Dressing Point massacre
Coordinates: 28°41′28″N 95°58′05″W / 28.691°N 95.968°W
The Dressing Point massacre refers to the murder of 40-50 Karankawa people in Mexican Texas near present-day Matagorda by a party of White colonists in 1826.
History
Background
Due to the formation of the First Mexican Republic in 1823 and the opening of Mexican Texas to colonists from the United States, the White population of Texas increased rapidly. The subsequent pushing of Native Americans off of their land, combined with Native American raids on the new settlers' cattle, led to deep hostility and conflict between the two groups.
In the Galveston Bay region populated by the Karankawa Indians, the Native American population in the 1820s still outnumbered White colonists, and the newest settlers came from well-settled regions of the Southern United States and were not accustomed to living among large Indian populations in a non-dominant relationship.[1][2] The Americanos took new settlements without offering gifts, sharing the land, or allowing the depredation of their livestock in the manner of the longer-settled Tejanos. In 1823 Stephen F. Austin began to claim rich tracts of land near bays and river mouths populated by the Coco and the Carancaguases, subgroups of the Karankawa. The Karankawa relied on these bays for the fish and shellfish that provided their winter protein sources and thus were fiercely protective of that land.[3]
Austin wrote upon scouting the land that extermination of the Karankawa would be necessary,[4] despite the fact that his first encounter with the tribe was friendly.[5] He spread rumors among the settlers of cannibalism and extreme violence of the Karankawa, sometimes more specifically the Carancaguases. Research has suggested that these accusations of cannibalism were false, possibly caused by confusion with another tribe, and that the Karankawa were horrified by cannibalism when they saw it practiced by shipwrecked Spaniards.[6] Austin's stories primed the colonists to believe that the Karankawa would be impossible to live among. When the Karankawa began to poach the livestock that were being ranched on the land that had been taken from their territory, conflict erupted between the groups, to the point of several massacres against the natives including the Skull Creek Massacre. Neighboring Indian tribes were also encouraged to kill the Karankawa, being rewarded by Austin with bounties of lead and gunpowder if they did so.[7] By 1824 the Karankawa were under enough stress that a local Carancaguase chief, Antonio, signed a treaty abandoning their homelands east of the Guadalupe River.
The displaced Karankawa ran into difficulties west of the Guadalupe, as Comanches, Lipan, and fellow groups of Karankawa already used the available land. Chief Antonio’s treaty was violated by Karankawa tribesmen who continued to access the bay for fishing as well as poach cattle from the settlers east of the Guadalupe. At this point Austin ordered his men to "Pursue and kill all those Indians wherever they are found."[8][9]
Incident
After an Indian attack against the Cavanaugh and Flowers’ families,[10] Aylett C. Buckner led a party of colonists against the Karankawa. Finding a band of Coco Indians trapped near the Colorado River about three miles north of the present-day town of Matagorda, the colonists began to slaughter the Coco men, women, and children with rifle shots as they swam through the water and climbed the opposite bank in a desperate attempt to flee.[11][12]
Consequences
The location of the massacre became known as "Dressing Point" by the colonists because it was there that the Indians had received the "dressing they deserved".[13] After the massacre, the Coco Indians abandoned the region and settled west of the Guadalupe with the other tribes. Other smaller groups remained, but were continually harassed by the settlers, who took on "Indian hunting" as a sport and regularly raped Indian women.[14] On May 13, 1827, Chief Antonio signed a second peace treaty permanently giving up the land to the colonists.[15] That year Austin founded the town of Matagorda, three miles from Dressing Point, in order to “protect” settlers from the Indians. Having difficulty in finding uninhabited regions in which a living could be had, the remaining bands of Karankawa scattered out, became day laborers in cities and on plantations, were taken as slaves by Austin's settlers, or were killed in later conflicts.[16] By 1860, free Karankawa had been eliminated.
See also
Notes
- ↑ Smith 2006, p. 125-6
- ↑ Himmel 1999, p. 47
- ↑ Smith 2006, p. 127
- ↑ Smith 2006, p. 127
- ↑ Himmel 1999, p. 46
- ↑ Newcomb 1961, p. 77-78, 327
- ↑ Smith 2006, p. 130
- ↑ Himmel 1999, p. 50
- ↑ Smith 2006, p. 131
- ↑ Himmel 1999, p. 50
- ↑ Smith 2006, p. 131
- ↑ Himmel 1999, p. 50
- ↑ Himmel 1999, p. 51
- ↑ Himmel 1999, p. 51
- ↑ Smith 2006, p. 132
- ↑ Himmel 1999, p. 54
References
- Smith, F. Todd (2006). From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.
- Himmel, Kelly F. (1999). The conquest of the Karankawas and the Tonkawas, 1821-1859. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-0-89096-867-3.
- Newcomb, William Wilmon (1961). The Indians of Texas, from prehistoric to modern times. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-78425-2.