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Being the opportunists, they would thrash pecans in the bottoms here for the settlers by cutting down the whole tree.


IIRC pretty much the SOP for Texas Indians as far back as Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (1520's) at least.

Sorta related, Hamalienen in his excellent book Comanche Empire (a must-read IMHO) has it that by their population peak in the early 19th Century the Comanches in the far reaches of Texas were quickly deforesting the watercourses where they wintered, for fuel, pecans, and to obtain cottonwood bark to feed their horses in the winter months. A degree of inpact that would have been unsustainable and which was already causing them problems before the arrival of the Frontier.

Birdwatcher

"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744