Donald Willett - Galveston Chronicles: The Queen City of the Gulf

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2013 by Donald Willett

All rights reserved

Cover: All cover images courtesy of Special Collections, Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas. Top front: The Strand, 1894. Bottom front: Beach Umbrellas Under Murdochs Pier, Galveston, by Grace Spaulding John.

First published 2013

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.62584.640.2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Galveston chronicles : the Queen City of the Gulf / edited by Donald Willett.

pages cm. -- (American chronicles)

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-182-2 (pbk.)

1. Galveston (Tex.)--History. I. Willett, Donald.

F394.G2G174 2013

976.4139--dc23

2013029388

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

To Dr. Archie McDonald.

My friend and mentor who gently introduced me to the wonders of Texas history.

Contents

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the many people who helped me complete this book. I especially want to thank the many archivists who found the artwork for this undertaking. This includes John Anderson, preservation officer, Texas State Library and Archives Commission; Sarita B. Oertling, manager, Library Services, the Blocker History of Medicine Collections, Moody Medical Library at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas; and Andrea R. Jackson, head, Archives Research Center, Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library in Atlanta, Georgia. I also wish to thank the staff of the Rosenberg Library in Galveston, Texas. I especially want to thank Eleanor Barton, the head curator, and Travis Bible, the museum collection curator, at the Rosenberg Library Museum. Along with them, I also wish to thank Casey Green, the director of the Special Collections, and Carol Woods, the head archivist of the Galveston and Texas History Collection at this magnificent library. Special thanks go to the Kempner family of Galveston, especially former Galveston mayor Lyda Ann Thomas. She provided rare family pictures for use in this book. The Kempner Foundation generously provided funds to help defray the cost of publication. Without Joshua Anklams technical expertise, this book would still be on a yellow legal pad.

I also wish to thank my commissioning editor, Becky LeJeune; my project editor, Ryan Finn; and the staff of The History Press for bringing this project to fruition. Any errors contained in this book are the fault of its editor.

Chapter 1

Cannibals and Pirates

The First Inhabitants of Galveston

Donald Willett

The English settled Jamestown. The French settled Quebec. The Dutch settled New Amsterdam. And, the Spanish settled Mexico City. But who settled Galveston? Why cannibals and pirates, of course! Even though this sounds like a canned speech from a local island tour guide, there is more truth than fancy to this statement. The first known inhabitants of Galveston were the Karankawa Indians. Actually, that is not quite true. Karankawa is the collective name of five coastal Indian tribes who lived between Galveston and Matagorda Bays. Technically, the Cocos lived around Galveston Bay, but everyone (except anthropologists) calls the first residents of Galveston the Karankawa Indians.

The origins of the name Karankawa are somewhat obscure. All five tribes spoke the same language, Karankawa, but unfortunately, only about one hundred words exist to this day. Many early Texas chroniclers who wrote about the first Galvestonians believed that the word meant dog-lover or dog-raiser. Many of these writers also mentioned that the Karankawas domesticated a small shorthaired dog that didnt bark. Maybe these facts are interrelated.

Archaeologists have not been able to pinpoint the Karankawas origins. Some scholars believe that these people migrated from the Mississippi Valley and originally belonged to the Caddo Confederation. Other historians believe that these people arrived on the Texas coast via Central America and the Caribbean Islands and are an extension of the South American Carib culture.

Like the Galvestonians who followed, the Karankawas were a strange but interesting group of people. At first glance, their most striking characteristic was their height. They were huge, at least by fifteenth-century European standards. While the average European males stood about five foot, four inches tall, skeletal remains suggest that Karankawa males were at least six feet tall and that females stood over five feet, eight inches. The males were slender, well muscled and graceful; European descriptions of the Karankawa women suggested that they were not.

Both genders liked to decorate their bodies. They tattooed their faces and bodies with elaborate geometrical patterns and painted their torsos with black and ocher paints. They used these markings to signify marital status and tribal affiliation. Karankawa warriors also used these oils as a type of war paint. For most of the year, men wore little or no clothing, while women wore short skirts made of animal skins or Spanish moss. When the temperature dropped and a blue norther put a chill in the air, they wore animal skins and carried blankets over their shoulders. Apparently, Karankawa males were the fashion leaders in their tribe. They perforated their nipples and lower lips and wore cane ornaments in the piercings. Women did not decorate their bodies in this fashion.

The Karankawas evolved into a classic hunter-gatherer culture. They ate anything they could catch. Since they lived near the ocean, seafood dominated their diet. Like Galvestonians today, they feasted on oysters during the r months (September through April). They particularly liked the salty-sweet oysters that grew near sources of fresh water, like the Trinity River and Buffalo Bayou, both of which empty into Galveston Bay. To this day, middens of oyster shells dug up by the Karankawas litter the bay. They also liked to eat a large local clam whose flesh is tougher than shoe leather and whose shell is thick and impenetrable. To get around these natural defenses, the Karankawas tossed these bivalves on a fire, and within minutes, the shells opened and dinner was served!

The Karankawas caught and ate a lot of fish. They shot the fish with arrows and spears or constructed long reed traps and placed them during high tide at the mouths of shallow bayous and streams. When the tide crept out, the traps sometimes contained tasty delicacies like crabs, small fish and an occasional turtle. Maybe because seafood was so easy to catch, the Karankawas never invented the cast net, fishing pole or the hook.

They also dined on animals. These included deer, bear, snakes, other small mammals like rabbits and rodents and even buffalo. Since Galveston Bay lay on the southern boundary of the western Buffalo herd, occasionally stragglers from this herd roamed near the bay, and some of them fell prey to Karankawa hunting parties. They also liked to eat berries, nuts, seeds and plants. During the summer months, these Indians stayed on the island and gorged on dewberries that still grow in abundance. In late summer, these Galvestonians migrated to local cactus patches. They ate the nopales (green oval-shaped cactus leaves) and feasted on the brightly colored and delicately sweet fruits called tunas. In the late fall and early winter, they also harvested cattail roots. They split the tuber in half, scooped out the white fleshy strands and ground them into a meal. They used this flour to make a dough that they cooked into a type of Texas tortilla.