'It's going to take all of us': Giving thanks for friendship between the Tonkawa, Austin

Michael Barnes
Austin American-Statesman
Nov 26, 2024

"Every time I've come here over the last couple of years, you guys welcome us with so much warmth and love," Rachael Starr, secretary-treasurer of the Tonkawa Tribe, told an Austin crowd on Sept. 12, which was proclaimed Tonkawa Friendship Day by the city and Travis County. "And it's amazing to me to know that you guys have thought of us over all of these years. And to know that you want us here, and you want to be a part of us, and that just brings warmth and gratitude.

"I can't even tell you how that makes us feel, that you want us to be a part of your city."

For more than 50 years during the 19th century, the Indigenous Tonkawa made friends with newcomers to Central Texas. For several months in the early 1840s, the Tonkawa camped right in the middle of Austin. They provided Austinites with some protection from raiders and, by trading with the settlers, helped keep the town from disintegrating.

But in 1884, the Tonkawa were exiled from Texas to a reservation in northern Oklahoma.

The tribe, however, did not forget its home in Texas.
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