Native Americans (The Original Texans)

 The stories of Texas didn't begin with the arrival of Spanish explorers in the 1500s. Hundreds of different
groups of native peoples with a variety of languages, customs, and beliefs lived on the land for at least 11,000
years before the arrival of Europeans. For the American Indians, Texas had long been their world. The land,
the life, and even the other native peoples they encountered were already familiar. It was the explorers who
were new.
 By the time those explorers got to the new world, American Indians had created long arcs of histories and
cultures in Texas. From the Gulf Coast to the Panhandle, from the piney eastern woods to the barren
southwestern plains, native peoples had established themselves as traders, hunters, food-collectors, artisans,
and healers. They had crafted ways of life based on what the land required. They had forged and broken
alliances, competed for resources, and traded with each other for centuries. American Indian tribes such as the
Karankawa, Caddo, Apache, Comanche, Wichita, Coahuiltecan, Neches, Tonkawa, and many others had
already written extensive chapters in the story of Texas by the 16th century.
 There was no single Native American language. It would be as difficult for the Mohawk Indians of the East to
converse with Zuni Indians of the West as it would be for Germans to converse with Mexicans.
 Twenty-seven states derive names from Indian languages. The name Texas is derived from the word
"teyshas" (meaning friends or allies), from the native American Caddo language.
 Native Americans turned wild plants such as corn, potatoes, pumpkin, yams, and lima beans into farm crops
for human consumption. More than half of modern American farm products were grown by Native
Americans before British colonization.