The Taovaya were a tribe of Native Americans that lived for over fifty years on the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma, and played an important role in early recorded history of the region. Their tribal predecessors lived in central Kansas, and were the first American Plains Indians visited by Spanish explorer Francisco de Coronado in 1541. He named their villages Quivera, having gone there in hopes of finding another province like Mexico and Peru, full of gold and silver. Soon after moving to Texas in the 1750s, Taovaya joined Comanche allies to attack and destroy the San Saba mission in 1758, then soundly defeated a Spanish army sent to their villages the next year in an attempt at retaliation. Decimated by European diseases against which they had no natural immunity, they merged into other Wichita tribes in 1811 and lost their distinctive tribal identity. Today many of their descendants live on their reservation in Oklahoma.
Click here to learn about these early Texas residents:
Taovaya: From Quivera to the Red River
