Battle of Jones Creek

The plaque's word "cannibal" belongs to the settlers' story. In Randal Jones's telling, the Handbook of Texas says, the fight began at James Bailey's store when Karankawa men demanded to buy ammunition, and the settlers attacked about thirty people camped on the creek the next morning. Both sides took many casualties, and the Karankawa withdrew across the San Bernard. The Handbook's Karankawa entry places ceremonial cannibalism before the 1700s, apparently ended, and says later settlers used it to justify destroying them. The Karankawa Kadla, formed by people who identify as Karankawa descendants, has revived the language.

What the plaque says

Battle of Jones Creek Fought by Texan army of 23 men under Capt. Randal Jones (1786-1873), sent out 1824 by Stephen F. Austin to the lower Brazos to fight cannibal Karankawa Indians. Scouts found the camp here. Attack at dawn found Indians ready with spears. Jones' guns got 15 Indians, dispersed the rest. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 11 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 11 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 16 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.

More markers nearby

• Major Guy M. Bryan, C.S.A. — steps away
• One-Eighth Mile South to Peach Point — steps away
• Major Reuben R. Brown — steps away
• William Joel Bryan — steps away