Two virtual exhibits are vividly illustrated, use primary documents, and deal with subjects that are national in scope: explorers, missionaries, Native Americans, and the political scene in 18th-century North America.
Learning from Cabeza de Vaca: Revelations about Hunter-Gatherer Foodways at the Dawn of Written History in Texas
www.texasbeyondhistory.net/cabeza-cooking/index.html
The earliest accounts of Texas' native peoples were recorded by Cabeza de Vaca and his companions. Shipwrecked on the TexasGulfCoast in 1528, these men made their way from the shores near present-day Galveston to Mexico City during a seven-year ordeal. Reports of their journey provide glimpses of native people and the various odd-sounding foods they hunted, gathered, and plucked from often harsh landscapes.
In a new exhibit on Texas Beyond History, anthropologist and archeologist
Alston Thoms draws on studies of traditional foods and cooking technologies to speculate what the various roots, tubers, nuts, fruits, and fish may have been, how they were prepared, and much more.
While this exhibit gets technical in some parts, it is accompanied by a K-12 interactive activity and lesson. Students can peruse the general audience exhibit to see the pictures and maps and read as much as they wish.
Los Adaes: 18th-Century Capital of Spanish Texas
www.texasbeyondhistory.net/adaes/index.html.
Thirty miles east of the Sabine River in northwestern Louisiana lie the ruins of Los Adaes, the 18th-century capitol of Spanish Texas from 1729-1770. On this remote frontier, the Spanish survived only with the help of their enemies, the French, and the surrounding native peoples, the Caddo and Adai Indians. The Spanish settlers became middlemen in the trade between the Indian groups and the French.
