HAPE INDIANS. In the second half of the seventeenth century the Hape (Ape, Jeapa, Xape) Indians, a Coahuiltecan-speaking band, ranged from northeastern Coahuila across the Rio Grande to the southwestern margin of the Edwards Plateau. The Bosque-Larios expedition of 1675 encountered fifty-four Hape and Yorica adults a few miles north of the Rio Grande near present Eagle Pass. They were loaded with dried bison meat that was being taken back to their settlements south of the river. At this time it was learned that their local enemies included Ocana, Pataguo, and "Yurbipame," bands that ranged to the east along the Nueces and Frio rivers south of the Edwards Plateau. In 1688 the Hapes numbered about 500, but shortly thereafter they were almost wiped out by a smallpox epidemic. By 1689 most of those who had survived the epidemic were slain by unspecified Indian enemies from the east.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Herbert Eugene Bolton, ed., Spanish Exploration in the Southwest, 1542–1706 (New York: Scribner, 1908; rpt., New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959). Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1907, 1910; rpt., New York: Pageant, 1959).
