . . . other languages besides Coahuilteco were present in the region."
p. 79: "Little is known about specific groups [but we do know that] the Coahuiltecans lived in small groups, each with a distinctive name, and with territories used for hunting, plant food gathering, and fishing. They were semi-nomadic, moving across the landscape, sometimes overlapping into territories of other [groups], and camping at preferred locales for a few weeks at a time."
p. 80: "Many groups would congregate in those areas where [prickly pear fruits] could be found in abundance. Seasonal movements were also keyed to the availability of certain animals, especially bison that came into south Texas during the fall and winter. Social and political organization appears to have been minimal. The family was the basic social unit; there were no tribes or chiefs except for those leaders that might be chosen for certain activities."
p. 82: "Goddard (1979) suggests that at least four other languages . . . are known from the south Texas region. These are Comecrudo, Cotoname, Solano, and Aranama . . . . The Solano language is linked to a group (or groups) who were at Mission San Francisco de Solano in 1703-1708 [modern Guerrero, Coahuila] . It is possible that the Terocodame group spoke this language."
p. 82-83: "In the early Historic period, the Spanish recorded identifiable Tonkawa groups ranging into south Texas to hunt bison . . . . However . . . the Tonkawa did not move south of the Red River into Texas, until the middle to late 17th century . . . . Though they were largely hunters and gatherers, they apparently sometimes placed more emphasis on bison-hunting."
p. 83: "In the 1600s-1700s the Lipan Apaches moved into Texas from their homeland [north of Texas] . . . . The emphasis in their way of life [while in Texas was] raiding, and it is likely that they were disrupting the culture of the Coahuiltecans as much as the Spanish mission system."
p. 83: "In the lower Pecos, there are mid to late 18th century accounts of Apaches hunting bison . . . . They often traded deer and bison pelts in such far-flung areas as Saltillo, Coahuila, and Victoria . . . . No one has yet been able to recognize any distinctive archeological remains of the Lipan Apaches. Their campsites of the 18th and 19th centuries cannot, at present be identified."
p. 83: "The public often links archeological specimens . . . to [the] Comanche. In reality, however, the Comanche are fairly late intrusive peoples who came into Texas after the beginning of the Historic period . . . . [T]hey pushed the Lipan Apache into central and south Texas."
p. 84: "It has been impossible to identify their [Comanche] archeological traces."
p. 84: Other intrusive groups mentioned are the Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Mescalero Apache, Cherokee, Delaware, Caddo, Seminole, Pawnee, and Kickapoo.
Hickerson, Nancy Parrott
1994 The Jumanos Hunters and Traders of the South Plains. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Hickerson is a linguistic anthropologist by training. Her interest in the Jumano grew from an interest in the Kiowa who speak a Tanoan language, a language family that is well represented in the eastern Rio Grande pueblos of New Mexico. Because some members of the Tanoan speakers lived in what early Spanish chroniclers called the "Jumanos" pueblos, she concluded that these people were all related but that some were the nomadic occupants of the Southern Plains while others were the sedentary eastern Tanoans living in the pueblos.
This book is easy to read, but, in the opinion of both Kenmotsu and Wade, has serious flaws (see Plains Anthropologist review of the publication by Kenmotsu [1995]). For example, Hickerson employed few documents to support her thesis. The documents she did use were translated several decades earlier and add little new insight to the study of these natives. It is not clear why other documents that would have shed light on their ethnic and cultural affiliations were researched. Second, Hickerson fails to consider archeological data in a meaningful way. For example, she concludes (p. 217-218) that Perdiz arrow points are widely found throughout Texas because the Jumano acquired them at La Junta de los Rios (modern Presidio, Texas) and distributed them across the land during trading events. This conclusion cannot be supported. A large volume of data conclusively demonstrate that Perdiz arrow points were manufactured by many groups using local lithic resources (see Johnson 1994). Other conclusions (Jumano as long-distance traders of turquoise, salt, and other goods; Jumano as breeders of livestock that they pastured on the Plains; etc.) are equally insupportable. There is no archeological evidence that trade was either extensive or substantial. There is also no evidence that native groups in Texas bred livestock in large quantities on the Southern Plains or elsewhere.
Another flaw is her tendency to offer statements of fact absent references to support them. For example, (p. 100), she considers the area around Palo Duro Canyon to have been an Jumano base camp as it was ideal for access to buffalo and had good water. No citations are offered; instead it appears that this area is chosen because it meets all the ecological requirements for a base camp. While we agree that the ecological requirements for base camps are present in this area, many other areas also meet the same ecological requirements. Since the archeological investigations of that park and nearby Lake Alan Henry have failed to identify any evidence of Jumano occupation in this locale and since there is documentary evidence that places them further to the south, we find her argument spurious.
The book is included in this annotated bibliography because it is likely to be read by some readers. While readers will have to make their own evaluations, we felt compelled to note that the differences between her conclusions and ours are substantial. The major point on which we agree is that the Jumano were a distinct group who were important players in the events of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.
Hook, Jonathan B.
1997 The Alabama-Coushatta Indians. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.
Hook is a Cherokee who has worked and lived near the small Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation in Polk County, Texas. His long time interest in these people and his doctoral research led to the present publication. While much of the book deals with recent twentieth century history and the current situation of the Alabama and Coushatta living on this Texas reservation, he also provides some details of their earlier history.
Today, the two groups are blood kin, but they formerly derived from distinct Muskogean-speaking groups. The Coushatta were located near and on an island in the Tennessee River, whereas the Alabama were situated along the Mississippi River in present-day Mississippi. Each lived in relatively sizable towns subsisting on wild plants and animals, agriculture, fishing, and trading. By the late eighteenth century they were moving east and/or south, largely into Spanish Louisiana.
p. 29: "The Coushatta . . . moved in 1802 to a site 80 miles south of Natchitoches on the Sabine River. There they numbered about 200 men."
p. 30: "By 1805 the Alabamas had settlements on the Angelina River, Attoyac Bayou, and the Neches river. A combined population of Alabamas and Coushattas in 1809 within 70 miles of Nacogdoches was estimated to be 1,650 people."
p. 31: "In 1830 Alabama Indians lived in three communities in what became Tyler County, Texas . . . . The majority of the approximately six hundred Coushattas lived in three towns."
p. 32: "In 1854 the Alabamas received a grant of 1,280 acres in Polk County from the Texas legislature . . . . [I]n 1859 the Alabamas allowed the [Coushattas] to join them on their reservation."
Howard, James H.
1984 Oklahoma Seminoles. Medicines, Magic, and Religion. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
This volume covers the medicinal and herbal remedies of the Oklahoma Seminole, showing how these remedies are woven into the fabric of the religious and daily life of these people. It is based on ethnographic and archival research among the Seminole. The portion of the volume germane to the present study deals with the brief history presented in the preface and chapter one, and in the description of the mortuary practices of the Seminole.
p. 3: "[T]he trivial name, Seminole, is a modern historic artifact, coming from the Spanish cimarron meaning 'wild.' It referred originally to the fact that these Indians had moved into the wild, unoccupied territory, and were thus distinguishable from both the missionized Florida Indian remnants at Saint Augustine and also the main body of the Creeks. Since the Muskogee language has no 'R' sound, the Spanish 'Cimarrones' became to the Indians 'Simalones'" soon changed to 'Seminoles,' their present name."
p. 6: "As early as 1700 many blacks had arrived in Florida, mostly runaway slaves from the Carolinas . . . . These escaped slaves became essentially free under the Semilones [sic], who tended to treat them more humanely than did the British colonists. In most instances the blacks established their own towns, separate from those of the Seminoles. These towns were made up of both free blacks and slaves."
p. 13: "The first group [of Seminoles] removed to the west, 116 captives, arrived in the Indian Territory in June, 1836. From that time until 1843, Seminoles and Seminole Negroes in groups ranging from a dozen or so to larger parties numbering in the hundreds were on various occasions transported to the west."
p. 246: "Even today, traditional Seminoles prefer to bury their dead in family cemeteries, most often with small wooden grave houses erected over the graves. These cemeteries, with their groups of grave houses, can be seen here and there in Seminole County, a reminder of the strength of native tradition."
p. 246: "A Seminole woman is always buried in new clothing. Favorite old clothes are also placed in the casket as well. A man is buried in his best clothes, not necessarily new. A jar of sofki is often put in the casket to nourish the deceased . . . . Cigarettes are also put in . . . . Just before it is lowered into the grave, the lid of the casket is unscrewed."
p. 247: "The Seminole bury their dead with the feet to the east. At the west, near the head, a small wooden stake is driven into the ground, and a few feet west of it a small fire is kindled."
p. 248: "Willie showed me a number of Seminole grave houses . . . . They are all about three and a half feet high, made of a wooden frame to which an asphalt shingle roof has been attached. The sides are made of upright palings with spaces in between so that one can look through. Inside is the mound of the grave. I also noticed wreaths and in one or two a box containing some favorite items of clothing and objects."
John, Elizabeth A. H.
1975 Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
Drawing on her graduate studies, Elizabeth John wrote this impressive tome on the interaction of the various ethnic groups in the Spanish borderlands of modern Texas and New Mexico for the general public. The effort grew out of her belief that while the history of interaction among various European-American groups had been told, their relationship to and their interaction with various Native American groups had not. The tome is impressive for both its breadth and its scholarship. John (personal communication, 1997) has noted that the published version, while large, was reduced by the publisher to a size manageable to the lay public. Even in its reduced state, however, the volume is impressive, affording the reader a clearer vision of the unique relationships that sprung up between various newcomers and responsible head men in individual tribes. Moreover, those relationships demonstrate the unique agendas of specific native groups. Hence, unlike monographs that focus on specific Eurocentric ideas or programs, John shows that the situation was more fluid. Similarly, she demonstrates that decisions made in Europe affected, in a very direct way, the lives of Native Americans in this portion of the Spanish Borderlands. Specific passages that relate to the Amistad NRA are:
p. xiii: "By painful trial and error, Indian and Spanish communities evolved toward peaceful coexistence in eighteenth-century New Mexico and Texas. Santa Fe and San Antonio were seats of lively interaction among Indian allies come to trade and to talk, to nourish the bonds of brotherhood."
p. 1: "[S]uperimposed on the multiplicity of Indian worlds were the Spanish provinces of New Mexico and Texas and the French province of Louisiana. Measured on the European scale of empire, none of the three ever amounted to much, but they unleashed forces of change that transformed the lives of Indian peoples throughout the arena.
p. 46: "Five times Oñate repeated the ceremonial acceptance of Pueblos vassals: twice for clusters of pueblos east of the Manzanos, presumably the Tompiro and Jumano peoples." [See Jumanos in the Ethnohistory chapter for an alternative view.]
pp. 54-55: "Apache raids were an old problem to Pueblos, long antedating Spanish occupation. Indeed, the Spaniards had understood that their relatively easy initial acceptance by the Pueblos stemmed partly from the Pueblos' desire for allies against the Apaches."
pp. 59-60: "The basic unit of Apache life was the extended family: parents, their unmarried sons, their daughters, and their daughters husbands and children. They camped together under the leadership of the head of the family, essentially a self-sufficient unit. Several family groups usually remained together within a limited territory . . . . Apache organization was extraordinarily fluid. The dissatisfied could easily shift to another local group or band. Nomenclature was fluid, too: Local groups and bands were often known by the name of a noted leader or some feature of their territory. As leadership changed or people moved, old names often fell into disuse and new names emerged. Most persistent were names derived from cultural traits, such as Mescalero or Jicarilla, but the actual composition of these groups must also have shifted considerably during the turbulent seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
p. 193: "Increasing turmoils so beset the Jumanos and Cibolos that in mid-summer 1692 Juan Sabeata rode to the Julime pueblo on the Conchos to seek help."
p. 194: "That was the Jumanos' last stand against the agressors from the north [the Apache]. Sometime between 1700 and 1718 the Jumanos of the plains gave up the struggle against the Apaches and threw in their lot with their former enemies so completely that they came to be known as Jumano Apaches."
p. 258: "The first encounter between the fleeing Apaches and the Spaniards of Texas was as accidental as it was fateful. About 1720 a few Apache explorers ventured through Elotes Pass, northwest of San Antonio, and stumbled upon two settlers from the presidio, out looking for missing horses. The settlers . . . approached them, only to be attacked."
p. 259: "Two days after the raid [of August 1723, Captain Flores] left Bexar with 30 soldiers and 30 mission Indians, determined to track the raiders to their rancherias.
Five weeks and 330 miles later, he found a camp of some 200 Apaches, probably in the vicinity of modern Brownwood."
p. 264: "Growth made San Antonio at once more attractive and more vulnerable to Apache raiders. The herds of the Canary Islanders, pastured north and west of the presidio, and those of the new missions downstream freshly tempted raiders. The mission congregations, chiefly composed of Coahuiltecan groups long plagued by Apaches, drew to the San Antonio Valley the pursuit of old vendettas."
p. 265: "[A prisoner in 1731] readily identified the arrows of Apaches, Pelones, and Jumanes, and he assured his captors that all three nations were very numerous and very warlike. Old Joseph de Urrutia, now stationed in Bexar, was amazed to hear of those groups allied: in the 1690s he had known the Jumanes and Pelones to be among the fervid enemies of the Apaches. That they should now combine forces against the Spaniards was indeed alarming."
p. 287: "Even as Apaches moved to the Medina and looked to the shelter of Spanish presidios, their enemies gathered on the prairies. In mid-July 1750, four Tejas brought to the San Gabriel missions the rumor that the interior nations were assembling to campaign against the Apaches . . . . The great campaign did not occur. Perhaps the Apaches' new rapprochement with the Spaniards gave their enemies pause. Still the Apaches could not feel entirely safe, even on the Medina. In April 1751 some of them moved southward to the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, in the jurisdiction of Coahuila rather than Texas."
p. 294: Fray Alonso Giraldo de Terreros "founded a mission for Lipans in Coahuila in December 1754 . . . . Mission San Lorenzo, near the presidio of San Fernando de Austria, seemed successful at first, but, when other duties called Fray Terreros away, the Lipan neophytes lost their enthusiasm for the experiment. In October 1755 they burned the mission and fled."
p. 339: "The Taovayas occupation of former Apache territories angered and alarmed their old enemies. Lipan raiders harried the new villages, then scurried south to take refuge in the shadow of the Spanish frontier. Their certain expectation of vengeful pursuit made the Lipans reluctant to settle at the San Saba mission when it was established for them in 1757, and their fears proved quite justified."
p. 349: "Of the dozen-odd nations involved in the San Saba atrocity, the council targeted for the punitive campaign only the virtually unknown Wichitan and Tonkawan bands. Tejas has undoubtedly played a major role, but war against those long-time vassals of the Crown was unthinkable. Comanches had attacked, too, but their formidable reputation and their roving existence ruled out a campaign against them."
p. 360: "El Gran Cabezon [a Lipan chief] flatly refused to settle on the San Saba [in 1761]. The earlier tragedy there, the alarming proximity of Comanches and Norteños, and their continual horse thefts from the presidio convinced the chief that the area would never be safe for Apaches . . . . He would consider settling on the upper Nueces River . . . a rugged area known well to Apaches but not yet penetrated by Comanches and Norteños. El Gran Cabezon set three conditions: more soldiers than ever before must be detailed for a big buffalo hunt; the daughter of . . . the big chief of the Natages must be returned to her people from captivity somewhere in Nuevo León; and soldiers must accompany the Apaches on their campaigns against the Comanches during the prickly-pear season.
p. 362: "The Lipans' enemies were not slow to find them. In March 1762, Comanches destroyed a Lipan rancheria in a canyon near San Lorenzo . . . . As many as a dozen bands established some tie with the missions at El Canon, though the stable core was limited to the four bands of El Gran Cabezon, El Turnio, Teja, and Boruca."
p. 363: "In June, 1762, [Taovayas] made several raids on the horse herd at San Saba."
p. 363: "Norteños scored heavily agains the Lipans in the San Antonio sphere that summer [1762]. They attacked a rancheria on the Frio River . . . destroyed another on the Guadalupe River . . . and killed more than forty Apache hunters on the Colorado River."
p. 379: "[In 1770,] the deadly Osage onslaught drove many Indians to retreat in despair. The Tawakonis, Iscanis, Tonkawas, and Kichais fell back toward the presisios of Bex and La Bahia."
p. 410: "While visiting the Tawakonis, de Mezieres also contacted the Tonkawas, who ranged between the Trinity and Brazos rivers. By 1772 they had absorbed the kindred Yojuanes and Mayeyes."
pp. 439-440: "much of the difficulty centered upon the Bolson de Mapimi, a rugged mountain and desert badlands running southward from the Rio Grande between the Sierra Madre Occidental of Coahuila on the east and the Conchos Valley on the west. The northward-moving Spanish frontier . . . [left] it a sanctuary of indio barbarso, how chiefly Mescalero and Natagé Apaches, who made it their base for raids into Nueva Vizcaya, Coahuila, and even southward."
p. 444: "The first two campaigns of young Galvez [in 1770] were extraordinarily successful. On the autumn campaign he led about 135 frontier soldiers and Indian allies from Chihuahua to the Pecos River, where he surprised an Apache camp."
p. 446: "Keen to carry war into the Apache sanctuaries, O'Conor combined the dirve into the Bolson de Mapimi with a search for new sites on the Rio Grande for the presidios of San Saba and Cerro Gordo. In 1773 he launched a campaign from Santa Rosa presidio in Coahuila."
p. 501: "Croix . . . presented 16 points for discussion [in 1777] .... It was a formidable questionnaire:
1. How long has the Apache tribe . . . been known on their frontiers and since when have they made war on us?
7. What favorable or adverse results ought to be inferred from the delivery of five Mescalero Indians which the Lipan chief, Poca Ropa, made in the general campaign?
pp. 502-503: "The [1777] Monclova council's most important service was to clarify . . . the numbers and locations of the various eastern Apaches . . . . [T]heir consensus was the best information available to Europeans at that time. They knew Lipans now as residents of both sides of the Rio Grande, under shelter of the presidios of San Juan Bautista, Monclova, and Santa Rosa de Aguaverde, though part of them withdrew sometimes to the Upper Nueces Valley. The Natages sometimes camped with their Lipan relatives, but they tended to live on the plains near El Paso and New Mexico. The Mescaleros lived in the mountains in and near the Bolson de Mapimi."
pp. 535: "The [Lipans] were especially shocked in the spring of 1779 when Coahuila's Governor Ugalde joined with the Mescaleros to wage war against the Lipans."
p. 613: "[In 1779] the badly crippled, demoralized Lipans fell back into the region between the presidios of Bexar, Rio Grande, and La Bahia, and the seacoast . . . . Their eastward flight from the Comanches carried the Lipans within easy reach of Cocos and Mayeyes."
1988 The Riddle of Mapmaker Juan Pedro Walker. In Essays on the History of North American Discovery and Exploration, edited by Stanley H. Palmer, pp. 102-132. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.
John commonly employs historic maps in her research and Juan Pedro Walker, a prominent mapmaker of the early nineteenth century who drew several authoritative maps of early Texas, intrigued her. As she (p. 102) notes in this paper, his story is important to understanding the mapping of the trans-Mississippi West and Texas as it informs us that the mapmaker has a role in the "event of discovery." Walker was born in an English and French family in Spanish New Orleans, giving him an early introduction to languages. By the age of 17, Walker was beginning a career surveying with American surveyors along the Mississippi River. He went on to study in Pennsylvania but kept close ties with certain surveyors and family friends. Those ties led him to the conclusion that his future lay with the Spanish, largely in the Spanish province of Texas.
p. 102: "Most early explorers could only make crude sketchmaps Succeeding maps would develop greater detail . . . . But no area could be mapped with any precision until measured by surveyors . . . rarely undertaken until issues of boundaries became urgent."
p. 116: "Walker . . . had precisely the cartographic skills so desperately needed in the Internal Provinces. It appeared that he could capitalize upon his skill by honoring the commandant general's request that he locate in Coahuila rather than Texas."
John, Elizabeth A.H., and John Wheat (editors & translators)
1989 Views from the Apache Frontier: Report on the Northern Provinces of New Spain by Jose Cortex, Lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Engineers, 1799. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
John is an ethnohistorian with a long-time interest in the interaction of Spaniards and natives. While conducting research at the British Library she identified documents by Lieutenant Cortes that she anticipated were of considerable interest to individuals doing research on the Spanish Borderlands and/or on Apache Ethnohistory. Believing that additional documents might be found, she doggedly followed the trail of Cortes' documents. Once compiled, she had them translated by Wheat and added her own preface and epilogue.
The documents are, indeed, quite revealing and any researcher of the Apache presence in the Spanish Borderlands should review them. Cortes was an astute observer of Apache and other Native Americans throughout the northern frontier where he was stationed as part of his years in the elite Royal Corps of Engineers. In addition, he appears to have conducted his own documentary research of earlier writings by priests, soldiers, and others. The result is a report that presents a great deal of information on the Apache. Their internal divisions, lifeways, movement, subsistence, and other aspects are detailed within the report, providing substantial fodder for understanding their unique and complex place in the history of Texas and much of the Southwest. The following excerpts have relevance for the Amistad NRA:
p. xvii: "[P]roper names . . . are presented as they appear in the manuscript. Retaining the disparate spellings serves the purposes of ethnohistorical and linguistic analysis by demonstrating in original context the many forms that Indian nomenclature takes in the documentary record. It is essential in this instance because the overwhelming confusion of Cortes regarding Texas Indians resulted from the wildly varied spellings that he found in his documentary research."
p. xix: "The Apaches whom Cortes observed most closely were Chiricahuas."
p. 10: "Cortes, like most of his contemporaries, confused the Red and Canadian rivers [and his hand-drawn map contains these confusions] . . . . All Texas rivers between the San Antonio and the Red are shown running sharply north-south, reflecting another common misconception that was not corrected until another officer in the Spanish service, Juan Pedro Walker, began mapping the Interior Provinces in the next dacade [e.g.,1810s]."
p. 49: "The Spanish know as Apache nations the Tontos, Chiricaguis, Gilenos, Mimbrenos, Faraones, Mescaleros, Llaneros, Lipanes, and Navajos. All of these tribes are called by the generic name Apaches, and govern themselves independently of one another."
p. 52: "The Faraones also constitute a very large group and are believed to be a branch of the Xicarillas. They inhabit the mountains between the Rio Grande del Norte and the Pecos. They are bounded on the west by the province of New Mexico, on the north by the same province, on the east by the Mexcaleros, and on the south by part of the frontier of Nueva Vizcaya.
The Mescalero nation inhabits the mountains adjacent to the Pecos River, on either side, extending south to the mountains that constitute the top of the Bolson de Mapimi, and ending in that area on the right of the Rio Grande. Its terminus on the west is the Faraones tribe, on the north the vast territories of the Cumancheria, on the east the land of the Llanero Indians, and on the south the desert of the Bolson de Mapimi.
The Lipanes form one of the most considerable nations among the savages in northern New Spain. They extend over a vast territory, whose boundaries to the west are the lands of the Llaneros, to the north the Cumancheria, to the east the province of Cohaguila, and to the south the left bank of the Rio Grande del Norte, the settlements and presidios of our frontier in Cohuguila being on the right bank."
p. 56: "The language spoken by all the nations called Apache is one and the same."
p. 57: "This is a natural trait which they practice often with the continual movement in which they live, transferring their rancherias from one place to another for the purpose of finding new hunting and the fruits necessary to their subsistence."
p. 58: "Their huts, or jacales, are circular, made of tree branches, and covered with horse, cow, and buffalo hides. But the Mescaleros, Lipanes, and many of the Llaneros have tents made of well-cured and very clean skins."
p. 77: "When the natural or violent death of an Apache occurs . . . the cadaver is usually carried to a gully or to a handmade grave. There they toss it, cover it with stones, shout in distraught voices, and view that site in eternal horror. They feel the same about the place where he died, from which they immediately strike their rancheria, never to locate it there again, nor even in its vicinity."
p. 82: "The Cuanche nation is without a doubt the most populous one known among those bordering upon our farthest provinces of North America. It lives on vast and beautiful lands to the east of the province of New Mexico, and consists of our groups known by the names of Cuchanticas, Jupes, Yamparicas, and Orientales."
p. 83: "The Taucana, or Tuacana, group is settled on the western bank of the Rio de los Brazos de Madre de Dios . . . . It has no more than 130 warriors . . . .
p. 83: The Tancagues [Tonkawas], who, together with the Yocobanes and Mayeses, form a small nations, live most of the year in the territory next to the Tuacanas on the northern part between the Trinidad and Brazos rivers."
1991 Views from a Desk in Chihuahua: Manuel Merino's Report on Apaches and Neighboring Nations. ca. 1804. Southwest Historical Quarterly 94:139-175.
As noted above, John and Wheat have independently and together conducted a great deal of research into the Spanish Colonial experience in Texas and the greater Southwest. In this article, they focus on a Spanish document by a prominent Spanish bureaucrat (Merino) knowledgeable about Apaches and other natives in Texas. The article was unexpectedly encountered in a Paris archive and gives Merino's overview of the Apaches in the early nineteenth century. The article provides the contextual background of the era from the Spanish point of view and the following excerpts are pertinent to the Amistad NRA study:
p. 140: "Assiduous study of the indigenes paid off most handsomely in the 1780s when Comanches in Texas . . . agreed to the Spanish alliance that had been the crown's objective for two decades. That alliance would be the linchpin of a network of Indian alliances essential to the developmentindeed, the survivalof the northern frontier provinces."
p. 140: "Once reasonably confident of the Comanche alliance, Spanish policymakers concentrated next on the widely distributed Apaches, who had always comprised the most complex of the crown's problems on the northern frontier. Again, the first requisite was to know them. Hence, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries brought significant new reportage, focused principally on Apaches, but also sketching many other peoples on the periphery of the Apacheria, including those of Texas."
p. 141: "With his succinct presentation of the most current understanding then available in Chihuahua, Merino's report stands out in the series for its uniquely accurate, comprehensive treatment of the indigenes of Texas."
p. 146: "The rough draft [of the document by Merino] shows that Merino's initial intent was to report only on the Apaches."
p. 146: "Occasionally, the rhetoric indicates that Merino was less sympathetic toward the Apaches than either Cordero or Cortez. Perhaps the alarming encounter of Croix's retinue, en route from San Antonio to Chihuahua on March 1, 1778, with a howling horde of six hundred Natages, Mescaleros, and Lipans, had made Merino forever leery of Apaches. He also had, at Chihuahua in the 1790s, ample opportunity to observe the many peaceful Apaches visitors who streamed to the headwaters of the commandancy general and occasionally, a few Apache captives being shipped to Mexico City as incorrigible. Apaches leaders came ostensibly to confer with the commandant general or to petition for gifts or for redress of grievances, but many of the visitors came only to enjoy the hospitality of the headquarters and satisfy their curiosity. Their demands on the commandant general's time and the retinues of warriors and women and sometimes children added up to considerable administrative and economic nuisance."
p. 148: Apaches: 1804: "This nation inhabits the vast empty expanse living between 20 and 38 degrees of latitude and 264 and 277 degrees of longitude . . . to that of La Bahia del Espiritu Santo which is 17 leagues from the bay of San Bernardo, in Texas."
p. 148: "They can be divided into nine principal groups .... The names by which the former are known in their language . . . . Vinienctinen-ne, Sagatajen-ne, Tjusccujen-ne, Yecujen-ne, Yntugen-ne, Sejen-ne, Cuelcajen-ne, Lipanjen-ne, and Yutaglen-ne. We have replaced these, naming them in the same order: Tontos, Chiricagues, Gilenos, Mimbrenos, Faraones, Mescleros, Llaneros, Lipanes, and Nabajoes, all of them under the general name of Apaches."
p. 148: "Today they do not constitute a uniform nation in their customs, habits, and preferences . . . . The number of Apaches has no relation at all to the territory which they inhabit, there being great empty stretches."
p. 150: "There are rancherias of 80 or a 100 families, or of forty, twenty, or lesser numbers. But these same families fall apart the moment some dispute arises among those who constitute them . . . . Every man has 2, 4, or 6 wives, the number of them corresponding to that of the jacales which make up his horde or camp."
p. 150: "Their huts, or jacales, are circular and made from tree branches and covered with horse, cow, or bison hides. Some, those few, have tents made of the latter type of hides. In the ravines of the mountains the men hunt large and small game, ranging as far as the nearby plains. They take it back to the rancheria, where it is the women's role to prepare what they eat. They also process the skins, which later serve various uses, especially their clothing."
p. 152: "They move their rancherias as soon as their food sources and pastures for their animals start getting scarce."
p. 152: "The rancherias thus united occupy the most rugged mountain canyons, whose gorges made it difficult to approach the sites of their camps . . . . On these heights those who act as a sentinels during the gathering place . . . it is their responsibility to observe any approach and give the corresponding alarm. No fires are ever lit at those elevated sites, and the aforesaid role of the sentinel is entrusted to Indians with the sharpest visions."
p. 153: "The signal to begin the beating and to tighten the circle is given through smoke signals. They set the grass afire, the animals flee, and since they find no escape, they fall into the hands of their clever adversaries. The Apaches conduct this type of hunt only when the hay and grass are dry, but in the rainy season, when they cannot set fires, they set up their encirclement against rivers and arroyos."
p. 153: "The bison hunt is called a carneada. It requires time and defensive measures, because they will carry it out in lands adjacent to enemy nations. It is peculiar to the Mescalero, Llaneroor Lipiyanand Lipan Apaches..."
p. 154: "The Apaches' offensive weaponry consists of a lance, bow, and arrows, which they carry in a quiver of mountain lion or other animal skin while their defensive armour is a leather jacket or shelf . . . . Among the Mezcaleros, Lipiyanes, and Lipanes there are some forearms, but because of a lack of amunition as well as a means of repairing them when necessary, they value them little."
p. 157: "The war between the Apaches and the Comanches, and others known under the general name of Tribes of the North . . . is carried on vigorously by the tribes having closest [territories], that is, the Faraones, Mezcaleros, Llaneros, and Lipanes."
p. 157: "One puff of smoke sent from a height and repeated in succession is a sign to prepare to turn back the enemy forces which are close by and have been spotted, or whose tracks are recognized. Every rancheria that sees the signal answers with another made in the same manner. A small puff from a mountainside means that they are seeking their people. Another in reply from mid-slope of some height means that they are there and that the others may approach freely. Two or three small puffs from a plain or canyon, made in succession in the same direction, announce that they wish to parley with their enemies. A reply is made in the same fashion. Along these same lines they have other signals which are commonly understood by all the Apache tribes."
p. 162: "[Faraones] are still quite numerous. They inhabit the mountains lying between the Rio Grande del Norte and the Pecos, maintain a close union with the Mezcaleros, and make war on us. The two provinces of New Mexico and Nueva Vizcaya have been and still are the scene of their incursions. In both provinces they have made peace treaties various times, but have broken them every time, with the exception of a rancheria here or there whose faithful conduct has obliged us to let them settle at the presidio of San Elceario. They border on the north with the province of New Mexico, on the west with the Mimbreno Apaches, with the Mezcleros on the east, and on the south with the province of Nueva Vizcaya."
p. 162/163: "[Mescaleros] generally inhabit the mountains near the Pecos River, extending northward to the edge of the Cumancheria. They approach that territory in the seasons propitious to the slaughter of bison, and when they do this, they join with the Llanero tribe, their neighbors. They call upon them and the Faraon Apaches to help invade our settlements. These Indians usually made their entry through the Bolson de Mapimi whether they are going to maraud in the province or Coaguila or in that of Nueva Vizcaya . . . . We . . . estimate the number of Mescalero men able to bear arms at more than 300 . . . . They border . . . on the west with the Faraon tribe, on the east with the Llaneros, and on the south with our frontier of Nueva Vizcaya and Coahuila."
p. 163: "Llaneros occupy the plains and deserts lying between the Pecos River and the Colorado . . . . It is a very populous tribe, which is divided into the three categories: Natages, Lipiyanes, and Llaneros . . . . They border on the north with the Cumanches, on the west with the Mezcaleros, on the east with the Lipanes, and on the south with our line of Presidios."
p. 163/164: "[The Lipanes] is probably the most populous of all the Apache tribes, and for many years it has lived in peace on the frontiers of Coahuila and Texas. It is divided into two branches, known as upper and lower . . . . The Lipanes border on the north with the Cumanches, on the west with the Mezcaleros, on the south with the provinces of Nueva Vizcaya and Coahuila, and on the east with the frontier of Texas."
p. 169: "The Cumanches nation lives in tents on the plains of its frontier from the northeast to the southeast. It is divided into four branches known by the names of Cuchanticas, Jupes, Yamparicas, and Orientales, the latter being the one closest to Texas."
p. 170: "The Cumanches constantly harass the Apaches, especially the Mezcaleros, Llaneros, and Lipanes when they go on their hunts for bison."
p. 172: "To the northeast and east-northeast of San Antonio de Bexar, near the several rivers which flow between the Guadalupe and the Savinas, live the Indian tribes known under the generic name of Northern. Their names are the following: Taguayaces, Guachitas, Taguacanas, Yzcanis, Flechaso, Tancagues, Nabedachos, Quitchas, Texas, Horcoquizas, Cocos, Mayeyes, Nadacos, Naguadacos, Nacisis, Nacogdoches, Nazones, Ayses, Saisitos, Adayes, and Vidays. A conservative estimate would put the number of men in the 21 tribes at 7000."
Kavanagh, Thomas W.
1996 Comanche Political History, an Ethnohistorical Perspective 1706-1875. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
Drawing from a large number of historic documents from Spanish archives (primarily the Bexar archives but also archives from Saltillo, Mexico, as well as military and other archives in the United States), Kavanagh presents an authoritative history of the Comanche that focuses on their political structure and political economy. With his perspective that "tribes" represent groups that surface during episodes of competition, dissolving when conflicts end, the Comanche are shown as active participants in their world, both reacting and acting to the events that shaped that world.
In the volume, Kavanagh documents the geographic domains of the various Comanche bands from the earliest part of the eighteenth century to their entry into their reservation in Oklahoma in 1875. Prior to 1740, his documentary evidence places the Comanche in Colorado and north of the Red River. Despite their northern location, he recognizes that they frequently traded with Taos and other northern Rio Grande pueblos and hence traveled well to the south of those regions. By mid-century, the Comanche had made peace with the Wichita, facilitating their trade with the French in Louisiana and movement to the southeast.
Kavanagh places Comanches in central Texas in 1743 when three were seen in San Antonio. Over the next 40 years, they were cited more frequently. Between 1786 and 1820, they controlled a major portion of what is today Texas, largely the lands west of San Antonio, stretching north to the Plains and perhaps south as far as the Rio Grande. Despite control of such a vast territory, Kavanagh concludes that their primary lands were the Southern and Rolling Plains of Texas and Oklahoma. Their presence to the south of these lands, in his opinion, focused on raiding into South Texas and the Mexican states south of the Rio Grande. For example, in 1835 over 500 Comanches crossed the Rio Grande in the region of Big Bend, and in 1840 three large groups crossed in three placesGuerrero, Coahuila, and above Lampazos. With the influx of settlement in the areas of central, coastal, and east Texas, the Comanches continued to maintain their homelands west and north of San Antonio, frequently raiding into the area of northern Mexico and the area of Amistad, but not residing in those lands.
p. 136: Map 4 & Table 4.1: Place camps of Comanches along the Colorado River. Two are on a northeast flowing tributary, [likely the Concho]. One was the Camp of Tocinaquinte, found there on January 7, 1788 by Mares; the other was the camp of Cordero, present at that location April 12, 1808, as described by Amangual.
p. 145: "In his [1805] report on the encounter, Alencaster [Gov. of New Mexico] noted that the Yamparikas, who had 'formerly lived to the north,' were now to be found on the Rio Colorado 'near . . . the Conchos . ....' [L]ater reports show that some Yamparikas were indeed as far south as the Colorado River of Texas; as early as 1787, Paruanarimuco, the Jupe and Hamparika 'lieutenant general' was on the Canadian. Furthermore, although it is possible that they were related to 'Namboricas' reported in the same general area twenty-five years earlier, the intervening years provide no direct evidence of the presence of any but Kotsoteka Comanches in the area."
p. 173: According to Burnt who lived among the Comanches (ca. 1817) on the Colorado River, "[t]he Yamparacks, numbering about eight hundred warriors, were located on the headwaters of the Colorado, although they sometimes 'extend[ed] their migrations to the tributary streams of the Rio Del Norte.'"
Kelley, J. Charles
1986 Jumano and Patarabueye Relations at La Junta de los Rios. Anthropological Papers No. 77. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
J. Charles Kelley was reared in the West Texas landscape that had been occupied by the Jumano and Patarabueye several hundred years ago. Intrigued by these native groups and spurred by discussions about them with Frances Scholes and other scholars, their relationships became the subject of his 1947 dissertation at Harvard University. It was published, unabridged, by the University of Michigan in this monograph. The report represents a seminal source for any scholar working to unravel the Late Prehistoric or early Historic sequences of the peoples and their relationships across the vast region from the Southern Plains to the Lower Pecos to the Trans-Pecos of Texas. See Hickerson (1994), Kenmotsu (2001, 1994), and Wade (1998) for variations on his interpretations.
The small volume describes the results of Kelley's review of several important Spanish documents that describe the places they visited, the locations occupied by native groups and Kelley's survey of specific locales in and around Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, Mexico that were the likely villages mentioned in the documents. He further describes the historical data that he obtained for the Jumano and Patarabueye, concluding (unlike certain earlier scholars) that they were distinct groups. From these data, he briefly outlined a series of chronological foci (now phases) based on the documents, surveys, and excavations that he had conducted in the Presidio Bolson. While the Presidio Bolson is at some distance from the Lower Pecos, Kelley's discussion of the Jumanoa group occasionally identified in and near the Lower Pecos (our micro-region)represents one of the early attempts to resolve the "Jumano Problem." He was also the first to recognize that they were distinct from the villagers known as the Patarabueye. The following excerpts contain information pertinent to the Amistad NRA:
p. vii: "[I]t became clear that the Jumanos and the Patarabueyes must be regarded as distinct groups. The documentary evidence was confirmed by excavations which . . . were [conducted] . . . at the Millington site . . . and at the Loma Alta site."
p. ix: "More than one researcher has continued to confuse the Jumanos and the Patarabueyes."
p. xi: "The archeological approach to the Jumanos problem is only in its initial state . . . . Much work remains to be done in Texas . . . in the vital areas of the Concho River and the small tributaries of the Pecos River, such as Toyah and Comanche creeks, purportedly strongholds of the Jumanos."
p. 2: "Further study of the Jumano problem is important for [several] reasons. First, to clarify the extremely muddled picture of protohistoric and historic cultures of Texas and northwest Mexico, references to the Jumano Indians must be separated from references to other groups erroneously called Jumanos . . . . Second, the Jumano Indians appear to be of anthropological interest and importance.
They emerge in the seventeenth century . . . as ethnic links between the outposts of Southwestern and North Mexican culture on the west and Southeastern culture on the east."
p. 5: "According to [Pichardo], the Jumano Indians were the native occupants of the San Clemente River area (possibly the upper Colorado River of Texas), . . . living to the south of the Tabayaces (Taovaya-Wichita) and west of Indians known to the Spaniards as the Jumanas . . . . They were friends and neighbors of the Tejas and the Quiviras, and of the Julimes of the Rio del Norte near La Junta, but were enemies of the Apaches. They had friendly relations with the Spaniards at La Junta, where they also received religious instruction, and with the French in south and east Texas. During the late seventeenth century they were led by an Indian named Juan Sabeata. Pichardo noted that the term Jumano was sometimes mistakenly applied to other tribes, such as the Panipiques (Pawnee?) [sic, Wichita] on the Arkansas River."
p. 6: "Unfortunately, Pichardo's work was unwittingly ignored by later scholars, who did not immediately rediscover many of the facts he noted."
p. 9: "Scholes's thesis regarding the use of 'Jumano' in connection with tattooed Indians is completely convincing, and is accepted . . . . It will be shown, however, that there did exist a specific Indian group known to the Spaniards and the French, to other Indian groups, and probably among themselves as well, as Jumanos or some variation thereof . . . and that the Jumanos, as such, were ethnically distinct from the Patarabueyes of La Junta, though culturally, politically, and possibly linguistically related to them."
p. 13: "[In] the Espejo expedition of 1582-1583, Luxán... applied the name [Jumano] to an Indian group encountered on the lower Pecos River, in the vicinity of Pecos, Texas. The rancherias of this group were scattered along a southern tributary of the Pecos, apparently Toyah creek [Hammond and Rey 1929:124-125]. They are accepted as the original and true Jumanos [in this dissertation]."
p. 21: "From 1632 to 1654, Indians known as Jumanos were found on the 'Rio Nueces' of west-central Texas, where they had a more or less permanent focus of settlement . . . . The Jumanos of 1632, 1650, and 1654 were obviously the same group, since they were found in the same location, under the same name, apparently had the same general cultural characteristics, the same political relations, and reacted to the Spaniards in the same way in each instance."
p. 37: "[F]rom 1675 to 1693, references were frequently made to a Jumano group near the Rio Grande from the vicinity of the Devils River south to near Eagle Pass and below the Rio Grande in Coahuila. This group may have been a detached division of the Jumanos, but there is a possibility that it may have been an entirely different and unrelated group. In 1675 . . . probably on the Devils River above Del Rio, Fernando del Bosque, Fray Juan Larios, and Fray Buenaventura were visited by a group of Indians, including the Xomans (Jumanos?)."
p. 39: "In general, the Jumanos . . . of the Eagle Pass-Devils River region seem to be a division of Jumanos as far as the historical evidence is concerned . . . . [but] several items would seem to indicate that they represented at most only a distant branch of the main group. Their associations were slightly different; . . . Juan Sabeata was not mentioned by name . . . . Also, in 1675, the groups said that they . . . had not seen Spaniards . . . . The range of this particular group seems to have been from the present-day Nueces River . . . on the east, the Devils River on the north, to the Rio Savannas of Coahuila on the southwest, and the Tercodame territory around Eagle Pass on the southeast."
p. 41: "After abandonment of Texas by the Spaniards in 1693 and following its reoccupation in 1716, the Jumanos seem to have remained in their old range but to have changed their political affiliations, slowly shifting from a deadly enmity toward the Apaches to becoming their friends and allies and eventually coming to be known themselves as 'Apaches Jumanes.'"
p. 95: "Components of the Toyah Focus [Phase] are known from the Trans-Pecos area, the Pecos River, the Llano River drainage, the middle Colorado River, and the Brazos River in Hill County, Texas."
p. 107: "The Toyah [Phase] is almost exactly the complex required to satisfy the criteria of Jumano archaeological culture . . . . The diagnostic point type, Perdiz . . . is also the dominant point type of the Frankston Focus, the prehistoric culture of the Hasinai Indians with whom the Jumanos maintained trade relations . . . . The complex belongs chronologically to the later prehistoric and early historic periods, although actual instances of the occurrence of historic artifacts in Toyah Focus components are rare and not too well documented. The requisite type of culture is present, and the geographical range of the Toyah [Phase] is very nearly identical with that of the Jumanos."
Kenmotsu, Nancy Adele
1994 Helping Each Other Out, a Study of the Mutualistic Relations of Small Scale Foragers and Cultivators in La Junta de los Rios Region, Texas and Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin.
J. Charles Kelley's 1949 dissertation (see above) argued that the La Junta de los Rios regionthe small valley where the Conchos River of Mexico empties into the Rio Grandemight be distinct from a larger Native American group known as the Jumano where the occupants practiced cultivation. Utilizing the data from Parral and other Spanish archives, Kenmotsu argues that Spanish documents convincingly demonstrate that the two were separate nations, thereby avoiding the long held, and confusing, notion that a single nation participated in both types of subsistence practices. The Jumano were mobile foragers occupying the area of the Pecos River just south of the Southern Plains, possibly extending into the Amistad NRA. These foragers were distinct from the small-scale farmers, known as the Patarabueyes, who occupied La Junta.
Her thesis is based on the view that all small scale societies interact with a variety of other nations, and that such interaction is part of a strategy to survive pestilence, war, newcomers, and good times and bad. The study focused on the documentary and archeological evidence that these historic groups ("nations" in the palaver of the Spanish) "helped each other out." Evidence was found to indicate that the nations in La Junta interacted on a regular basis with the nations to the south along the Conchos River of Mexico. Less frequently, they interacted with the Jumano and other nations to the north and west of their valley. At the same time, Kenmotsu found evidence that their interaction with nations to the north and northeast of La Junta increased during the eighteenth century.
p. 1: "I . . . argue that between A.D. 1500 and 1750 archeological and ethnohistoric data indicate there existed mutualistic interaction between foragers and horticulturists at La Junta de los Rios . . . . It has long been hypothesized (see Bolton 1911; Forbes 1980; Griffen 1979; Kelley 1986; among others) that the cultivators [who] lived at this locale often interacted with mobile foragers during this period of time. The foragers have been termed the Jumano. The cultivators are known as the Patarabueyes."
p. 23: "[R]esearch . . . indicates that many nonhierarchical societies interacted with each other at La Junta de los Rios, including the Jumanos and Patarabueyes, but also . . . thirty or more other groups. Some of these societies were foragers; others were cultivators . . . . The evidence that foragers and cultivators interacted in La Junta de los Rios to the mutual benefit of both is abundant. Food, other goods and services, and information as well as offspring were documented as payment for the interaction."
p. 50: "Mergers, common among Plains Indians after 1820, typically occurred between groups that relied on each other for protection of their territories and their populations."
p. 59: "Archeological evidence for the region is both scanty and speculative. While a number of sites for the La Junta region have been identified (Kelley 1986), few have been excavated . . . . Firm archeological data from the region are also limited because the results of several significant excavations have not been published . . . . Despite these limitations . . . there has been considerable speculation about the culture history and activities of the groups identified there by the early Spanish entradas. For example, the Spanish noted that the Patarabueyes lived in settled groups and grew corn (Espejo 1871a). This has been generally accepted by most researchers, but very little archeological documentation of that description has occurred. The other group described . . . the Jumanos, has been the subject of [a wide variety of theories] for several generations."
p. 116: "The various Apache bands . . . are known to have constructed small pueblos in the northern Rio Grande valley [by the 1700s] . . . Plains settlements were less substantial, consisting of tents . . . and they spent only a part of their year in the short-grass country . . . wintering with sedentary village tribes on the margins of the Plains."
p. 121: "[T]he Apache became 'trade friends' of the people of Pecos pueblos where 'they could live throughout the winter in sheltered places and trade products of the buffalo for corn' (Gunnerson 1974:7)."
p. 191: "Documentary information from the early [Spanish] contact . . . has made it clear that the residents of Coahuila and the Bolson de Mapimi were hunters and gatherers who did not manufacture pottery."
p. 217: "The documents . . . indicate that the people of La Junta de los Rios were surrounded by a number of hunting and gathering nations with whom they were friends, including the Pazaguates/Cabris, Conchos, Caguates, Tobosos, and Jumanos."
p. 225: "Settlements in Coahuila date to the late 16th century, beginning with the founding of missions in the southern portions of the province . . . . Expansion in the province was not as swift nor on the scale of the expansion taking place in Nueva Vizcaya, owing to the more limited discoveries of silver strikes in this province. However, two factors promoted the push . . . . First, the efforts of Father Juan de Larios to convert natives near the Rio Grande . . . . In the early 1680s, a second factor promoted permanent settlement in northern Coahuila and Texas: the threat of French settlement."
p. 226: "The Bolson de Mapimi effectively cut communication along the northeastern portion [of Coahuila] . . . . Not only was it an area that received little settlement, very little exploration of the bolson occurred prior to the 18th century."
p. 232: "The Bosque and de Larios expedition reached the Rio Grande in May 1675 where they encountered the Bibit and Jume (Hume) Indians (SFG 1675)."
p. 237: "The Jumanos are sometimes listed among [the natives at La Junta]. Yet, the diaries of both Mendoza (AGN 1683b) and Retana (AGI 1688) clearly indicate that while the Jumanos visited La Junta, they resided northeast along the Pecos River, in the approximate region where Espejo and Luxán had encountered them in 1583. That locale was the general area that they had occupied when they were visited by Juan de Salas in the late 1620s (Posadas 1982). Other confirmation of the Jumano heartland on the Pecos was provided by Massanet . . . traveling from Monclova to east Texas in 1690, [who] stated (1957:361) that the Jumanos together with the Cibolos and Caynayas . . . at the Guadalupe River (near modern New Braunfels) had 'their land [on] the terrace of the Rio Grande; they are adjacent to the Salineros Indians who live on the terraces of the Rio Salado [Pecos].' He also mentioned that the Jumano territory bordered on the lands of the Apaches with whom they were at war.
"Otermin wrote that the Jumanos were close friends of the natives of the La Junta area (AGN 1683a), and his statements are verified by the testimony of the Jumano chief, Juan Sabeata (AGN 1683a). While awaiting the arrival of a new Governor, Sabeata and his people spent time in the Presidio Bolson, helping build a series of temporary chapels requested by Father Lopez (AGN 1689-1778). These reports give evidence that the Jumanos maintained a relationship with the nations of the Presidio Bolson in the 17th century, much as they had in the 1580s, but lived in the region between the Pecos and Conchos rivers of west-central Texas (AGN 1683a, 1683b, AGI 1688). Moreover, they did not confine themselves to travel to/from La Junta. Early in the century, they were most frequently cited at the Humanas pueblos in eastern New Mexico (Posadas 1982). Later, the Jumanos were frequently encountered by the Spanish in El Paso (AGN 1683a), in east Texas (AGI 1688), in central Texas along the east edge of the Balcones escarpment (Massanet 1957:256), along the lower Pecos River (SFG 1674), and in Coahuila (León 1909:322). In each of these encounters, the Jumanos were accompanied by one or more other nations, some of whom were also cited at La Junta.
"It has been hypothesized (Bolton 1908; Kelley 1986:87, 1955; Forbes 1959; Hickerson 1994) that the Jumano were a nomadic tribe that frequented La Junta de los Rios, living for short periods of time in or close to the pueblos of the sedentary Patarabueyes. The present research fails to support that hypothesis. Although friends of the La Junta nations, they were not commonly cited in La Junta until after the Pueblo Revolt, and then only sporadically. By this time, the eastern Humanas pueblos with whom they had interacted for many years were abandoned (Posadas 1982) and the Apache were pressuring the Jumanos south. Prior to this date, the Jumanos were never cited among the La Junta natives."
p. 220: "When first encountered by the Spanish, [the Apaches were] located on the Southern Plains of New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Oñate (1871a) was the first to use the name Apache. During the 17th century, the eastern Apache began a gradual move south toward La Junta de los Rios and beyond. A mid-17th century document from Parral states that the Apaches were already bordering the lands of the Mansos (AHP 1649D). In 1683-1684, they were pushing at the Jumanos and their allies in the region of the Pecos River in west-central Texas, and were actively engaging the Spanish in El Paso (AGN 1680, 1684a, 1684b; Kessell and Hendricks 1992:327). In 1704 and 1710, Apache chiefs were reported to have requested peace in El Paso (AHP 1704Ab; NMA 1710), but in 1710 Fray Juan Amando Niel (AGI 1710), a Jesuit with considerable experience in the northern frontiers, reported Apache raids just east of the Rio Florido. He subdivided the Apache into several bands, with the Jila (Gila) Apaches in Sonora, the Apaches Fahanos (Faranos) north of the Rio Grande on the Pecos River in Trans-Pecos Texas, and the Apaches Necayees (Natajes) east of Pecos Pueblo (AGI 1710).
"Governor Olivares (BA 1719) describes the land of the Apache as that region between "the Missouri River and the Colorado River (Red River) of the Caudaches to the hills of New Mexico . . . from the Gran Quivera [to the south]." Twenty years later Berroteran (AGI 1746a) stated that Apache Norteños were attacking most areas east of the Conchos River, while others were occupying La Junta and Santa Cruz to the south of La Junta."
p. 273: "In 1729, for the first time the term 'Apaches Jumanes' was employed (AGN 1729a). Four years later testimony was taken about crimes against the Apaches, Pelones, Jumanes, and Chenttis (AGN 1733 . . . BA 1734)."
p. 276-277: "Bacarame: The first known mention of this nation was in the writings of Fray Juan de Larios in the 1670s when he encountered them in the region north of the Sabinas River and south of the Rio Grande (SFG 1673). Also known as the Bacorame, Bacora, Bacaran, Bacaranan, Bascoran, Bocora, and Bocore. Bosque's expedition of the 1670s encountered this group on the Nueces River of Mexico south of Del Rio, and by the early 1700s some were part of a small rebellion near Monclova, and others were living close to San Francisco Solano on the Rio Grande (Solano Registers; SA 1700) . . . . In 1700, they joined the Tobosos, Jumanos, and Ervipiames (SA 1700) in an uprising in Coahuila."
p. 279: "Bibit: Also known as the Mabibit, this nation appears to have been located in northern Coahuila and southern Texas, near Del Rio (Griffen 1969:164). It was identified in relatively few documents reviewed for this dissertation, but was named by Larios (SFG 1674) and Bosque (Portillo 1886:117-121) in this general region."
p. 280: "Bobol: This nation (also Babor, Babel, Babola, Baboram, Baburi, Bobo, Boboram, Bovol, and Pagori [Campbell 1988a: 132]) . . . is mentioned in documents from the 1630s and continued to be identified in various mission registers until ca. 1760s. In 1673 they went from Coahuila to Parral with a Franciscan priest to seek peace (AHP 1673Aa). In 1675 (SFG 1675), they were situated north of the Rio Grande, somewhere in the vicinity of the Val Verde or Maverick counties. Later, in 1683, a nation called Babori was present with Juan Sabeata near the Pecos River (AGN 1683b). In later years, they were noted to be present near Monclova (Campbell 1988:132).
It should be noted that Griffen (1969:155, 156) separates the Boboles into more than one group, listing the Boboles as present in northern Coahuila from ca. 1670 to 1688. In contrast, he associates the Babol (also Babola, Babora, Baborimama) with central Coahuila from the 1630s to 1673. However, Campbell (1988a) links the names as variants of the same people. Since Campbell's work employed more comprehensive archival documentation, his conclusion that they are the same nation is followed here."
p. 280-281: "Cabezas: This nation is generally associated with the southern part of the Bolson de Mapimi from the 1640s to the 1690s (Griffen 1969:3, 157) . . . . In the 1690s, the Cabezas were settled at the Parras Mission. However, efforts to missionize them began as early as the 1630s when at least 30 families were placed at Tizonaco, a mission town that was occupied by the Salineros (AGN 1645). By 1644, the Cabezas had left Tizonaco, and from then until the 1690s they were frequently cited as participants in the various rebellions of Nueva Vizcaya . . . . At one point their land was described as the same as the land of the Toboso and situated close to the land of the Salineros (AGN 1645). Another account states that the region of the salines "is the land of the Cavezas and Salineros" (Calderon 1645).
Griffin (1969:157) believes that there were two Cabeza nations, one native to the general region of Parras/Tizonaco and the other, later in time, in the region of San Juan Bautista near Eagle Pass. Campbell (1988a: 133-134) does not, however, distinguish between the two. He (Campbell 1988a, 1988b) has documented that several southern Coahuila nations, including Cabezas, moved north in an effort to survive the northward push of the Spanish, and concludes that 'by 1700 the Cabezas were represented only by remnants that had survived the extensive Spanish-Indian hostilities of 17th-century Coahuila.' Campbell's conclusions are followed here."
p. 285: "Casqueza (also Cacaste, Caicache, Cascastle, Cocaxtle, Kankac, among others): This nation was encountered by De León and Masanet (1957) with the Jumanos in the large rancherias situated near the Guadalupe River along the Edwards Plateau of Central Texas (Masanet 1957:360-361) . . . . Their territory was the region from Guerrero north along the Rio Grande (Campbell 1988:176, figure 11). A large number was massacred by the Spanish in 1665."
p. 287: "Catujano: Campbell (1988:136) places the Catujanos (also Catuxan, Catuxzan, and Cotujan) in far northeastern Coahuila based on documentary information that dates as early as the 1650s. Noted as leaders in testimony related to the uprising of nations from Coahuila and Nuevo León in the 1670s (AHP 1670A), the Catujanos were subsequently cited in the memorial of Larios (SFG 1674), and from a multitude of other documents from Coahuila after 1675. They continue to be associated with this region through most of the Colonial Period. Between 1703 and 1770, Catujanos are listed in the mission registers of San Bernardo, San Bernardino, and San Miguel de Aguayo (Campbell 1988:136)."
p.290: "Chisos: [T]he Chisos lived just east of the Presidio Bolson, and south of the Rio Grande, a land that bordered the territory of the Tobosos (Medrano in Naylor and Poltzer 1986:423; AHP 1653Bb). In the 1650s, they were generally found in the region of Parral, but this appears to have been a temporary residence caused by raids of their rancherias by the Tobosos (AHP 1655Ab). In the rebellion of 1684, the Chisos played a prominent role, and at that time many of this nation were residents of La Junta de los Rios (AHP 1684Aa, 1684Ab) . . . Trasvina Retis (Ayer 1714), in 1714-1715, stated that one of the perils of travel to/from La Junta had to pass through the land of several rebel nations, one of which was the Chisos who lived east of the Conchos River.
The Chisos appear to have been a relatively large nation, subdivided into bands that sometimes acted independently and sometimes acted in consort with the other bands . . . . Known Chisos bands were the Chichitames, Osatayoliclas, Cacalote, Cacuytattomes, Batayolicla, Ostayolic, Osatabay, Quescepayoligla, Cacuitatome; probable Chisos bands include the Simimbles, Coxocome and Tunmamar (AHP 1684Aa; AGI 1702; Griffen 1979:30-36). Some documents only cite the name Chisos, especially in the early 17th century; other documents cite the name Chisos together with one or more of the bands names."
pp. 293-297: "Cholomes: The name Cholome (also Zolome, Chalome, Chocolomo) first appeared in the 17th century, beginning in the 1640s with their involvement in a widespread rebellion (AHP 1645Aa, 1645Ab). While less frequently mentioned than the Conchos, the Cholomes were sporadically noted in documents throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. They are one of the nations listed at La Junta de los Rios in testimony given in 1685 (AHP 1685Da), and in 1778 Escalante (1962:316) stated that they were still among the residents of La Junta. In 1688 testimony was taken from a Cholome on a ranch 50 leagues north of Parral (AHP 1688Cb) and west of the Conchos. Masanet (1968:241; 1957:340) encountered Cholomes near the Guadalupe River south of modern Austin in 1691 with a large party of other nations under the leadership of Juan Sabeata, but in 1693 Juan de Retana reported that they were located on the Rio Grande just down river from the Sumas (AHP 1695Aa). Interestingly, when Mendoza (AGN 1683b) traveled down the Rio Grande in 1683, he encountered the Suma, but never mentioned the Cholomes. Trasvina Retis (Ayer 1714) and Beasoain (AGI 1715b) clearly placed them at San Pedro, a village on the Conchos, just south of Cuchillo Parado, at La Cienega (a marshy region several leagues west of Cuchillo Parado), and up the Rio Grande from La Junta. These locations seem to still hold in the uprising of 1726 when Cholomes were associated with Coyames, Cuchillo Parado, and La Junta or upriver from La Junta (AGI 1726-1728).
Griffen (1979:31) considered the Cholomes to have been the same as the Pazaguates and Cabris from the 1580s, and Kelley (1952, Figure 1, 1986:61-62) favors this interpretation, placing them between La Junta and Cuchillo Parado, and north of the Julimes. Kelley's interpretation is based on the account of Trasvina Regis who traveled to La Junta in 1715 and encountered the Cholomes several days down the Conchos from San Antonio de Julimes (Ayer 1715). Forbes (1959:112) believed the Cholomes of the 17th century were "geographically and ethnically" equivalent to the Otomoacos of the 1580s expeditions and that they extended up the Rio Grande from La Junta. Although the general territory assigned to the Cholomes by Forbes (1959:112) is accepted here as part of the homeland of the Cholomes, their link to the Otomoaco is not. It should be noted that Forbes did not access the Parral documents of the mid 17th century (e.g., AHP 1645Aa, 1645Ab) that contain information about this nation.
Here, the interpretation of Griffen and Kelley is favored with some modification. While the Cholomes were encountered north of the Julimes in 1715, Trasvina Retis (Ayer 1714) stated that the main concentration of Cholomes lived several leagues west at a cienega. Subsequent documents, and Trasvina Retis' notes from his journey home, indicate that this cienega was the pueblo names Coyame (AGI 11726-1728) . . . . These and one other incident support the notion that the Cholomes territory extended to the Rio Grande northwest of La Junta."
p. 298-299: "Cibolos: The territory of the Cibolos (also Sibolas, Sibolos, Cibolas, Civola, Sivolitos, Xibulu) is generally believed to have been north of the Rio Grande, east of La Junta de los Rios, and south of the region occupied by the Jumanos on the Pecos River (Griffen 1979:32; AGI 1693). Griffen (1969:166) says they are also the Sivoporame (Sipopolas, Sibopora, Sipopolames, Sopolame, and Sipulames) cited in documents from the Parras archives between 1642 and 1671. Miguel, the Cibolo chief in the late 1680s, testified that his land was 'of the other part [e.g., north] of the Rio Grande where there are many . . . cibolos [buffalo]" (AGI 1693). In 1655, Medrano stated that the Cibolos were found to the north of the Tobosos (Naylor and Polzer 1986:422), further substantiating their placement north of the Rio Grande. They were, however, also cited as one of the resident nations at La Junta in 1684 (AHP 1684Aa), again in 1688 (AGI 1688), living at La Junta in the large pueblo of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in 1715 (Ayer 1714), and at San Antonio de los Puliques in 1747-1748 (Madrid 1993:52-60; AGN 1748a). Despite this association with La Junta, it is clear that they were only part time residents. Five Sibulos came to La Junta in 1687 and informed the priest, through interpreters, that 'they lived with another nation adjacent to the Tejas.' . . . [I]nterpreters were still needed for this nation in 1688, even by the priests at La Junta (AGI 1688). In 1689, they were among the five nations de León encountered between Monclova and the Rio Grande (AGI 1689), and in 1690, Masanet (1957:360-361) recorded their presence on the Guadalupe River near modern New Braunfels. Documents related to the 1726 rebellion indicate that the Cibolos at that time lived just east of La Junta (AGI 1726-1728). These varying accounts suggest that the Cibolos were associated with La Junta, but not permanent residents . . . . The word Cibolo means buffalo, and the Cibolos appear to have been so named because they hunted these animals on the margins of the Southern Plains (AGI 1693)."
p. 315: "Hapes [Apes]: First mentioned by Benavides (Ayer 1965) as a close neighbor of the Jumano, and residing near the Pecos and Colorado rivers in 1629, the Hapes were subsequently listed in testimony about assaults on Saltillo (AHP 1670A) in the company of the Ervipiames, Yoricas, Mescales, Boboles, Ocanes, Catujanes and 11 other nations from Coahuila and Nuevo León. A few years later, Fray Juan de Larios (SFG 1674) cited the Hapes as one of the followers of the Catujanes under the leadership of Juan Miguel, suggesting that, by the late 17th century, they were found near the Rio Grande, and perhaps living just south of that drainage, well to the south of the location where they were encountered in 1629. Campbell (1988a: 142) has concluded that they were pushed south by the Apache. However, they appear to have not been fully settled in Coahuila in the late 17th century. In 1683 Juan Sabeata, the Jumano chief, lists them as one of the nations (Jeape) living with the Jumano in west-central Texas along the Pecos River (AGN 1683a)."
p. 327: "There is some evidence that, through time, the Jumano were pushed out of [their] territory. Fray Juan de Larios (SFG 1674) placed the Jumanos near the Rio Grande. A year later the Spanish encountered the Xoman (Jumano), Teroodan, Teaname, and Geimamar on the Ona (i.e., Salty or Pecos) River north of the Rio Grande . . . . In 1686 they were among the nations at the mountain Sacatsol (literally "noses of stone"), north of the Rio Grande in south central Texas (Masanet 1911:256), and in 1689 León found the Jumanos (Jumenes) in a sizable camp of 85 huts with 490 people located four days journey south of the Rio Grande (León 1909:322). Two years later, the Jumanos were identified in the company of the Mescales, Oricas (Yoricas), and other groups south of the Rio Grande (SFG 1691), and one month later in charge of a large camp (ca. 2,000 individuals) of Cibola, Cantona (Canohatino), Calome, Catqueza, and Caynaya near the Guadalupe River in central Texas (Masanet 1957:360; Hatcher 1932:15) . . . . They were present in the Guadalupe/San Marcos River region in 1692 . . . (SFG 1692), and were also encountered by Salinas Varona (1968:287, 298) in the same region in 1693 and in the vicinity of the San Marcos River during his return trip: In one case, it is stated that the homeland of the Jumano was on the Rio del Norte (Masanet 1957:362). In the 1692 document, the wording differs slightly. "The Jumano nation of the Rio del Norte Salado" suggesting Masanet was speaking of the Pecos River, which fits better with other data (AGI 1693). In 1688, Retana met Sabeata several days journey northeast of La Junta, and Sabeata expressed pleasure "to see the Spanish in his territory" (AGI 1693). A priest from La Junta also indicated that the Cibolos and Jumanos "resided near the Tejas" (AGI 1693)."
p. 328: "The term 'Apaches Jumanos' was used . . . at San Juan Bautista in 1729 (AGN 1729a), and four years later testimony was taken about whether the soldiers had committed crimes against the Apaches, Pelones, Jumanes, and Chenttis (AGN 1733). At approximately the same period of time, several reports place the Jumanos to the east of Pecos Pueblo, typically in hostile actions similar to the Apache hostilities (Kessell 1979)."
p. 362: "Terocodames: This nation is mentioned with a number of variants of this name, including Hierquodame, Hyroquodame, Hyroquodame, ledocodame, Perocodame, Teocodame, Terrodan, Texocodame, and Toxocodame (Campbell 1988:166). [It] was first cited by Fray Juan de Larios (SFG 1675) as one of the nations encountered in the region of the Rio Grande above San Juan Bautista. Throughout the early 18th century they continued to be cited in the general vicinity of the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass to the west (SA 1700). They appear to have occupied a region north and south of the Rio Grande in this general area, although by ca. 1720 were generally found to the south near Parras (AGN n.d.). During the uprising of 1715-1716, they were somewhat to the north of Parras, but still south of the Rio Grande (AHP 1716Aa). It is Campbell's (1988:166-167) conclusion that Apache incursions pushed them south in the early 18th century, where they participated in various wars in Coahuila. They disappear from the records after the 1780s."
p. 364-365: "Tobosos: The Tobosos occupied much of the Bolson de Mapimi (Griffen 1969, especially his Figure 2), ranging from the tip of the Big Bend south to the region occupied by the Salineros and Cabezas and east of the Chisos. In the 1640s, the Spanish pursued the Tobosos into the heart of their territory: 'to their final [e.g. ,most northern] rancherias, near the Rio Grande del Norte' (Alegre 1959:25). Several documents note that they were situated ca. 80 leagues from Parral (AGN 1645; AHP 1645Ab; Alegre 1959:25) . . . . By 1655, Medrano stated that the land of this nation "was close to the Conchos, Nonojes, Acoclames, Totoclames, Julimes, Chisos, Ocomes, and Gavilanes (Naylor and Polzer 1986:423). Since many of these nations had a more southerly territory, either the Tobosos also had rancherias well to the south of the Rio Grande, or they had begun to move south by the mid-17th century."
p. 365: "The Tobosos were also a problem for the missionized Indians in Coahuila and Nuevo León. In 1700 a report from San Juan Bautista stated that the Tobosos had raided a rancheria of the Sitames because the latter were friends of the Spanish (SA 1700). A decade later they continued to harass the natives of these missions (AGI 1708a, 1708b) . . . . Griffen (1969:63-64) noted that the Tobosos were deported in the 1720s, and generally disappear from the documents by 1730 . . . . [They] were the cause of the dissolution of the mission on the Rio Salado (Pecos) in 1748, but by 1750 were believed to be completely extinguished (SFG 1750)."
p. 371-372: "Yoricas: As Campbell (1988a:171) has noted, the "Y" beginning this name is often misread. They have been identified as the Corece, Giorica, Giorna, Gorica, Goxica, Hiorna, Hiorica, Lorica, Orica, Torica, and Yoxica. Their territory was centered on northern Coahuila, just south of the Rio Grande where they were first mentioned as one of the rebel nations in a large gathering in Coahuila (AHP 1670A), and later encountered by Fray Juan de Larios (SFG 1674) under the leadership of Juan de la Cruz, a Bobole chief. The Jumano were also said to be under his leadership. The following year, they are encountered by Larios and Lt. Bosque a short distance north of the Rio Grande in the company of the Hapes (Portillo 1886:117), and in 1686 they were identified north of the Rio Grande near the prominence named Dacatsol (Masanet 1957:254), believed to be in the general vicinity of South Texas. Later, in 1700, they settled at Mission San Juan Bautista (AGI 1708a)."
p. 405: AHP (1704Aa): Diego, an Acoclame told General Retana that 'the Acoclames were part of the gathering of gentile (heathen) nations that took place last year where the Rio Grande and Salado [Pecos] confluence.' Apparently there were many nations present and the purpose was to make peace among themselves in order that they could unite against the Spanish."
p. 405: AHP (1716Aa): Around 1716 Captain Ramon, of Texas and Nuevo León, went to the headwaters of the Colorado River to apprehend rebels. He found 'a large gathering of Indians of the nations Julimes, Escomeagamos, los de Guejolote, Coboloas, Ervipiames, Chisos, Gavilanes, Tripas Blancas and others.' He noted that all were part or full time residents of Texas."
Keyser, James D.
1987 A Lexicon for Historic Plains Indian Rock Art: Increasing Interpretive Potential. Plains Anthropologist 32:43-71.
Northern Plains rock art, especially art from the Late Prehistoric-Historic periods, is dominated by realistic drawings of humans and animals. Through the use of archival documents, hide paintings, oral accounts, and drawings as well as archeological data, Keyser sets forth a chronology of rock art styles, moving from the static, rigid, carefully executed figures of the Late Prehistoric period to the realistic art work of the Protohistoric and Historic periods where horses, humans, weapons, and tipis were employed to depict scenes. This latter style has often been called the "Biographic" style "because it recorded actual events important in the lives of individuals and groups.
Keyser's material has been applied to the Amistad NRA (see Turpin, below) because some rock art in or adjacent to the Amistad NRA depicts horses or bison with humans often in multiple panels. Given the fact that some Plains tribes moved south into Texas during the Historic period, Turpin has concluded that the iconography ascribed to the artwork in the northern Plains applies to the sites in the Lower Pecos. The reader is urged to note the dates associated with specific art forms.
p. 44: "Biographic art . . . most often consisted of detailed action scenes showing combat and horse-raiding."
p. 45: "The initial change, which occurred in the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric periods (ca. A.D. 1600-1750), was a gradual transformation of a static, individualistic art to a more action oriented, documentary art. Then, after A.D. 1750, concurrent with the change in Plains warfare patterns and status acquisition systems, Biographic art quickly developed . . . [and] came to function primarily as a means of documenting individual accomplishments and recording important events."
p. 45: "Ceremonial art was drawn between approximately A.D. 1000 and 1700 Characteristic motifs . . . were usually carefully executed as single glyphs or small groups of loosely associated figures . . . . Humans are also often accompanied by well-drawn items of material culture such as weapons, headdresses, and decorated shields. Anthropomorphs are typically shown in front view with upraised arms and/or weapons [and most have a v-neck]; animals are shown in profile."
p. 45: "During the Protohistoric period (ca. A.D. 1625-AD. 1775) a transition took place . . . in that action scenes were added . . . [including] combat and battle scenes, and a few men riding horses or holding guns."
p. 48: "[ca] A.D. 1775 . . . the earliest examples of true Biographic art used Ceremonial art motifs (e.g., v-neck humans, boat-form horses), but few of these panels occur. Replacement of motifs by simpler designs coupled with population movements of the Shoshone (the artists responsible for much Later Prehistoric Period Ceremonial art) . . . out of the Northwestern Plains and the immigration of Algonkian and Siouian speaking groups explains the rapid transition from Ceremonial art to Biographic art motifs."
[Authors' note: In other words, the Ceremonial Art with V-neck humans and boat-form horses represents the typical style of Comanche groups; the Biographic style, by inference, remained in the Northern Plains.]
p. 48: "Biographic art consists . . . of detailed action scenes involving . . . groups of figures with stylistic conventions indicating death, movement, and the passage of time . . . [quoting from Ewers 1968:7-8] 'The men's . . . legs are relatively short and bent at the knees. Hands and feet are small and lack definition. No attempt was made to portray clothing. Notice that the mounted warriors do not straddle their horseseither they have no legs at all or both legs are shown on the near side of the horse. The horses, too, have neither eyes nor mouths, and their upper legs are thick, while the lower legs are mere lines.'"
p. 48: "Between 1830 and 1850 some Northwestern Plains Indians had begun to develop more realism in the Biographic art styles. One primary cause for this stylistic evolution was the exposure of upper Missouri River Indians to the sophisticated portraiture of early white artists."
p. 48: "Replacement of . . . the Shoshone (the artists responsible for much of the Late Prehistoric Period Ceremonial art) out of the northwestern Plains and the immigration of Algonkian and Sioujan speaking groups explains the rapid transition."
p. 48: "Between 1830 and 1850 some Northwestern Plains Indians had begun to develop more realism in the . . . style . . . . The effects of . . . exposure to [Anglo] portrait art are readily discernible in the paintings . . . and [in the] rapid spread of realism throughout Plains Indian representational art."
p. 52: "Horses are second only to human figures as the primary components of Biographic art . . . . The earliest horses were boat-form depiction's dating prior to A.D. 1775 [and] associated with V-neck humans, shield bearing warriors, and rectangular body humans."
p. 54: "Mature style horses are the hallmark of Early Biographic art. They originated between A.D. 1775 and 1800 . . . [and] are characterized by elongated bodies, necks, and legs and flowing manes and tails . . . . After approximately A.D. 1835 Plains Indians began to draw horses in a more realistic style with rounded, three-dimensional bodies, realistic hooves, and more naturalistic anatomical detail."
p. 58: "Rifles and pistols were drawn frequently in Biographic art . . . . Like guns, bows and arrows were frequently drawn in Biographic art." Swords, coupsticks and lances were also depicted.
p. 61: "Headdresses with horns and feathered trailers were common in Biographic style rock art . . . . Feather-and-horn bonnets were badges of membership in warrior or police societies in many Plains tribes."
p. 63: "In many combat scenes . . . the victor was . . . indicated by the postures of the participants or the placement of weapons . . . . Victorious warriors . . . were always shown leaning . . . toward the enemy . . . . Losers were shown falling over, doubled over . . . or recumbent."
Labadie, Joe, Kathy Labadie, Terry Sayther, and Deborah Stuart
1997 A First Look at the El Caido Site: A Historic Rock Art Site in Far Northern Coahuila, Mexico. La Tierra 24:14-32.
Joe Labadie is the archeologist at the Amistad NRA and has a serious interest in the archeology of the region. Given the significance of the region's rock art, he and his wife have been especially diligent in recording and documenting the rock art. This particular site is located ca. one mile south of the Amistad NRA and is one of the few recorded south of the river that contain historic period designs. In addition to describing the site, this article also provides a welcome summary of the historic period rock art in the region. It notes that El Caido (The Fallen) contains images that "clearly point to a Northwestern Plains influence which date to sometime near the close of the 19th century" (p. 29). These images are part of the Plains Biographic style that developed after A.D. 1850 (see Keyser 1987 above), and, in the authors' opinions, may be linked to the rock art at the Hussie Miers site (41VV343) described in Turpin (1987 below). Hence, the images may be part of the artwork of the Comanche and Kiowa tribes.
p. 14: "Research on rock art in the Lower Pecos region began with A.T. Jackson."
p. 14: "For the past 20 years, Solveig Turpin has been the driving force behind the discovery, documentation, and preservation of rock art sites [in the Lower Pecos region]."
p. 14: "Jackson and Kirkland . . . realized that historic images could be divided into two broad temporal groupings: an early Spanish Colonial period followed by a later period dominated by motifs more commonly associated with southern Plains groups. The later Plains-influenced rock art has been termed Plains Biographic style by James Keyser (1987)."
p. 14: "[H]allmarks of the Biographic style are depictions of action scenes composed primarily of humans, weapons, and tepees that are representative of actual events important in the lives of individuals and groups."
p. 18: "Turpin (1986) asserts that pictographs attributable to later Plains influences are typified by scenes depicting hostility and aggression . . . . Major pictograph sites for this time period include . . . the Hussie Miers site."
p. 19-29: The summary of the two panels at the site make it clear that the humans are either on horses or on foot and most have shields and lances, muskets or hatchets, long and flowing headdresses or no headdresses at all, and one has a long, braided hair style, while another holds a saber and a rifle. The horses are simple with elements that appear to depict warfare.
p. 29: "There are distinct differences between [the two panels] . . . It seems safe to interpret these differences as an indication that the two panels were created by two different people perhaps representing two different groups."
p. 29: "There are numerous depictions among both panels that clearly indicate a Northwestern Plains influence in these images."
Lancaster, Jane F.
1994 Removal Aftershock. The Seminoles' Struggles to Survive in the West, 1836-1866. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.
This slim volume focuses on the historiography of the Seminole, particularly those who lived in Oklahoma and, to a lesser degree, the Seminole and Seminole Blacks who moved to Mexico during the mid-nineteenth century. Lancaster employed a wide range of original archival sources to complete the study. As a result, the study speaks authoritatively of Native Americans who were originally settled along the eastern seaboard of the United States, but were forced to move to Indian Territory beginning in 1836. The preface, chapter 1, and chapter 5 are pertinent to the Amistad NRA study.
p. xiii: "The Seminoles' most difficult struggle in their first years in the West was a constant battle to maintain their tribal identify and retain their tribal lands by avoiding submergence in the much larger Creek tribe."
p. xiv: "A major portion of the Seminoles were 'runaways' from the Creeks."
p. xv: After the United States government ordered the blacks returned to the Seminoles, a few distraught Seminoles allied with some blacks, and both left Indian Territory and sought freedom in Mexico. Providing a military colony there, they received land grants in return for their services in the Mexican army.
p. 80: "In October 1849, less than two years after the Mexican War and as the slavery issue sizzled in the United States, Wild Cat [a Seminole leader] led his followers out of Indian Territory and started toward Mexico. He was seeking a pleasant land without Creek domination and with freedom for blacks . . . . During [the next decade], both Indian and black men served in the Mexican army in order to maintain possession of their land . . . . By 1858 they began a return to Indian Territory . . . although some blacks chose to remain in Mexico."
p. 85: "The Indian and black migrants led by Wild Cat and Gopher John spent several months in Texas as they made their way to Mexico. They camped on land between the Brazos and Colorado rivers, where they planted corn and made contact with other Indian tribes."
p. 85: "In May 1850, Special Indian Agent John Rollins met Wild Cat on the Llano River, where he headed about 250 Seminoles and Kickapoos."
p. 86: "Wild Cat . . . camped with about seven or eight hundred Seminoles, Lipans, Wacos, and Tonkawas on the Llano in West Texas in July 1850 . . . . [He] spent considerable time that summer attempting to assemble as large a military colony as possible. He contacted Comanches, Caddoes, Wacos, and Kickapoos about joining him in Mexico . . . . The Caddoes, frightened by such news, divided into small groups and moved down the Brazos River until Wild Cat returned to Mexico . . . . About two hundred young [Kickapoo] warriors [from the area near Fort Arbuckle] accepted his offer of pay from Mexico and his promises of money and booty from the Comanches. But by the fall of 1851, these Kickapoos were persuaded by their chiefs to return to Indian Territory."
p. 87: "The problems that Mexicans had on their northern frontier made it an opportune time for Wild Cat to ask them for permission to settle in their country. Even prior to the Mexican War, the Mexicans had lost much property and many lives in Indian raids . . . . [T]he south Plains tribes . . . had robbed the country of horses and mules needed for transporting troops and drawing the supply trains. These Indians and the Apaches had burned thousands of bushels of grain in northern Mexico."
p.89: "But Wild Cat's colony was also a liability on the border in the early 1850s. Because the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had been in effect only a few years, a cunning chief with a strong Seminole settlement that included blacks from the United States appeared potentially dangerous. Therefore the . . . Indians and blacks [were provided with] a different land grant, and they moved to Musquiz, a new rich land in the Santa Rosa Mountains, just northwest of Santa Rosa . . . . In July 1852, Wild Cat and his party received other grants in Durango and Nacimiento."
p. 90: "[In the fall of 1854] an army officer reported that there were 318 people, including the Indians and from fifty to sixty blacks, in the military colony near Santa Rosa . . . Of the 183 warriors in the group, 82 had enlisted in the Mexican army . . . . The women and children cultivated the land near Santa Rosa, where the Indians and blacks had cabins, gardens, horses, cattle, and mules."
p. 91: "By the 1850s, from three to four thousand fugitive slaves valued at more than $3.2 million had located in northern Mexico. The Seminole black colony included runaways from Texas."
p. 93: "Wild Cat's death [in 1857] had great effect on the remaining Seminoles in Mexico . . . . The band began a gradual migration back to Indian Territory between 1858 and 1861."
p. 95: "The Indians were permitted to take their own property, but items that belonged to the Mexicans had to be returned . . . . By 25 August 1861, the remaining Mexican Seminoles had gone . . . . Some blacks chose to stay south of the Rio Grande."
La Torre, Felipe A. and Dolores L. La Torre
1976 The Mexican Kickapoo Indians. University of Texas Press, Austin.
The La Torres conducted ethnographic fieldwork among some Kickapoo near El Nacimiento, Mexico in the 1960s. While their primary focus was on the modern residents, some historical information is provided in the volume.
Wisconsin is the Kickapoo native territory, but by 1765, some members were settling on the Mississippi River near Saint Louis, a part of Spanish Louisiana at that time. As white settlement moved into those areas, the Kickapoo moved further west, and by 1832, various groups of the tribe were scattered in a broad band from Wisconsin to Texas. At that time, according to the La Torres, 300 were settled on the Sabine River under Chief Mosqua.
With the hostilities of the Lamar administration towards Native Americans during the early years of the Republic of Texas, small groups of Kickapoo moved south and some can be documented in Matamoros in 1839. Some of these entered the Mexican military and were stationed close to Morelos, near the Rio San Antonio ca. 50 miles south of Cuidad Acuña. More Kickapoo moved to Mexico in the company of Wild Cat, a Seminole chief, and a large body of Seminole. Soliciting land to establish a colony, they were granted ca. 70,000 acres south of Cuidad Acuña. This residency did not last, however, and eventually many members defected to the United States; a few moved further south to Morelos. In the early 1860s, the Seminole abandoned their lands in the vicinity of El Nacimiento and Muzquiz and the Rio Sabinas. When a larger group of Kickapoo moved south from Indian Territory (ca. 1864), they occupied the lands left by the Seminole. Over the next 40 years, their occupation of Morelos, El Nacimiento, and Muzquiz varied from lows of less than 100 to over 500. Importantly, however, their subsistence was based on part-time farming and part-time marauding of ranches in South Texas, presumably in the region of the Amistad NRA as well as areas to the east and south. Cattle, horses, and other goods obtained during various raids were sold in Mexico.
Lea, Pryor
1852 Letter to Luke Lea, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Texas Agency, Roll 1, pp. 1084-1087, Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
Familiar with the inherent difficulties with Indian affairs in Texas, Pryor Lea, a legislator in the Texas legislature, spent substantial effort in developing a "Joint Resolution of Indian Boundaries." The resolution was quite brief, but authorized the governor to negotiate with the tribes to establish "an Indian territory in the northern part of the state." Importantly, the resolution only concerned itself with the Indians who were "of the state," suggesting that newcomers would have to establish their claims with other states. The resolution also respected private property, so that claims could not be rendered against such property.
p. 1: "Some of my favorite measures have been successful. Among them is the 'Joint Resolution concerning Indian boundaries ....' You cannot imagine the difficulties, which have attended this subject, because it seems to you, no doubt, that every person in Texas ought to realize the necessity for some such negotiation. But there are habits of thought, among a large proportion of Texas . . . which were difficult to explain."
p. 1: "I conferred with Governor Bell, Gen. Ford, Major Neighbors, and too many others to be enumerated."
p. 2: "Some of its particulars may seem unnecessary, but it was indispensable to state them specially, in order to obviate the current objections."
La Vere, David
1998 Life Among the Texas Indians: The WPA Narratives. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.
La Vere culled oral accounts of Native Americans that are housed in the Indian-Pioneer Histories at the Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City. These oral histories were gathered by staff of the Works Progress Administration working on the Indian reservations in Oklahoma in the 1930s. His work concentrated on those Native Americans or their parents who had come to Indian Territory from Texas in the late nineteenth century. "Actual documented words of Indian peoples from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are relatively rare, so in this book they get their chance to tell their stories" (p. xi). The Indians represented in the book are Comanche, Kiowa, Caddo, Wichita, Tonkawa, and Lipan Apache.
It should be noted that much of the period just prior to 1846 (when Texas entered the Union) is cursory and should not be used as an authoritative guide. Errors include such statements as "The Tonkawascharacterized as thieves and beggars by the Texas who misread Tonkawa culture of asking for gifts and the status a man gained from stealing from non-kinwere despised by the Texans" (p. 28). Nonetheless, La Vere, an historian, employed a surprisingly large volume of archeological reports and/or books. These books and reports lent him sufficient information that he avoided many of the pitfalls seen in other works completed by historians.
Several Native American tribes of concern in this work are pertinent to the Amistad NRA. However, because the time frame of the oral histories is relatively late, much of the material is too late (e.g., 1890s) to affect the period of time when these tribes would have been present in the lands of the Amistad NRA. Selected passages provide some information about Texas, and to a lesser degree the Amistad NRA.
p. 59: "The Apaches gave the Seminoles trouble when in the midst of their wanderings after they had been forced to leave their homes. They were never satisfied in their new country . . . under their new leader, Wild Cat."
Mayhall, Mildred P.
1971 The Kiowas. Second edition, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
An anthropology professor at The University of Texas at Austin, Mayhall amassed a collection of documents from military and other archives from the United States and Mexico to document and trace the history of the Kiowa Tribe. The bulk of her documentation was from military archives of the United States as well as the material collected by Mooney in the 1890s. Called the "Caiguas" as early as 1735 by the Spanish in New Mexico, Mayhall opines that the Kiowas were pushed south from the northern plains in the 18th century, but did not reach Texas until relatively late in that century. Even then, their presence in Texas was sporadic. In 1802, the Lewis and Clark expedition noted their presence well to the north on the Platte River and they were found there again in 1803 when Zebulon Pike passed through that region. In 1835, they were living on the headwaters of the Arkansas, Canadian, and Red rivers, and, according to Mayhall, "this was the area they continued to occupy until reservation days."
Their presence in Texas largely centered on raids and/or travel to Mexico to trade. Those raids were not frequent, but were far from their primary lands, extending from Corpus Christi to Arizona and south to Chihuahua, Durango, Tamaulipas, and Santa Rosa, Mexico.
Moorhead, Max L.
1968 The Apache Frontier, Jacobo Ugarte and Spanish-Indian Relations in Northern New Spain, 1769-1791. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Moorhead sought to examine in detail the relations of the Spanish with certain Native American tribes, particularly the Apache and Comanche. This work describes his understanding of the historical context that surrounded the decision of the Spanish to turn away from their relatively long-standing alliance with the Apache and, instead, seek a partnership with the more powerful Comanche of the Southern Plains. That decision was codified in the enunciation in 1786 by Viceroy Bernardo de Galvez, and it fell to Jacobo Ugarte, military commander of the Provincias Internas and former governor of Coahuila, to put the program into place in the Provincias Internas. Drawing heavily from archival sources, Moorhead sought to avoid much of the ethnocentric bias that had been shown by some writings of his predecessors. He was not always successful, but discerning readers should be able to overcome the places where his bias comes through. On the whole the book is informative, well-researched, and provides information useful to the Amistad NRA.
p. 3: "The Gran Apacheria, as the Spaniards sometimes called it, was 750 miles in breadth from the 98th to the 111th meridianand in some areas as much as 550 miles in depthfrom the 30th to the 38th parallels. The main range of the Apaches was what we now call the desert Southwest, but when they were bent on plunder or revenge, they extended their murderous raids deep into what are now the Mexican states of Nuevo León, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Sonora." [His map shows them extending from just west of San Antonio to the Del Rio area, along the Rio Grande, and north to the Southern Plains.]
p. 5-6: In 1796, Cordero (a military commander) named the various Apache tribes: in the west were the Mimbrenos, Navahos, Gilenos, Chiricahuas, and Tontos. The easts were the Faraones, Mescaleros, Llaneros (Natagees, Lipiyanes, and Llaneros proper), and Lipanes.
p. 15: After Rivera's 1724-1727 tour of the presidios, a 1729 reglamento required increased efforts to pacify native groups. This policy held until the Marques de Rubi's 1768 inspection. "Rubi proposed a single outer line of defense to restrain the marauding invaders. He identified the Apaches as the only really implacable enemy on the entire frontier."
p. 26: "The Bolson de Mapimi . . . gave the Apaches easy access to the centers of population and a secure asylum from pursuit by the troops . . . . To the north, just beyond the Rio Grande, ranged the Lipan, Pipiyan, Natagee, Llanero, Faraon, and Mescalero Apaches."
p. 34: "In May of 1772 . . . more than 300 Lipan Apaches . . . attacked the haciendas of Sardinas, Posuelos, and San Miguel, the ranchos of Los Menchacas and Santa Gertrudes, and the pueblos of Nadadores and San Buenaventura."
p. 36: "O'Conor's campaign of 1772-73 was directed against the invading Mescalero Apaches, who were hiding out in the desolate Bolson de Mapimi. It was successful in dislodging them from this basin, in driving them northward, and in achieving even more notable results in neighboring Nueva Vizcaya."
p. 37: In the spring of 1775, O'Conor launched a multi-faceted effort against the Apaches. "For his part, Ugarte was to prepare . . . 325 men from his three presidios . . . . With this force . . . [he] was to march northward beyond the Rio Grande to the former site of the presidio of San Saba, veer westward to the Pecos River . . . and then to continue up the Pecos."
p. 38: October 2, 1775, 70 miles upriver from the San Juan Bautista, "an Apache chieftain with two warriors approached [Ugarte's] camp, but he turned out to be Cabello Largo, the principal chief of the Lipanes, with whom O'Conor had solidified a peace the year before and to whom Bucareli had sent the title 'General of the Lipan Apaches . . . Other Lipan chiefsPoca Ropa, Boca Tuerta, El Cielo, El Flaco, Panocho, Rivera, Javielillo, Pajarito, and Manteca Mucha . . . . Reconnoitering the upper reaches of the San Pedro, a tributary of the Pecos, [3] the troops sighted Indians on December 22 . . . . Except for eliminating three Apache warriors [on the San Pedro], inducing the other hostiles to flee westward, and reconnoitering a large amount of territory along the Pecos River, Ugarte had nothing to show for the march by approximately 188 men of approximately 740 miles."
pp. 40-41: "Some [Apaches] seem to have eluded Ugarte's army and hidden out in the mountains north of the Rio Grande, for their raids into Coahuila were resumed shortly after the troops returned from the campaign." O'Conor campaigned against the Apaches in 1776, pushing them to the Guadalupes and along the Colorado River. Over 300 families of these Apaches were slaughtered by the Comanches.
p. 64: Ugarte was appointed Comandante-General for the Provincias Internas.
p. 125: "Ugarte was to exploit the existing discord between the Apaches and the Nations of the North and that among the separate Apache tribes themselves, reviving especially the bloody conflict that formerly existed between the Mescaleros and the Lipanes."
p. 129: "Nueva Vizcaya . . . was frequently invadedfrom the northwest by the Gila Apaches and from the northeast by both the Mescaleros and Lipanes."
p. 200: The Eastern Apaches 1779-1787: "In the southern mountains of New Mexico, between the Rio Grande and the Pecos River, were the Yntajen-ne, whom the Spaniards called Faraones. Driven southward by the Comanches during the early part of the 18th century, the Faraones had left . . . their tribesmen behind in the Jicarilla Mountains . . . . To the east of the Faraones ranged the Sejen-ne, or Mescaleros, who inhabited the Mountains near the Pecos River and extended northward on both banks of that stream as far as the Comanche range . . . . During Ugarte's administration, there were eight main bands of Mescaleros, the chieftains of which were Bigotes, El Bermejo, Cuerno Verde, Montera Blanca, El-lite (El Quemado), Daxle (shoe), Gabie-choche (Alegre or Happy), and Yeo-Indixle (Volante or Ligero)."
"The Cuelcanjen-ne, or Llaneros, were the Apaches occupying the plains and sandy stretches between the Pecos and the Colorado River of Texas. They were bordered by the Mescaleros on the west, the Lipanes on the east, the Spanish settlements of Coahuila on the South, and the Comanches on the north. Actually, three lesser tribes were included under this denomination: the Llaneros proper, the Lipiyanes, and the Natagees . . . . The principal war chief of the Llaneros . . . was the great Lipiyan warrior Picax-ande-Instinsle . . . (the Bald One). El Natagee, probably of the tribe of the same name was also a prominent chief."
"The easternmost group of the Apache nation, immediately beyond the Llaneros, was the Lipanjen-ne, or Lipan tribe." Upper Lipans were north of the Rio Grande; lower Lipans were south of the Rio Grande.
p. 207: "Each winter when the Mescaleros migrated northward to hunt buffalo, they were in mortal danger of encountering [Comanches]."
p. 235: 1787: Ugalde had some Mescaleros rounded up on the Rio de Sabinas. Others were at Presidio el Norte.
p. 242: The Eastern Apaches 1788-1791: Ugarte discovered that the eight chiefs reported by Ugalde as present on Rio Sabinas were just warriors, not chiefs.
p. 246: Some Mescalero chiefs, realizing that the Spanish were arguing, "had taken advantage of the revolt to steal horses and head along the Colorado River to the Guadalupe Mountains."
p. 253: Various Mescalero bands went to Santa Rosa to apologize for their attacks. Ugalde sprang a trap; some people were taken while others went to El Paso. Result: Ugalde was permitted to pursue Mescalero in a large campaign.
p. 254: "The campaign lasted more than 300 days, and was deadly, but so exhausted troops & horses, that no follow up campaign was possible."
p. 255: "Ugalde's forces attacked Lipiyan and Mescalero camps at the Piedras Negras crossing of the Rio Grande on August 20, 1789, and others between San Saba and San Antonio on December 29 . . . . [On] January 9, 1790, a large body of Mescaleros, Lipiyanes, and Lipanes . . . [were] set upon by an overwhelming number of . . . the Nations of the north, [and by] Ugalde's troops, with the support of 140 Comanches." The attack took place at the Arroyo de la Soledad on the Rio Frio west of San Antonio.
p. 257: With a new viceroy, Ugalde's campaign was canceled and his command surrendered.
p. 258: By May, 1790, Mescalero, Faraon, and Natagee Apaches were in the vicinity of the Sacramento/Guadalupe Mountains. In June, "Volante, Alegre, and the lesser [Mescalero] chief Joseph . . . were encamped with their bands on the Conchos River [of Mexico] . . . . Bigotes el Bermejo and Montera Blanca were in the Sierra Rica, and Cuerno Verde and El Natagee were in the Sierra del Carmen."
p. 267: "While the Mescaleros from El Norte were on their buffalo expedition in the late fall of 1790, they had discovered a large number of Lipanes butchering buffalo on the bank of the Nueces River . . . . Then, on December 10, as the Mescaleros and their military escort were returning from the hunt, they were joined at the Colorado River by Chief El Natagee and his family." El Natagee stated that the rest of his band was in the Sacramento Mountains.
Mulroy, Kevin
1993 Freedom on the Border the Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas. Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock.
This book presents an in-depth and carefully researched study of the Seminole Maroon (sometimes called Seminole Black or Mascogo), tracing their ethnic establishment in Florida through their successful settlement in Nacimiento, Coahuila. Today, they exist as separate, equal, and related communities in Nacimiento, Brackettville, Texas, and Oklahoma. Mulroy employed a variety of Spanish and English documents to trace their initial settlements of escaped and freed slaves who were affiliated with the Seminole communities along the eastern seaboard. The Seminole were groups of immigrant Lower Creek bands who were driven into Florida by various wars during the eighteenth century. As Africans escaped the Spanish and English colonies, they found that they would be allowed to settle in their own towns as "slaves" of the Muskogean-speaking Seminole. Slavery under the Seminole system, however, consisted of a requirement to assist their confederacy in war when needed and to pay a type of tax. The result was an ethnogenesis of the Seminole Maroon who lived close to and affiliated with the Seminole but were not fully equal to them.
When the Seminole were forced to relocate to Indian Territory, the Seminole Maroon moved with them. Later, when Wild Cat, a charismatic Seminole leader, moved to Mexico to escape enslavement by the Creek, he took with him Seminole, Seminole Maroon, and even a sizable group of Kickapoo. There each settled in their own community and these communities were loosely affiliated, and, overtime, became independent. Although most Seminole returned to Oklahoma in 1861 and the Kickapoo population fluctuated, the Seminole Maroon have maintained their presence in northern Mexico to the present day, and it was not until after the Civil War that any agreed to cross the border.
Seminole Maroon did participate in the final decades of the Indian Wars, as scouts for the United States Army. That era ended after the Mexican American War and at that time some returned to Nacimiento, others stayed in Brackettville, and a few moved to Oklahoma. The following excepts provide an overview of the Maroon and their presence in or close to the Amistad NRA:
p. 2: "Seminole slavery typically translated only into the giving of a small annual tribute to an Indian leader. Whether enslaved or free, these Africans lived apart from the Indians in remote settlements under their own leaders and controlled virtually every aspect of their own daily lives."
p. 2: [D]efining Africans associated with the Seminoles proved to be perplexing . . . to army officers and other United States officials . . . . Were they blacks, or black Indians?"
p. 3: "[T]o the maroons, the [Texas/Mexico] border continued to represent the line dividing enslavement and freedom until 1865. Only after slavery had been abolished north and east of the Rio Grande did they consider recrossing the river."
p. 27: "Already suffering . . . from . . . the drought of 1831, the Seminoles seemed ready to listen to offers of a tract of their own in the West . . . . The principal men signed a provisional removal treaty on May 9, 1832 . . . . [and] signed an agreement on March 28, 1833, at Fort Gibson . . . . Under the terms of the two treaties, the Seminoles agreed to settle among the slaveholding Creeks in the West and become a constituent part of that tribe."
p. 40: "The treaty [of 1845 between the Creeks, Seminoles, and the United States] proved to be disastrous for both the Seminoles and the maroons. As Wild Cat had feared, the Seminoles . . . had only minority representation in the Creek council, and their interest would be subjugated to those of the larger group . . . . Deeply dissatisfied . . . . Wild Cat began to seek a viable and attractive Seminole alternative."
p. 47: "Throughout 1847 Wild Cat continued to complain . . . and by early 1848, he was advancing the idea of a confederation based in the Creek country. A band of Kickapoos that had settled on the Canadian near the Seminole agency furnished him support. During January and February, Seminole and Kickapoo visited the Texas tribes promoting the scheme. The Texas Indian agent reported that these enjoys had threatened or otherwise sought to induce every tribe within his jurisdiction to remove to the Indian Territory."
p. 52: "Wild Cat . . . [developed] his plan to remove from the Indian Territory and establish a confederation on the Mexican border. As early as 1843, an emissary of the Mexican government had visited the Creeks in the Indian Territory . . . . During his exploring, hunting, trading, and diplomatic trips to the southern plains, Wild Cat had become familiar with the southwest territories as far as the Rio Grande and with the Plains Indian relations with Mexico. In 1849, moreover, Creek agent James Logan reported that Wild Cat had acquired and thus 'owned' a Mexican boy kidnapped earlier by the Comanches."
p. 52: "In . . . 1846, Mexico passed a law providing for the establishment of 'military colonies, composed of Mexicans or aliens, or both, along the coasts and frontiers as the government shall designate, especially to restrain the incursions of savages.'"
p. 53: "Wild Cat maintained his contacts with the southern plains tribes and further promoted the confederation during 1849. On March 6, . . . he met with a band of Southern Comanches at the Seminole agency."
p. 54: "In the face of more raids by slavers, the maroons hurriedly gathered together their belongings, and . . . around November 10, 1849, the allies, numbering around 200, hastily quitted the Seminole country . . . . The emigrant Indians and blacks were represented in approximately equal numbers and included some 25 Seminole families, . . . a few dissatisfied traditionalist Creeks, 20 Seminole maroon families, and several families of Creek and Cherokee blacks."
p. 55: "The allies traveled slowly, hunting and fishing as they went At the end of May 1850 . . . the emigrants had traveled . . . to the southwest, John Rollins, the Indian agent for Texas, reporting that he had met Wild Cat and his party on the Llano. The Indians and maroons had encamped there and planted small patches of corn."
p. 55: "While his supporters raised a crop on the Llano, Wild Cat explored the region and visited Indian bands in the area to promote his Mexican colony . . . . Despite all his efforts with the tribes of the southern plains and borderlands, however, Wild Cat succeeded in persuading only a band of around 100 Southern Kickapoo to join his enterprise."
p. 56: "On June 27 [1850] . . . he signed an agreement with [the] . . . inspector general of the eastern military colonies, in San Fernando de Rosas, present day Zaragoza. The followers of Wild Cat were assigned . . . about 70,000 acres in Coahuila; half at the headwaters of the Rio San Antonio and some fifty miles southwest of present-day Ciudad Acuña, and half at the headwaters of the Rio San Rodrigo . . . . They were to help prevent further incursions by raiding bands of Comanches and Lipan and Mescalero Apaches."
p. 56-57: "In early July, . . . the maroons and Seminoles hurriedly abandoned their crops on the Llano and set out for Mexico. At Las Moras Springs, later site of Fort Clark, the emigrants came across the encampment of a military train bound for El Paso . . . . Wild Cat and his party [were allowed] to proceed to Eagle Pass."
p. 62: "By early July [1850, an additional] 180 armed maroons . . . were en route for Coahuila . . . . The blacks split into parties of between forty and eighty and made their way across the southern plains towards the border . . . . Comanches attacked several of the Seminole black parties while they were traveling through Texas."
p. 64: "on his return journey through Texas, Wild Cat visited the Caddos, Wacos, and Comanches in an attempt to persuade them to join him in Mexico"
p. 67: "The Seminoles settled at La Navaja, and the Kickapoos at Guerrero. The maroons remained at El Moral, some distance from the Seminoles."
p. 68: "In the fall [of 1851], the Southern Kickapoo leaders . . . rode to Mexico from . . . Indian Territory and persuaded almost the entire Kickapoo faction to return with them."
p. 70: "[I]n late 1851, Mexican officials agreed to the removal of the maroons and Seminoles farther into the interior to the Santa Rosa Mountains, northwest of . . . present Muzquiz [due to American/Texas slave expeditions]. The government promised them a land grant at the Hacienda de Nacimiento at the headwaters of the Rio San Juan Sabinas."
p. 87-88: "Seminoles . . . entered into a treaty with the Creeks and the United States [in] . . . 1856 that resulted in the creation of a separate and independent Seminole Nation . . . . The Mexican Seminoles' main reason for remaining outside the Indian Territory thus had been removed . . . . On February 17, 1859, Chief Lion, 13 men, and 37 women and children set out for the new Seminole Nation."
p. 88: "[A]round 100 Seminoles remained in Mexico. The Mascogos had no wish to return to the Indian Territory. A separate Seminole Nation meant little to them . . . . Mexico suited the maroons. They had their liberty and had become fairly prosperous. This was more than they could hope for if they went back to the Indian Territory."
p. 88: "On March 23, [1859], the state government . . . ordered that since they were the principal target of filibusters, the maroons should remove from the border to the Laguna of Parras, some 300 miles to the south."
p. 107: "By the fall of 1861, all of the Seminoles . . . had returned to the Indian Territory, and most of the 350 maroons were living at . . . Parras . . . . For several years . . . the Mascogos helped defend the devastated Laguna [de Parras] against Apache depredations and received scalp bounty as compensation. Although they were adept Indian fighters, the constant raids depleted their numbers and disrupted their settlements."
p. 108: "In 1864, French commanders . . . ordered the maroons to return to Nacimiento The main body of Mascogos remained at the Laguna . . . until later 1870, however . . . . The Kibbetts group returned to Nacimiento to find that all of the Southern Kickapoos with a population of around 950 . . . had settled there."
p. 109: "In October 1866, the Kickapoos and Potawatomies were granted . . . 8676 acres which had been . . . abandoned by the Seminoles and Mascogos in 1861."
p. 111: "By 1870, . . . the Seminole maroons living on the border . . . had split into four main groups. John Horse and the main body of 150 were still based at Parras; John Kibbetts and 100 others were residing at Nacimiento; several families had moved to Matamoros; and the Elijah Daniels band had settled in Texas."
p. 112: "As the Mascogos prepared to leave Nacimiento . . . the secretary of war responded . . . that the services of the blacks could be of use to the military . . . as Indian scouts."
p. 115: After serving at Fort Duncan for a period, "the entire party removed to Fort Clark by horse and wagon under military escort in early August 1872."
p. 121: "Following the Remolino campaign, Indian raids in West Texas abated noticeably . . . By 1880, the remaining Mexican Kickapoos had abandoned their war with Texas, given up plunder as a means of support, and returned to hunting and agriculture."
p. 133: "During the 1870s and 1880s, the maroons became the subject of a fierce . . . wrangle within the United States government . . . over who had authorized their return to Texas and which was responsible for their upkeep and ultimate removal to the Indian Territory . . . . [E]ach began to deny responsibility."
p. 152: "[S]everal parties of Seminole maroons . . . would choose to return independently to Coahuila or the Indian Territory. These people had grown tired of broken promises, of fighting, . . . of threats, of poor prospects for their children."
Parsons, Mark L.
1987 Plains Indian Portable Art As A Key to Two Texas Historic Rock Art Sites. Plains Anthropologist 32:257-274.
Parsons, who has long held an interest in rock art, interprets the rock art from two sites in the Texas Panhandle (following Keyser [1987], see above). Like Keyser, he considers rock art to be a short hand that uses conventions and ideographs to denote special events, battles, name glyphs, and dreams. His two sites are Mujeres Creek in Oldham County, and Verbena in Garza County. While both of these sites are well north of the Amistad NRA, the article is included here because it is frequently cited by researchers who interpret historic Indian rock art of the Lower Pecos. Moreover, it is an insightful discussion of the meaning of a number of elements present in Plains rock art panels. Cattle, horses, and guns are depicted in the Mujeres Creek panel along with a number of anthropomorphs.
Porter, Kenneth W.
1996 The Black Seminoles: History of a Freedom-seeking People. Universide Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Porter conducted extensive research on the Black Seminoles or Seminole Maroon (see Mulroy above), beginning in the 1940s when he conducted oral history with a number of elderly members of the Nacimiento, Mexico, Del Rio and Brackettville, Texas communities of that Native American group. He also researched a number of historical documents that placed the oral histories into their historical context. After his death in 1981, Alcinoe M. Amos and Thomas P. Senter edited and updated his efforts to tell the story of the Black Seminole, particularly his efforts to tell the story of one of their charismatic leaders in the nineteenth century, John Horse. The following are relevant to the Amistad NRA affiliation study:
p. xiii: "Our people lived in Texas for over one hundred years. Before that we were in Mexico, where some of us still live, and before that we were in Oklahoma, and even earlier than that in Florida. And Before that, we came from Africa . . . . In all our travels we have never lost an awareness of our identity and a pride in our freedom, because it is our freedom that makes us different. [quote by Miss Charles Emily Wilson, Black Seminole, Texas, 1992]."
p. 7: "There was no group in Florida that would resist annexation more than the Black Seminoles. The Spaniards would forfeit self-rule and the tribes-people their land. But the Black Seminoles would simultaneously lose their independence, their homes, and their freedom."
p. 97: "The Seminoles soon discovered that the land [in Indian Territory] was not available. The Fort Gibson treaty had set aside the region between the Canadian River and its north fork, extending west to the branches of the Little River for their settlement. But the Creeks already occupied that location. So the Seminoles remained camped around Fort Gibson."
p. 118: "The Creeks claimed almost all Black Seminoles, alleging that either they or their ancestors had fled from the Creeks before the Florida conflict. The Indians also said that they owned those blacks whose parents had escaped from Georgia and South Carolina plantations to Florida when the Seminoles were still considered part of the Creek Confederation because the Creeks had been required to pay for those runaways."
p. 127: "By now [1849], Wild Cat and John were prepared to the Territory [for Mexico]. The Seminole chief apparently planned to unite his disgruntled followersincluding blackswith other allies, such as tribespeople from Texas and then move to Mexico where slavery no longer existed."
p. 128: "The . . . groups [of Seminole Maroon and Seminole] moved south for about a month and then, when reunited, went into winter quarters in Texas. They stayed on Cow Bayou, a branch of the Brazos River. A large number of Kickapoos camped close by."
p. 129: "The emigrants next rested near the Llano River. Early in April, it was reported that 'Wild Cat . . . with about 20 Seminole warriors, 20 or 25 negroes, and the usual number of women and children' were close to Fredericksburg, Texas. About 100 Kickapoo warriors camped nearby."
p. 129: "On May 15, 1850, Wild Cat and what seemed like '2,000 men, women, and childred' visited William Banta, a settler near Burnett, Texas . . . . A few days later, Wild Cat went to Fort Croghan."
p. 131: "Wild Cat realized that the odds were against them. So they hastily gather their belongings and rode toward Mexico [from Las Moras Spring] . . . . The fugitives apparently traveled two days before arriving at the Rio Grande. Then men crossed it, according to one account, near the 'Lehman's ranch, across from Moral [Mexico], above Eagle Pass.' The women and children reached the river at a ford 'between Eagle Pass and Del Rio, that they called San Felipe the.'"
p. 137: "When we cam fleeing slavery, Mexico was a land of freedom, and the Mexicans spread out their arms to us." [quote of John Horse]
p. 139: "On March 3, 1851, in El Paso de la Navaja, Captain Nokosimala, representing Wild Cat and accompanied by the interpreter August Factor, was given land near the colonia of Monclova Viejo. It was across from Del Rio and close to Guerrero below Piedras Negras. The Seminole grant was called La Navaja."
p. 146: "As they became more settled, the Mascogos were forced to lear some Spanish. But they did not abandon either the Creole of their ancestors or the Seminole language . . . In addition, most of the blacks and some Indians were given or assumed Mexican names, either during baptism or for reasons of convenience . . . . Yet in nearly every case, the Black Seminoles also retained their American names. Moreover, they kept their own dialect for use among themselves. They still do so to this day, in both Mexico and Texas."
p. 150: "Black Seminole oral history, in both Texas and Mexico, stresses that there were at least three separate groups that formed their community. The first were the Black Seminoles properthose who originally followed Wild Cat and John Horse to Mexico. They also included a few Black Creeks.
The second element came from individuals who joined the colonists independently, primarily blacks already in Mexico. Most were runaway slaves from Texas . . . . But this category also included Mexicans and Indians, such as the Neco family, who were said to be Biloxi. Those who intermarried with the Black Seminoles were gradually assimilated and eventually became regarded as part of the Mascogos.
The last group included the majority of the Black Creeks . . . who emigrated to Mexico independently and later joined the . . . band."
p. 180: "By the fall of 1871, . . . 20 more men were recruited [into the Seminole Black scouts]. Nearly all were from the Elijah Daniels band of Black Creeks, who had been living and working at the Griffin ranch on the Nueces River in Uvalde County. . . . A few of the new recruits were Black Seminoles from the Matamoros/Brownsville group."
p. 181: "On September 1, 1871, Bullis and four black troopers . . . of the Ninth Cavalry's M Company encountered a group of 'some 25 or so Indians driving several herds of cattle, near Fort McKavett, Texas.'"
p. 182: On May 17, 1873, "after a forced march of approximately 80 miles [through Coahuila, Mexico], . . . the 400 or so men struck the Lipan, Mescalero, and Kickapoo settlements near Remolino, Mexico."
p. 187: "On December 10, 1873, 41 men of the Fourth Cavalry, under Lieutenant Charles L. Hudson, and the six scouts based at Fort Clark encountered a raiding party of nine Kiowas and 21 Comanches near Kickapoo Springs, Texas. The warriors, who lived on a reservation near Fort Sill, Indian Territory, had been marauding on both sides of the [Rio Grande]. In the ensuing battle, nine hostiles, including the favority son of Kiowa chief Lone Wolf, were killed. The dead also included one of his nephews."
p. 193: "On April 25, 1875, the most distinguished and best remembered exploit of the Seminile Scouts took place. Early that day, [they] struk a fresh trail made by about 75 horses. They followed it to the Eagle's Nest Crossing of the Pecos and spotted a raiding party just as the hostiles were fording the river to the western side."
p. 194: "The last Black Seminole action with Shafter's command was on November 2, 1875. Troops led by Lieutenant Andrew Geddes and including Black Seminole scouts and buffalo soldiers from Companies G and L of the Tenth Cavalry, struck some hostiles camped approximately 60 miles above the mouth of the Rio Grande at a place called Shafter's Crossing. After killing one warrior, they captured four Apache women and one boy."
p. 197: "Of the various Apache bands, the Lipans and Mescaleros troubled Bullis and his men the most. The Lipans were based in Mexico, while the Mescaleros alternated between their New Mexico reservation and the Lipans' territory. Both bands enjoyed easy access, both coming and going, across the border. Mexico's weak central government was unable to stop their raids; but Mexican authorities became outraged when American forces repeatedly invaded their country, chasing hostiles who preyed on Texas.
In early February 1876, Sergeant William Miller boldly infiltrated a camp 'of Comanches, Apaches, Mescaleros, and Lipans' in Mexico. The mixed blood Seminole scout stayed with them for five days to learn their plans. Then he slipped away and returned to Fort Clark. After Miller's daring exploit, Lieutenant Bullis and his men . . . entered Mexico several times . . . in pursuit of marauders."
p. 198: "On July 19 the scouts left their base camp on the Pecos River. They were part of an expedition . . . sent across the border to punish Lipan warriors who had killed 12 Texans."
p. 200: "[I]n pursuit of marauding Apaches, the troops trailed the warriors for more than two weeks in January. They covered 200 miles, penetrating deep into Mexico. Although the men found and destroyed a 'hastily abandoned camp in the Santa Rosa Mountains,' they returned to Texas empty handed.
During March 1877 Bullis and the scouts tracked and located several bands of hostiles. Then in April they 'for a party of Indians at the Rio Grande about 10 miles above the mouth of Devil's River.' The Black Seminoles 'run them over the Rio Grande.'"
p. 202: "In mid-October 1877 Bullis left Fort Clark with 37 men to hunt the renegades. The unit rode along the Rio Grande to the Pecos River. On the 21st, two Seminoles scouts reported that they had found a recently deserted camp with many tracks going south."
p. 205: "There were three distinct periods in the unit's personnel history during its active combat years (1870-81). From 1870 to 1872, almost all were Black Seminoles or Black Creeks recently arrived from Mexico. From 1873 through 1877, about half of those who enlisted were state-raised blacks. From 1878 to 1880, most who joined had Mexican names. Nevertheless, of the 100 or so men serving at one time of another from 1870 to 1881, about two-thirds were either Black Seminoles or Black Creeks . . . . Overall, the unit's make up justified its official title: the Detachment of Seminole Negro Indian Scouts."
p. 206-207: "A year later, the Seminole scouts fought their last Indian battle, marking the final significant hostile raid in Texas. On April 14, 1881, a small Lipan band killed a woman and a boy at an isolated ranch at the head of the Rio Frio . . . . Almost two weeks after the attack, Lieutenant Bullis was ordered to pursue them.
'The Indians did their dirt at Uvalde,' declared Julia Payne some 60 years later '. . . . Despite . . . the time that had elapsed, the Black Seminoles located the Lipan spoor on April 17. They tracked them over the rugged, precipitous mountains and canyons of Devil's River, [into Mexico].'"
Riemenschneider, Larry
1996 Head of the Concho Stage Station (411R95). Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 66:145-154.
In 1993, the Concho Valley Archeological Society began archeological survey on the Rocker B ranch under an agreement with the ranch owner, the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. Riemenschneider became interested in one of the first sites recorded: the Head of the Concho Station. The station is located in the northwest corner of Irion County, Texas on a terrace of the Middle Concho River and served a stage stop on Butterfield and San Antonio-El Paso trails. This report provides information on the structural remains at the site, including remains of the guardhouse, a nearby military outpost, and the station itself, as well as ruts of the probable old stagecoach and wagon roadbed.
More importantly for the present report, Riemenschneider presents a nice summary of a series of private stagecoach mail lines that crossed Texas. The first of these lines was established in 1851 as a result of a mail contract signed by the Postmaster General with a Henry Skillman to cover the route between San Antonio and Santa Fe, New Mexico. By 1858, the "Santa Fe portion of this line was only a branch of a much larger endeavor" (p. 145) and a more direct route to San Diego, California moved the main branch to become a San Antonio to El Paso route. The initial route of the line traveled roughly west from San Antonio, crossing the Devils River, turning northwest at Del Rio along the east side of the Pecos, and then turning west at Comanche Springs (modern Fort Stockton). Known as the Lower Route, a series of stations were erected along its path and were used by the mail drivers, stagecoach riders, the military, and others. In 1868, the Lower Route to Comanche Springs was replaced with a route traveling northwest out of San Antonio to Fort McKavett and on to the Head of the Concho station, then southwest and west to Comanche Springs. In addition to the east-west route, John Butterfield, contracting for the mail between St. Louis and San Francisco, established a line traveling southwest from Colbert's Ferry on the Red River north of Fort Worth to the Pecos River, where it turned northwest following the Pecos River to the modern New Mexico line and then turned west to El Paso.
p. 147: June 17, 1868: "Nearly 30 Comanche attacked the Head of the Concho station" and it was generally believed that ca. 150 Comanche warriors were in the country beyond the station.
p. 147: "During the summer of 1870 a war party [of Comanche] chased the El Paso stage into the Head of the Concho station . . . . Less than two weeks later, the Comanche attacked the station and captured some of its stock."
p. 147: "[T]he Comanche . . . repeatedly attacked the Head of the Concho station in June 1871. No records of further attacks were recorded until 1875, when the Head of the Concho station was attacked twice in one week."
Sjoberg, Andree F.
1953 Lipan Apache Culture in Historical Perspective. Journal of Anthropological Research 9:76-98.
This article is concerned with the culture of the pre-reservation Lipan Apache. Using primary and secondary information, it provides a brief history of the group. Initially undifferentiated in the historical records from other Apache, she opines that the Lipan moved south and east into the Llano Estacado in the eighteenth century and were living on the San Saba by 1732. Unable to withstand a series of Comanche attacks along the San Saba and the Nueces, they relocated to South Texas and Coahuila during the latter half of the century. A few were also reported at the San Antonio missions between 1762 and 1817. Still others moved to eastern and southeastern Texas. At times, the Lipan in Coahuila, the Bolson de Mapimi, and the area west of the Pecos were known as the Upper Lipan; those living to the south on either side of the Rio Grande were known as the Lower Lipan. [Authors' note: This conclusion conflicts with Moorhead above.]
The Lower Lipan, initially friends with the Texans, were pushed back to Mexico by the late 1840s. In the ensuing years, Sjoberg concludes that the Lipan fragmented into a number of small groups. During the period 1850-1876, the groups variously aligned with the Kiowa Apache at Fort Sill, the Tonkawa at Fort Griffin, the Mescalero in southern New Mexico, while others remained in Coahuila and Chihuahua.
p. 78: "In 1762 two more missions, Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria and San Lorenzo de la Santa Cruz, were founded on the upper Nueces River, now the principal habitat of the Lipan. At one time, almost a thousand Indians were sheltered here; another two thousand were said to be encamped about the headwaters of the Nueces. These establishments . . . were abandoned within only a few years because of repeated attacks by the Comanches and other[s]."
p. 79: "In the Mexican Revolution, many joined the Royalists; but when this side began to lose, they switched to the Republicans and fought with them over much of northern and eastern Texas."
p. 79: "In the 1830s, . . . the Upper group generally sided with the Mexicans. On the other hand, most of the Lower group joined the Texans . . . . However, in the 1840's, after Flacco's death, the Lower group became estranged from the Texans and soon moved back into extreme western Texas and across the Rio Grande to Mexico."
p. 80: "By 1865, some had moved northward to Indian Territory, where they eventually joined the Kiowa Apache at Fort Sill. Others were found in 1876 with the Tonkawa Indians at Fort Griffin in northern Texas. In 1884, these two groups were removed to Oklahoma and the following year permanently settled at the Oakland Agency. A number of Lipan were still living in southwestern Texas, west of the Pecos River, in the 1870's. Some of these joined the nearby Mescalero Apache and in 1879 were found with them at the Mescalero Agency in southern New Mexico. Those in Coahuila and Chihuahua remained there during the next few decades . . . . Finally, in 1905, the few survivors in Mexico were removed by the United States Government to the Mescalero Reservation."
Smith, F. Todd
2000 The Wichita Indians: Traders of Texas and the Southern Plains, 1540-1845. Texas A&M Press, College Station.
Smith provides an archival history of the Kiowa, and considers his efforts to represent an update of Bell, et al. (1975) and John (1975). Seeking to correct several mistaken assumptions ("the Wichitas were misunderstood by Americans" page 1), he stresses their abilities to identify and cultivate effective trading partnerships with a remarkable array of partners, despite a number of adversities. In the course of this work, he traces those partnerships over a 300-year period, beginning with their early history in the Central Plains of the United States and continuing until shortly prior to their removal to a reservation in Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma).
The strength of this book lies in the period after A.D. 1770, the period for which Smith seems to have more closely evaluated the individual documents that he reviewed. To be sure, this is the period that has the greatest quantity of documents as well as the period that has received the greatest study by historians of Texas. Nonetheless, Smith provides greater detail about the Kiowa during these years. In contrast, his summary of the earlier years of the Kiowa seem, at times, cursory and often reliant on secondary sources. Moreover, since he rarely takes advantage of archeological data for these early years, he sometimes offers statements of fact about the lifeways of the Kiowa as if those statements were verified. Despite these shortcomings, Smith's book is relevant to the present study.
p. 1: "About thirty-five hundred years ago, ancestors of the people know today as the Wichitas, Kichais, Pawnees, and Arikaras first moved out of the forests of eastern North America and settled in the river valleys that track through the Great Plains."
p. 3: "Wichita death customs consisted of several quickly performed rituals. Since the grass lodges were considered sacred places where no one should die, the Wichitas isolated people on the verge of death in a hastily constructed tepee . . . . The body was then buried in a shallow grave, usually located on a hilltop near the village"
p. 8: "[In the sixteenth century] the Wichita . . . lived in numerous villages located northeast and east of the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in present-day Kansas . . . . The Tawakonis, on Cow Creek and the Little Arkansas River; the Taovayas, about eighty miles northeast on the Cottonwood River; and the Guichitas [Wichita], eighty miles south of the Taovayas on the lower Walnut River. A related tribe, the Kichais, lived farther down the Arkansas near the mouths of the Verdigris and Neosho Rivers."
p. 14: "[In 1682,] emissaries from the 'Isconis' were among the many groups of Indians who met Juan Dominguez de Mendoza and his party as they explored through West-Central Texas."
pp. 28-30: "Although the Wichitas had had little contact with the Spaniards of Texas, in 1758 they joined a group of 2,000 Norteno warriors in an attach on the mission at San Saba."
p. 31: "Ortiz Parrilla and his force headed north from San Antonio in mid-August and on October 2 [1759] surprised a Tonkawa village on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River. The Spaniards and their Indian auxiliaries attacked the Tonkawas, killing 55."
p. 36: "[O]n May 27, 1760, a leading Tawakoni met Calahorra at Mission Nacogdoches . . . The Tawakoni headman also . . . vowed to return to Nacogdoches in the summer and lead Calahorra to the Tawakoni-Iscani villages on the Sabine River."
p. 38: "The Wichitas and their allies quickly discovered the El Canon missions [for the Lipan]. In early 1762 Norteno warriors made three separate raids on Lipan camps near the Nueces. To the dismay of the Tawakonis, Taovaya men also attacked the Spanish troops at San Saba."
p. 42: "Taovayas and Tawakonis had foined with Tonkawa and Comanche raiders to force the Spaniards to finally abandon San Saba in the spring of 1768. Captain Rabago and his depleted garrison took refuge at El Canon, which, due to unceasing Norteno pressure, was also devoid of Lipan inhabitants."
p.49: "[I]n April [1770], a group of Tawakonis killed three Spanish soldiers at Bexar and made off with a drove of horses."
p. 53: "In another move certain to make the Spaniards uneasy, the Wichitas obtained new allies in their war against the Osages and Apaches. These allies were about 100 apostate Xaraname Indians who had recently fled the Spanish mission, Espiritu Santo . . . . The Xaranames took refuge near the Tawakoni village on the Trinity and, using their knowledge of the area, assisted the Wichitas, as well as the Tonkawas and Bidais, in horse raids upon Espiritu Santo."
p. 53: "Face-to-face discourse with the Spaniards began in the spring of 1772 when five Taovayas, led by Chief Quirotaches, traveled to San Antonio to meet with Governor Ripperda . . . . The Taovayas held talks with Ripperda for three weeks before concluding their visit on April 27."
p. 54: "Before leaving for the Guichita settlement farther up the Brazos, de Mezieres summoned the Tonkawas and the Xaranames to the Tawakoni village on the Trinity . . . . Taking leave of the Tawakonis, de Mezieres, along with the other Wichita chiefs, proceeded to the Guichitas, who welcomed them to their village a few days later. The Guichitas sent for the Taovayas, and when they arrived, accompanied by 500 Comanches, the parties held a conference."
p. 66: "The Kichais, whose village between the Neches and the Trinity was perhaps the closest of the Wichitas to Bucareli, broke in two as a result of the disease . . . . The main body of the Kichais . . . moved to the Red River and settled in a village about 100 miles north of Natchitoches . . . . Between 100 and 150 Kichais, rather than move east with the rest of the tribe, elected to relocate slightly westward and settled just east of the Trinity River in present-day Houston County."
p. 74: "The Lopan Apaches obtained access to weapons through the Tonkawas, who had ties with illicit traders along the Gulf Coast. The Texas Wichitas responded to this treat in December, 1782, by breaking up a Lipan-Tonkawa trade fair that had been convened on the Guadalupe River."
p. 77: "On July 8 [1784], 15 Taovayas killed and scalped two San Antonio residents . . . A week later a few Taovayas and Guichitas broke into the governor's own stable and stole the two best horses."
p. 81: "In order to celebrate the peace and coordinate anti-Apache activities, 37 Taovayas, Guichitas, and Tawakonis traveled to San Antonio in January, 1786, to meet with Governor Cabello and some Comance chiefs. The governor . . . sent the Wichitas and Comanches on an unsuccessful campaign against the Lipans. A few months later, however, the Tawakonis, led by Quiscat's son . . . joined a group of Tonkawas to destroy a Lipan village on the Colorado River . . . . This victory forced the entire Lipan Apache tribe to retreat southwestward to the Nueces River."
p. 84: "In December, 1787, . . . about 150 Tawakoni, Taovaya, and Guichita warriors attacked Zapato Sas's [Lipan] village on the headwaters of the Frio River and made off with all 600 of the Apaches' horses."
p. 87: "[O]n January 9, 1790, a combined Spanish-Norteno force inflicted a severe defeat upon the Apaches at Soledad Creek, west of San Antonio."
p. 88: "In January, 1791, Wichita warriors, accompanied by Comanches, Tonkawas, and Xaranames, successfully attacked a Lipan village on the Colorado River. The war party returned home through Bexar."
p. 112: "By the 1820s the Taovayas had settled in four different villages: two were situated on the Red about 100 miles above the old Panis Pique villages near the mouth of the Wichita River, while the other two were established to the south on the Brazos River [west of modern Fort Worth] . . . . One group of Tawakonis, the Wacos, established themselves as an independent tribe during this period . . . on the west bank of the Brazos in what is now downtown Waco." [Aulhors' note: this discussion of the Waco does not conform to Wedel's conclusions.]
p. 124: "Two different American militia groups made attacks on the Tawakonis the following month. Led by Lipan Apache scouts, . . . 100 men from Austin's colony discovered a Tawakoni hunting camp near the mouth of the San Saba River in August, 1829 . . . . The next day . . . Captain Henry Brown with 30 men from DeWitt's colony . . . tracked one group of Tawakoni hunters west to the headwaters of the San Saba and killed three of them. Returning home, they encountered another Tawakoni party and killed five or six warriors near Enchanted Rock."
p. 141: "On November 3, 1837, 18 Texas Rangers . . . encountered a group of Cherokees and Kichais near the mouth of the Clear Fork of the Brazos."
Swanson, Donald A.
n.d. Fort Clark, Texas: A Bootstrap on the Nueces Strip to Headquarters of the Military District Nueces. Manuscript on file in the library of the Texas Historical Commission, Austin.
A visit to Brackettville, Texas, led Mr. Swanson to inquire about the history of the adjacent Fort Clark and its springs. Becoming intrigued by what he learned, Swanson researched historic military documents from the Library of Congress, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and other sources. His effort was considerable and resulted in an unedited manuscript (typewritten) of ca. 500 pages, all related to Fort Clark, the military who occupied, built, and maintained the fort, and the Native Americans and local settlers who were affected by the developments at the facility. The manuscript is sometimes difficult since pagination repeats itself within the tome and the author concentrated on giving as close to a day-by-day account of each year as possible. Nonetheless, it is a remarkable compilation of documentary information. Some of the information has been included in Appendix 5.
Thomas, Alfred Barnaby
1982 Alonso de Posada Report, 1686: A Description of the Area of the Present Southern United States in the Late Seventeenth Century. Vol. 4, The Spanish Borderlands Series, The Perdido Bay Press, Pensacola.
In the late seventeenth century, Spain, concerned about French interest in lands north of the Rio Grande, requested information about the Indians who occupied or dominated regions exterior to Santa Fe. Alonso de Posada, a priest who had served on the northern frontier, was one of the individuals chosen to write a series of reports about the regions and the native who occupied those regions.
The brief reports provide a summary of Posada's information about the Indians to the east and southeast of Santa Fe, including some of the Indians of concern to the present report. However, because this is a summary and because Posada did not visit many of the places that he mentions, the reader should verify the information presented. Posada's information should not be dismissed out of hand. He likely reported what he knew or believed, and he appears to have read some of the reports of priests who had traveled east or southeast of Santa Fe to visit groups of interest to this affiliation study (e.g., Jumanos). However, he personally did not travel to those regions, and each researcher must evaluate and verify the information that is gleaned from the report.
p. 6: "What maps Father Posada relied upon for his discussion of lands . . . is unknown."
p. 9: "The original report of Father Posada has never been found."
pp. 23-24: "In the past year of [16]84 Maestro de Campo, Juan Domingues de Mendoza went [to La Junta de los Rios] . . . . The Rio del Norte, continuing to the east and somewhat to the south, is joined at a distance of 10 leagues by another river called El Salado [the Pecos River]. It also has its origins in the mountains of New Mexico which face southeast and give it the name of Rio Salado"
p. 26: "This river they call the Rio de los Nueces [Concho] . . . In its vicinity there are many wild cows which they call buffalo . . . . To this place in the year 1632 went some soldiers of New Mexico and with them Father Friar Juan de Salas and Father Friar Diego de Ortega. Finding there the Indians of the Jumana nation friendly and who also showed an inclination to become Christians, the Spaniards and Father Fray Juan de Salas returned to the villa de Santa Fe. They left there with the Indians in that place Father Fray Juan de Ortega."
p. 26: "In the year 1650 Captain Hernan Martin and Captain Diego del Castillo with other soldiers and some Christianized Indians set out from the villa of Santa Fe at the order of General Hernando de la Concha . . . . [T]hey arrived at the above-mentioned place on the Rio de las Nueces [Concho River] and the nation of the Jumanas. There they remained more than six months . . . . During this period . . . they took out of the river a quantity of shells, which, having been burned, yielded some pearls."
p. 27: "These captains marched down the river to the east with declination to the south through the nations they call the Caytoas, Escanjaques, and Ahijados. After having traveled some fifty leagues, they arrived at the boundaries of the nation which they call the Texas."
p. 36: "[T]here is a nation which they call the Apacha which possesses and is owner of all the plains of Cibola. The Indians of this nation are so arrogant, haughty, and such boastful warriors that they are the common enemy of all nations who live below the northern region . . . . Their central dwelling place is the plains of Cibola, bounded on the east by Quivira with whom they have always had war, and have it now; with the nation of the Texas who bound them on the same side and with whom they have always had war."
p. 37: "From the east to west on the southern side, the Apacha border on the following nations: beyond the Texas with the nation of the Ajijados, the nation of the Cuytoas, and the Escanjaques in a district of fifty leagues. These nations are those which were living along the Rio de las Nueces and the Apacha nation had driven them back to the Rio del Norte, cover a district of some one hundred leagues . . . . Beyond those nations is that of the Jumanas, with the rest of those which were mentioned at the juncion of the Norte and Conchos rivers. Likewise the Apacha nation has cornered them in the said spot and have driven them from the Rio de las Nueces by their warlike hostility."
Turpin, Solveig Astrid
1982 The Archeology and Rock Art of Seminole Canyon: A Study in the Lower Pecos River Region of Southwest Texas. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin.
Seminole Canyonnow a state park and listed as an historic district in the National Register of Historic Placescontains a number of well-know rockshelters and overhangs that contain fine examples of the spectacular rock art of the Lower Pecos region. Several of these rockshelters are among the few that have received intensive archeological excavation, contributing to the culture history of the region. Prior to her dissertation, archeologists had mostly focused on either the archeology or the rock art. In contrast, Turpin used both to provide a refined view of the region's past.
While the majority of both the archeology and the rock art in the region are from the Archaic period, Turpin does include some data on the historic period. The best of that data comes from the rock art with its panels of mission-like structures, humans with missionary-like garb, horses, some bison, and Plains-like natives with flowing, feathered headdresses.
Given the slim database, Turpin draws from other sources for analogies to re-create the lifeways of the residents of Seminole Canyon. A frequent cited source is Griffen's study of the Bolson de Mapimi, an extremely arid desert bolson located south and west of the Rio Grande from the Amistad NRA. While there is nothing inherently wrong in that analogy, some confusion emerges when she links the residents of the Amistad NRA as part of the "desert tribes" that were studied by Griffen. [Note that even Turpin, p. 237, recognizes some difficulty with this analogy.] Griffen's study was specific to certain nations in the Bolson de Mapimi. Given the turmoil among these refugees (caused by Spanish Colonial policies), his conclusions about band size and cultural traits may or may not have a bearing on the residents of the Amistad NRA.
On the other hand, an important outgrowth of her study has been the recognition that the old theory that the natives of the region maintained a static Archaic tradition until Spanish intrusion is unlikely. The rock art can be subdivided into quite distinct traditions and those traditions may or may not support the notion of static cultural traditions.
Turpin, Solveig A.
1984 Smoke Signals on Seminole Canyon: A Prehistoric Communication System? Plains Anthropologist 29:131-138.
Noting the presence of hearths on the canyon rim or small benches overlooking Seminole Canyon, Turpin speculates that they represent "remnants of . . . a signaling system." Her speculation was initially based on five sites (41VV84, 403, 411, 412, 413) that contain hearths constructed of naturally available limestone blocks and sit on exposed bedrock with a nearly unrestricted view of the canyon. Artifacts are few to non-existent at the sites and none had diagnostic artifacts. Additionally, the hearths did not appear to have been intensively burned and none contained "buried charcoal, ash, or fuel fragments." During an intensive survey of Seminole Canyon, led by Turpin, several additional hearth sites (41VV601-606) in similar topographic settings were identified, and Turpin believed that they provided sufficient evidence that the speculation should be published as a hypothesis for future consideration.
The article is included in this annotated bibliography because Turpin speculates that the hearth features are proto-historic and uses disparate notations in Spanish and English documents that remark on the use of signal fires by Native Americans. While we do not dispute the use of fires, we suggest that the hypothesis is largely untestable and should be carefully scrutinized before employed to assign function to these features. First, even Turpin (p. 137) admits that it is unlikely that the sites were used concurrently. Second, the documentary data available for the use of the signal fires in the Lower Pecos is non-existent. Finally, similar hearths with Archaic period diagnostics have been recorded in similar topographic settings. Those sites also contain stone rings and sparse lithic scatters that suggest that they functioned as small wickiups where brief stays necessitated a hearth to provide warmth, light, and/or a loci for cooking a few meals (Bartholomew, personnel communication, 1989).
Turpin, Solveig A.
1986 Arroyo de los Indios: A Historic Pictograph in Northern Coahuila, Mexico. Plains Anthropologist 31:279-284.
This is a descriptive article about an historic Native American pictograph site located immediately south of the mouth of the Pecos River, just across the border from the Amistad NRA. Importantly, Turpin notes that the artwork consists of humans as shield bearers and horsemen along with a number of horses, all drawn in the Biographic style of the Plains tribes. Turpin speculates that one of the combat figures "bears a remarkable similarity to the hero of a autobiographical combat painted on the walls of a tributary to the Devil's River 60 kilometers northwest of Arroyo de los Indios" (see Turpin 1989 below). From this, she concludes the art to have been produced by the Apache. [4] Pertinent statements are provided below:
p. 280: "Horses are a major theme in three scenes. Thick-bodied steeds with delicate legs . . . The riders are hourglass figures, shown frontally, their legs blending with the body of the horse . . . . The human figures are crude representations . . . armed with lances or clubs and shields . . . . Feathers and horned headdresses adorn the pedestrian figures but the horsemen are hatless."
p. 282: "The pictographs at Arroyo de los Indios are, like the majority of historic art in this region, individualistic. The now-faded black and red equestrians conform to the classic Early Biographic Plains art described by Keyser (see above)."
p. 283: "The armaments of the warriors, lacking rifles but replete with shields and lances, might suggest an early historic age for the pictographs or the importance of coup counting in traditional society."
Turpin, Solveig A.
1987 Ethnohistoric Observations of Bison in the Lower Pecos River Region: Implications for Environmental Change. Plains Anthropologist 32:424-429.
In this article, Turpin notes the mention in certain documents of bison in the Lower Pecos during the Spanish Colonial and Anglo-American periods. From this she advances the proposition that the bison represent prima facia evidence that a mesic interval occurred between A.D. 1582 and 1850. She employs secondary (e.g., relating to Castaño de Sosa) and tertiary sources (a 1955 master's thesis), many of which are decades and centuries apart, and some of which do not relate to the Lower Pecos region (Espejo's travels in the 1580s). As a result, her interpretations are problematic and only included here because many researchers use this article as a reference. See Bamforth above.
Turpin, Solveig A.
1989 The End of the Trail: an 1870s Plains Combat Autobiography in Southwest Texas. Plains Anthropologist 34:105-110.
Turpin interprets the rock art of 41VV327 (the Hussie Miers site) as an example of Kiowa or Comanche rock art. Located just north of the Amistad NRA, on a tributary of the Devil's River, the site contains a variety of rock art styles. Prominent among them are panels from the Red Monochrome, a Late Prehistoric style that is found throughout the Lower Pecos Archeological Region, and five scenes of figures (some on horseback) with long rope-like hair, rifles, and what may be shields. In three of the scenes, a figure in European military dress is present, carrying a rifle. Turpin, using information from Keyser's (1987) study of Plains Indian art, concluded that the scenes were drawn by Plains Indians and date to the 1870s, a period when the United States military were forcing the remaining Native Americans in Texas into reservations in Oklahoma.
While Turpin is certainly correct that the panels represent Plains Indian art, the reader should recognize that she intended this as the only interpretation. Others are feasible. For example, she reads the panel left to right, concluding that the initial battles involved competition among rivals or tribes that subsequently became battles with the United States Army. In fact, left to right is an ethnocentric trait, and the panels could be read another way. For example, right to left could be interpreted as representing the long struggle with the Army that eventually ended with intertribal warfare.
Regardless of their interpretation, these historic rock art sites are important in this study, documenting a visible presence of Plains tribes in the Lower Pecos during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Careful analysis of the figures and their attributes may even make it possible to argue, as Turpin does, that they are from a specific tribe.
p. 105: "The Hussie Miers sites is one of four rock art sites . . . All are . . . painted on the bleached surface of a steep cliff under shallow overhangs devoid of cultural debris. The panels overlook a permanent water hole and a grassy plain."
p. 105: "These darker red historic figures are crudely drawn and conform to no defined style of the Plains or the Lower Pecos region."
p. 106: "The protagonist is distinguished by his long ornamented hair, perhaps braided . . . that reaches to the ground whether he is afoot or mounted. His shield bears from two to four horizontal bars and his long lance is festooned with feathers or other decorations. The lance floats above his head and . . . may function as a name glyph."
p. 106: "All combatants in . . . two scenes wear what appear to be loincloths tied with long sashes. This conventional native dress is found at two other Lower Pecos historic pictograph sitesMyers Springs (41TE9) and Bailando Shelter (41VV666)as are the queue-like hairstyles of the two antagonists."
p. 106: "The horse is drawn in classic early Biographic style with elongated body, narrow head and hooked hooves . . . . The soldiers are distinguished by their belted jackets and spiked helmets . . . . Prussian-influenced formal dress uniforms, including spiked helmets were not adopted until 1871."
p. 108: "Two possible inspirations for the Hussie Miers memorial are the battle of Howard's Well fought on the Pecos River in 1872, and the confrontation at South Kickapoo Springs in December of 1873. Losses on both sides fostered a desire for revenge, justifying the slaughter of the Kickapoo by the U.S. Military at Remolino in Mexico . . . and the united Indian attack of the buffalo hunters at Adobe Wells in the Texas Panhandle. Howards Well, 41CX773, figured prominently in early attempts to establish travel routes through arid West Texas . . . . [T]he spring was one of the few permanent water sources between the Pecos and Devils rivers."
p. 108: "On April 20, 1872 . . . Companies A and H of the Ninth Cavalry found the . . . remains of Gonzales' wagons; the drivers lashed to the wheels while still alive and burned . . . . There can be little doubt that the attackers were a Kiowa raiding party, led by Big Bow. Reports of the battle identify White Horse . . . and Tauankie, son of the great Kiowa chief Lone Wolf . . . . Nevertheless . . . the U.S. Military attributed the massacre to Kickapoo and Apache."
p. 109: "The battle of South Kickapoo Springs, fought in December of 1873, again saw conflict between Kiowa and Comanche raiders and the U.S. Military. While scouting, . . . the Forth Cavalry . . . came across a herd of Indian ponies near South Kickapoo Springs, only 20 miles west [sic, east] of the Hussie Miers site . . . . [T]he troopers intercepted the returning [Comanche-Kiowa] raiding party . . . . In the ensuing encounter, nine of the hostiles were killed. Among the casualties were Tauankia, Lone Wolf's son . . . Lone Wolf's grief was so intense that he and his warriors returned to Texas to try to recover the bodies of his son and nephew . . . . [P]ost commanders set out to intercept Lone Wolf's party. Arriving at the battlefield shortly after the Kiowas, troopers from Fort Clark pursued them, forcing them to abandon the bodies "in a cleft high on the mountainside' where they may remain to this day."
p. 109: "The Kickapoo . . . preferred to raid in southern Texas, passing through the Lower Pecos region to circumvent Fort Clark and Fort Duncan . . . . Fort Clark, just 25 miles south of South Kickapoo Springs, was established squarely athwart a major branch of the Comanche Trace to deter raiding parties from north of the Red River. Favored crossings of the Rio Grande included Las Vacas, at the mouth of the Devils' River near modern-day Del Rio, just south of the Hussie Miers Site."
Turpin, Solveig A. (editor)
1991 Papers on Lower Pecos Prehistory. Studies in Archeology 8, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, The University of Texas at Austin.
In a laudable effort to publish papers on the Lower Pecos Region that would otherwise be unavailable to the archeological community, Turpin has brought together a group of researchers whose specific inquiries into the archeological record of this region has been important, but narrowly focused. These inquiries include an analysis on the Langtry points from Arenosa Shelter, evidence of the introduction of threaded and twined matting in the region, and isotopic analysis of the Late Archaic diet.
While most of these studies are beyond the present inquiry, the overview of the radiocarbon chronology of the region (by Turpin) is pertinent. It not only presents the radiocarbon record of the Late Prehistoric and the Historic periods, but also describes Turpin's summary of the phases within those periods. She is one of the few researchers actively publishing on this region. Therefore, her discussion of these periods should be considered by other researchers:
p. 17: Figures 1.2 and 1.4, presenting the radiocarbon dates from the region, indicate that several dates have been assayed from the late portion of the Late Prehistoric and the Historic periods, of which 15 were calibrated.
p. 35: The Late Prehistoric period is characterized as the period dating from 1320-450 B.P., and relates to Dibble's Flecha Period, Story's Period VII, and Shafer's Comstock Interval. "The Flecha period . . . signals the adoption of the bow and arrow . . . . It is, however, very difficult to sequence the various arrow point styles identified in the region . . . . The change in technology and economic strategies implies the introduction of several other intrusive traits. A new approach to parietal art . . . shows human beings carrying bows and arrows . . . . Another imported trait is the change in mortuary customs [with] cairn burials on high promontories . . . . Ring middens . . . are another site type that consistently dates to the Flecha or later periods."
p. 36: "Many dry rock shelters, the favorite subject of intensive archeological analysis, lack substantial Flecha period deposits and the uppermost strata are often highly disturbed."
p. 36: The final period of the Late Prehistoric is the Infierno phase first defined by Dibble. "Only one [calibrated radiocarbon date] is relevant to the cultural phenomena that define this period."
p. 37: "The hallmark of the Infierno phase is a tool kit composed of small stemmed arrow points, steeply beveled end scrapers, prismatic blades, and plain brown ceramics. The artifacts are tightly associated with stone circles that are presumably the remnants of pole supports for hide or brush huts. These sites characteristically are found on high promontories adjacent to a reliable water source. A casual observer would align the Infierno phase with the Toyah phase of Central Texas because of the superficial similarity in the index artifacts when there are major differences between the two."
p. 37: "The Infierno phase is assumed to be protohistoric, largely because the ceramics . . . are very similar to one type recorded at the Apache mission of San Lorenzo . . . . By far the majority of the radiocarbon dates that fall within the projected span of the Infierno phase were derived from hearths and ring middens."
Turpin, Solveig A. and Michael W. Davis
1993 The 1989 TAS Field School: Devils River State Natural Area Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 61:1-58.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department acquired a large ranch (ca. 22,000 acres) at the upper end of the Amistad NRA in the late 1980s. Recognizing the potential for archeological sites on what was intended to be a state natural area, this agency of the state contracted with the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory of the University of Texas to undertake an archeological survey as part of a Texas Archeological Society Field School. The university employed Turpin to direct the field school, aided by Davis. While not a comprehensive survey, 239 sites were recorded. This article represents the report of the survey. Unfortunately, the information is of limited value for the present project. Sites are described as types (hearths, burned rock middens, caves, rock shelters, etc.) with little chronological data or interpretation. Nonetheless, some sites were identified as historic and some data are relevant to the Amistad NRA effort to identify tribes with associations to the region:
p. 5: The Flecha phase is shown to date between 1,320 and 450 years B.P.; the Infierno phase dates from 450 to 250 years B.P.
p. 6: "Spanish forays into the Lower Pecos River region were often hurriedly launched pursuits of raiding Indians rather than colonizing expeditions. The area was not thoroughly explored or mapped until after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico in 1849. Immediately after this peace accord was signed, American surveyors and engineers went into the field to map the border between Mexico and the United States [see Emory, above] . . . . The leader of one of the first American expeditions, famed Texas Ranger Jack Hays, gave the Devils River its English namethe Spanish had called it the Rio de las Lajas [?] . . . and later the San Pedro (Hayes commented that it more likely belonged to the Devil . . . . Despite Hayes's unfavorable opinion of this route, they forged ahead with a road leading northward from San Felipe Springs (Del Rio) along the Devils River, then westward to the Pecos and on to El Paso. The San Antonio-San Diego mail route was established in 1853 . . . and, in 1853, Fort Clark was established squarely athwart the Comanche Trace; in 1857, Camp Hudson was built overlooking Bakers Crossing, a major ford of the Devils."
p. 6: "When the Civil War intervened, the redirection of military force opened the way for the intrusive Plains Indians, who regularly traveled through the Devils River country to raid the settled villages and ranches of Coahuila."
p. 6-7: "The war behind it, the U.S. Army turned to the task of pacifying the west, and several notable battles were fought on the Devils River, but their locations are only conjectural. One confrontation between the Second Cavalry and Comanches took place in 1857 on a bluff over looking the Devils River (Fehrenbach 1983:426-427); military buttons and other accouterments found in Snake Springs Canyon at the base of Yellow Bluff near Dolan Springs are attributed to that battle."
p. 7: "In 1881, the Southern Pacific Railroad opened the way for settlement, bringing goods and providing the means for getting products to market."
p. 11: "Shield Shelter, 41VV1088, has only on compositiona circle encompassing 27 to 30 crescents and surrounded by a wavy line . . . . Symbolically, the semicircular elements may represent horseshoes contained within a circular corral or moons enclosed within the sun (Turpin 1991). The Plains-like theme and the metaphorical range of this panel suggest that it is historic or protohistoric in age, produced by an artist from one of the intrusive groups that traveled through the Lower Pecos region between 1700 and 1885."
p. 23: "Support for [the historic Indian] age assignment can be found in two other pictography panels . . . . At 41VV343, a Spanish colonial scene, complete with church and mustachioed caballero, overlooks . . . Dolan Creek . . . . Directly above Dolan Springs, at 41VV485, three scenes pair bison and human figures . . . . In one . . . the bison is upright and has human feet, suggesting that it is a dancer. In another, the human is armed with a flintlock . . . the third scene is blurred beyond possible decipherment. In the same vicinity, a metal arrow point was collected by the landowner."
Wade, Maria F.
1998 The Native Americans of the Texas Edwards Plateau and Related Areas: 1582-1799. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin.
Wade completed her dissertation under the tutelage of T. N. Campbell. It was Campbell who chose the principal area of study because, as he put it, "we know next to nothing about the peoples that inhabited the Edwards Plateau." In 1972, Campbell stated (1989:5) that we would never know how much information existed about native populations until we systematically searched the archival records. That premise guided Wade's work. Although the dissertation centers on the area of the Edwards Plateau, Wade actually uncovered documentation from Saltillo and Coahuila that related directly to the events and groups who became the center of the entradas of Fr. Manuel de La Cruz (1674), Fr. Francisco Peñasco (1674), and the expedition of Fernando del Bosque and Fr. Juan Larios (1675). These early trips to the modern Texas territory occupy the first chapter of the dissertation. The second chapter deals in detail with the expedition of Juan Dominguez de Mendoza and Fr. Nicolas Lopez from El Paso to the San Saba area in Texas. The subsequent chapters deal with the events in Texas from the beginning of the colonization effort by Alonso de León until 1799.
Wade's dissertation makes several important points. First, it argues that the specific characteristics of the culture of the native groups in the areas studied and the nature of the archival documentation about these groups requires that the small or subtle events become the focus of research. She proposes a theoretical model (Chapter 2) that uses as its visual metaphor the construction, structure and perception of structure of a real ceramic mosaic. On the nature and importance of the micro-events, she (p. 28) states:
The last statement reflects the essence of the second important point stressed throughout Wade's work: the conscious attempt to look at the documents and the events from a native point of view.
The third important point is Wade's systematic attempt to rely solely on original documents, translating them and often providing the original Spanish text in order that other researchers can compare both versions and, if they so wish, challenge her interpretation. The fourth and last point is the multidisciplinary character of the work, which engages several subfields of anthropology but also history, ethnohistory, geography, Native American studies, and borderlands issues. The work was geared to provide information and serve researchers in all those fields.
In the course of her work Wade identified six central findings: four patterns and two issues (p. 4-12).
As mentioned above, Wade further identified two central issues. The first issue relates to the movement of Apache groups into modern Texas territory. Wade considers the sociocultural differences between Apache groups and other Native groups who inhabited Texas before the Apache moved into this territory, and acknowledges that the research done on the Apache has been insufficient to understand what really happened when the Apache became entrenched in Coahuila and Texas. She (p. 398) stresses:
The second issue relates to the geographic location of specific native groups encountered by Spanish expeditions to the Edwards Plateau and the relationship between those historical locations and archeological sites. Wade identified 21 Native groups that inhabited and used the area of the Edwards Plateau between the 1670s and the 1690s. Regarding the Mendoza-Lopez expedition to the Concho River area in Texas, and the Spanish archival evidence issued prior to the expedition, Wade (p. 10) states:
The two other groups mentioned by Wade are the Arcos Tuertos or Arcos Fuertes and the Gediondo or Parugan (p. 395). Concerning the relationship between these three native groups and the Toyah Phase. Wade (p. 395) states:
Wade's dissertation includes some valuable research tools. She provides three digitized colored maps that include part of northeastern Coahuila, the Rio Grande, including the Amistad Reservoir Area, and most of the modern territory of Texas. Map 1 shows her interpretation of the routes of all the major expeditions that entered the modern Texas territory since 1674 through 1767, the location of late prehistoric and some historic archeological sites, and the relationship of these expeditions and sites to major geographic and physiographic features. Map 2 uses the various diaries of the principal Spanish expeditions into Texas to locate the presence of deer and buffalo as reported by the expeditionary diarists. Map 3 uses the same sources of information to locate some of the most important floral information.
The dissertation also includes several appendices. Appendix B lists all the cultural material collected by the author and a few other researchers that apply to 181 Native groups. Wade makes no claim that this appendix is exhaustive. For a summary of Wade's findings on the groups connected with the Amistad NRA see "Ethnohistoric Review, Cultural Summary1670s-1700s."
Wade, Maria
1999 Unfolding Native American History: The Entrada of Fr. Manuel de la Cruz and the Bosque Larios Expedition. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 70:29-48.
Wade uses her translations of 16 documents written between 1650 and 1680 to look at Native American cultural behavior during the Spanish colonization of the micro-region. The documents relate to the 1674 entrada of Fray Manuel de la Cruz and the events that preceded that entrada, and the expedition of Alferez Fernando del Bosque and Fray Juan Larios (Bosque-Larios expedition) in 1675. Both expeditions traveled north of the Rio Nadadores, crossing the Rio Grande in the region between modern Del Rio and Eagle Pass. Wade provides a map (p. 41) showing her interpretation of their routes. The map shows that the 1674 entrada crossed the Rio Grande close to Del Rio, between the confluences of Sycamore and Pinto creeks, continuing in an easterly line to Las Moras Creek, the Anacacho Mountains, and then turning west to the vicinity of modern Brackettville. On its return, the party forded the Rio Grande at the confluence of Las Moras Creek. The 1675 expedition traveled north to cross the Rio Grande at Las Moras Creek, then moved still further north to the Balcones Canyonlands of the Edwards Plateau, generally following the western Nueces River to the drainage of the Dry Devils River. The Bosque/Larios expedition then turned south, crossing into the Sycamore Creek drainage and fording the Rio Grande between Sycamore and Pinto creeks. Because these expeditions and the events surrounding them dealt with the native groups that occupied the micro-region, Wade's article is especially pertinent to the affiliation study for the Amistad NRA.
p. 30: "This article focuses primarily on the events that preceded the Bosque-Larios expedition, and discusses how those events were shaped by the actions of particular Native groups and their spokespersons. The picture that emerges from the Spanish archival documentation pertaining to this stream of events . . . indicates that the majority of the groups involved had considerable populations, were organized in broad multi-ethnic coalitions, and controlled sophisticated information networks . . . . The evidence also indicates that some Native groups controlled and defended specific geographic areas and the harvesting of resources within those land areas."
p. 30: "In March 1658, Miguel de Otalona, War Captain and Judge in Saltillo, heard testimony from army personnel and the citizenry of Saltillo relative to a request made by four Babane and Jumano individuals to establish a pueblo of their own . . . . Testimony . . . shows that the request made by the Babane and Jumano argued that the encomenderos of Saltillo rounded up Natives in Coahuila . . . . Some of the witnesses testified that they had been in the province since 1618. They stated that that they had known the Babane and the Jumano for a long time. It appears that these Native groups may have been in the area at least since the 1620s."
p. 31: "Don Lacaro stated that he would get the Bobole and their allies . . . to come . . . and 'state their needs as [the] kin that they all were since they understood each other in a mother language and were all natives of the province of Coahuila . . . .' Don Lacaro included in the group of petitioners the Bobole, Baias, Contotore, Tetecore, and half of the Momone. Two other very large groups were also joining: the Guequechale and the Tiltic y Maigunm."
p. 32: "[In a deposition of 1673], Antonio Balcarcel . . . attested that he had personally talked with the Native representatives. He stated that all together the 24 nations mustered about 3,700 warriors and about 12,000 people."
p. 33: "[In January 1674,] Captain Elizondo joined Fr. Larios and several Native Captains at San Ildefonso de la Pas, 14 leagues north of the Sabinas River. On January 28th, according to Elizondo, he was visited by the Captains of the Gueiquechale, Bobole, Manos Prietas, Pinanaca, Obaya, Babaymare, Zupulame, Omomome, and Xicocoge. Fr. Larios, on the other hand, states that they were visited by the principal 'leaders' of the Guequechale, Bobole, Xicocoge, Obaya, Xiupulame, Manos Prietas, Bacorama, Omomome, Baniamamar, and later by the Mescale, Jumee, Cabeza, Contotor, Tetecora, Bausari, Manos Coloradas, Teimamar, and others."
p. 33: "Fr. Larios stated that [these Natives] lived on mescal, tuna, small nuts and oak acorns, fish, buffalo, and deer. Their dwellings were round huts surrounded by straw and covered with buffalo pelts . . . . Some of their people were on the Rio Grande, 20 leagues (52 miles) from San Ildefonso, hunting and jerking buffalo meat."
p. 34: "In a letter dated September 15, 1674, Fr. Larios . . . confirmed that between January and February 1674, the friars had established two mission settlements . . .: S. Ildefonso de la Paz, located 14 leagues (36.4 miles) north of the Rio Sabinas, 20 leagues (52 miles) south of the Rio Grande and over 70 leagues from Saltillo; and Santa Rosa de Santa Maria, located 80 leagues (108 miles) north of Saltillo [and near the Rio Sabinas] . . . . The two mission settlements were established principally for the Gueiquezale and the Bobole, but in them were aggregated 32 different Native groups."
p. 34: "When Fr. Larios arrived at Santa Rosa and realized that the Bobole had left the settlement, he asked Fr. Manuel to find them and persuade them to return to the pueblo . . . Fr. Manuel wrote a letter describing his trip to the north side of the Rio Grande . . . . After crossing the Rio Grande, Fr. Manuel traveled eastward for three days and arrived near a mountain which the Natives called Dacate, a word that in Castilian meant noses.
p. 35: "The following day they all departed . . . Together they reached the Rio Grande . . . . This crossing had in the middle of the river a sandy island with two beautiful beaches on both sides of the island."
p. 37: In December, 1674, Fr. Larios sent a report to his superiors describing the lack of food and other supplies at the mission settlements.
p. 38: "The Bobole coalition . . . included the Bobole proper, the Xicocosse, Jumane, Bauane (Babane), Xupulame, Yorica, Xianco cadam, Yergiba, and the Bacaranan . . . . [T]he Bagname, Bibit, Geniocane, Gicocoge, Jumee, and Yorica are mentioned [elsewhere] as allies of the Bobole in 1675 (Portillo 1984:106). The Gueiquesale coalition . . . included the Hueyquetzale proper and the Manos Prietas, Bacoram, Pinanacam, Cacaxte, Coniane, Ovaya, Tetecora, Contotore, Tocaymamare, Saesser, Teneymamar, Codam (Oodam?), Guiguigoa, Eguapit, Tocamomom, Huhuygam, Doaquioydacam, Cocuytzam, Aquita doydacam, Babury, Dedepo, Soromet, and Teymamare (Larios 1674a). The third coalition . . . included the Mayo, Babusarigame, Bamarimamare, Cabezas, Bauiasmamare, Colorado, Pies de Venado, Igo quib, and Toque . . . . The fourth and last coalition . . . included the Catujano proper, the Bahanero, Cacahuale, Toarmra, Masiabe, Mameda, Mabibit, Milihae, Ape, Pachaque, Tilyhay, Xumez, Carafe, and Mexcale (Larios 1674b)."
p. 39: "Some of the Catujano groups (Ape, Jumee, and Bibit or Mabibit) seem to have had a closer relationship with the Bobole, likely via the Yorica. This series of interlocking ties within the micro- or macro-coalitions reflects the particular and timely concerns of each group."
p. 40: "On April 30th [1675], Balcarcel ordered . . . Bosque and . . . Larios to travel from the Rio de Nadradores to the Sierra Dacate and other areas that might be convenient to visit. They were to take possession of the lands, record information on the environment, and county the peoples they encountered . . . . In fact, however, their primary objective was to stem the flow of Native groups into the Monclova area by promising them the establishment of pueblos in their lands."
p. 40: "The Yorica and Jeapa [Ape] . . . sent emissaries to their people, the Mabibit . . . and the Jumee, to join them along the way to greet the Spaniards."
p. 42: "It appears that the native word Dacate denoted the southwest edge of the Edwards Plateau . . . . The Bagname captains . . . declared that they came from a mountain rrange (sierra) which in their language was called Dracate.
p. 42: "The Bosque-Larios party returned to Monclova. North of the Rio Grande between Sycamore Creek and Pinto Creek . . . Bosque met the Bobole, who were hunting buffalo. During the return trip Bosque found several other native groups between the south bank of the Rio Grande and Monclova."
p. 42: "[In his report], Bosque strated that he had traveled the land north-south and east-west and realized that it was divided into three major coalitions, or three divisions . . . each with a great number of people. The most bellicose, but the least numerous, was the following of Don Esteban, consisting of all the peoples that had been counted . . . . These groups had many conflicts among themselves. They killed each other, ate each other, and kidnapped each other's children, as they themselves stated."
p. 43: "By July 3, 1675, Bralcarcel realized that there were too many conflicts and too many people at S. Miguel de Luna. He ordered the Ape, the Bobosarigame, the Cratujano, and the Manos Prietas to leave the pueblo for their own lands."
p. 43: "On November 20, 1675, Balcarcel . . . counted the people in the town of Monclova and stated that there were eight Spanirards and 232 natives. The rest of the people had left to hunt and eat buffalo. Thus, most of the people at Monclova were on their winter buffalo hunt on the north side of the Rio Grande."
p. 44: "The events that began to unfold in 1658 and continued through 1675 make it abundantly clear that certain Native groups and particular individuals took the initiative to promote the idea of autonomous and multi-ethnic settlements in order to escape the actions of encomenderos and counteract the populations erosion being experienced by certain ethnic groups.
p. 44: "Despite the Yoricra's early refusal, Fr. Peñasco offered them . . . corn to plant and cattle to eat. This offer led the Yorica to move from the north side of the Rio Grande to the south side in May 1674. One year later, in May 1675, when the Yorica and their allies, the Jeapa, Jumee, and Mabibit, were encountered by Bosque, they complained about the difficulty to travel freely, obtain food resources, and visit their kin. It appears that the move they made in 1674 cut them off from their kin and produced loss of territory and resources. The case of the Yorica is probably not unique."
p. 45: "It has been frequently assumed that the groups who inhabited the southern and western portions of the Edwards Plateau had small populations . . . . The smallest stated individual group population belongs to the Geniocane, with 188 people."
Wallace, Ernest
n.d. The Habitat and Range of the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Indians before 1867. Unpublished manuscript on file at the Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
This extensive and lengthy manuscript was completed by Wallace for the U.S. Department of Justice during the Indian Claims Commission. Wallace completed a number of publications related to the Native Americans in the Southern Plains and all drew heavily not only from his historical research, but also from the Spanish and English documents related to their history for the last 300 years. It was, therefore, logical that he would have been requested to provide information to the Commission.
Like the present study for the Amistad NRA, much of the concern of the Commission was about boundaries of native territories and how, or if, those boundaries changed through time. Therefore, Wallace relied heavily on original documents. Moreover, the types of documents that he accessed were extensive. Wallace drew on selected Spanish documents, Congressional papers, papers and journals of the Texas legislature, as well as from newspapers, military reports, and papers of the Indian Affairs offices in Washington, D.C., and Texas. Accounts of captives, both published and unpublished were used as well. In addition to these data, Wallace took advantage of previous research by other historians and anthropologists, and even sought their opinion on his work.
Wallace divided the material into sections that are based on his interpretation of the gradual southern movement of the three tribes and the overlapping territories of each. Although he gives a brief history of their northern origins, the manuscript really beings with the Comanche appearance in the Spanish documents of New Mexico in 1707 and continues through the final treaties with that tribe at the end of the Civil War. The Comanche were given more extensive treatment, in part due to his belief that their activities influenced the other two.
While his work is certainly of considerable value to this and other studies, researchers should recognize certain flaws. First, many documents cited were previously translated, transcribed, and/or published. Any flaws that they contain remained unevaluated in his work. Second, he drew heavily from first hand accounts with the various tribes. While this is commendable, some of these were the biased accounts of Wilbarger, Marcy, and several other individuals who claimed greater first hand knowledge of the three tribes than they actually possessed (see Kavanagh 1996:25-26). For example, Marcy recommended himself to lead the Red River expedition by claiming intimate knowledge of the Comanche. Kavanagh noted that, in fact, Marcy had only met briefly with the Comanche on one occasion prior to making this claim. Finally, as with any research, the reader must carefully evaluate previous interpretations made by others.
Keeping in mind these cautions, Wallace's report shows an impressive sum of careful research. Not only does the report meticulously and carefully scrutinize and interpret a remarkable volume of data, it provides a wealth of citations that afford researchers an excellent guide for the documentary study of Native Americans during the period 1750-1867. It is unfortunate that it has never been published, and has only sporadically been used by other researchers. Given his extensive knowledge, his interpretations of Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache territories must be given considerable weight. The following quotations from the manuscript relate to specific data on territories and Wallace's interpretation of the actual range of each of the groups.
p. 222: "The first Anglo-Americans in Texas were not seriously troubled by the Comanches. They were located mainly outside the territory ranged by the Comanches . . . . [The Comanches] did, however, with the beginning of troubles in 1835 [the Texas Revolution], step up their raids against the Texas enough to create alarm."
p. 223: "As the Texans and the Mexicans moved eastward toward San Jacinto, the Comanches found an unprotected frontier rat their mercy."
p. 224: May 9, 1836, "Several hundred Comanches and Kiowas attacked Parker's Fort on the Navasotra River."
p. 226: In 1837, "Cherokee Chief Bowl was commissioned by the Texas government to visit the Comanches . . . . Bowl visited Comanche villages on the extreme western branch of the Brazos and on the headwaters of the Wichita and Red rivers . . . . He failed to find the principal chief, but stated that in this vicinity he found parties returning from both the Texas and Mexican frontiers."
p. 228: Irion wrote Houston in 1837 that the Comanches "claimed . . . all the territory north and west [sic, east?] of the Guadalupe Mountains, extending from the Red River to the Rio Grande."
p. 231: By 1838, one Comanche band "had pushed down into the region and was sharing the Hill Country with the Lipans."
pp. 234-235: "The raid on the Guadalupe River [at Gonzales] in the fall of 1838 terrified the settlers on the west side of the river . . . . Possibly one explanation for the Comanche drive into the outlying settlements of the Texans was the outbreak of hostilities between them and the Lipans and Tonkawas."
p. 236: "[The Comanches] continued . . . to retain undisputed possession of the San Saba region. By February [1840] they had taken over control of the area around Uvalde, Texas"
p. 248: While in the vicinity of Tierra Blanca during the Palo Duro expedition of 1841, one diarist noted, "this is a Great thoroughfare for the Indians in Crossing the Llano Estracado as there was at Least 20 Horse Trails Cut in the solid lime Stone Rock as we advanced up the creek . . . . the Indian Trail in this valley is the largest trail we found on the Plains. I think it is the Main Route from the Head of Red River across the Llano Estacado to the Pecos River."
p. 295: "The Comanche invasion of the lower Rio Grande [by the late 1850s] is attributable partially to Neighbor's removal as Indian agent. He had kept in close contact with the Indians, and by persuasion and reprimand had induced them to keep the peace."
pp. 300: 1853: "A brand of Tenawa captured Mrs. Wilson and her two boys [near Fort Phantom Hill] and rode away with them in a northeasterly direction . . . . Mrs. Wilson made her escape by hiding in a hollow cottonwood tree . . . until recovered by New Mexican comancheros . . . . They took her with them to Pecos."
pp. 300-301: J. H. Byrne, diarist of the 1854 Pope expedition wrote of Apaches while at the mouth of the Delaware River at the Falls of the Pecos.
p. 301: "At Mustang Springs, on the Great Comanche War Trail . . . the expedition met a party of Kiowas returning to their own country with a large number of horses taken on a raid in Mexico . . . . Byrne noted in his diary that this trail is a very broad and deep one, and that it was evidently in constant use by Indians on their forays into Mexico."
p. 302: "Pope [another diarist] did point out . . . that the immense tablelands to the west of the Pecos and the mountains between the Pecos and the Rio Grande had been from time immemorial in undisputed possession of the Apaches."
p. 304: "By 1853, the Penatekas were spending most of their time farther west than in previous years, largely along the upper heradwaters of the Brazos and Colorado rivers.
p. 313: "The frontier line of 1855 may be roughly drawn through the counties of Grayson . . . Gillespie, Kendall, and Bexar, thence southeast to San Patricio. All the country west of it was virtually held by the Comanches and the Kiowa allies."
p. 320: "By 1861 the subject tribes were finding it more and more difficult to invade the Mexican frontier. Game had almost disappeared from their southern hunting grounds . . . . The Texans, meanwhile, had pushed their frontier westward beyond north-south line through Uvalde, Kerrville [sic], Brownwood, Palo Pinto, Jacksboro, and Henrietta, and they had forced the Penatekas from the state."
p. 321: "Although Mexico was never the habitat of either of the three subject tribes . . . the practice of raiding along the Rio Grande and in the country to the south of that stream had come to be well fixed during the 'twilight' years of Spanish rule."
p. 322: "For a number of years Buffalo Hump made regular raids into Mexico. In 1846 he brought back one thousand head of horses and mules besides a number of prisoners, a quantity of money and a great deal of other plunder. With six or eight hundred warriors, he crossed the Rio Grande near the mouth of the Pecos in August, 1847, openly boasting that he intended to raid in Chihuahua, Parras, and the surrounding country."
p. 325: "The most southern route [into Chihuahua, used by the Indians] crossed the Rio Grande between the old presidio of San Juan and the mouth of the Pecos, and led to the fertile plains . . . in the valleys of the San Bartolomo."
p. 398: "The subject tribes were not a factor of great importance during the Civil War . . . [B]oth the North and South made overtures to the Indians."
p. 439: "An account of the treaties of the Little Arkansas would be incomplete without taking into consideration Charles C. Royce's study of 'Indian Land Cessions in the United States,' since it is generally accepted as the official and authoritative work on the subject . . . . For some of his boundaries the date would be the determining factor [in assigning the boundaries], while in at least one significant area he is in error. On the northwest his Los Animas . . . River, although subject to argument, represents as fair a boundary as it is possible to draw. Immediately southward from the head of the Purgatorie a more accurate boundary would be a line extending from the Head of the Purgatorie to the head of the Canadian, south of Raton Pass, thence down that stream to the Big Bend in the vicinity of Tucumcari, then southward to the Pecos at Bosque Redondo . . . . From the Bosque Redondo southward to central Val Verde County the Pecos was the recognized boundary by both Indians and whites. This is substantirated, almost without exception, by the reports of travelers and explorers who crossed the region. A line connecting the Pecos in central Val Verde County with the upper Devil's, Moras, Nueces, Seco, Frio, and Medina rivers and the Balcones Escarpment line just west of San Antonio would be a fairly accurate delineation on the south. Although the Apaches were found frequently to the north of this line, the Comanches were almost as frequently south of it after 1836, but always on a raiding expedition and not one instance of a village south of that line has been discovered."
Zertuche, Diana S.
1985 The Spirit of Val Verde. Taylor Publishing Company, Dallas.
This small volume contains a history of Val Verde County. Largely taken from newspaper accounts, the book also contains a variety of assorted data on the region including a number of oral histories about various families who settled there since 1875. While it has only a brief review of the Native Americans in the region, its value lies in documentation of recent history.
p. 5: The first county seat was Brackettville. When the railroad came through Del Rio in 1882, citizens felt the latter would better represent their needs and moved the county seat to this locale.
p. 17: Ciudad Acuña was called 'Las Vacas' in 1883 and Del Rio was called Las Sapras or El Alto.
p. 21: Del Rio and its springs were a stop on the San Antonio to San Diego mail route.
Zintgraff, Jim and Solveig A. Turpin
1991 Pecos River Rock Art, A Photographic Essay. Sandy McPherson Publishing Company, San Antonio.
Zintgrraff is a professional photographer whose fascination for the spectacular rock art in the Lower Pecos Region dates to 1952. Over the decades he has photographed and variously studied the designs in the rockshelters, making the region well known to artists and others. A permanent exhibit at the Witte Museum in San Antonio focuses on the prehistory of this unique region. Many of his photographs are the backdrops for that exhibit, bringing the exhibit alive for the viewer. This slim volume, with text that presents Turpin's interpretation of the designs, contains a selection of his views of a number of the most well known sites. Important as a photographic essay, the volume does not offer new insights into the historic Indians of the region.
1. See Wade (1998 and 1999 below) for alternate view of bison presence in the South Texas or Rio Grande Plains.
2. See Kavanagh (1996 below) for another view on the Comanche population levels.
3. Note that this is in error. The San Pedro is known as the Devil's River, not a tributary of the Pecos.
4. See Keyser above who believes that this style of rock art developed after the Apache arrived in the micro-region.
Last Updated: 24-Apr-2007