b'o u rh i s t o r ySpanish conquistador Alonso lvarez de PiedaNomadic Karankawa camp on the Texas Gulf CoastFOUNDING OF CORPUS CHRISTITHE KARANKAWA PEOPLE, A FAMEDColonel Henry Lawrence KinneySPANISH EXPLORER & COLONEL KINNEYThe first known inhabitants of the Coastal Bend were the native Karankawa people (the name on which Ca-rancahua is based), who lived a nomadic lifestyle that was split between the inland plains of South Texas and the banks of near-shore bays and estuaries. The Karankawas, a name said to mean dog-raisers, are theorized to have originated in the mountains north of the Amazon River in South America, or a sub-tribe of Carib Indians who sailed to the shores of what is now eastern Mexico, from an island in the Caribbean. Their presence in South Texas has been archaeologically traced to at least 5,000 B.C., and they maintained generally friendly relations with Spanish explorers, with whom they traded and socially interacted, for almost 200 years. By 1700, however, following several hostile encounters with the Spaniards, the Karankawa settled into a state of war in which the tribes suffered numerous, devastating attacks. They fought on the side of Mexico in the Texas Revolution, in which they suffered severe losses at the Battle of the Alamo. By the 1840s, two tribes of Karankawas remained, one in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas and the other on Padre Island. Their last documented existence was in 1888.Alonso lvarez de Pieda was commissioned by the Spanish Crown to map what is now the Gulf of Mexico, a con-quest that took him from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Florida Keys, the area now known as southern Alabama in-cluding Mobile Bay, coastal Louisiana and the Mississippi River delta, and the coast of Texas. In June 1519, Piedas expedition sailed into a large body of water on the Roman Catholic holiday known as the Feast of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ), for which the bay was named. There is no record of his party disembarking onto the land.On the high bluff in what is now downtown Corpus Christi, Colonel Henry Lawrence Kinney established a trading post in 1841 whose customers included the Mexican army. General Zachary Taylor established a U.S. Army en-campment at the trading post, by then known as Kinney Ranch, in 1845 in preparation for the Mexican-American War. The camp was eventually named Corpus Christi after the bay, and on September 9, 1852, the City of Corpus Christi was officially incorporated. Colonel Kinney was killed in a gun battle in Mexico in 1862.40 THE COASTAL BEND TOUR+RELO+BUILD GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'