Texas in Credo: Native Americans

The original inhabitants of the American continent, who arrived during the last glacial period (according to some estimates, 14–40 000 years ago). Collectively, these original peoples have been called Native Americans, American Indians, or Amerindians. These terms are European American inventions that obscure the diversity of peoples indigenous to the Americas.

In Atlas of Indian Nations
The Native nations of the Southwest have long achieved amazing, seemingly impossible, accomplishments. The Anasazi, predecessors to the Hopi and Pueblo, built an astounding nine-mile-long city at Chaco Canyon, with more than 70 satellite communities and a central building constructed with more than 50 million sandstone blocks and 5,000 trees. All the major structures at Chaco align perfectly at the summer solstice. And the Anasazi did it without human slaves, beasts of burden, compasses, transits, or wheels. The climate in the Southwest is harsh, and the people could be just as tough as the weather. No matter how hot and dry the deserts, no matter how cold the highest peaks, the peoples of the Southwest found a way not just to survive but to thrive.

In Handy Answer: Native American Almanac: More Than 50,000 Years of the Cultures and Histories of Indigenous Peoples
At one time, Texas was home to several hundred groups of American Indians, but most were killed or removed before Texas became a state in 1845. Today, only three reservations exist in an area that historically was home to thousands, if not millions, of various peoples: the Alabama–Coushatta Indian Reservation (just east of Houston), Ysleta del Sur Pueblo (El Paso), and the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas (near Eagle Pass). Because of relocation policies, Texas cities have Native residents as far away as Montana and South Dakota.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Indigenous people of North America whose language belongs to the Muskogean branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock. They lived in S Alabama in the early 18th cent. and were members of the Creek confederacy. During the 19th cent. they moved to W Louisiana and E Texas. The state of Alabama takes its name from them. In Texas the Alabama share a reservation with the Coushatta, who also speak a Muskogean language. In 1990, there were over 1,000 Alabama and Coushatta in the United States.

Member of an American Indian people who migrated from Canada to Arizona, and parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and north Mexico, between AD 850 and 1400.

Member of a nomadic American Indian people who roamed parts of Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Mexico from the 1700s.

Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages) and who in the late 17th cent. occupied SW Wisconsin.

A member of a Native American people formerly inhabiting the southern Great Plains, with a present-day population in southwest Oklahoma. Historically a nomadic people of the Plains area, had several distinctive traits, including a pictographic calendar and the worship of a stone image, the taimay.

In Cassell's Peoples, Nations and Cultures
A Native North American nation of eastern Texas, whose name might mean ‘people of the wolf. They call themselves Titskan-watich, meaning ‘most human of people’.

In Atlas of Indian Nations
After the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, Antonio de Otermín, the former governor of Santa Fe, was much chagrined at his defeat. He tried to recolonize the pueblos in 1681, first approaching Isleta, which offered little resistance. Otermín attacked, killing many and capturing more. Fearing retribution from other pueblos, he rounded up captives and departed for El Paso.

In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Comanche leader. In 1867 was made war chief of the Comanche, and for the next eight years he led an alliance of various tribes in raids against frontier settlements in Texas. After finally surrendering in 1875 he quickly accommodated himself to the white culture. In 1886 he became a judge of the Court of Indian Affairs; by 1890 he was principal chief of all Comanche bands, and was also a major figure in the peyote religion.