Carole Sikes Artist / Writer in Austin, Texas

WHAT DO YOU KNOW about Cynthia Ann Parker? PERHAPS you have heard her tale. She was abducted twice. First when nine years old, she was taken by a Comanche band that had raided her parents’ ranch near Ft. Parker and bludgeoned her father to death in 1836. Thirty-three years later, Texas Rangers rescued the blue eyed squaw and her infant daughter but it was actually a second abduction. She had completely assimilated into life in the tribe. Later a son named Quanah would become a chief but that is another story for later._______________________________ The U. S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Texas had attempted to establish reserves where Native Americans could live and farm protected from aggressive white men and Indian fighters but it was complicated. Hatred existed between the lawless white men believing they were entitled to raw land in the new territory and the bands of Comanche who refused life on a reservation preferring the wild open plains. Some of the other tribes were alig...

In my WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT Indians in Texas: I intended to say The Karankawa fishermen were reputed to be cannibalistic... Thanks to Eilene for catching it. My apology for this and once again for not being able to maintain the paragraphing in my orginally typed stories when I cut and paste them to this blog. If anyone more tech savvy than I can enlighten me, please do. Thanks Carole

I will attempt to use tribal names when possible. I ask for your understanding when space begs that I use the briefer reference of Indians rather than the more proper Native Americans. The western plains of Texas were rich hunting grounds for the Comanche, Apache and Kiowa tribal bands seeking the herds of bison. Hunting was fiercely competitive and ceremonial. The warrior chiefs wore their elaborate feathered head-dresses to hunt. Some chiefs had dozens of wives doing domestic work. Buffalo meat was hung, dried and soup was made. Butchering was done by women who also stretched hides on large frames to cover tepees and make blankets that were stacked for beds on which the men lounged and the children slept. The women in charge were distinguished by the clothing they wore. They often wore a blanket over their deerskin dresses and were adorned with handmade jewelry. Horses had been brought and left in the new world by the failed Spanish explorers looking for gold and the returni...

WHAT DO YOU KNOW about Castroville, Texas In 1844, a ship of mostly farmers landed on the Gulf Coast of Texas to travel overland, past San Antonio, upstream on the Medina River. Two deer, three bears and one alligator were killed before reaching Henri Castro’s land grant from the Republic of Texas. The 36 future Texas colonists from Alsace-Lorraine, a territory of France, were led by Captain John C. Hays and his Texas Rangers to what would become called “Little Alsace.”________ For the next five years the settlers endured Comanche raids, a drought, invasion of locusts and a Cholera epidemic.(*) The town was patterned after a European village. The very un-Texan houses were on small lots and narrow lanes, usually two stories tall, made of timber and rough cut stone that was plastered, with thatched roofs. Surrounding the houses were individual farming plots.________ The first church in Castroville and also the first in the county of Medina was St. Louis Catholic Church. Fin...

WHAT DO YOU KNOW about Spanish Texas? It is believed that the shoreline from Florida to Texas was first viewed by a Spaniard as early as 1519. Spanish explorers came long before the English settled the Atlantic Coast of North America______ Strong, proud Spain struggled to persuade its own citizens to colonize the vast and remote lands in North America, so in 1820, it opened up Texas to Anglo Americans. After Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821, sparsely populated Texas became part of the Mexican Nation. Both Mexicans and U. S. citizens, wanting inexpensive land to farm and ranch, flocked to Tejas. This accounts for the myriad of Spanish names for towns, counties, rivers and creeks, mountains and islands.______ Spaniards brought horses. Many became wild, multiplied and were acquired and tamed by Indians. Spanish laws had established land ownership, water rights, community property and inheritance by daughters and widows. Crops were brought and irrigation was implemented. Pre...

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WHAT DO YOU KNOW about the Alamo? Much has been written about the Alamo. The battle of the colonists and the revolutionaries in the Mexican state of Tejas against the Mexican General Santa Anna’s army is one of the great defeats that has been romanticized and made legendary. So what does one say that hasn’t already been said? Jason Stanford, along with two others, has written a book entitled Forget the Alamo, the rise and fall of the American myth. To hear what he had to say I viewed a webinar. He discussed some Alamo myths that we have come to celebrate and enjoy. Labeling the tale “a white supremacy myth,” he did conclude that one can still enjoy Christmas without believing in Santa Claus. Stanford is an educator. As best I could tell without reading his book, the intent or theme is to debunk the white heroes and save the brown children from being uncomfortable in Texas History classes. He cited three Alamo heroes, all tall, intelligent and instinctive warriors. Davy Crockett, an ...