Hi, my name is bill mercer, and i am the associate director of Curatorial Affairs at the panhandle Plains Historical museum. I would like to share about the history of native americans and the culture of native americans in texas. Its very appropriate to begin with the contemporary. Im standing here next to a beautiful piece of sculpture by the noted artist alan houser, who was apache. He was born in oklahoma. He was a descendent of a band removed to oklahoma after his band was captured and later became a terrific artist. As you can see, one of the main foci of this particular piece is a native american on horseback and thats truly the story. Thats the story of native americans in the Southern Plains region and the panhandle especially. What once horses became available to them in the 1600s, particularly the comanches their people, they were able to obtain horses from the traders in santa fe. They were able to utilize the environment much more. I could cover much longer distances. The bison hunting culture really became the strong suit, the highlight of the area, and it became a culture of building. What i want to share with you today are some of the objects associated with that mobility. Objects such as clothing, beaded with glass beads that came through trade. I would like to start out by looking at moccasins. Because moccasins are really a diagnostic feature of plains indian people and everyone understands, youve got to wear something on your feet. Each tribe throughout the planes in the historic period, and by that i mean the 1800s into the early 1900s, every tribal group had its own distinctive style of moccasins. Be it the way they were cut or shaped or decorated. Some folks would bead them completely on the top. Others would incorporate porcupine quill work. On the Southern Plains, quite frequently you can see on this particular pair, which is either comanche or kiowa, they were partially beaded, but also decorated with green paint and then the wonderful tin cones that would make a pleasant sound as you were walking. On the heel there was sometimes a Little Leather fringe. People would say, oh, this is to obscure the tracks as they are walking but that is not necessarily the case. These people did not spend much time walking. They were on horseback. That fringe was decorative to hang up the back of the moccasin while the person was on horseback or to flitter off as they were galloping on horseback. It was early aesthetic kind of thing. What i would like to do is move on and show you specific kinds of things that were common to Southern Plains folks like the kiowa, like the comanche. The moccasins we were looking at a moment ago were made for men. For women it was generally boots. You had the moccasins with leggings on them. Sometimes they were all made up one piece. In this particular instance, it is two pieces. You see the wonderful geometric designs to the beadwork and the purple, maroon color things, those were used for decorative purposes as well. The glass beads on the Southern Plains for the comanche and the kiowa, they took beadwork to an enormously fine art and often times it showed up in the objects that were associated with the native american church. And here are some of these kinds of things. The little pouch there with the figure in the center of its, very tiny beads. The fans that people carried into the teepees during the ceremonies. Each one of those handles is wonderfully beaded. Although in some, as we see there, it was just wrapped with thread instead of beadwork. It was adapting all of the different materials they had with them. On the plains, in this area of the plains, what we have is a great deal of veneration for children. Not only do we see these toys, the small cradles there, but instructional toys. They were teaching young girls how to care for their own young when that time came and, then, of course, this magnificent kiowa cradle we see here. This is a fullsize cradle, fully beaded. Its interesting to note that often times with kiowa cradles, there would be a completely different design from one side to another. The color, the complete shift in color and designs, this is very typical of the late 1800s, early 1900s for kiowa comanche cradles. Those have elaborate decoration. What i would like to do is show you probably our next significant object. It is a headdress that belong to the comanche chief Quanah Parker. He rose to become chief. He was in the red river war as his people were being pushed out. He was considered to be a great leader. He was involved in the battles in 1864 and again in 1874 and he lived well into the 20s century. And ultimately became an incredible advocate for the comanche people and other tribes and he was an early leader of the native american church. This is a photograph of him taken around 1900 or so. You can see he is at his full glory as an adult, wearing his finest clothing and the headdress behind us here is really a remarkable example of these kinds of objects that were worn by men of high rank and high status. The golden, eagle feathers that are topped with horse hair on them, the red woolen cap. And the wonderful sort of metallic ricrac along the brow. For many of the people of the comanche nation, a full trailer bonnet like this would have signified great importance, high, high ranking status for anyone who had the opportunity to obtain one, to own one, and also to wear it. This is one of the great pieces we have in the collection. We are very grateful to the families of Quanah Parker who continue to visit and examine this piece as a part of their family heritage as well. What we are trying to do is not only educate the public about historic native american arts and culture, but we are also reaching out and working with contemporary native people to help educate even more about native american heritage. We are specifically looking toward our kiowa and comanche friends for that. The experience of driving in the steeper today, is like it has been for thousands of years. Suddenly you come across this huge drop, in the earth. And even today, its quite a shocking experience, maybe even more so because youre traveling so fast. The fact that i get to come and see this every day, it just once well have to stop and take it in. And just make sure that im really appreciating but i get to be here every day. The canyon has been formed for about 1 million years or so, and the bulk of the formation is after the last 100,000 years. And runs from here, close to the town of silver tin, and so you can make a good case that the canyon is at least 80 miles in length itself. The rivers like hundred 20 miles. Its a second largest canyon after the grand canyon, and its not a single canyon. There are many canyons that branch off to the side. We are standing in an area where we can see three canyons from where were at right now. And even from a brief visit to the state park its amazing. I grew here i grew up here in amarillo, as a young kid i remember coming out from elementary school, and after that is soon as i got my drivers license i drove out here anytime i, couldnt i brought it friends and well explore some of the caves, and some of the week florida just down there. I can tell you its much bigger than what you think it is. From just looking at it from up here. When you get down into the canyon, you get your hiking stick and your boots on and you better make sure you have a lot of water because its much farther than you think. Theres all kinds of treasures out there. One of the draws i guess, its just being around extreme nature. And you could say, this is extremely nature. So theres so many places out here that you can see these beautiful cliffs, and these rock outcroppings. And of course back when i was growing up, the only footed you had from the air up here, was like a helicopter shots, that the local television stations would do and things like that. And of course, when the drones got popular, several years ago of course i had to be right there. You know thats one of my shortcomings too i have to have one of the latest guard gadgets out here. And it was just amazing. And i hope so much, having all that experience and knowledge of where to go, to look at these things, from spending my life looking for the ground up, i knew where to go and i knew exactly all the places i wanted to go, and get the view from the air down. So i already had all these shot set up in my mind. And i went and executed as many as i could, and there are so many places you know you can stay on the trail and the suitably amazed with everything that you see. And theres plenty to look at. And take photos of. And to experience. There are so many other places, but it just off the trail to. Polar canyon, is a story of edges, sort of on the edge of a lot of different ranges, from both plants anonymous here. We are on the edge literally of a canyon right now, and its also a place its been on these conflicts the edge of the conflicts for different cultures. And for the vast majority of history of this area the canyon, the people who have been here were nomadic. They did not build structures. We dont have clipped wellington think permanent. They look contemporary structures, so they can move with them as a traveled. They were mostly following large game. And the early days, you know that was some large extinct species. You know there was, mammoths and bison, and species that no longer exist. And then we get into, a historical or a late prehistoric period when there were, more like youre sort of typical image of what you think when you think of native americans. This was the Southern Plains region, so the native american tribes, that were here they were the kyle was, and the apache and towards the end the in the 18 sixties in 18 seventies this became like a stronghold for people who are trying to escape from the soldiers and settlers, and the bison hunters and people that were coming and taking their land. Because this was right in the center, of command she territory, it was hard to get to and the native americans had thousands of years of knowledge of this area and people coming into the area didnt use this as a stronghold to try to escape and there was a series of battles in 1874 that became known as the red river war and the most decisive battle happened here in september of 1874. And the comanche kiowa and apache came in here, and they were under the idea that they would be safe, and in the canyon that winter, but they didnt realize that the government had sent troops in the area to look for them, and root them out and try to force them back on the reservation. So, the fourth cavalry the interstates army, discovered their encampment late in september and early Early Morning on september 28th of that year of that month in 1874 they dismounted their horses, and led them down into the canyon floor, and they remounted and charge this massive village of native americans. Its not a battle that had a hide that had a high sorry casualty count, imagine waking up, and you are laying there with your wife or husband, or your grandmother and engineer children, and all these people are with you, and you wake up to armed soldiers attacking your town. So what would you do. And they did the only thing they could do which was to flee. So they ran, setting up pockets of resistance, so they would have time long enough time to escape. The problem was, in the flight they were able to take very much with them. And the fourth cavalry, it can have a chance to come back and destroy all their supplies. They also destroyed, the bulk of their horse heard. Which for the comanche was the way of life. Thats how you travels and fought and hunted. And it was really to lose their horse heard was terrible. And over the last few months, they slowly went back to the reservation. And in just a couple of years, a new group came in, and they saw the opportunity of this empty place, and those were ranchers. The first one here to set up a permanent care ranch, was charles knight. And later that became the j ranch. And it was about 1. 3 million acres. It was one of the bigger ranches in texas. But it was definitely a big one, and a lot of that encompassed parts of the canyon. And this was grazing land for bison, and it was for the cattle that they brought in also. And the wrenching period, in the spot we are standing, goes back to 1933. So this was a working cattle ranch. In 1933, the state of texas purchased about 15,000 acres, which became the state park. The people of this area, had a strong desire to have a park here. Prior to this being a park, if you did not know someone who own the land, you were basically trespassing if you want to see it. And sometimes the land owners would allow people to come out on their property and visit the canyon, but sometimes tens of thousands of people would show up in the twenties and thirties just to see it. It was a huge drive, not only for the people of the local towns, but other surrounding cities as well. They wanted to park because they knew how important this place was to protect, but how big of a boom to the area they would have people coming from all around to see it. So the wrenching continues, all around us but we are this little pocket, that this people basically people can visit. Thats what makes it so special. We would not have a park here if it wasnt for the conservation corps. It was a new deal relief effort. It was started by president roosevelt in the 1930s. And they arrived here very shortly, after the creation of one of the oldest parks in texas and it was one of the earliest projects they got here in the summer of 1933 and they sort of a camp, and one of the first projects they worked on was the road into the canyon. And its a reminder, i give myself all the time when i come through the canyon, and im driving down for my work every day, that they did this road by hand. Basically for a dollar a day. And it changed their lives, and they were able to feed themselves, and provide for them families and they learned a lot its of them well in life. And it provides for us today, because we have so many amazing Historic Structures built into the canyon. Without their work, we would not have everything we have today. You know being here in the texas panhandle, theres not a lot a of written history that you can go back to and actually look at. This is one of those places, but you can go back and look at some of the history. You have the mortar stones, and the rock that has an indian art, from probably 1000 2000 years ago. But you can still go to. And it looks it sure its not as vivid as it was back in the day, but still its pretty vivid. And so i like that connection. Being able to look at history that is more than just your grandfathers history. The texas state parks, and state parks all across the nation, and National Parks these are your public lands. We want people to visit them, and join us in our mission and stewardship in these places. We are here stewards, as caretakers for these lands, for other people. And i always ask schoolkids, saying who owns palo canyon, and they save me i do. And it would be cool if i did but i dont and this belongs to the people of texas. And the people of the nation. The people of the world. And people come here and see this, and i want them to understand how critical they are, to the mission of stewardship of this place. We are standing, near the Geographical Center of san antonio texas. Were in front of whats called, the spanish governors palace, in a town that was set up here due to the conflicts between two european empires. France and spain in the 18th century. Spain, head of course establish itself well in latin america and south america and in mexico, and northern mexico was especially important to spain because there were very rich silver minds. France was to the northeast in louisiana, and was in the northern border border of new spain. Where it was causing trouble with the indians, and looking straight across the empty reaches of texas, into the silver mines. Now the spaniards, knew they had to have some sort of defense. And they came upon san antonio, and so in 16 18, thats 302 years ago, san antonio was established here. And the first challenge they faced was getting water. The first thing, that the priest did when they set up the Community Like san antonio, was to build a church. The second thing they did, was to set up a water system. In texas, you have rivers but you dont really have a lot of green fertile areas, too far away from them. So to address that, they drew from their experience in spain, which came from arabia, which come from the roman errol the roman empire, was a system, which were ditches, but not just irrigation but they were drinking water, and water for the cattle and everybody else. And everybody use the same water, nobody news nobody knew anything about germs. They wonder why they had epidemics but they figure that out. So antonio, was selected in large part, because i had two major sources of water upstream. We had the headwaters, of the san antonio river, and we had hid waters of the sand pedro creek. From those places, engineers very carefully, because this land was rather flat. They were able to devise a system, of a half dozen which came from those rivers, and came through channels that followed the line of gravity, downhill to what became san antonio. Then back into the river. So the water continue to flow. San antonio, use that system, for more than 100 years. It wasnt until the end of the 19th century, that they had a system that but there still are to a say he has, in the spanish mission. They are still used by area farmers to one of the crops. Religion has a visible role in the community, in the addition to what you dont see, you have on main plaza, the cathedral of san fernando. Which began in 1731 as the parish church. But we have five missions, in san antonio that are now named a World Heritage site. We have our first mission, the alamo, which is right here in the city of san antonio. And a few years later, there was a Second Mission established, which was the san jose mission, which has been restored rather elaborately. And it is the largest, and most Successful Mission in texas. And three of the missions, they moved from north texas, to san antonio. They are scattered along the san antonio river, south of downtown. The largest of them is, Mission Concepts on. Which is the church itself, is the largest unrestored church in the spanish churches of the United States in the eye states. We have two smaller ones, san francisco. And san juan kepa straddle. But that gives us five missions, which is the largest grouping of Spanish Missions in the United States. Texas, was very desirable for its geography and its location. And there are a lot a borderlands, which went back and forth, between various governmental entities. I would suspect that, san antonio needs, got whiplash, in the early 19th century, because there were six different governments. First, up until the 18 twenties, san antonio was under the control of spain. Then in 1821, there was a revolution, and it was mexico who took control. Then came, the republic of texas. That was the revolution of 1836. That was related to the element. Then in 1845, texas was annexed by the United States, and in 1861, we had the confederacy in charge, and then four years later, we are back to the United States. Probably the single factor, that shaped san antonios character, and its appearance and its been, was its isolation on the texas frontier. We are inland, a couple hundred miles from the texas coast. The only way to reach san antonio, was to come from the texas coast. And thats when there wasnt mud or raining. Its a difficult city to get to. Until, san antonio finally got a railroad in 1877. In which point san antonio, began to explode. The tourism business, was one of the first that took off. Because san antonio, had been a familiar topic of magazines, and other publications, and periodicals in the United States. People would love to come to san antonio and report. So there is a great awareness of this. This did not totally please people, like in houston where the railroad came from, and thats where one newspaper over there reported, that hordes of people went to san antonio for a day, and then to peak around come back and tell everybody how clear the city looked. And it did. And that was a big attraction then, and has still become an attraction now. San antonio is probably three hours, from the mexican border, from laredo, but proximity to mexico, has been beneficial to san antonio, long term because of immigration. When the mexican revolution began in 1910, there was so much violence, that mexican citizens, many of them began crossing the rio grande, and coming into texas. They were settled in refugees camps and tens of thousands of them came to san antonio. For many years they lived in the Tourist Centers of town, but then as the generations went on, they became leading citizens in the community, and mr. Gonzales was our first spanish congressman in the 19 fifties, and that has helped make san antonio the type of place it is today. I think it would be important for people to realize that as they learn about san antonio to understand what a instinctive and diverse city san antonio is how significant its roots are in history. How much it has contributed to the history of the country