SABEATA, JUAN (?-?). Juan Sabeata, Indian chief, was born in New Mexico and became a chief of the Jumanos near the mouth of the Río Conchos in Chihuahua. He was given the name Juan when he was baptized at Parral. His stories of the "great kingdom of the Tejas" were responsible for the expedition of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza in 1683-84. In 1691 Sabeata was on a hunt on the Guadalupe River and asked Fray Damián Massanet for more missionaries for the Jumanos.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas (7 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1936-58; rpt., New York: Arno, 1976). Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1907, 1910; rpt., New York: Pageant, 1959). J. Charles Kelley, "Juan Sabeata and Diffusion in Aboriginal Texas," American Anthropologist 57 (October 1955).