Tickanwatic

Tickanwatic is a name used by the Tonkawa, a people of the plains and river country of central Texas. They hunted bison and gathered wild foods, moving in bands that camped along streams. The name Tonkawa came from a Waco word meaning that they all stay together. By the eighteenth century several smaller groups had joined the Tonkawa, forming a community amid the changing alliances of the southern Plains.

In 1771 the Tonkawa chief Neques supported peace negotiations with Spanish officials, sending other chiefs to speak for him at a council among the Caddo. A Tonkawa delegation later went to San Antonio de Béxar to ratify a peace agreement. The smallpox epidemic of the late 1770s and early 1780s devastated Indigenous communities throughout Texas.