Native American tribes in Texas

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Locations of American Indian tribes in Texas, ca. 1500 CE Map of Indians Texas 1500.png
Locations of American Indian tribes in Texas, ca. 1500 CE

Native American tribes in Texas are the Native American tribes who are currently based in Texas and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas who historically lived in Texas.

Contents

Many individual Native Americans, whose tribes are headquartered in other states, reside in Texas.

The state formed the Texas Commission for Indian Affairs in 1965 to oversee state-tribal relations; however, the commission was dissolved in 1989. [1]

Federally recognized tribes

Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas reservation Alabama Coushatta Tribe - panoramio.jpg
Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas reservation

Texas has three federally recognized tribes. They have met the seven criteria of an American Indian tribe:

  1. being an American Indian entity since at least 1900
  2. a predominant part of the group forms a distinct community and has done so throughout history into the present
  3. holding political influence over its members
  4. having governing documents including membership criteria
  5. members having ancestral descent from historic American Indian tribes
  6. not being members of other existing federally recognized tribes
  7. not being previously terminated by the U.S. Congress. [2]

The three federally recognized tribes in Texas are:

American Indian reservations

These are three Indian Reservations in Texas:

Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Cultural Center in El Paso, Texas Tigua Cultural Center 2.jpg
Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Cultural Center in El Paso, Texas

State-recognized tribes

Texas has "no legal mechanism to recognize tribes," as journalists Graham Lee Brewer and Tristan Ahtone wrote. [4] State-recognized tribes do not have the government-to-government relationship with the United States federal government that federally recognized tribes do. Texas has no state-recognized tribes. [5]

Texas Senate Bill 274 to formally recognize the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, introduced in January 2021, died in committee. [6]

Historical tribes of Texas

These are some of the tribes that have existed in what is now Texas. Many were forcibly removed to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, in the 19th century, and few to New Mexico. Others no longer exist as tribes but may have living descendants.

Flag of the Comanche Nation Flag of the Comanche Nation.svg
Flag of the Comanche Nation
Flag of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes Bandera Wichita.PNG
Flag of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes
  • Kichai, formerly north, now Oklahoma [38]
  • Taovaya, formerly north in the 19th century, now Oklahoma [39]
  • Tawakoni, formerly north and east in the 19th century, now Oklahoma [40]
  • Waco, formerly north, now Oklahoma [41]

Unrecognized organizations

More than 30 organizations claim to represent historic tribes within Texas; however, these groups are unrecognized, meaning they do not meet the minimum criteria of federally recognized tribes [3] and are not state-recognized tribes. [42] Some of these cultural heritage groups form 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

See also

Related Research Articles

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Lipan Apache are a band of Apache, a Southern Athabaskan Indigenous people, who have lived in the Southwest and Southern Plains for centuries. At the time of European and African contact, they lived in New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and northern Mexico. Historically, they were the easternmost band of Apache. Early adopters of horse culture and peyotism, the Lipan Apache hunted bison and farmed.

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The Wichita people, or Kitikiti'sh, are a confederation of Southern Plains Native American tribes. Historically they spoke the Wichita language and Kichai language, both Caddoan languages. They are indigenous to Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atakapa</span> Former Native American tribe from Gulf of Mexico

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The Tonkawa are a Native American tribe indigenous to present-day Oklahoma. Their Tonkawa language, now extinct, is a linguistic isolate.

State-recognized tribes in the United States are organizations that identify as Native American tribes or heritage groups that do not meet the criteria for federally recognized Indian tribes but have been recognized by a process established under assorted state government laws for varying purposes or by governor's executive orders. State recognition does not dictate whether or not they are recognized as Native American tribes by continually existing tribal nations.

The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians during the 19th-century. Conflict between the Plains Indians and the Spanish began before other European and Anglo-American settlers were encouraged—first by Spain and then by the newly Independent Mexican government—to colonize Texas in order to provide a protective-settlement buffer in Texas between the Plains Indians and the rest of Mexico. As a consequence, conflict between Anglo-American settlers and Plains Indians occurred during the Texas colonial period as part of Mexico. The conflicts continued after Texas secured its independence from Mexico in 1836 and did not end until 30 years after Texas became a state of the United States, when in 1875 the last free band of Plains Indians, the Comanches led by Quahadi warrior Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma.

The Fort Sill Apache Tribe is the federally recognized Native American tribe of Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache in Oklahoma.

Teyas were a Native American people living near what is now Lubbock, Texas, who first made contact with Europeans was the 1541 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado Expedition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deadose</span> Historic Native American tribe of eastern Texas

The Deadose were a Native American tribe in present-day Texas closely associated with the Jumano, Yojuane, Bidai and other groups living in the Rancheria Grande of the Brazos River in eastern Texas in the early 18th century.

Jumanos were a tribe or several tribes, who inhabited a large area of western Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, especially near the Junta de los Rios region with its large settled Indigenous population. They lived in the Big Bend area in the mountain and basin region. Spanish explorers first recorded encounters with the Jumano in 1581. Later expeditions noted them in a broad area of the Southwest and the Southern Plains.

The Mayeye were a Tonkawa language–speaking Native American people, who once lived in southeastern Texas. Coastal Mayeyes likely were absorbed into Karankawa communities. Inland Mayeyes likely joined larger Tonkawa communities.

The Battle of the Two Villages was a Spanish attack on Taovaya villages in Texas and Oklahoma by a Spanish army in 1759. The Spanish were defeated by the Taovaya and other Wichita tribes with assistance from the Comanche.

Apachería was the term used to designate the region inhabited by the Apache people. The earliest written records have it as a region extending from north of the Arkansas River into what are now the northern states of Mexico and from Central Texas through New Mexico to Central Arizona.

The Comecrudo people were an Indigenous people of Mexico, who lived in the northern state of Tamaulipas. They were a Coahuiltecan people.

References

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  2. Newland, Bryan (30 April 2022). "Federal Tribal Recognition". Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs. US Department of the Interior. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
  3. 1 2 Bureau of Indian Affairs, Interior (30 April 2022). "Indian Entities Recognized by and Eligible To Receive Services From the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs". Federal Register. 86 FR 7554: 7554–58.
  4. Brewer, Graham Lee; Ahtone, Tristan (27 October 2021). "In Texas, a group claiming to be Cherokee faces questions about authenticity". NBC News. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
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