Indigenous Peoples of Texas

Texas comes from an Indian word meaning 'friend".

Tribes and Bands of Texas
The following list of American Indians who have lived in Texas has been compiled from Hodge's Handbook of American Indians... and from Swanton's The Indian Tribes of North America. Some may simply be variant spellings for the same tribe.

Akokisa, Arapaho, Alabama, Anadarko, Apache, Aranama, Alibamu, Atakapa,Attacapan, Bidai, Biloxi, Caddo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Coahuiltecan, Coushatta, Comanche, Concho, Creeks, Crow, Deadose, Eyeish or Haish, Guasco, Hainai, Hasinai, Isleta del Sur, Jicarilla, Jumaro, Kodohadacho. Kadodacho, Karankawan, Kichai, Kiowa, Koasati, Lipan (Upper and Lower), Lipan-Apache, Mescale, Muskogee, Nebedache, Nacachau, Nacanish, Nacogdoche, Nacono, Nadaco, Namidish, Nechaui, Neches, Nasoni, Nanatsoho, Osage, Pakana, Papalate, Pascagoula, Patiri, Pawnee, Pueblo, Quapaw, Senecu del Sur, Shawnee, Shuman, Soacatino or Xacatin, Tacame, Taovayo, Tawakoni, Tigua, Tonkawa, Trans-Pecos, Ute, Waco, Wichita, Ysleta del Sur

Trans-Pecos, Kiowa-Apache, Lower-Lipan, Lipan-Apache, Upper Lipan

Reservations
As identified in the National Atlas of the United States of America, there are no current federally-recognized reservations in Texas. There are, however, some state reserevations and many Indian settlements in the state.


 * Alabama and Coushatta Reservation: State, Tribes: Alabama and Coushatta
 * Kickapoo Reservation
 * Tigua Reservation: State,Tribes: Tigua, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo
 * Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Reservation: State, under jurisdiction of the Southern Pueblos Agency

Reference


 * Isaacs, Katherine M., editor. Omni Gazetteer fo the United States of America. U.S. Data Sourcebook Volume 11 Appendices, Bureau of Indian Affairs List of American Indian Reservations, Appendix E. Indian Reservations, Omnigraphics, Inc., 1991.

Agencies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Agencies and subagencies were created as administrative offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its predecessors. Their purpose was (and is) to manage Indian affairs with the tribes, to enforce policies, and to assist in maintaining the peace. The names and location of these agencies may have changed, but their purpose remained basically the same. Many of the records of genealogical value were created by these offices.

The following list of agencies that have operated or now exist in Texas has been compiled from Hill's Office of Indian Affairs..., Hill's Guide to Records in the National Archives Relating to American Indians , and others.


 * Brazos Agency
 * Comanche Agency
 * Red River Agency
 * Southern Pueblos, P.O. Box 1667, Albuqueque, NM 87103
 * Shawnee Agency
 * Texas Agency 1847-1859

Indian Tribes of Texas
Ethnologists have identified hundreds of groups of Texas "Indians," as the first European explorers to arrive called the peoples they found. Some of these were true tribes, accumulations of families or clans with social customs, traditions, and rules for order; these were occasionally quite large. At the opposite extreme, some were merely small family groups whose names or ethnic designations were taken for "tribal" names by the Spanish and French and in subsequent secondary literature. The extant names of Texas Indian groups present a dazzling array of variants, partly because the Spanish, French, and English heard the newly "discovered" peoples differently and recorded their names differently. Some names in the historical records are mistakes for groups that never existed.

Spanish period. The variety of the peoples and cultures whom Europeans first found in Texas and the different histories of each group make generalizations about Indians hazardous. Texas was not simply a Spanish-Indian or Anglo-Indian frontier, but rather a multisided frontier, a Spanish-Anglo-Comanche-Wichita-Apache-etc. frontier, where multiple groups acted for their own reasons. A few generalizations, however, apply to all Texas Indian groups. First, diseases introduced by the Europeans decimated them, especially after mission and military institutions brought people in contact so that they could be infected (see HEALTH AND MEDICINE). More broadly, anthropologist John C. Ewers has identified no fewer than thirty major epidemics-mainly of smallpox and cholera-between 1528 and 1890 that wiped out perhaps 95 percent of Texas Indians.

Family History Library

 * United States. Office of Indian Affairs. M540 Southern Superintendency 1832-1870. (22 films Family History Library  beginning 1st film 1602871.)

See Also:
Texas_History for a calendar of events

Texas_ Military for a list of forts

Web Sites
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/texas/index.htm

http://www.native-languages.org/texas.htm