Karankawas

Date: August 1820
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Thirty Comanches attack an unknown number of Karankawas at Mission Refugio. Two Comanches are killed.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American
Tribe: Comanches, Karankawas
Gender: unspecified
Location:
Latitude: 28.512761000000
Longitude: -96.819357000000
Citation:

F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2006), 110.

Event Type:
Date: May 1821
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Karankawas kill five American sailors shipwrecked on the northern end of Padre Island.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: unspecified
Location:
Latitude: 27.628434000000
Longitude: -97.226379000000
Citation:

F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska 2006), 111.

Event Type:
Date: September 1822
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Three colonists left to guard supplies at the mouth of the Colorado River. They were never found; Karankawas suspected.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: unspecified
Location:
Latitude: 28.602430000000
Longitude: -95.976605000000
Citation:

Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, 236-237, 247.

Event Type:
Date: February 23, 1823
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Coco Indians (Karankawas) kill two members of Austin’s colony, Loy (or Law) and John C. Alley, who had tried to stop them from stealing a corn-filled pirogue on the Colorado River, near the mouth of Skull Creek and ten miles south of present-day Columbus.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Coco
Gender: male
Location:
Latitude: 29.532235000000
Longitude: -96.406754000000
Citation:

William B. Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas (Louisville: Morton Griswold, 1852), 38-40. F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2006), 128. J. W. Wilbarger, , Indian Depredations in Texas, (Austin: Steck Co., 1935), 200-01.

Event Type:
Date: February 25, 1823
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

In response to the deaths of Loy and Alley, the colony responded by raising a company of 25 men. Finding the Karankawa encampment on Skull Creek, the colonists killed 19 or 20 members of the tribe.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: male
Location:
Latitude: 29.532641000000
Longitude: -96.408224000000
Citation:

William B. Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas (Louisville: Morton Griswold, 1852), 38-40. F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2006), 128. J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, (Austin: Steck Co., 1935), 200-01.

Event Type:
Date: July 6, 1823
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Austin colonist John J. Tumlinson Sr. is killed by Karankawas and Wacos (Wichitas) near the present town of Seguin; colonist Joseph Newman escapes.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas, Wacos
Gender: male
Location:
Latitude: 29.568841000000
Longitude: -97.964727000000
Citation:

J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, (Austin: Steck Co., 1935), 204-05.

Event Type:
Date: October 1823
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Stephen F. Austin provides emigrant tribes—the Coushattas, Alabamas, and Choctaws--with powder and lead to attack the Karankawas, who had been committing depredations in the colony. Locating a party of Cocos (Karankawas), they kill the chief, his son, and three other tribesmen. 

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Alabama/Coushatta, Choctaws/Chickasaws, Coco
Gender: male
Location:
Latitude: 29.805670000000
Longitude: -94.684611000000
Citation:

F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2006), 130.

Date: Early 1824
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

One Karankawa killed by two colonists near the mouth of the Colorado.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: unspecified
Location:
Latitude: 30.247303000000
Longitude: -97.625370000000
Event Type:
Date: 1824
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Austin launches attacks on Karankawas early in the year, assaulted a Coco (Karankawa) village upstream from the mouth of the Brazos River, killing seven. 

Race or Ethnicity: Native American
Tribe: Coco
Gender: unspecified
Location:
Latitude: 28.916270000000
Longitude: -95.389051000000
Citation:

F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2006), 130.

Charles A. Gulick, ed. The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (Austin: A.C. Baldwin, 1921), 4:245–48.

Eugene C. Barker, ed. The Austin Papers (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1924–27) vol. 1, part 1: 768, 803.

Kelly F. Himmel, The Conquest of the Karankawas and the Tonkawas, 1821-1859 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999) 49-50.

William H. Oberste, History of Refugio Mission (Refugio, TX: [1942]), 309.

Event Type:
Date: 1824
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Colonists at Bailey’s Prairie (between present day Angleton and West Columbia) kill several Karankawas seeking to buy ammunition and supplies

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: unspecified
Location:
Latitude: 29.148795000000
Longitude: -95.493512000000
Citation:

Henderson K. Yoakum, History of Texas: From its First Settlement in 1685 to its Annexation to the United States in 1846 (Austin: Steck, 1953), 224.

Event Type:
Date: June 13, 1824
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Austin colonist on Colorado River kills one member of a party of Karankawas butchering one of his cows.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: unspecified
Location:
Latitude: 30.247303000000
Longitude: -97.625370000000
Citation:

F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2006), 131

Event Type:
Date: Mid-June 1824
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Captain Jesse Burnam and 30 Austin colonists, shot at a canoe filled with Karankawas two miles above the mouth of the Colorado River. Eight Karankawas are killed.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: male
Location:
Latitude: 30.247303000000
Longitude: -97.625370000000
Citation:

Henderson K. Yoakum, History of Texas: From its First Settlement in 1685 to its Annexation to the United States in 1846 (Austin: Steck Co., 1953), 1:225-26; William B. Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas (Louisville: Morton Griswold, 1852), 50-53.

Event Type:
Date: Mid-June 1824
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Commissioned by Stephen F. Austin to conduct a punitive expedition against the Karankawas for the killing of Austin colonists, Captain Randal Jones and a company of 23 settlers skirmish with Karankawas on Jones Creek, near the mouth of the Brazos River. Three whites and 15 Indians killed. 

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: male
Location:
Latitude: 28.980864000000
Longitude: -95.420809000000
Citation:

J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, (Austin: Steck Co., 1935), 201-02.

Henderson K. Yoakum, History of Texas: From its First Settlement in 1685 to its Annexation to the United States in 1846 (Austin: Steck Co., 1953), 1: 224-25.

Event Type:
Date: September 1824
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Immigrants to Austin colony killed, travelling from the mouth of the Brazos River en route to the Austin colony. Karankawas are blamed for the attack. 

Race or Ethnicity: Native American
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: unspecified
Location:
Latitude: 28.880805000000
Longitude: -95.380812000000
Citation:

J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas (Austin: Steck Co., 1935), 201.

Event Type:
Date: February 1826
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

The families of Elisha Flowers and Charles Cavanaugh were attacked by 70 Karankawas, near Live Oak Bayou on Old Caney Creek. Five women were killed: Cavanaugh’s wife and three daughters and Flowers’ wife Polly.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: female
Location:
Latitude: 28.744428100000
Longitude: -95.767182800000
Citation:

J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas (Austin: Steck Co., 1935), 209; Rachel Jenkins, "Flowers, Elisha," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ffl21), accessed June 15, 2015. Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association 

Event Type:
Date: February 1826
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

A party of colonists led by Aylett C. Buckner kill 40-50 Karankawas near the mouth of the Colorado River, three miles east of present day Matagorda, in retaliation for attack on Cavanaugh and Flowers’ families. Sometimes referred to as the “Dressing Point” Massacre.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: male
Location:
Latitude: 28.691133000000
Longitude: -95.968271000000
Citation:

F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2006), 131.

J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas (Austin: Steck Co., 1935), 210.

Kelly F. Himmel, The Conquest of the Karankawas and the Tonkawas, 1821-1859 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999), 51.

Malcolm D. McLean, ed. Papers Concerning Robertson’s Colony in Texas (Arlington, Texas: University of Texas at Arlington Press, 1975), 2:525.

Event Type:
Date: 1833
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

A party of Karankawas demand corn from Daniel Gilleland, an Austin colonist then living near present-day Wharton. Refusing to give them any, he raises a party of settlers and attacks the Karankawa camp, killing several Indians.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: male
Location:
Latitude: 29.291822000000
Longitude: -96.098549000000
Citation:

John Wesley Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas (Austin: Steck Co., 1935), 214.

Event Type:
Date: August 13, 1833
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

A band of five Karankawas raids the La Parra Ranch (near present-day Sarita), killing ten - one man and nine women and children. The Indians plunder the ranch, taking one woman and three girls captive.

Race or Ethnicity: Native American, White (includes Anglo-American, European)
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: male, female
Location:
Latitude: 27.224793000000
Longitude: -97.785987000000
Citation:

Enrique Villarreal to Alcalde of Guadalupe and Mariano Cosio Ramon, September 4, 1833, Bexar Archives, Dolph Briscoe Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Event Type:
Date: August 17, 1833
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

Karankawas raid a ranch near Guadalupe Victoria (present-day Victoria). A presidial company of 14 men engage the Karankawas, killing three warriors and a young girl. 

Race or Ethnicity: Hispanic (Mexican/Tejano), Native American
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: male, female
Location:
Latitude: 28.836170000000
Longitude: -97.034897000000
Citation:

Placido Benavides to Alcalde of Goliad, August 26, 1833, Bexar Archives, Dolph Briscoe Center, University of Texas at Austin.

Event Type:
Date: May 19,1834
Time Period: Mexican Era 1821-1835
Description:

A presidial company from Victoria (then known as Guadalupe Victoria) attacks a Karankawa village near Arroyo Tres Palacios on Matagorda Bay (present-day Palacios). During a battle that lasts an hour and a half, six Indian men and four women are killed.

Race or Ethnicity: Hispanic (Mexican/Tejano), Native American
Tribe: Karankawas
Gender: male, female
Location:
Latitude: 28.717384000000
Longitude: -96.237703000000
Citation:

Placido Benavides to Ramon Musquiz, May 28, 1834, Bexar Archives, Dolph Briscoe Center, University of Texas at Austin

Event Type: