Summary & Background

Summary:

The goal of this lesson plan is to give background information on the Karankawa tribe. These background information ranges from knowing where their territory is located, their dietary supplements, their weapons and tools, and their language and culture. To begin the week, students will be creating a foldable where they continually add information onto it throughout the week. This foldable will introduce to the students how the Karankawa’s tribe was founded, how they were physically built, and more. Next, The Karankawa’s physical traits will be described in detail to help students visualize how the Karankawas looked. The following lesson will involve students learning how the Karankawas utilized different types of tools and weapons. After, students will learn about different dietary supplements that were present in the lives of the Karankawas. Then, students will be educated on types of shelter that the Karankawa’s resided in. In addition, students will be given a wide variety of information on the Karankawa’s culture. To the end whole lesson, students will be informed on where the Karankawas are today, and what caused their current circumstances.

Background:

The now-extinct Karankawa Indians played an important role in the early history of Texas. "Karankawa" became the accepted designation for several groups or bands of coastal people who shared a common language and culture. Those bands, identified in early historical times, included the Capoques (Coaques, Cocos), Kohanis, Kopanes (Copanes), and Karankawa proper (Carancaquacas). They inhabited the Gulf Coast of Texas from Galveston Bay southwestward to Corpus Christi Bay. All spoke a little-known language called Karankawa, and only about 100 words of that language have been preserved. The significance of the name Karankawa has not been definitely established, although it is generally believed to mean "dog-lovers" or "dog-raisers," as they were reported as keeping dogs that were described as a fox-like or coyote-like breed.

Karankawas were known for their distinctive physical appearance. The men, described as tall and muscular, wore deerskin breechclouts or nothing at all. They painted and tattooed their bodies, and pierced the nipples of each breast and the lower lip with small pieces of cane. A mixture of dirt and alligator or shark grease was applied to their skin to ward off mosquitoes. Women also painted and tattooed their bodies and wore skirts of Spanish moss or animal skin that reached their knees.

The Karankawa people migrated seasonally between the barrier islands and the mainland. Their movements were dictated primarily by the availability of food and secondarily by climate. They obtained food by a combination of hunting, fishing, and gathering. Fish, shellfish, and turtles were staples of the Karankawa diet, but a wide variety of animals and plants contributed to their sustenance.

Their principal means of transportation was the dugout canoe made by hollowing out the trunk of a large tree, which was used to navigate shallow waters between the islands and the mainland. Canoes could carry an entire family along with their household goods.

The Karankawas traveled overland on foot and were often described as powerful runners, as well as expert swimmers. A portable wigwam, or ba-ak, provided shelter for the coastal people. The crude structure, large enough to accommodate seven or eight people, consisted of a willow pole frame covered with animal skins and rush mats. Karankawa people crafted baskets and pottery that were often lined with "asphaltum," a natural tar substance found on Texas Gulf Coast beaches. The long bow and arrow were used in hunting and as weapons. Bows were made of red cedar and reached from the eye or chin level to the foot of the bearer. The Karankawa people also engaged in competitive games demonstrating weapons skills or physical prowess--wrestling was a popular sport. 

They traveled in small bands of thirty to forty people headed by a chief. The bands were subdivided into smaller groups, perhaps individual family units, to facilitate foraging. Communication was maintained by a well-developed system of smoke signals that enabled the scattered groups to come together for social events, warfare, or other purposes.

Karankawa ceremonialism centered around gatherings known as "mitotes," which were held for a variety of purposes, each involving different activities. The ceremonies often included dances and the consumption of an beverage brewed from the parched leaves of the yaupon (Ilex cassineor vomitoria), a small shrublike tree native to south Texas. That "black drink" was consumed exclusively by the men of the tribe.

The Karankawas' entrance into the historical record in 1528 represents the first recorded contact between Europeans and first peoples of Texas. Two small boats carrying survivors of the ill-fated Spanish expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez landed on a small island to the west of Galveston Island. That island, named Malhado, or Isle of Misfortune, by the Spanish was inhabited by Karankawa people. The written account of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, one of those shipwrecked survivors, provides our earliest knowledge of the coastal people. Cabeza de Vaca lived among those hunting and gathering groups for several years and provided invaluable ethnological accounts of those Native Americans. After Cabeza de Vaca's encounter with them, the Karankawas were not visited again by Europeans for more than a century and a half.

In 1685 a French expedition, led by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, established Fort St. Louis on Garcitas Creek near Matagorda Bay, in the heart of Karankawa country. After La Salle and a contingent of men set out for Canada to find help for the struggling colony, Karankawas attacked the remaining settlers, killing all but six children who were taken captive. Those children, five of whom were members of the Talon family, were later rescued by Spanish expeditions in the early 1690s. Two of the former captives, Pierre and Jean-Baptiste Talon, were returned to France in 1698. Their interrogation by French officials resulted in a detailed description of their observations of Karankawa culture.

In the early years of the eighteenth century, French interest in the Texas coast was rekindled, and Karankawa country again became the center of Spanish-French rivalry. The French continued to explore the coastal area, and in 1719 the Karankawas captured a shipwrecked sailor named François Simars de Bellisle. The Frenchman lived with the tribe for fifteen months before escaping to Louisiana, where he provided French authorities with extensive information about the Texas coastal tribes.

In 1721 a French land expedition, led by Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe, crossed the Karankawa territory. In response to that French incursion, the Spanish established Nuestra Señora de Loreta Presidio and Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga Mission near the site of the former Fort St. Louis. Because of their locations near Matagorda Bay, both became known as La Bahía. The mission was established to "civilize" the Karankawa people through religious conversion. However, these efforts were unsuccessful as no "conversos" remained at La Bahía by 1726. The mission was relocated to the Guadalupe River, where it remained until 1749 near present-day Goliad. Despite the lack of success at La Bahía, the Spanish continued their efforts to convert the Karankawa people for the dual purposes of subduing the hostile tribe and establishing a permanent hold on the Texas coast.

In 1754 a new mission, Nuestra Señora del Rosario de los Cujanes, was established for the Karankawa on the San Antonio River, upstream from La Bahía. Rosario Mission reported 101 conversos by 1764, yet the numbers of native peoples dwindled and the mission was closed in 1781. A third mission, Nuestra Señora del Refugio, was built in 1791, and subsequently relocated three times, before finally settling permanently at El Rancho de Santa Gertrudis, near the site of present-day Refugio, Texas. A reported 190 mixed Karankawas and Coahuiltecans occupied Refugio Mission in 1814, but by the early 1820s repeated Comanche attacks had caused the virtual depopulation of that mission. The two struggling Karankawa missions continued to operate until they were secularized in 1830 and 1831.

Athanase de Mézières, a Frenchman employed as an "Indian" agent by the Spanish, made no progress in establishing peace through trade with the Karankawas. In the late 1770s Mézières advocated extermination of the tribe, but his proposed plan was not carried out. However, by the end of Spanish rule in Texas, the Karankawa population had been greatly reduced through their exposure to European invaders, especially through disease. In 1819 Jean Laffite's pirate colony on Galveston Island kidnapped a Karankawa woman. The tribe retaliated and attacked Lafitte's compound, but the 300 Karankawa were outmatched and forced to retreat by the 200 pirates and their two cannons.

Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, and the new government encouraged Anglo-American immigration to the sparsely populated province of Texas. As settlers entered Karankawa territory, confrontations became frequent. Mexican authorities attempted to protect the colonists by making peace with the Karankawas, but their efforts were unsuccessful. The colonists, spurred by Empresario Stephen F. Austin, banded together to rid themselves of the Indian threat. Austin was convinced that extermination provided the only acceptable solution to the Karankawa problem.

In 1824, Austin led an expedition of 90 men that drove the Karankawas to seek sanctuary in La Bahía Mission. A priest at the mission arranged an armistice between the colonists and Indians. According to the terms of the agreement, the Karankawas, led by Chief Antonito, agreed to remain west of the Lavaca River. That treaty was renewed in 1827 by Empresario Green DeWitt and two Karankawa chiefs, Antonito and Delgado. Yet, the Karankawa people continued to range east of the Lavaca River and conflicts between colonists and Karankawas were frequent.

The tribe's population steadily diminished as they fought the growing Anglo-Texan population, as well as hostile Tonkawas and Comanches. When Texas became an independent republic in 1836 the Karankawas had been so reduced that they were no longer considered a formidable enemy. By the 1840s only scattered remnants of the tribe remained along the Texas coast. One of those bands camped on the Guadalupe River below Victoria, was attacked by Texans in 1840 in retaliation for Karankawa raids on area settlers. Many Indians were killed in the attack, and the survivors fled down the coast where they settled about fifty miles southwest of Corpus Christi. Other small groups of Karankawas were located on Aransas Bay near the mouth of the Nueces River and in the vicinity of Lavaca Bay.

During the mid 1840s, most of the surviving Karankawas moved south into Tamaulipas, Mexico, to escape pressure from the growing Texan population, but they encountered similar problems south of the Rio Grande. Accused of plundering settlements in the Reynosa area, the tribe came under continued attack from Mexican authorities. By the late 1850s the Karankawas had been pushed back into Texas, where they settled in the vicinity of Rio Grande City. Local residents did not welcome the tribe, and in 1858 a Texan force, led by Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, attacked and annihilated that small remaining band of Karankawas. After that last defeat, the coastal Texas tribe was considered extinct.

The Karankawas, who had managed to survive 300 years of European contact, ultimately fell victim to rapid American colonization and direct exterminatory warfare. To the end of their existence, these coastal people retained their hunting, fishing, and gathering culture.

Handbook of Texas Online, Carol A. Lipscomb, "KARANKAWA INDIANS," accessed August 05, 2019, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bmk05

Summary & Background