DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it straight along to you. The Karankawa Indians were among the first people European explorers ever met in Texas — this goes back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when those early visitors came ashore along a coastline stretching from Galveston Bay all the way down to the Corpus Christi area. Nomadic people, the Karankawas.
They moved with the seasons, fishing the Gulf waters, gathering roots and cactus fruit, living close to the land and the shore. The men were usually tall, wearing their hair long or braided — and here's a detail that'll stay with you — woven through with colorful bits of flannel and rattlesnake rattles. The women were shorter and stouter.
And if you were going to survive on that mosquito-thick coastline, you found your solutions where you could. The Karankawas smeared their bodies with alligator grease and dirt to keep the bugs off. Whatever works.
At first, they were friendly to the Europeans who came among them. That changed. They gained a reputation for savagery over time, and persistent reports that the Karankawas were cannibals shadowed them through history — though the marker traces those reports to occasional ritualistic practices, not something more widespread.
The Spanish Franciscans tried to establish missions for this coastal tribe. Those attempts were not successful. And then came the slow, terrible arithmetic of contact.
The Karankawa population was never large to begin with, and diseases contracted from Europeans began to eat away at their numbers. The nineteenth century brought something worse — warfare. Warfare with Jean Lafitte's pirates.
Warfare with Anglo-American colonists. Many of the Indians were killed in those conflicts. Whatever remained of the tribe fled to Mexico around 1843.
And then, about 1858, that remnant was annihilated. That was it. That was the end.
A people who had fished and moved and braided rattlesnake rattles into their hair along this coastline for generations — gone from the earth entirely. The marker doesn't let you look away from that word: annihilation. Neither should we.
What the marker says
Among the first Indians encountered in Texas by 16th and 17th century European explorers were the nomadic Karankawas, who lived along the coast from Galveston Bay to the Corpus Christi area. A primitive tribe, the Karankawas fished and gathered roots and cactus fruit for food. The men were usually tall and wore their hair long or braided with colorful bits of flannel and rattlesnake rattles. The women were shorter and stouter. The Indians often smeared their bodies with alligator grease and dirt to repel mosquitoes. At first friendly to Europeans, they later gained a reputation for savagery. Persistent reports that the Karankawas were cannibals may be traced to occasional ritualistic practices. Attempts by Spanish Franciscans to found missions for this coastal tribe were not successful. Never large in numbers, the Karankawa population dwindled as a result of diseases contracted from Europeans. During the 19th century, many of the Indians were killed in warfare with Jean Lafitte's pirates and with Anglo-American colonists. Remaining members of the tribe fled to Mexico about 1843. Annihilation of that remnant about 1858 marked the disappearance of the Karankawa Indians. (1976)