From: Cannibal Coast by Ed Kilman, © 1959, The Naylor Company
Introduction p. vii:
The book documents the savage and sometimes cannibalistic
Karankawa Indians of the Texas Coast
and the impact Christian civilization had on their primitive way of life. “All the early explorers and colonizers of
coastal Texas ran afoul of the
giant, cannibal, amphibian Karankawa Indians.”
“They were the first Indians of that region known to have had contact
with civilized man – before De Soto
and Coronado. They were the first in the Southwest
mentioned by name in written history – in Cabeza de Vaca’s report of the ill-fated Narvaez
expedition of 1528. They enslaved Cabeza and his comrades on Galveston
Island”. Perhaps their cannibalistic practices were
primarily a fear tactic to try to keep others from settling in the area. Perhaps it was more than that.
On p. 210-211:
“Over on Trinity Bay,
north of Galveston, the Karankawas were still alive and kicking. Here on the northeastern outskirts of Austin’s
colony, settlement was sparse, but the Indians made the most of what they had
to work with. In the unschooled writing
of the backwoodsman, R.H. Hunter of Cedar Bayou tells of a Karankawa horror
that occurred near his home in the early 1820’s.”
“Hunter, a bold young colonist, was to fight with
distinction in the Texas
revolution against Mexico
in (1835 to) 1836. He kept a journal of
his adventures in a clothbound ledger.
In the early pages of that old book, scrawled in his handwriting with
poor spelling and grammar, is a graphic report of the affair.”
“From Hunter’s home, the fires of a hostile Karankawa camp
on Little Cedar Bayou could be seen at night.
These savages, he said, were troublesome to the whites. The Indians learned to fool the palefaces
with white flags. One day when two
families of settlers came up the bay in two small boats form Galveston,
the Kronks lured them ashore at little Cedar Bayou by planting a white flag on
the beach. The Kronks ambushed them and
killed three white men, two women, and four or five children.” In Hunters
words: “One man got away by jumping out into the bay, swimming and wading 4 or
5 miles across to the point, & came to Pa’s.”
“Pa & a man named Fowler got in their boats &
collected some 10 or 15 men, & went down to Little Cedar Bayou that night,
& found the Indians cooking the people’s hands & feet & eating
& dancing. The whites lay close in
the grass by them till daylight & fired into them, & killed 15 or 20 of
them, & the balance left. They never
bothered us any more. Where we lived we
could see the Indians fires over on the beach at little Cedar bayou.”
And down on the Brazos, a short day’s
ride above its mouth, the settlers of the Fort
Bend region were having their
troubles with these savages. A.J. Sowell
tells of a Karankawa raid on the settlement, in which they killed several
persons and carried off a little girl.
“After proceeding some distance they camped, killed the
child, and proceeded to eat her, first splitting the body, then quartering it,
and placing parts on sharp stick and cooking them”.
On p. 265-266:
“A.B. Gyle of Trespalacios
heard the story from an old settler who had known the Kronks as a little girl,
and retold it in 1882:” Note: The girl
may be Dr. Hunter’s daughter, Amanda Hunter, or one of her sisters, Martha or
Messina.
“The Karankaws encamped on lower
Caney Creek (just south of Ft. Bend
County), near her home, were
hostile. During an extremely hard
winter, her father, Mr. Hunter, knew the Indians would be suffering for lack of
food and figured this would be an opportune time to seek a peace treaty with
them. So, he loaded his wagon with corn,
potatoes, pumpkins, and two or three deer killed for the occasion, and drove to
the camp with his daughter.”
“The Indians, seeing them coming ‘mustered to arms,’
thinking the whites were going to attack them. But Hunter waved a white
handkerchief and cried, ‘Amigos! Amigos!
Muchos amigos!’ “
“Then Hozzie Marear
(José Maria), the chief, laid down his bow and arrows and came to him, and Mr.
Hunter told him what he wanted. The
treaty was made and never broken by them”
“Years later, Chief José Maria and several braves called at
the Hunter home and were greeted by the daughter. Told that Hunter had been dead for several
years, the chief sighed and said, ‘The best friend to poor Indian is
gone’. The Kronks returned to their
canoes and paddled down the river. ‘And
that’, says the relater, ‘was the last she saw of old Hozzie
Marear.’ “