"Really old Indians" Topic

How much different would southwestern American Indians look from say 1700 to 1875. Other than picking up a few frcok coats and kepi hats on raids would it be pretty much the same. And I would guess the blunt force weapons and bows would be about the same too. Is there a resource on this?
sky

By southwestern American Indians, do you mean Apache, Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, & the various Pueblos?

That's a pretty big stretch of history from a time when some things were changing (industrial revolution). When playing with toy soldiers, a basket is a basket; but you are also going to have a lack of metal, horses are going to be almost unheard of, firearms are not going to be in Indian hands in any appreciable numbers. What are you trying to do?

An interesting book to read is "The Pueblo Revolt of 1680: Conquest and Resistance in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico" by Andrew Knaut.

Photos of Geronimo's band reveal lots of Amerindian adaptations of white civilian clothing- hats, calico shirts, vests. Most also seem to be wearing a white cotton type of pants. My unedcuated guess is that in 1700, none of this was standard Apache dress. 79th is right, there are numerous Spanish accounts of the SW indians when they first encountered them.

Yes ElaineP those are the ones. What I want to do is to do pirate raids along the gulf coast (Texas and such) where pirates might meet native pre-americans, so to speak. I would like to use some of my old west figures but I am doing my pirates between 1650 and 1700 or as I always call it the pre-Disney era!
sky

Ok, there were no southwestern Indians on the gulf coast. The bands along the Gulf Coast of Texas were members of two sub-groups, the Coahuiltecans & Karankawans. They did not adopt the horse & only the Coahuiltecans adopted some of the Spanish clothing, but mostly wore only breechcloths. For the most part, Karnakawan men were naked & women wore skirts made of moss or deerskin. These would have been the tribes encountered between 1650 & 1700. They were pretty much exterminated by 1800.

ElainP,
that is very useful. Then they were sort of a pre-sursor to the plains indians nust horse less and therefore non-nomadic? If so where they tepee dwellers?

Or if you do not want to answer more questions is there a website or these people?

thanks

sky

They were nomadic and traveled by canoe. They lived in what is commonly called a wigwam. They were not precursors of Plains Indians.

Just do a Google search and you will find a lot of information, although there is still a lot that is not known.

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Estebanico the Moor and their companions travelled along the Texas Gulf coast in the mid-1500s. There's an inexpensive Penguin edition of his Chronicles of the Narvaez Expedition, and his observations are often cited by modern historians.

No, they were not part of the plains Indian culture. It was probably the movement of the Comanche & other tribes onto the southern plains that drove other tribes such as the Lipan, Kickapoo, Caddo further South & East & these tribes annihilated the coastal bands. As a result of the resettlement of the "civilized" tribes into Oklahoma, even more tribes were forced into East Texas & South Texas. A lot of intertribal warfare occurred and a lot of tribes became more or less extinct.

Great info! Thanks!
sky

skyking20, by your time frame, there was much change going on in that region courtesy of the Spanish influence – and as Elaine P points out, the locals were extinct and most likely replaced by Comanches. For your purposes, I think you can use Comanches as the primary locals for the pirates to encounter. You are after a game here more than you are actual history. Or so I hope. History is our back drop but the game is the thing.