Historic Native Peoples of Texas

by William C. Foster, Alston V. Thoms

Overview

Several hundred tribes of Native Americans were living within or hunting and trading across the present-day borders of Texas when Cabeza de Vaca and his shipwrecked companions washed up on a Gulf Coast beach in 1528. Over the next two centuries, as Spanish and French expeditions explored the state, they recorded detailed information about the locations and lifeways of Texas's Native peoples. Using recent translations of these expedition diaries and journals, along with discoveries from ongoing archaeological investigations, William C. Foster here assembles the most complete account ever published of Texas's Native peoples during the early historic period (AD 1528 to 1722).

Foster describes the historic Native peoples of Texas by geographic regions. His chronological narrative records the interactions of Native groups with European explorers and with Native trading partners across a wide network that extended into Louisiana, the Great Plains, New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Foster provides extensive ethnohistorical information about Texas's Native peoples, as well as data on the various regions' animals, plants, and climate. Accompanying each regional account is an annotated list of named Indian tribes in that region and maps that show tribal territories and European expedition routes.

This authoritative overview of Texas's historic Native peoples reveals that these groups were far more cosmopolitan than previously known. Functioning as the central link in the continent-wide circulation of trade goods and cultural elements such as religion, architecture, and lithic technology, Texas's historic Native peoples played a crucial role in connecting the Native peoples of North America from the Pacific Coast to the Southeast woodlands.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292717930
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	03/01/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	366
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.82(d)

About the Author

An award-winning historian and fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, William C. Foster is the author of Spanish Expeditions into Texas, 1689-1768 and editor of Texas and Northeastern Mexico, 1630-1690 by Juan Bautista Chapa.

Table of Contents

• Foreword by Alston V. Thoms
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Between the Lower Brazos and the Lower Colorado Rivers
• Chapter Supplement: Study Area I
• Chapter 2. Between the Lower Colorado and the San Antonio Rivers
• Chapter Supplement: Study Area II
• Chapter 3. The Central Texas Coast
• Chapter Supplement: Study Area III
• Chapter 4. South Texas
• Chapter Supplement: Study Area IV
• Chapter 5. The Texas Trans-Pecos
• Chapter Supplement: Study Area V
• Chapter 6. The Texas Southern Plains
• Chapter Supplement: Study Area VI
• Chapter 7. Northeast Texas
• Chapter Supplement: Study Area VII
• Chapter 8. The Upper Texas Coast
• Chapter Supplement: Study Area VIII
• Chapter 9. Conclusions
• Appendix 1. Selected Animals Reported on Spanish and French Expeditions into Texas, 1528-1722
• Appendix 2. Selected Trees and Other Plants Reported on Spanish and French Expeditions into Texas, 1528-1722
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index