Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Ancient Indian Arrowheads

Of course you know that Native Americans made arrowheads by knapping them from flint cores. So did the Paleo-Indians – the so-called Folsom and Clovis people hunted long-extinct animals with them. Recent discoveries keep pushing those people farther and farther back in history, way beyond the 12,000 years I learned in college.

And the arrowheads? Some flint cores came from the Alibates Flint Quarry, a National Monument north of Amarillo, Texas in the Lake Meredith area. Quarry sites a few feet wide are scattered along a hillside, along with flint fragments. Flint found on the surface fractured easily and wasn’t suitable for knapping. Sub-surface flint was better. Alibates flint cores were traded among the Paleo-Indian cultures. Some reached here, to the southeastern US.

Years later (around 1200 AD) the Antelope Creek Culture developed around the quarries. Thought to be migrants from eastern woodland tribes, Antelope Creek people build homes and quarried the flint using bison bones. The Indians disappeared about 1400 AD, maybe the victims of a prolonged drought.

The name Alibates? It's not a Spanish term, as you might think. No, "Alibates" is a contraction of "Ally Bates," the name of the old pioneer who attempted to ranch along the nearby Canadian river. Who knew?

I visited the Alibates site one summer a few decades back. There’s not much to see, just some filled-in holes on a hillside. It’s a bleak area, flat dry plains with some cactus hanging on. And it was Hot! Alibates National Monument is administered by the National Park Service. A single-wide house trailer just sitting there, all alone on the prairie, with an air conditioner chugging away in a losing battle.

I recognized the Park Ranger, a nice young man I’d met earlier at the Everglades National Park. I asked him, “Wesley, how come they transferred you from The Everglades to this place?”

“I wish I knew,” he sighed.

Dac Crossley
July 13, 2018.

“Stick a shovel into the ground almost anywhere and some horrible thing or other will come to light.” – Margaret Atwood.

Texas and the American Revolution

Thanks to Hollywood, we think of western cattle drives as originating in south Texas between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers. Herds of wild cattle were trailed through Indian country, across raging rivers and thunderstorms, eventually reaching one of the new railroad lines. This isn’t exactly true, we know. Cattle from ranches near San Antonio or Corpus Christi started the antebellum drives. Cattle drives did, indeed, help the Texas economy to recover from the Reconstruction Era.

The Cattle Empire has deeper and older roots. Before the Civil War cattle were herded across the Sabine River into Louisiana. I didn’t realize that those early drives actually helped George Washington during the American Revolution. Texas cattle fed the rebels.

At the time of the American Revolution, New Spain included all of Louisiana. The Spanish crown watched the Americans with considerable interest, and offered assistance in subtle ways. The Governor of Florida, Bernado Gálvez, arranged shipments of gunpowder, lead and clothing up the Mississippi to Fort Pitt. In a letter, Patrick Henry thanked Gálvez and proposed that Spain might regain Florida that she lost in 1763.

A cattle herd was assembled from the ranchos along the San Antonio River and was trailed to New Orleans. The herd followed a circuitous route along the coast in order to avoid the Comanche Indians, who’d increased their presence in East Texas. Thus, Texas cattle did indeed aid the American Revolution.

I’ve been reading The Texas Connection with the American Revolution, a fascinating little volume by Texas historian Robert Thonhoff. He’s given me a dense picture of South Texas in the 1700’s, and I’m still digesting it.

Dac Crossley
July 9, 2018

“Family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande.” – George W. Bush.