Biskatronge Indians

Type: General Entry

Published: 1976

Updated: July 1, 1995

The Biskatronge (Biscatronge, Plañidores, Pleureurs, Weepers) Indians are known from a single document pertaining to the La Salle expedition in the late seventeenth century. This document, the narrative of Anastase Douay, indicates that the Biskatronge lived inland well to the north or northeast of Matagorda Bay, probably between the Colorado and Brazos rivers. Douay said that La Salle's party called these people "weepers" because they greeted the French by weeping for a quarter of an hour. Douay's Biskatronge cannot be identified with any Indian group named in Henri Joutel's journal of the same expedition. A. S. Gatschet equated the Biskatronge with the Coco, but his reasons for doing so were not made explicit. The affiliations of the Biskatronge remain undetermined.

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Isaac Joslin Cox, ed., The Journeys of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (2 vols., New York: Barnes, 1905; 2d ed., New York: Allerton, 1922). Albert S. Gatschet, The Karankawa Indians, the Coast People of Texas (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, 1891). Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1907, 1910; rpt., New York: Pageant, 1959). John Gilmary Shea, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (New York: Redfield, 1852).

Categories:

Peoples
Native American
Tribes (Other)

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Thomas N. Campbell, “Biskatronge Indians,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed May 28, 2022, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/biskatronge-indians.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Original Publication Date:: 1976
Most Recent Revision Date:: July 1, 1995

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