QUARA INDIANS. In the latter part of the seventeenth century the Quara (Coara, Kouara) Indians lived north of Matagorda Bay on or near one of the major streams in the area of present Jackson County, apparently the Lavaca River. Their village, which was visited by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salleqv in 1687, was one of many settlements along this river. Of these various settlements, only the Quara and Anachorema villages are identified in the reports of the La Salle expedition.qv In the Quara village La Salle and his party stayed two days, during which time some 700 or 800 warriors returned with 150 prisoners, which lends support to the statement that this area was rather heavily populated. The Quaras are not referred to by this name in later times, and their ethnic affiliation remains unknown. Since they lived in an area dominated by Karankawa groups, it is possible that they too were Karankawan. However, on the basis of sound correspondence, it has been suggested that the Quaras were the people later known as Aranama Indians.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Charles W. Hackett, ed., Pichardo's Treatise on the Limits of Louisiana and Texas (4 vols., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1931-46). John Gilmary Shea, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (New York: Redfield, 1852). John G. Shea, Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi (Albany: J. Munsell, 1861; rpt., Albany: J. McDonough, 1902).
Thomas N. Campbell
