On Juneteenth

by Annette Gordon-Reed

Although the Comanches and Apaches dominated my earliest imagination of Indian life in Texas history, the reality is that people lived in the area long before either of the two groups arrived. During the Ice Age, Native peoples came to a region in the Panhandle of Texas to quarry Alibates flint, a type of stone used to make tools and arrowheads. Because of its significance, the site was the first in Texas to be designated a national monument, now only one of three in the state. Later, permanent villages were formed in the area. Farther south in what is now Texas, there is also evidence of other early settlements. Indigenous people were all over the area. Later peoples included the Caddos, a farming group who lived in the pine forests of East Texas and called their confederacy Te-Haas, rendered Tejas by the Spanish, which was the Caddo word for “the friends.” That is thought to be the origin of the word “Texas.”