Historic Walker County

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Above: William E. Moore found these
Kent type projectile points dating
from 2000 BCE to 500 CE in
Walker County.
COURTESY OF R. T. SINGLETON PHOTOGRAPHY.
Below: Detail showing the homeland
of the Cenis and Bidai Indians from
Carte de la Louisiane et du cours
du Mississipi (1718), by Guillaume
de L’Isle.
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
Bidai. These groups exhibited important “unifying
traits such as an egalitarian social organization,
hunter-gatherer subsistence orientation, and use of
plain sandy paste ceramics.” 2
The Cenis or Hasinai Indians were the earliest
recorded native inhabitants in the Walker County
region. The Cenis lived primarily on the eastern
side of the Trinity River in modern day San
Jacinto, Trinity, and Houston counties.
Nevertheless, they had villages on the Trinity
River and moved frequently through the Walker
County region to hunt and trade. One early
French explorer, Father Anastase Douay, reported
that the Cenis lived in large villages with fine
homes shaped like beehives. Douay also wrote
that the Cenis traded widely with western Indians
and had a well-appointed collection of trade
goods including metal coins, silver spoons, and
Spanish horses. Although the Cenis never made
their principal point of residence in Walker
County, they exercised an important cultural
influence over the area until their demise at the
end of the eighteenth century. 3
A second and smaller group of local Indians,
the Bidai, were first recorded in 1691. As a semisedentary
group, the Bidai moved between the
Gulf Coast and the Camino Real, a historic road
just north of Bedias Creek connecting San Antonio
with Natchitoches in Louisiana. The Bidai raised
corn and other crops and depended on the hunt
for a large proportion of their diet. They apparently
spoke the Caddoan language—their name was
derived from the Caddo word for “brushwood”—
but they also spoke a language of their own. The
Bidai were reported to be “a peaceable, quiet people”
who were known for their “excellent character…honesty
and punctuality.” 4
E U R O P E A N
A N D
E X P L O R A T I O N
E M P I R E
In the sixteenth century, Spanish conquistadors
entered Texas seeking to extend the reach of their
new Atlantic empire. Cabeza de Vaca, one of the
lone survivors of the disastrous expedition led by
Pánfilo de Narváez, became the first Spanish
explorer to travel through East Texas. Although de
Vaca did not reach modern-day Walker County,
the remnants of Hernando de Soto’s later expedition
may have come close to the area in 1542
under the leadership of Luis de Moscoso Alvarado.
Moscoso’s group probably visited the homeland of
the Cenis Indians in neighboring Houston County,
where they found trade items such as turquoise
4 ✦ H I S T O R I C W A L K E R C O U N T Y