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Bellisle & the Orcoquisac

by Robin Montgomery

In the summer of 1719, a French Ship lost its way in the Caribbean and ran aground near Galveston Island. While five men were ashore reconnoitering the site, the ship lost its moorings leaving the men stranded. By the next year all the seaman except one, named Simars de Bellisle, had succumbed to death. Herein lies an exotic Indian story of our area.

Bellisle managed to survive by eating such things as oysters, boiled grass and huge worms extracted from logs. As warm weather approached, coming upon him were members of the Orcoquisac Tribe. These
Indians habitually would go to the coast in the summer, to eat much the same thing Bellisle had been consuming, and then in winter they would venture north. Their ramblings carried them to camps along Spring Creek and its tributaries in southern Grimes and Montgomery counties.

The Orcoquisac made him a slave to a widow of the tribe while subjecting him to continual beatings. But he was fortunate to be left alive, for the tribe had a penchant for cannibalism.  Bellisle later wrote:“they threw this Indian on the prairie. One of them cut his head off and another one cut the arms off, while they skinned him at the same time. Several of them ate the yellow fat, which was still raw, and finally they devoured him completely.” (See W.W. Newcomb, The Indians of Texas) 

And one can only imagine the alarm which Bellisle must have felt the first time he experienced one of the Orcoquisac’s “wailing greetings.” Here is Bellisle again: “When morning came, they made me embark with them and they took me to the shore . . . . When I arrived there, I heard these people . . . yell frightfully. This made me tremble and I thought they would kill me any moment."Bellisle went on to say that"their custom was to yell as well for good as for bad news.”(Ibid.)

Eventually Bellisle had the good fortune of meeting a group of Bidai (Bee Dye) Indians, a more amenable tribe native to later Grimes County. The Frenchman gave the Bidai a note, requesting that they give it “to the first white men” they happened across.  The Bidai were able, finally, to deliver the fortunate Frenchman to
members of his own kind.

If you take a stroll along Spring Creek and hear a strange yelling sound, beware.

Thank you.


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