(Written for Handbook of Texas, November 2020) In my most recent article, “The Karankawa-Spanish War from 1778 to 1789: Attempted Genocide and Karankawa Power,” I prominently feature two Karankawa individuals: Joseph María and Manuel Alegre. In the war, Joseph María fought against the Spaniards. Manuel Alegre, contrarily, aided the Spaniards.…

The editors at the Handbook of Texas kindly provided me the opportunity to revise their entry on "Karankawa Indians." While sharing all my edits is a bit cumbersome, the most significant change is visible in the final paragraph which refutes the Karankawas' extinction: Generally, Karankawas either incorporated themselves into the…

Southwestern Historical Quarterly has published my latest article on the Karankawa-Spanish War. The following is an abstract: This article is a narrative history of the little-known Karankawa-Spanish War. It has two primary purposes. The first is to uncover and name the actions attempted by the Spaniards against the Karankawas as genocidal…

In 1684, the famed explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle embarked from France to establish a military settlement on the lower reaches of the Mississippi River.[1] Roughly two hundred and eighty souls on four vessels accompanied La Salle—only a handful would survive the expedition. From a present-day perspective, the…

This article is a history of the historical works about the Karankawa Indians of the Texas Gulf Coast. Recently, the Karankawas' image in the historical record has improved greatly, but I argue there is still an immense amount of work to do. Scholars need to better integrate Karankawa historical actors…

There exists a multitude of eminent Karankawa men and women in history: Mateo, Jose Luis María, Manuel Alegre, Prudencia, Llano Grande, the daughter of Big Chief, to name a few. In past writings about these coastal Indians, authors often neglect to highlight these Natives. In an on-going effort to reorient…

In 1767, Fray Gaspar José de Solís toured the faltering missions of Texas. When he visited the mission of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, which the Spanish built to convert the Karankawa Indians to Christianity, he wrote a lengthy report on their cannibalism in his journal: “Dancing and leaping and with…

In 1719, off the coast of Galveston, the French Maréchal d’Estrées ran aground due to the negligence of her captain: Gervais de La Gaudelle. On deck, the sailors and the first mate milled around contemplating their hopeless situation. Gaudelle retreated to his cabin, locking himself away. A day passed, and…

(originally published on Karankawas.com June 25, 2017) When the 1526 Panfilo de Narváez expedition devolved into desperation in modern-day Florida, the conquistadors decided to build five make-shift rafts in an attempt to make their way to a possible source of salvation—Pánuco, Mexico. They believed Pánuco to only be a week…