| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
( Texas) | |
| Languages | |
| Tonkawa language or Jumano language | |
| Religion | |
| traditional tribal religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Jumano Indians |
The Yojuane were a people who lived in Texas in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. They were closely associated with the Jumano and may have also been related to the Tonkawa. They have no connection to the Yowani in Texas, a Choctaw band.
It has been proposed on little evidence that the tribe got its name because one of its members when asked who they were replied "yo Juan". [1]
Many scholars starting with Herbert E. Bolton have held the view that the Yojuane spoke the Tonkawa language or a language related to it. However Gary Anderson argues that the Yojuane spoke the same language or a related language to the Jumano Indians and that this was a Uto-Aztecan language, largely based on the ability of Nahuatl speakers to converse with the Jumano and Yojuane when they first met as part of the Spanish expeditions. [2]
The Yojuane were first mentioned by Spanish chroniclers about 1690. At this time they were led by a man named Cantana who had been on occasion to Nueva Vizcaya, New Spain, essentially modern Chihuahua. Cantana was closely connected with the Jumano of La Junta de los Rios although it is less clear where his people lived at the time. According to Gary Anderson the Yojuane numbered about 1000 at this time. However these included the Cholemes and Cabezas, peoples who seemed to be distinct. [3] Also associated with the Yojuane were the Simonos and Tusonibis or Tosonibis who had recently fled from Nuevo Leon to join the Yojuane due to the Spanish incursion into that area. [4] In 1709 when Isidro de Espinosa met a hunting party of Yojuane the Simonos and Tusonibis were still distinct groups but also hunting with the part. [5]
In the 1740s the Yojuane along with their allies the Deadoses, Mayeyes and Ervipiames asked for Franciscan missions to be established for them. They later moved into missions along the San Gabriel River, moving south and west of the Rancheria Grande. [6]
In March 1749 there were only 74 Yojuane people counted at the Mission San Francisco Xavier along the San Gabriel River, but there may have been others who were not in the mission. [7]
In 1759 a Yojuane camp was attacked by an expedition of Spaniards and Apaches, with by some accounts a third of the population killed, another third escaping and a third taken as captives. [8] Other sources suggest that 55 Yojuanes were killed and 149, all women and children, were taken captive. Many of the captives died of small pox while those who survived were made into slaves. [9] (See Battle of the Twin Villages)
Among these was a boy who was sold to a Spanish soldier who gave the child the name Miguel Perez. Perez became a Hispanicized Indian of San Antonio but he continued to maintain contact with the Yojuanes. In 1786 Perez was recruited to convince the Yojuanes and their Tonkawa allies to go to war with the Lipan Apache. Perez was able to convince the Yojuane such a war was advisable, and they joined with the Tawakonis, Iscanis, and Flechazos in attacking the Apaches. [10]
Lipan Apache are Southern Athabaskan (Apachean) Native Americans whose traditional territory includes present-day US states of Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, and the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, prior to the 17th century.
The Hasinai Confederacy was a large confederation of Caddo-speaking Native Americans who occupied territory between the Sabine and Trinity rivers in eastern Texas. Today, their descendants are enrolled in the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and the Natchitoches Tribe of Louisiana.
The Tonkawa are a Native American tribe indigenous to present-day Oklahoma. Their Tonkawa language, now extinct, is a linguistic isolate.
Spanish Texas was one of the interior provinces of the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain from 1690 until 1821. The term "interior provinces" first appeared in 1712, as an expression meaning "far away" provinces. It was only in 1776 that a legal jurisdiction called "Interior Provinces" was created.
Comanche history is the story of the Native American (Indian) tribe which lived on the Great Plains of the present-day United States. In the 17th century the Eastern Shoshone people who became known as the Comanche migrated southward from Wyoming. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Comanche became the dominant tribe on the southern Great Plains. The Comanche are often characterized as "Lords of the Plains." They presided over a large area called Comancheria which they shared with allied tribes, the Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Wichita, and after 1840 the southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. Comanche power and their substantial wealth depended on horses, trading, and raiding. Adroit diplomacy was also a factor in maintaining their dominance and fending off enemies for more than a century. They subsisted on the bison herds of the Plains which they hunted for food and skins.
The Suma were an indigenous people who lived in northern part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua and western part of the U.S. state of Texas. They were nomadic hunter gatherers who practiced little or no agriculture. The Suma merged with Apache groups and the Mestizo population of northern Mexico, and are extinct as a distinct people.
Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá was one of the Spanish missions in Texas. It was established in April 1757, along with the Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas, later renamed Presidio of San Sabá, in what is now Menard County. Located along the San Saba River, the mission was intended to convert members of the Lipan Apache tribe. Although no Apache ever resided at the mission, its existence convinced the Comanche that the Spanish had allied with the Comanche's mortal enemy. In 1758 the mission was destroyed by 2,000 warriors from the Comanche, Tonkawa, Yojuane, Bidai and Hasinai tribes. It was the only mission in Texas to be completely destroyed by Native Americans. The Indians did not attack the nearby presidio.
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.
The Escanjaques were an American Indian tribe who lived in the Southern Plains.
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.
Juan Sabeata was a Jumano Indian leader in present day Texas who tried to forge an alliance with the Spanish or French to help his people fend off the encroachments of the Apaches on their territory.
The Taovaya tribe of the Wichita people were Native Americans originally from Kansas, who moved south into Oklahoma and Texas in the 18th century. They spoke the Taovaya dialect of the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. Taovaya people today are enrolled in the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Anadarko, Oklahoma.
The Simono were an indigenous people who lived in what is now part of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon and the U.S. state of Texas from at least the 16th century in the 18th century.
The Toboso people were an indigenous group of what is today northern Mexico, living in the modern states of Chihuahua and Coahuila and along the middle reaches of the Conchos River as well as in the Bolsón de Mapimí region. They were associated with the Jumano and are sometimes identified as having been part of the Jumano people.
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 Ervipiame or Hierbipiame were a Native people of modern Coahuila and Texas.
The Coahuiltecan were various small, autonomous bands of Native Americans who inhabited the Rio Grande valley in what is now southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. The various Coahuiltecan groups were hunter-gatherers. First encountered by Europeans in the sixteenth century, their population declined due to imported European diseases, slavery, and numerous small-scale wars fought against the Spanish, criollo, Apache, and other Coahuiltecan groups. After the Texas secession from Mexico, the Coahuiltecan culture was largely forced into harsh living conditions. It is because of these harsh influences that most people in the United States and Texas are not familiar with Coahuiltecan or Tejano culture outside of the main population groups mostly located in South Texas, West Texas, and San Antonio.
Juan Domínguez de Mendoza was a Spanish soldier who played an important role in suppressing the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and who made two major expeditions from New Mexico into Texas.
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.
Pedro de Aguirre was a Basque Spanish military man and explorer. He led the Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition in Texas.