HAPE INDIANS. In the second half of the seventeenth century the
Hape (Ape, Jeapa, Xape) Indians, a Coahuiltecan-speaking band,
ranged from northeastern Coahuila across the Rio Grande to the
southwestern margin of the Edwards Plateau. The Bosque-Larios
expedition of 1675 encountered fifty-four Hape and Yorica adults
a few miles north of the Rio Grande near present Eagle Pass.
They were loaded with dried bison meat that was being taken back
to their settlements south of the river. At this time it was
learned that their local enemies included Ocana, Pataguo, and
"Yurbipame," bands that ranged to the east along the Nueces and
Frio rivers south of the Edwards Plateau. In 1688 the Hapes
numbered about 500, but shortly thereafter they were almost
wiped out by a smallpox epidemic. By 1689 most of those who had
survived the epidemic were slain by unspecified Indian enemies
from the east. Herbert Eugene Bolton, ed., Spanish Exploration
in the Southwest, 1542–1706 (New York: Scribner, 1908; rpt., New
York: Barnes and No