A FRAMEWORK FOR THE EXPLORATION OF

TEXAS NATIVE AMERICAN PAST

I  -  THE LAND

Figure 1 - A Texas field of Bluebonnets in bloom - The Prairies

            1          GEOGRAPHY:

        Texas is a large territory, nearly 800 miles across. Nevertheless, its geography is not difficult to understand.   It is generally a gentle upward slope radiating from the Gulf of Mexico, forming the quadrant of a circle.  The Gulf curves from the Rio Grande in the south, the border with Mexico, to the Sabine River, the border with Louisiana.  The eastern and northern demarcations diffuse into the complex of rivers that shape the large lower Mississippi River basin. The slope rises gently to the northwest and west to about 3,500 feet above mean sea level, until it becomes part of the high plains that edge the Rocky Mountains outside of Texas, with one exception.  The Guadalupe and Davis Mountains complex divide the basins of the Pecos River and the Rio Grande.  A part of the Rocky Mountain chain, the end of the Guadalupe Mountains in the westernmost section, rises to more than 8,700 feet above mean sea level in Texas.

Figure 2 - The Guadalupe Mountains, the Rockies in Texas

         The gentle rising slope is only interrupted half way by a major fault line called the Balcones Escarpment.  This creates a step that separates the high plains from the central plains in the northern part of the state.  It also creates the area known as the Hill Country in the south where the edge of the step has been heavily eroded by rivers and wind, creating the illusion of hills.

2.        CLIMATE:

           The Texas climate is the result of its regular geography, dominated by the clash between two forces:  The heat and humidity originating in the Gulf of Mexico, with its extreme occasional hurricanes, and the dry northern cold winds that sweep from the plains.  The coastline is hot, humid and rainy, with mild winters. Further west and north, the climate becomes dryer.  The clash generates rain in the central areas, which become rivers that flow into the gulf. These create radiating river basins that interrupt the shoreline with estuaries, lagoons and bays. As the land rises to the west it becomes arid, eventually becoming part of the Chihuahua desert in the south and the high plains in the north. The west is hot and dry in the summer, and cold and windy in winter. The northern regions are part of “tornado alley” and they have experienced prolonged droughts, such as the one that led to the “dust bowl” of the 1930’s.

Figure 3- The Texas Regions - Habitats

             3.        HABITATS OR LIFE ZONES

Geography and climate have created at least five distinct major habitats. The “Coastal Plain” (1) is a semi-tropical shoreline, interrupted by significant rivers, lagoons, estuaries, marshes and bays. About 100 miles wide, it is drier in the south and very wet in the northeast. Clumps of hardwood trees dot the landscape until they become the “big thicket” to the northeast. As it gets closer to the Mississippi basin, the vegetation is dominated by tall pines.  This becomes the “Pineywoods” (2) of east Texas.  As the slope rises behind these riparian plains, the central plains gradually become the pan-handle high plains or “Prairies” (3), not noticeably distinct, except for the increasing dryness and the decreasing size and density of trees, or the heavy erosion of the “hills”. In the south, along the “Lower Rio Grande” (4) basin, the fertile “valley” gradually becomes a semi-arid plain, dense with nopales, mesquites and chaparral.  The upper Rio Grande basin, past its Pecos River tributary, becomes the Big Bend Country, or the Trans-Pecos, that we will call the desert “Mountains and Basins” (5).

Recognizing the marginal zones between these five regions may generate other names and further subdivisions.

Figure 4 - A field of nopales in south Texas, a basic staple for the people of the desert

Key words: Texas 4th-7th grade Social Studies, Native American tribes, habitat and lifezones, cultural adaptation, Anazasi, Ancestral Pueblo, Rio Grande cultures, New Mexico and Colorado tribes, Paleo-Indians, Archaic and Classic Indians of the Southwest, Geography of the Rio Grande, Mesa Verde, Chaco, Taos, Acoma, Indian ruins, archaeological artifacts, teacher resources, Fund for Teachers, Texas.