A History of Welcoming to Galveston in Three Parts

Jesse Doiron

July 4, 2022

Part I 

Welcome to Galveston, Estevanico  (1529)

Today, we found a tribe of men 

who came out of the sea. 

A storm had killed their village,  

floating on an island they had made 

from clouds and trees. 

All was shattered in the shallows,

while the remnants of their tents

sank far into the waves.

We gave them sweet water 

from the rain wells 

to quench their thirst 

and soothe their blistered faces. 

One of them seemed near to death; 

his skin had turned to black.

He spoke many languages, 

but none were comprehensible.

Mustafa Azemmouri (known as Estevanico) was part of an expedition of discovery in the 16th century led by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca.  He was the first African to set foot on the shores of North America after surviving a shipwreck off Galveston Island. Enslaved as a child by the Portuguese, who sold him to the Spanish, he was eventually put into servitude by a number of coastal tribes including the Karankawa and the Coahuiltecan.  Azemmouri escaped the Coahuiltecan with Cabeza de Vaca and two other members of his ill-fated Spanish expedition. They travelled a thousand miles into New Spain (Mexico) where Azemmouri became a guide for the royal viceroy there, who charged him with the task of helping the conquistadors locate the Seven Cities of Gold.

Part II 

Welcome to Galveston, Major General Granger  (1865)

When Major General Granger came to town, 

we knew he was a son-of-a-bitch,

who couldn’t even cotton up to Grant. 

But here he was, 

indisputably in charge, 

and what were we to do?

We gave him a dandy “Welcome in” 

and a right nice “Howdy,” too; 

even though he had them colored soldiers 

all gussied up in uniforms 

to make him feel the part—

Major General! 

What kind of thinking was he thinking then?

How the hell can any army run like that? 

Well, “how the hell” was all we thought about that day, 

and next, and more that passed on by – slow and hot.

We’d been mulling in regret the whole of what 

had happened to us when Granger came to town—

Goddamn Yankee, 

with his black boys all in blue, running up 

and down the town with news that every slave 

was master of hisself—

For-ev-er-more. 

Now can you feature that? 

They had it all proclaimed in black and white. 

Weren’t no white man nothing more than equal to ‘em 

in the eyes of God Almighty and what 

was passing for the government those days. 

Dreadful days. End-times days. 

End of everything we knew was right.

So, tell me then, what the hell was we to do 

when General Order No. 3 

was read out from the balcony 

and printed in the papers, pasted on the walls, 

and all the slaves was jubilating in the streets 

from Ashton down to beach and back again? 

Well— howdy’s  how we said it then,

but we didn’t mean it well at all.

We was only being nice, being polite.  

Down deep inside, we couldn’t exactly come to terms 

with what the Major General had to say. 

No. No siree.  Knew it couldn’t last. 

Just a summer thunderstorm.

Major General Gordon Granger was commander of the Headquarters District of Texas and as such delivered the official notice of emancipation to the citizens of Texas. The “news” was more than two years after Lincoln’s proclamation that freed all slaves in the United States of America.  It was not well received by the defeated loyalists of the Confederate States of America.

Part III

Welcome to Galveston, Miss Linda   (1965)

Miss Linda had never been to Galveston before,

never seen a beach, 

never worn a bathing suit, 

and never spent the night in a white family’s house.

She was all smiles from the first day of her welcoming,

even after she was sunburned 

and stung by a jellyfish

and cut her toe on a broken bottle in the sand.

Momma was so happy Miss Linda came,

and I was, too.

Her visit made me feel good about having friends, holding hands, 

and being part of what it was that made Miss Linda smile.

When those boys came up behind us on the seawall,

I didn’t even think to turn around and look

when they followed us 

down the concrete steps to the water’s edge.

The brick they threw 

fell right beside my foot, 

so I yelled out, “Hey, you boys!”

But Miss Linda was already dead.

And no one stopped to help me 

pull her from the surf, 

that she’d told Momma, at her invitation,  

was something she would die for, just to see.

Linda Arceneaux worked as a housekeeper for a prominent Houston family. She was murdered on a beach in Galveston by a group of teenagers who assaulted her with bricks while she was walking with her employer’s daughter one Sunday evening after supper at their vacation cottage.

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college in Texas, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.