Karankawa (Amerind tribe)

The Karankawa (also Karankawan, Clamcoëhs, and called in their language Auia) are a group of Native American peoples, today extinct as a tribal group, who play a pivotal part in early Texas history.

Concentrated in southern Texas along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, they consist of several independent seasonal nomadic groups who share the same language and much of the same culture.

The tribe includes the groups called the Cujanes, Cocos, Guapites (Coapites), and Copanes.

Some of the village names survived to modern day and are the Ebahamo, Emet, Kouyam, Meracouman, Quara, Quinet, and the Toyal villages.

From the onset of European colonization, the Karankawa are invaded and attacked by the Spanish, French, and English empires.

Once attacked by the Spanish, who ambush Karankawa men, women, and children following the establishment of Presidio La Bahía in 1722, the Karankawa view Spanish colonial settlement with hostility.

By 1825, Stephen Austin commissiona a captain to lead volunteers to expel the Karankawa from the Austin land grant.

In subsequent years, the Karankawa are repeatedly attacked by Texan colonists, who drive them out of their homeland.

By the 1840s, the Karankawa, exiled, split into two groups, one of which settles on Padre Island while the other flee into the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

In 1858, Juan Nepomuceno Cortina leads a group of Texan colonists against the Karankawa's last refuge and kills the remaining members of the tribe.

By 1891, the Karankawa, as an organized tribe, are believed to be extinct.

Historical research of the Karankawa is hindered because the documents concerning them were overwhelmingly written by open enemies of the tribe.

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