West Galveston Island
Galveston, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Earliest known inhabitants of this area were the now extinct Karankawa Indians, alleged to be the only American tribe to practice cannibalism in rituals. Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked near here in 1528, and is credited as the first European to visit the island. He, and other explorers including La Salle, are known to have touched land in this area without harm from the Karankawas. However, buccaneer Jean Lafitte was not well received by the Indians and a major battle was engaged between the pirates and the natives. Stage coach service was once established between Galveston and Freeport, with West beach as highway, and a ferry at San Luis Pass. This area was a significant point of debarcation for slave traders who were prohibited from sailing directly into Galveston City's harbor although a major slave market existed there. Near the turn of the century a railroad carried hundreds of visitors to a race track near the center of the island, and an important lace manufactory was located here. The West Island is an important site for migratory shore birds, with more than 95% of America's species inhabiting the area during the year. Since 1957 West Island has rapidly become a major recreational and resort area with hundreds of leisure homes fronting Gulf, canals and bay.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The earliest known inhabitants of West Galveston Island were the Karankawa people, and it was near here that the shipwrecked Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca came ashore in 1528, the first European known to reach the island. Over the centuries that followed the island saw explorers, the pirate Jean Lafitte, stagecoach and ferry travel down its beaches, and a grim role in the illegal slave trade as a landing point for traffickers barred from Galveston's harbor. By the twentieth century it had become a haven for migratory shorebirds and, since 1957, a booming resort coast.
Why it matters
Few places compress so much of the American story into one shoreline — Indigenous life, European contact, piracy, slavery, and modern leisure all leaving their mark on a single barrier island.
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Related people
- · Cabeza de Vaca
- · La Salle
- · Jean Lafitte
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Stewart Property
Galveston, TX
This ridge on the west end of Galveston Island holds one of the area's oldest known histories of human use — once a campsite for the seagoing Karankawa people — before it passed through a striking succession of nineteenth- and twentieth-century owners. Texas Revolution veteran Col. Warren D. C. Hall bought it in 1856; later owners named it "Mottexas" and "Isla Ranch," and in 1933 it took the name of Galvestonian Maco Stewart, founder of the Stewart Title Company. The land was eventually deeded to the University of Texas for its Galveston medical branch, layering Indigenous, frontier, and modern uses on a single stretch of shore.
Lafitte's Grove
Galveston, TX
In 1817 the privateer Jean Lafitte established a fort and settlement on Galveston Island, using it as a base to prey on Gulf shipping. Here in February 1821 his men clashed with the Karankawa people in the Battle of the Three Trees. Ordered to leave by the United States government, Lafitte abandoned and burned the post later that year.
Karankawa Campsite
Jamaica Beach, TX
This coastal site was one of several campsites and burial grounds of the Karankawa, the nomadic people who lived along the Texas Gulf and drew their survival from its waters. They aided the shipwrecked Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca in 1528 but resisted later intruders, from La Salle's 1685 French expedition onward. Devastated by disease and conflict with pirates and Anglo-American settlers, the Karankawa had all but vanished from Texas by the 1840s; the campsite was rediscovered in 1962.
Site Of Landmark Campbell's Bayou
Texas City, TX
Around 1821 the privateer and War of 1812 veteran James Campbell — a lieutenant and close friend of the buccaneer Jean Lafitte at Galveston — put the sea behind him to settle here as a rancher. He had earlier taken a bride, Mary Sabinal, in Karankawa ceremony, and the couple raised their community on this coastal ground. The settlement endured until a hurricane destroyed it a second time in 1915, and the Campbells lie with other early Texans in the nearby cemetery.