The three principal objects of the first part of this investigation will be:
First, to point out the island of Mal-Hado by certain indicia sufficient to distinguish it from all others on the Texas gulf coast. According to the relation of Cabeza de Vaca it must be five leagues long and half a league wide. It must have another island back of it, on which the clergyman and negro lived the first winter, and from which they were brought to Mal-Hado in the spring of 1529. It must have an ancon or bay about two leagues wide between it and the mainland. Going along the coast on the main there must be four streams before reaching an ancon or bay a league wide, with a tongue of land projecting into it from the Pánuco side; and on reaching the high land on that side there must be visible a high, white sand bank to the southeast. And when all these marks of identity are fairly shown to exist so related to each other, the known law of infinity in the variety of things will require the island so related to them to be Cabeza's Mal-Hado.
Second, to show with reasonable certainty where Cabeza and his companions left their Indian masters and fled to the Avavares. It must be within thirty leagues of a place on a river where there were many very large trees, which bore nuts similar to those of Galicia. It must be in a prickly pear region, where at least two kinds are found, one better than the other. It must be within four or five days' march of a stream in whose vicinity there are trees bearing fruit resembling peas, which hangs on the trees till as late as October. And if these places can be found sustaining such relation to each other, that prickly pear region will be the point from which the unfortunate Spaniards fled when the moon was full on the thirteenth of September to the camp of a party of Avavares, which they reached that day.
Third, to find a crossing of a river about as wide as that at Sevilla, where the water will strike the breast of a man going through it, and beyond this crossing a mountain having a certain position relative to it and reaching to within fifteen leagues of the seacoast.
When these three principal points shall have been fairly identified, that part of the route belonging to the history of Texas will have been shown with sufficient certainty for historical purposes; and this task, forming the first part of the present paper, written three hundred and sixty-three years after Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions passed over the route in question, will now be undertaken.
Much of what is found written in Cabeza's relation requires the salt of reason to extract from it the real facts comporting with known natural truth. It is something like the testimony in regard to a diversity of incidents and circumstances, which is used to deduce therefrom the main fact it is sought to establish, and may be brought under the rules established by experience and reason in such cases; but those incidents which harmonize with known natural facts should not be rejected, since many of these may still exist and may be collated with the statements made, however confused such statements may be in their order. So the things mentioned in connection with Cabeza's traveling inland as a peddler, when found still existing, may tend with some certainty to identify the places on the ground; while the failure to mention prominent natural objects in noted regions may tend to prove that he did not travel in that direction. And, while the mention of things common in diverse places and extending over many degrees of latitude may not afford strong affirmative evidence in favor of any suggested route on which they may be found, it would be powerful negative evidence against the route not having them. Therefore the data given by Cabeza must be considered both affirmatively and negatively and harmonized, as far as possible, with known natural as well as historical facts, rejecting only such as are absolutely irreconcilable with others well known, or are upon their face purely hyperbolical.
With these rules in view, the whereabouts of the island of Mal-Hado will first be sought as the initial point of the route in question.
With a royal commission to conquer and govern the provinces on the main from Rio de las Palmas to the cape of Florida, Pánfilo de Narvaez sailed from San Lúcar de Barrameda on the 17th of April, 1527. He was detained in Cuban waters, and did not finally reach Florida till April 12, 1528. 18 Soon after landing and wandering inland, he returned to the coast, and failed to find his ships; then he built five small boats and embarked with those of his men still living to go the best way they could to Rio de las Palmas. After many incidents, and after the party was forced out to sea by the current of a great river, the boats were separated, and finally two of them were stranded upon an island, their crews then numbering eighty men, among them being Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca; and this island is the one they called “isla de Mal-Hado,” isle of Evil-Fate, 19 from which the route in question began.
The first natural fact leading to the identification of this island is the current in the Mexican Gulf, known as the littoral current, drifting floating objects towards the Texas coast, striking with its greatest force about the northern end of St. Joseph's Island and turning southward down its coast and that of Mustang and Padre islands. And a careful study of this littoral current will show that it was most natural for the boats, once thrown upon it, to be drifted by it to St. Joseph's Island, which is most probably the one they struck on November 6, 1528. 20
The Indians on that part of the coast were, in later years, called Carancahuaces; and their stature was such as to make them seem to be giants, even without the fear Cabeza says they inspired in the Spaniards. 21
Cabeza says: “The Indians having Alonso de Castillo and Andrés Dorantes, and the others remaining alive, being of another tongue and other kindred, crossed over to another part of the main to eat oysters, and remained there until the first of April, and then returned to the island, which was, at the widest of the water, two leagues from there, and the island is half a league in width and five leagues in length.” 22
While this suits St. Joseph's Island, it can not be adjusted to any of the others from Pass Caballo to the mouth of the Bravo. Matagorda Island is fully ten leagues long, 23 and this fact alone would exclude it from being Mal-Hado, though all of the circumstances, from its end on Cedar Bayou forward on the main, are the same as those from St. Joseph's Island at the same place; and all the other circumstances of both are about the same, except that there was an island back of Mal-Hado to which the clergyman and negro went the first winter, and whence they were brought back in a canoe by the Indians in the spring, when Castillo and Dorantes returned to the island. Matagorda serves as the island back of St. Joseph's, from which it is separated by Cedar Bayou.
Mustang Island is nearest the same length as St. Joseph's, it being about 38,000 varas, or 7 leagues and three-fifths, in length. 24 But the other facts will exclude it.
From a point on the main opposite the mouth of Cedar Bayou about two leagues on, at the head of a small bay now called St. Charles' Bay, there puts in a stream called Bergantin Creek, which assumes the appearance of a river when swollen by heavy rains. Three leagues further on is Copano River. Thence four leagues is Mission River. From the latter it is five or six leagues to the Aransas River. 25 These make the four crossed before reaching the ancon or bay a league wide; and from the Aransas to the reef crossing, where the San Antonio and Aransas Pass railway now crosses the ancon between Nueces and Corpus Christi bays, is about ten leagues. So these facts meet and satisfy the description given by Cabeza, who, in speaking of Oviedo, says: 26
“Each year he delayed me, saying the next we should go. At last, however, I got him out and passed him over the ancon and four rivers there are along the coast, because he did not know how to swim; and thus we went on with some Indians until we arrived at an ancon a league across and everywhere deep; and from what appeared to us therefrom and what we saw, it is the one they call del Espiritu Santo.”
In his translation of Cabeza's relation, Buckingham Smith gives, in an addendum under chapter XVII, an extract from the letter contained in Oviedo's Historia de las Indias, as follows:
“The Christians traveled thence” [meaning from where they reached the main from Mal-Hado] “two leagues to a large river that was beginning to swell from freshets and rain, where they made rafts on which they crossed with much difficulty, there being few swimmers. Three leagues further they came to another river, running powerfully from the same cause, and with so much impetuosity that the fresh water for a time extended a good way into the sea. * * *
The ten were now joined by another Christian, and after going four leagues came to a river, where they found a boat which was recognized to be that of the Comptroller, Alonso Enriquez, and the Commissary, but nothing could be seen of the people. Having walked five or six leagues more, they arrived at another large river, 27 where were two ranches, out of which the tenants fled.” * * * The Spaniards left the next day, and on the fourth day arrived at a bay, having lost two of their number by hunger and fatigue. Nine only now remained. The bay was broad, nearly a league across. The side towards Pánuco forms a point running out nearly a quarter of a league, having on it some large white sand stacks which it is reasonable to suppose can be descried from a distance at sea, and were consequently thought to mark the river Espiritu Santo.” * * * Going on, much depressed by hunger, the greater number swollen by the sea-weed they had eaten, with much exertion, at the end of twelve leagues they came to a small bay, not over the breadth of a river.” 28
All the rivers and the crossing of the bay will fit the journey from the mouth of Cedar Bayou to Corpus Christi, and the point running out for a quarter of a league or more is there; but, from the letter as given by Oviedo and translated by Buckingham Smith, it is not easy to determine whether the sand stacks were on that point or were in fact Flour Bluff at the southeast end of the high lands extending to it from Nueces bay. The latter is the most probable, for all the facts identify Corpus Christi Bay, and Pineda's description places the high sand hills at the southeast portion of the bay he describes; and Cabeza does not say what he saw was where he struck the point of land. But the high points or hills in the northwestern part of Corpus Christi might have been referred to, and the Nueces Bay taken for Espiritu Santo River. And further on the Nueces River was deemed by them to be the Espiritu Santo. The small bay twelve leagues below Corpus Christi, now called Cayo de Grullo, is certainly that to which the party of Castillo and Dorantes went after crossing the ancon a league wide. It is narrow and at the proper distance, and is another mark identifying Corpus Christi Bay.
In Smith's addendum under chapter XVII, taken from the letter, it appears that “Asturiano, the clergyman, with a negro, were living [the first winter] on an island where they went for subsistence, situated back of the one on which the boats were lost. The Indians brought them again across the bay in a canoe to the island where were Andrés Dorantes, Alonso de Castillo, Diego Dorantes, Pedro Valdivieso, with six others who had survived cold and hunger.” 29
This fully shows that Matagorda Island may serve as the one back of St. Joseph's, from which it is separated by the narrow channel now called Cedar Bayou.
The condition they were in being considered, if Dorantes' party followed the coast round from the mouth of Aransas river, it might well have taken them four days to reach the ancon, at Corpus Christi; but as Cabeza and Oviedo were accompanied by some Indians, they may have been guided directly to this reef crossing, reaching it in one day.
Taking all these facts together, they present a fair representation of a route on the main from in front of Cedar Bayou to Corpus Christi, which can not be so well fitted to any other portion of the Gulf coast, and it will be presumed that this identifies that part of the route with reasonable certainty.
With Pineda's description in mind, and standing on the high land at Corpus Christi, the white sand bank called Flour Bluff may be seen with the natural eye, while the high land appears to be continuous down to it, seeming to complete the description of Espiritu Santo bay by Pineda; and without paying attention to the courses, or to the fact of his being on the main land, while Pineda viewed the surroundings from his ship in the Gulf, Cabeza might readily conclude it was Espiritu Santo Bay that was then before him, especially when he had not seen the real bay of that name.
When the true Espiritu Santo Bay is viewed from a position at sea east of it, with the face towards the west, to the left will be seen the range of high sand hills or mounds extending along Matagorda Island, and seeming to terminate with what is now called False Live Oak Point, situated at the southeast part of the bay; while the narrow bay or ancon separating it from the range of sand mounds is not seen. This point is on the part of the bay marked on some maps as San Antonio Bay; but its identity is well known to those sailing down the bays from Indianola to Corpus Christi. 30
Speaking of this, Buckingham Smith says:
“Should this point on the shores of Texas be recognized as the one to which the remnant of adventurers have now arrived, the highest peak of sand mounds in latitude 28° 16’ 34” 08 north, in longitude 96° 47’ 39” 83 west, we may look with some confidence over the northeastern portion of the bay, as far as the entrance upon the bay of Matagorda, in latitude 28° 24’ 06” 95 north, longitude 96° 23’ 50” 56 west, the distance in a direct line of twenty-five statute miles, for the discovery of Mal-Hado. There is, however, no island in this direction that appears to answer its description, nor any place with the conditions for the point that the sand mounds unite. To the south are no hills on the shore of a bay near a river, nor any of particular mark or height as far as where the river Bravo or Grande del Norte finds outlet.” 31
Mr. Smith was doubtless unacquainted with the true topography of the coast there, and, therefore, confounded what was stated by Cabeza with the statements found in the United States coast survey. But had he been familiar with the coast by land from the northeast portion of Espiritu Santo Bay to Flour Bluff on the southeastern part of Corpus Christi Bay, he might readily have seen from such data that the survivors of the Narvaez expedition struck the main below the high point referred to by Pineda and in the coast survey, and were in fact on Corpus Christi Bay, and subsequently ascertained that a river came in to the west of where they crossed, that is the Nueces. And he would have known that Flour Bluff's relative position to St. Joseph's Island was just what he describes, except degrees of latitude and longitude, as the twenty-five statute miles northeasterly will reach from the former to the latter. 32 He was trying to fit this to False Live Oak Point and Espiritu Santo Bay, and finding that impossible, determined there was no place in existence that the description would fit, without discovering he was trying to harmonize the descriptions of two distinct places and make them apply to one only.
The longitude given by Mr. Smith is a mistake, as 96° west passes a short distance west of the mouth of the Brazos river, while 97° crosses the southwestern portion of Matagorda peninsula, passing about 47’ 39” 83 east of False Live Oak Point, and by the rule of construction applicable in such cases, his 96° should read 97°, to make it harmonize with the other calls, found to be correctly stated as they are on the ground.
The translation making “moras de zarzas” mean blackberries 33 is misleading; for the same term is applied to the black dewberries, which are abundant on that part of the coast, and usually ripening in the last days of March or first of April, while the blackberry growing on the brier bush is not found there. Where it is found, further east on the main, it does not ripen till a month or more later. 34 So while these dewberries do not prove any particular island to be Mal-Hado, their abundance on St. Joseph's, ripening by the first of April, satisfies the reference made by Cabeza to “moras de zarzas,” as the vine on which they grow is in fact briery, zarza being the common name for brier.
Mustang Island is so situated that crossing to the main from either end of it and going along the coast, would exclude the four streams; and crossing from its southern portion would exclude all of Corpus Christi Bay from the onward route to Pánuco.
Galveston island is twice as long as Mal-Hado is described to be, and could not be connected with either Espiritu Santo or Corpus Christi Bay by any such circumstances as those described by Cabeza; for if Matagorda Bay should be assumed to be the one referred to by Cabeza, they would have had to cross it far to the east of the town of Matagorda, to have done so where it was not more than a league across, and would then have been over seventy miles from the high point of the sand hill, and could not possibly have seen it; but they would have been compelled to cross all the streams putting into the bays from the Colorado to the Guadalupe, at least six in number, before reaching a place from which they could see such sand hill. So this island is excluded from being Mal-Hado.
On this statement of the case, it will be assumed that St. Joseph's Island is the veritable Mal-Hado, on whose seacoast the boats were stranded on the sixth of November, 1528.
On April 1, 1898, the writer ate of those black dewberries, or moras de zarzas, at Corpus Christi, and silently contemplated the fate of the tribes once inhabiting the islands and coast along there, and of whom the bones found at the foot of False Live Oak Point and along the banks of the Cala del Oso are the only visible remains to show that they ever lived and held Spanish slaves in this region. 35 Such, he said mentally, are the changes in the affairs of men within 362 years, since Cabeza was here, while nature still maintains the same marks of identity and infinite variety in unity.
In the light of all the foregoing facts, a reference stake, marked A, may be set on the northern end of St. Joseph's Island to mark Mal-Hado, as hereafter referred to; and another may be set opposite the mouth of Cedar Bayou, marked B, to designate the point at which the route in question began on the main. And on a point of the high land at Corpus Christi, in front of the cathedral, another may be set, marked C, to designate the spot where Cabeza and Oviedo met the Indians who gave them notice of Dorantes, Castillo, and the negro being with other Indians, and the spot where Cabeza stood when he saw what made him believe the bay there was the one “they call del Espiritu Santo.”
The object Cabeza and Oviedo had in view and the various facts and circumstances bearing upon and influencing their actions, should here be well considered. Though seeming to be close friends, they evinced unmistakable signs of dissimilar temperaments. But it may not be proper to judge either of them without full knowledge of all the facts and circumstances influencing his conduct.
Those acquainted with the history of the conquest of Mexico, written by Solís, or with what Gómara said on the same subject, may remember the difference in the conduct of the two survivors of the expedition to the sea of Darien, when Cortes sent them the request to come out and join him at the isle of Cozumel. One being a priest, without wife or children, obeyed the summons; but the other, having married the cacique's daughter and begotten upon her three children, declined to manifest that kind of patriotism requiring him to abandon his family in order to join a few of his countrymen in an uncertain adventure. Cancel the facts as to the condition of these two men, and we have a parallel to the case of Cabeza and Oviedo, who may also have been actuated by circumstances widely different.
From what has already been said, it is apparent that Cabeza knew that Pánuco was on the gulf south of him. Thère they saw the coast stretching out to the south, showing they had passed the northwest curve of it and entered upon the southward course of the west border of the gulf, leading down to Pánuco, according to Pineda's map, and he knew that was the nearest settlement of Christians when they last had communication with civilized men. But it is impossible that he could have known anything of the operations of Guzman in search of the Amazons in Jalisco and up the borders of the Gulf of California.
In his note 2 under chapter XVI of his translation, Mr. Smith says of the expressions concerning the bay that seemed to be Espiritu Santo:
“These, and other words of like import in Biedma, perhaps refer to discoveries made on the first voyage of Pineda, who ran the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico for Garay in the year 1519. That Alvar Nuñez was informed of the extent of northern explorations may be supposed from a document existing of record from the king, directing him to apply to the officers of the Contratacion in Sevilla, `of whom, outside of this instruction, you will ask a relation of the notices that it shall appear to them you ought to have knowledge of, and to possess touching the matters of that country.”'
In his “Mojones de los Indios por hacia el Norte,” Gómara mentions Espiritu Santo Bay in rather a confused manner, by omitting before it one of Pineda's calls and putting Rio de Piscadores where the bay should have been named, in 28° 30’ N. From there he says: “Hay cien leguas hàsta el rio de las Palmas, por cerca del cual atraviesa el tropico de Cancro. Del rio de Palmas al Rio Pànuco hay mas de trienta leguas.” There are one hundred leagues to the Rio de las Palmas, near to which crosses the tropic of Cancer. From the Rio de las Palmas to the Rio Pánuco there are more than thirty leagues. And as Gómara wrote after 1540 and published in 1553, before the survey was made by Villafañe and Seron in 1561, he must have obtained his information from the Contratacion at Sevilla, or from a copy of Pineda's map in Madrid. So we may presume that Cabeza expected to find the Pánuco settlements within one hundred and thirty leagues from where he took the bay to be the one called Espiritu Santo,—and this seemed to be the common impression of those cast upon Mal-Hado; from which place they sent out four of their party to go along the coast to Pánuco. And Cabeza says: “We also agreed that four men of the most robust should go on to Pánuco, which we believed to be near,” 36 this being when they first got on the island, and before they had seen the bay they thought to be Espiritu Santo. The way to Pánuco was what he thought to find out while peddling; and he explored the coast down for forty or fifty leagues, and tells the names of the tribes he met along there; and when he told Castillo his “purpose was to go to a land of Christians, and that in this pursuit and search I was going,” 37 he doubtless meant the Spanish settlements in the province of Pánuco. All this shows that they were aiming for Pánuco when they finally ran off to the Avavares. And further on it will be seen that they were within twenty leagues of the Gulf coast four or five days after crossing the Bravo. Then the conclusion follows, that when Cabeza and Oviedo separated, the former was fully resolved to make his way finally to the Spaniards at Pánuco, and the latter to spend his days with the Indians.
The next important point is the place where Cabeza and his comrades left their Indian masters and fled to the Avavares.
While Cabeza is not very clear about how long it was after hearing of his countrymen till he met them, it is plain that they did not meet until two days after Oviedo turned back to the women.
Of the Indians they met there, Cabeza says: “They also said that if we desired to see those three Christians, three days from then the Indians who had them were coming to eat nuts one league from there, on the bank of that river.” 38
How are the parts of this statement to be understood? How long did he and Oviedo stay with those Indians, and how many days were they suffering the cruel treatment he mentions? Had they moved on in any direction in the meantime? While Cabeza does not plainly answer these questions, he does say those women who crossed the ancon 39 with them were some distance behind when Oviedo determined to go back with them, which may have occurred three or more days journey from where they crossed.
“Two days after Lope de Oviedo had gone, the Indians who had Alonso del Castillo and Andrés Dorantes came to the same place that they had told us of to eat of those nuts with which they maintain themselves, grinding some small grains with them, two months of the year, without eating anything else, and even this they do not have every year, because one they are produced and another not. They are of the size of those of Galicia, and the trees are very large, and there are a great many of them.” 40
These were not black walnut trees, else he would have applied to them the term nogales, as he did to the walnut trees in Florida, 41 and would have called the nuts nueces encarciladas or silvestres, to distinguish them from the small fine nuts of Galicia, which are like the English walnuts of commerce, but smaller, and are also much the same as the nuez de Castillo, known in Spanish commerce. Never having seen the pecan trees or nuts in Spain, he had to convey the idea of them by description, for want of a common name. And the description that the trees bear one year and another not, applies to many of the pecan trees in Western Texas.
All this does not point out the river on which these pecan trees were found; but Cabeza says:
“When the six months that I stayed with the Christians waiting to put in execution the agreement we had made were completed, the Indians went off to the prickly pears, it being thirty leagues from there to where they gather them.” 42
From the bend in the San Antonio River, a little east of north from Tordilla and above the mouth of Cibolo Creek, to Loma Alta in McMullen county, or to Picacho in Duval county, it is less than thirty leagues, and that region along the dividing line between these two counties being in the heart of the prickly pear range, it may be assumed to be where they went to eat these pears; and the bend in the San Antonio River being in the midst of a pecan region, it may be taken as the centre of their nut range. So a stake may be set at the latter, marked D, to mark the pecan groves, and another on the west side of Picacho, marked E, to designate the centre of the pear range. All round this point there is abundance of the common cactus opuntia, bearing the greatest quantity of large red prickly pears, which, when first eaten in the season, cause a sickness similar to dengue fever; and the cacanapo, bearing a small pear of fine flavor and a pleasant aroma, and never causing such sickness, is also abundant there; but this cacanapo pear is not known further north beyond the Nueces River.
Speaking of this place, Cabeza says: “There are many kinds of prickly pears, and among them there are some very good, although to me all seemed so, and hunger never gave me time to select or to consider which were the best. Most of the people drink rain water standing in some places; because, although there are rivers, as they are never settled, they never have known nor designated watering places.” 43
And during the rainy seasons the water stands in small ponds all through that region. Throughout that section both kinds of prickly pears are abundant. So it suits the description far better than any other place in Texas; and the trees bearing a fruit similar to peas will be pointed out at the proper distance from this point when treating of the march after they leave here.
In what Figueroa says he heard from Esquivel, as given by Cabeza, it is said of these Indians:
“For them the best time they have is when they eat the prickly pears, because then they do not have hunger, and the time is passed by them in dancing.” 44
In his account of the nations and tongues, Cabeza places these Indians as neighbors to the Mariames and Iguaces, and where there are no stones, probably in the northern portion of Hidalgo County, as he places the Iguaces inland next to the Guaycones who lived on the coast. 45
In the addendum of Mr. Smith under Chapter XVIII of his translation, it is said of these Indians:
“The Spaniards lived here fourteen months, from May to the May ensuing of the year 1530, and to the middle of the month of August, when Andrés Dorantes, being at a place that appeared most favorable for going, commended himself to God, and went off at midday. * * * Castillo tarried among that hard people a year and a half later, until an opportunity presented for starting; but on arriving he found only the negro; Dorantes, discovering that Indians unbearably cruel had gone back more than twenty leagues to a river near Espiritu Santo, among those who had killed Esquivel.” 46
Taking the Nueces river as that to which Dorantes went back, the twenty leagues would place the unbearably cruel Indians he left in the sand below Santa Rosa and La Parra.
In the same addendum it is said: “After the practice of this exercise [meaning running the deer into salt water] once or twice the Indians, leaving the salt water, take up their journey and go inland to eat prickly pears, which they begin upon as they ripen, about August.” This fixes these Indians at their homes on the coast, and shows they knew of the prickly pears inland, though they were twenty leagues below the Nueces river, and in pursuing Cabeza's route from the prickly pear region with the Avavares, their place at the end of these twenty leagues will have a bearing upon the direction these survivors are going.
It seems from his list of the nations and tongues along the coast and opposite to these inland, that Cabeza knew these cruel Indians on the coast before finally starting away with the Avavares, and he must have known the course he was going was parallel to the coast
Of his peddling, Cabeza says:
“And now with my business and my wares, I entered inland as far as I pleased, and along the coast I went forty or fifty leagues. The principal parts of my stock in trade were pieces of shells of red conchs and the inside parts of them and sea shells with which they cut a fruit that is like beans, with which they doctor themselves and make their dances and feasts; and this is the thing of highest appreciation there is among them; and beads of the sea and other things. So this was what I carried inland; in exchange and barter for them I bought skins and ocher, with which they rub and paint their faces and hair; and flints for points of arrows, glue and hard stalks to make them, and some balls made of deer's hair, which they dye and make red; and this occupation was agreeable to me, because, going on in it, I had liberty to go where I pleased, and was not obliged to do anything and was not a slave, and wherever I went they treated me well and gave me something to eat, out of respect for my merchandise; and this principally because pursuing it, I sought the way by which I would have to go forward, and among them I was very well known.” 47
This opens a field for inquiry. To what point did he go along the coast, and what Indians did he meet with on the way? What direction, how far, and to what place did he go inland? Where did he make his exchanges? If the flint and ocher were there close together then, may they not be so still? And proper answers to these questions may shed important light upon the subject under consideration.
If he reckoned from in front of Mal-Hado, then his forty or fifty leagues down the coast reached the Arroyo Colorado, and within forty miles of the present city of Brownsville. And his acquaintance with the habitations and names of the tribes along the coast shows that he did go along there. He says:
“In the isle of Mal-Hado there are two tongues; the people of one are called Coaques, of the other, Han. On the main, in front of the island are others, called de Chorruco, and they take the name of the woods where they live. Further ahead, on the coast of the sea, there live others called Doguenes, and in front of them others who have for their name los de Mendica. Further forward on the coast are the Guevenes, and in front of them, in on the main land, the Mariames, and going forward along the coast, are others called Guaycones, and in front of these, inland on tierra firme, the Iguaces. At the end of these are others called Atayos, and behind these, others Acubadaos, and of these there are many forward along this path. On the coast live others called Quitoles, and in front of these, within on the main land, are the Avavares. 48 There unite with these the Maliacones and other Cutalchiches, and others called Susolas, and others called Comos. And forward on the coast are the Camoles, and on the same coast, others we called los de los Higos. All these tribes have habitations and villages and tongues diverse.” 49
There are six tribes mentioned as living along the coast from in front of Mal-Hado and eleven living inland opposite to the six. If each of these six tribes be alowed eight leagues space along the coast, they will extend down forty-eight leagues, showing that Cabeza traveled along the coast that distance; and it will be shown further on that these Avavares, Maliacones, etc., were on his path near where he crosses the river as wide as that at Sevilla, and where he ends chapter XXV of his relation to introduce this account of the nations and tongues. From this it will appear that he was traveling down parallel with the coast.
Cabeza does not state the distance or direction he traveled inland to where he made his exchanges or barters; but these facts may be ascertained from the natural things he obtained there.
“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.”While describing the march inland in Florida, Cabeza mentions the different large timbers and the fallen pines, 50 and had he, as some contend, gone inland to the north or northeast from Mal-Hado, he would have found pine forests worthy of his notice, before reaching the borders of Red River. Indeed before he crossed Trinity river the large trees would have challenged his attention; and such would have been the grandeur of the forest he traversed before reaching the Adaes village, that his memory could not have omitted it when writing the Naufragios. Indeed it kept fresh the impressions of the thorns in the chapparals on the border of the Bravo, showing he never dreamed of going north from Mal-Hado.
If the coast from St. Joseph's Island to the Arroyo Colorado be taken as the base line from which to raise the perpendicular inland, the place where he got the ocher, flints and skins may be sought to the west as far as the Bravo.
There is an abundance of red ocher on the left margin of the Bravo not far below the town of Carrizo in Zapata County, and a fine, hard quality of flint rock on the same margin above the mouth of Beleño Creek, the two being close together; and the mortars in the rocks along there, used by the ancient tribes to beat their mesquite beans, are still to be seen. There are varadulce, barreta, and other hard woods growing there, from the stalks or sprouts of which arrows were made. The arrundo fragmites, or carrizo, growing round there was also used for arrows. The Carrizo Indians living along the river there were hunters when the Spanish settlers first came there, and doubtless had skins to barter to Cabeza. There are signs of very ancient habitations in that quarter, and many Indians may have lived there when Cabeza was peddling. When Captain Sanchez first brought his flocks to where Laredo is now, in 1755, he found these Carrizo Indians living on Zacate Creek, now embraced by the limits of Laredo. All these Indians used the mesquite beans and probably used the conch shells to cut them to pieces, affording Cabeza ample consumption for his commodities.
On these trips inland Cabeza must have passed through much of the prickly pear range; and from what he says, it seems that he already knew the Avavares, the tribe to which he went when he ran away from his Indian masters.
Now returning to reference stake E in the prickly pear region, and promising to show the tree bearing fruit like peas further on, the time they ran off to the Avavares will be ascertained.
While Cabeza does not in direct terms state the date of their running off to the Avavares, he does state facts and circumstances from which it may be ascertained with reasonable certainty. And these will be presented to enable each reader to determine for himself the most probable date of their flight from their masters in the prickly pear section.
Cabeza says they struck Mal-Hado on the sixth of November, 1528. 51
He remained with the Indians there for more than a year. 52 He says he remained with others six years. 53
He spent two winters with the Indians having his companions, and who went to eat the nuts. 54 This runs into 1537, or a year after the date he reached the Spanish settlers.
A little reasoning is necessary to reconcile these conflicting statements; and as the new moon was seen by Cabeza on the first of September, and it was full on the thirteenth, the day fixed to run off, 55 a year in which this could have occurred will mark that in which they fled.
In a note under his translation, chapter XIX, Mr. Smith gives a tabular statement prepared by Professor Keith, U. S. N., showing the new moons that occurred nearest the first of September, both Old and New Style, from 1530 to 1540; and as the New Style began after Cabeza's time, the Old, or Julian Style, will govern; for Pope Gregory XIII made his retrenchment of ten days in 1582, to bring back the vernal equinox to the same day as at the time of the council of Nice, A. D. 325; and the act of parliament in Great Britain, retrenching eleven days and making the third the fourteenth of September, was passed in 1752, and from it New Style has continued.
In the table referred to, only two years have the new moon near the first of September, Old Style, from 1530 to 1540. It occurred on August 30, 1532, and August 28, 1535; and between these two years the decision must be made by reference to other facts.
Cabeza remained with the Indians of Mal-Hado two winters, and must have left then in the spring of 1530; and if all the time he peddled should be omitted, he would have gone with Castillo and Dorantes to where they ate the nuts that same fall. He returned to the prickly pear region the next summer, making it 1531. He went back and came again to the prickly pears the next summer, making that the year 1532. So it is apparent that if he ran off to the Avavares in 1532, he did not peddle at all, and did not make any annual trips back to Mal-Hado to see Oviedo, whom he would have had to bring out at once when he first left the island. And this would require him to have passed four winters on the way before reaching the Spanish settlement, in April, 1536, while he accounts for but one, which he spent with the Avavares. Thus it is plain that the theory making him run off to the Avavares in September, 1532, would render the whole story farcical.
Adopting the year 1535, and allowing each main fact to be true, except as to the precise time appropriated to it, the story would run as follows:
He remained with the Indians of Mal-Hado the winter he got there and the following winter, till March, 1530; he then peddled until the fall of 1533, when he met his comrades, and went to the pecan trees and remained there until the next prickly pear season in 1534, when the Indians had the trouble about the woman, causing them to separate and carry the Spaniards away with them. After the next winter, that of 1534-5, they came back to the prickly pear region in the summer of 1535, when they made their escape to the Avavares. This allows Cabeza the time he claims to have spent at Mal-Hado and with the Indians who ate the nuts, and a little over three years to peddle, whereas he says almost six. This would harmonize with the statement of only one winter after going to the Avavares before reaching the Spanish settlements. And as the moon changed 5.1 p. m. on the 28th of August, 1535, and might not have been seen by them till about the first of September, and Cabeza says it was the first day of September and “the first of the moon,” when the Indians separated, and that it was full moon and 13th day of the month when the others came to him and they ran off, and the moon actually fulled at four minutes before noon on the 12th, it is most probable that they counted it full the 13th. And this is, perhaps, the most rational way to consider Cabeza's statement.
Again the main party left the island on the first of April, 1529, and in May of that year some of them got with a tribe of Indians and remained with them fourteen months, till August of the next year, 1530, when Andrés went off at midday ; and Castillo remained there a year and a half later, which was till the middle of February, 1532. Andrés Dorantes went back “more than twenty leagues to a river near the bay of Espiritu Santo, among those who killed Esquivel,” * * * ; “and this hidalgo Dorantes states, that in the course of four years he had been a witness to the killing or burying alive of eleven or twelve young males, and rarely do they let a girl live.”
This extract, taken from Cabeza's letter as found in Oviedo and quoted, in the addendum under the translation of chapter XVIII of Cabeza's relation, by Mr. Smith, affords a basis for calculation. If Dorantes lived four years in all among the Indians who killed their children, he having left Mal-Hado on the first of April, 1529, that would make it April, 1533, when he left them; and it must have been in the fall of that year that he met with Cabeza; for he was two winters and till prickly pear season following the second with the Indians, after meeting Cabeza, before they ran off at the full of the moon in September, 1535, making his account and nature's unerring testimony harmonize. Again if Castillo remained with those cruel Indians a year and a half after Dorantes left, say till February, 1532, and then went to the Iguaces, and with them met Cabeza in the fall of that year, as they were going to the place where they ate the nuts, he could not have fled in September of that same year, as they spent two winters after meeting before they ran away; thus making it impossible for them to have fled on the thirteenth of September, 1532. But allowing him to have been with the Iguaces a year and eight months before meeting Cabeza, that would make the meeting about the middle of October, 1533, and after passing the two nut seasons, it would have to be in the summer of 1535 that they went to the prickly pears and there ran off in September. This also harmonizes with nature's testimony, spoken through the full moon. So these facts as to Dorantes and Castillo afford cogent affirmative proof of their having run off to the Avavares in September, 1535, and unanswerable negative evidence against their having done so in September, 1532.
While this view of the subject may be unobsequious to the wild theories of highly imaginative writers on the subject, it meets the prime object of history, to shed the light of truth and sound reason upon the route in question, irrespective of conflicting positions assumed in regard to it.
They left their masters in the prickly pear region, say where reference stake E was set, on the thirteenth of September, 1535, and reached the camp of the Avavares that same day. 56 They remained there five days, having determined to winter with these Avavares. Then they left there with these Indians, and at the end of five days reached a stream where they pitched their tents and went out to hunt a fruit borne by trees and resembling peas. Cabeza got lost and after wandering five days found his companions on the bank of a stream, and next day they all went where they found abundance of prickly pears. 57
About sixty miles by a right line, from where reference stake E was placed in the prickly pear region, there is a stream on either side of which the ebanito, or scrub ebony, is found, bearing a fruit which resembles the large sized English pea very much when green; and it hangs on the trees till late in the season. 58 This stream passes down by Sweden, Aguapoquita, and Concepcion in Duval county; and the owner of Concepcion, Don Julian Palacios, says this fruit, called maguacatas, is still plentiful in that region. When its pods are full grown, but still green, it is gathered and either boiled or roasted in hot embers, and then taken out of the hull and eaten; and so prepared it is very palatable. It is often used as a substitute for coffee when dry. But it is not to be found above latitude 28°N. It is, in fact, the only native tree fruit to be found in Texas so closely resembling the English pea pod in form.
Now Cabeza and his comrades have gone at least sixty miles southward with these Avavares, and nearly parallel with the Gulf coast. Why were they going in that direction?
In his relation Cabeza says:
1.That the governor's territory was from the Rio de las Palmas to the Cape of Florida. 59
2.After they had been delayed on their voyage in the small boats, they again sailed along the coast en route for Rio de las Palmas. 60
3.After they were cast on the island, they determined to send four men forward to Pánuco. 61
4.Cabeza sought to know the way by which he would have to go forward. 62
5.When they crossed the ancon a league wide, they believed the bay there was Espiritu Santo, showing they knew of Pineda's map. 63
6.Cabeza says Mendez went the best he could on the way to Pánuco. 64
7.He tells of the nations and tongues along the coast. 65
8.His aim was to go to a country of Christians. 66
9.After Castillo and Dorantes, with the others, crossed the ancon, from Mal-Hado, all thirteen went away along the coast. 67
10.After crossing a river as large as that at Sevilla, and traveling three more days, they saw the mountains they believed to reach to within fifteen leagues of the sea coast. 68
All this shows that they not only knew the course to the settlements in the province of Pánuco, but that it was their object to go there; and it would require something more than mere conjecture to prove the contrary.
When Cabeza found his companions after being lost five days, they told him they had traveled to that place with great hunger; and in going from the neighborhood of Concepcion westward to Charcos on the heads of the Beleño Creek in Zapata county, they would have to cross a prairie country of over sixty miles in width, where there would be a scarcity of prickly pears, and no other fruit. This must have been a journey on which they would have to suffer with hunger. Cabeza doubtless knew the place where he found them, and went there at last in hopes of finding them there. He had gone there, perhaps, on his peddling trips, to follow the Beleño down to the place where he got the flints and ocher. This was in the home range of the Avavares, which extended down to the Bravo, and possibly down it some distance.
It seems that they remained in this region with the Avavares for some time, as Cabeza says: “Even they have the very greatest hunger, because they have no corn, nor acorns, nor nuts; neither do they eat fish. 69
On the Beleño there are neither oaks nor pecan trees, and the dense jungles there prevented their planting corn. And Cabeza says, “of eight months we remained with them, six of them we suffered much hunger. 70
Indeed there is very little to be found there to sustain human life, after the prickly pears are gone, except game.
Cabeza's description of how he got fire wood there that winter will best serve to give an idea of the country. He says: “And the country is so rough and closed, that many times we gathered fuel in woods where, when we had gotten it out, the blood was running from us in many places, on account of the thorns and plants we encountered, which tore us wherever they touched us. At times it happened to me to have to get fuel where, after it had cost me much blood, I could not get it out either on my shoulders or by dragging it. When in these labors, I had no other remedy or consolation than that of thinking of the passion of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and the blood he spilt for me, and considering how much more may have been the torment he suffered from the thorns than I then suffered.” 71
If there were no other thing by which to determine where Cabeza and his comrades wintered, than this description, it would render futile any attempt to place the locality outside of the thorny jungles and prickly pear thickets along the borders of the Bravo. And if there is a place in the country fully coming up to this thorny standard, it is along the slopes of the ridge called the Bordo and the banks of the Beleño in Zapata county; and further developments will completely identify this as the place where they wintered with the Avavares.
The next day after Cabeza found his companions, they all went where there were prickly pears in great abundance, and there satisfied their great hunger. 72
It is a fact that some cacti have the fruit on the plants until even in December. This was the case near Alice in Nueces county in 1898, where it could be seen from the cars in passing there on the railway.
Just how long they remained here where they satisfied their hunger is not stated, but it must have been until in January, 1536, as their time after leaving there is very well accounted for until they reach and cross the river. From that place they went to where the Cutalchiches and Maliacones, that are of other tongues, were eating prickly pears; and there were also Coayos and Susolas, and Atayos there. 73
This shows that they were going on southward, parallel with the coast, in company with the Avavares, with whom these Maliacones and Cutalchiches are the last named in the list as dwelling inland.
Two days after they arrived among these Indians some Susolas came beseeching Castillo to go and cure a wounded man and others who were sick. The Susolas are next to the last on Cabeza's list; and they remembered that he had doctored them where they ate the nuts. This is where Cabeza says they cured the dead man. 74
This shows that these Susolas ranged north as far as the pecan groves; and they may have gone as far in the opposite direction at times.
Here Cabeza again mentions the Cutalchiches, who bid him goodby, giving him the best of all they had, and then says: “We remained with these Avavares Indians eight months, and this count we made by the moons.” 75 But this count is no doubt exaggerated, because eight months from the thirteenth of September, 1535, when they got with these Avavares, would reach the thirteenth of April, 1536, only thirteen days later than his arrival at the Spanish settlements.
Now they begin to lead off on their route again.
From where they raised the dead man, they went to the Maliacones, who are also named in the list as living inland. This was one day's journey, and Cabeza and the negro went to the place, and three days later sent for Castillo and Dorantes, and on the arrival of those, they all started off with those Indians to where they joined others called Arbadaos, and those who came with them returned by the same road. This is where they bartered for the two dogs and ate them. 76 And they are now away from the Avavares, and fairly on their journey.
They went on with the Arbadaos and reached others of the same tongue; and from there they journeyed on in the rain till night. Passing the woods, the next day they found other houses of Indians, and that night arrived at fifty houses, where they passed the night. On leaving there they left those Indians crying. 77
This was on the Beleño, and the Indians being of those named in Cabeza's list, he may have made their acquaintance while peddling in coming to the flint rocks and ocher beds near there; hence his leaving them was the cause of much sorrow, and they were crying.
In chapters XXIV and XXV of his relation Cabeza tells the customs of the Indians in the country, and in XXVI he gives the list of the nations and tongues already referred to. All this is done preparatory to the account of crossing the river; and still he is with Indians named in his list as living back of those he names as living on the coast.
Leaving those who wept at parting, they went with the others to their houses, where they were given much flour of mezquiquez, the description given showing it to be made from mesquite beans—the fruit of the wild carob, from which the Indians of Mexico make bread. 78 This was on the lower part of the Beleño, where there are many holes or mortars in the rocks, showing that the ancient inhabitants ground their mesquite beans in them to make what is now called mezquitamal, still used, not only by the remnants of the ancient tribes, but by many of the Mexicans living along the borders of the Bravo.
What time they spent here eating mesquite bean flour is not stated; but as it is a settlement not far from the flint and ocher, Cabeza's exchanges may have been with them, and as a matter of friendship, he may have remained with them some days.
When they desired to proceed, some women of a tribe living further on arrived there, and told where their houses were. They started to go there, the women following them. At four leagues they drank water, and were overtaken by the women. Leaving there with these women for guides, they crossed a river in the evening, the water coming up to their breasts, which may be as wide as that at Sevilla, and it flowed swiftly. At sunset they arrived where there were one hundred Indian houses. 79
Along below the mouth of the Beleño the Bravo is about as wide as the Guadalquiver at Sevilla, and flows with considerable current, especially at the shallow places.
Now, after passing all the tribes Cabeza names as living inland from those enumerated as living along the coast, they have crossed the Rio Grande, and a knowledge of the country will enable us to identify the ford at which they passed out of what is now the State of Texas. This being all of the route in question properly belonging to Texas history, and therefore meriting most special attention here, let it be seen what further light may be shed upon it by a retrospective view.
At the first houses after crossing the river, the people were rejoicing over their arrival, and received them with much clapping of hands on the thighs; and Cabeza says: “The fear and confusion of the Indians was so great, that striving to get to us and touch us, the ones before the others, they pressed upon us so that they were near killing us.” 80
Here they first saw the perforated gourds, and were told by the Indians that they came from heaven, and the rivers, when swollen, brought them. 81 So there were at least two rivers there, and the junction of the Rio Grande and Rio Salado, near the town of Carrizo, meets this description. The Salado and its affluents drain nearly one-half of the state of Coahuila and a considerable portion of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, in many of the valleys of which territory the Indians had these gourds when the Spaniards first came among them. The Mexicans used them as canteens as late as 1850, and still use them in some places.
Another coincidence there is the general abundance of mesquite, bearing the beans from which the flour Cabeza mentions was made; and all round on both sides of the rivers are still to be found the mortars or holes in the rocks in which they were ground.
The description of the route of Cabeza and his companions from the prickly pear range, where the reference stake E was set to the Aguapoquita Creek and to the ranch of Concepcion, and thence across the prairie to Charcos, is sufficiently plain; and from there to the one hundred houses, where they got the mezquite flour, embraces all the time they spent with the Avavares, in the most dense jungles and prickly pear thickets, where the thorns to refresh Cabeza's memory not only made him think of the crown of thorns worn by his Savior, but so impressed him that he did not forget them when writing to the Emperor Charles V.
The place of one hundred houses, where he got the mesquite flour, was the last before crossing the river. It was, perhaps, at the place called Charco del Tule, or el Tule, and must have been known to Cabeza in his peddling days, as it is within four leagues of both the flint rocks and the beds of red ocher. And it is less than five leagues from the Jamaica crossing, which suits the description given by Cabeza, and will now be assumed to be where he crossed the river. So let a reference stake marked F be set on the left margin of the Bravo here at this Jamaica crossing, to designate the place where Cabeza and his comrades crossed in the early part of 1536. 82
As the count of the months spent with the Avavares was by moons, and anxiety to reach a land of Christians may have made each moon seem two, no certain day for the crossing of the Bravo will be named; but the mention of some things would indicate that it might have been about the first of February.
The onward march from the first houses after crossing the river will still further identify the Jamaica as the proper crossing. On leaving the Indian houses not far from the ford, they went to other Indians, where they were well received and given the venison killed that day.
In 1750 there was a village of Indians about a day's march from the Jamaica crossing, and on the sixth of March, 1753, Escandon established the town of Mier there, on the bank of a small stream called del Álamo. These Indians being of the tribes called Garzas and Malaguecos, who were of the most docile and timid character, of their own volition congregated with the Spanish settlers, and did not rebel against Mier's being founded on lands they had occupied in past epochs. Some years later they became mixed with the families of the new settlers, losing their languages and entering completely into a new life. 83
These Malaguecos may have been the same tribe Cabeza called Maliacones that went with the Avavares, whose territory or range may have extended down the Bravo to in front of Mier, a place ever to be remembered by Texans, which marks the spot where Cabeza and his comrades spent the first night after leaving the place where they saw the gourds.
The next day they went to other Indians, perhaps on the little stream where Zamora now stands, or on the San Juan, where Peñablanca is now. They went from there to where were the numerous houses and lighter colored Indians, many of whom Cabeza says were blind of one eye. But allowance for his inclination to magnify will show that these were the Indios Blancos of that section, as he says they were whiter than any Indians they had seen until then. Since the earliest explorations in this section these peculiar Indians have been known under different names, given by the Spaniards to designate them; as Borrados (blotted), Rayones (striped), Blancos (white), etc., and were understood to be of the Nahoa family; and at that time there were families of them where Monterey is now and in the surrounding country. 84
In 1750 they were known under the name of Borrados on the left margin of the Bravo at Dolores, above where the town of Carrizo now stands; some families of them being then congregated there with others of the Carrizo tribe. 85 When Escandon explored the country along Rio Conchas from the south end of Sierra de Pamoranes to the coast, a moderate day's ride, he found a congregation of these Indians, under the name of Pintos (spotted), under the control of an Indian called Marcos, an “indio de razon,” or converted Indian. 86
Returning to Cabeza at the village of the white Indians in the vicinity of the present settlement called Bravo, let the thread of the route be taken up.
Cabeza says: “Here we began to see mountains, and it seemed that they came in succession from towards the Sea of the North; and so from the account the Indians of this place gave us, we believed that they were fifteen leagues from the sea. From here we started off with these Indians towards these mountains we have mentioned, and they took us by where there were some kinsmen of theirs. * * * And when we had arrived those who went with us sacked the others. As they know the custom, before we arrived, they concealed some things; and after they had received us with much feasting and joy, they brought out the things they had concealed, to present them to us, and they were beads and red ocher and some small bags of silver.” * * * “And desiring to leave the next day, all the people wanted to take us to other friends of theirs who were at the point of the mountains, and said that there were many houses and people there, and that they would give us many things; but on account of its being out of our way we would not go to them, and we went along the plain near the mountains which we believed to be not far from the coast.” 87
In his Historia, Vol. III, p. 605, Oviedo, speaking from the joint letter, says: “Near there were the mountains, and it seemed to be a cordillera of them crossing the country directly towards the north; and from there they took these Christians forward five leagues more, to a river which was at the foot of the point where the said mountain began. And that night they sent down towards the sea to call people, and the following day many men and women came to see those Christians and their miracles, and to bring them things they gave them.”
From the San Juan River over to the San Lorenzo at the foot of the Pamoranes mountain is about five leagues, and the Indian settlement at the southeast end of the mountain was down the San Lorenzo and toward the sea.
After much parley, the Indians insisting that the route the Spaniards were about to take was without people or subsistence, Cabeza says:
“They entreated us to remain there that day, and we did so. Then they sent two men to look for people along the road by which we desired to go; and the next day we left, taking with us many of them, and the women went, loaded with water, and so great was our authority among them that no one dared to drink without our permission.
Two leagues from there we met the men who had gone to hunt the people, and they said they had found none, of which the Indians seemed sorry, and again importuned us to go by the mountain. We declined to do so, and seeing our determination, though with much sorrow, they took leave of us and returned down the river to their houses, and we went on up the river. In a little while we met two women loaded, and on seeing us they halted and unloaded themselves, and brought us some of what they were carrying, which was flour of maize; and they told us that further forward on that river we should find houses and plenty of prickly pears and of that flour. So we took leave of them, because they were going to the others we had left.
We went on till sunset, and arrived at a village of about twenty houses, where they received us crying and with great sorrow, because they already knew that wherever we went everybody was sacked and robbed by those accompanying us. When they saw us alone they lost their fear and gave us prickly pears and nothing else. We remained there that night.” 88
Here the formation of the country is calculated to impress wrongly anyone going the route pursued by Cabeza. The San Juan river, where he first met those whiter Indians, flows to the northeast towards the Rio Grande, and going across the Llano de Flores it appears as if the stream on the west of Pamoranes mountain also flows in that direction; but it flows southward and empties into the Rio Conchas, near the southern end of the mountain. This little river is called San Lorenzo, and is the one where Cabeza remained over a day. Taking the plain from there to where he struck the Conchas and then went up it, he speaks of it being down the river to the houses from where the Indians turned back that day. But he says: “We went along the plain near the mountains,” and it was very natural for him to think, when he struck the Conchas and found he was going up stream, that it was the same river; and practical experience has taught this lesson to more than one American in modern times. Indeed, it required two examinations to give the writer a satisfactory idea of the directions in which the two streams flow, it being clearly presented by a view of the junction near Mendez, formerly la Laja.
Now we have Cabeza and his comrades on the Rio Conchas, above the mouth of San Lorenzo, and, for convenience of description, a reference stake will be set here, say at Nogales, and marked G, to identify the point to which the route is deemed to have been shown with sufficient certainty to exclude the necessity of examining any other back of it to Mal-Hado.
Now how does Cabeza's statement of the route from where he found the Indians whiter than any he had seen before, to the place of twenty houses, correspond with the facts on the ground here from Bravo to Nogales? Let the latter be the position from which to take the view. Looking to the northeast, the southern end of Sierra de Pamoranes is seen, standing within fifteen leagues of the gulf coast. On the hither side of the point of the mountain, one sees the San Lorenzo and Conchas coming together and flowing easterly, on the south of the mountain, to the Laguna Madre. On it was the village of Borrados or Blancos under the “indio de razon,” Captain Marcos, when Escandon examined this section in 1750, and around the mountain there were settlements of these Indians. Looking up the San Lorenzo, we see the place where the Spaniards spent a day with these Indians; and turning the eye to the northwest, away across the plain, the San Juan river is seen where Bravo now stands. Between it and the mountain is the plain, or Llano de Flores, extending south to the Conchas—the same prairie on which Escandon found the shepherd who guided him to Camargo in 1750. Back of Bravo three days' journey, beyond Peñablanca and Mier, is the Jamaica crossing of the Rio Grande, a stream as wide as the Guadalquiver at Sevilla; and this crossing surrounded by all the indicia to identify it as the place where Cabeza crossed. Will the rules of topography admit of there being another place in the country with so many of the signs of its identity given in the twenty-eight chapter of Cabeza's relation? If so, it must have been omitted from all the chorographical and geographical works hitherto published. 89
Here at the stake G on the Conchas ends the first part of this paper, with Sierra de Pamoranes as a noted out call to direct the investigation to the Jamaica crossing as the locative call for the southern end of the single route from St. Joseph's Island through Texas territory.
19. During the winter they struck the island a plague killed off all but fifteen of them. It was very much like the disease now called cholera, and in 1545 it caused great mortality in Mexico among the natives, who called it matlazahuatl.
20. Naufragios, Cap. X.
21. Ibid., Cap. XI.
22. Cap. XV. The width of the bay at the crossing of Cedar Bayou is about six miles, or two leagues; and in 1850 St. Joseph's Island was about fifteen miles long, with an average width of a mile and a half. Captain Thomas Allen, of Corpus Christi, says: “St. Joseph's Island is fifteen miles long.”
23. Captain Allen also says: “Matagorda Island is nearly forty miles long, from Cedar Bayou to Saluria.”
24. Captain J. J. Dix furnishes a certified sketch from the General Land Office, showing this length for Mustang Island.
25. Wm. T. Dorset, Frank Ayers, and F. M. Prior, who live in that section and have been familiar with the coast for many years, give the following estimate of distances: “From the reef crossing at Corpus Christi to the Aransas River, 30 miles; thence to crossing of Mission River, 15 miles; thence to crossing of Copano River, 11 miles; thence to Bergantin Creek, 12 miles; and thence to Cedar Bayou crossing, 6 miles.” See description of these distances, infra.
26. “Cada año me detenia diciendo que el otro siguiente nos iriamos. En fin, al cabo lo sacqué y le pasé el ancon y cuatro rios que hay por la costa, porque él no sabia nadar, y ansi fuimos con algunos Indios adelante hasta que llegamos á un ancon que tiene una legua de través y es por todas partes hondo; y por lo que de él nos paresció y vimos, es el que llaman del Espíritu Santo.” Naufragios, Cap. XVI.
27. The last of the four is the largest, the Aransas, and if these are the four rivers referred to by Mr. Bandelier, in his note on page 33, it will be seen that he departs widely from the description here given. He says: “It will be seen further on that they crossed four rivers, and that these were the Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, and Rio Grande; hence the meeting must have taken place west of the Sabine and east of the Trinity, or in southeast Texas.” But as he places the crossing of the Trinity about 94° 45’ W. and that of the Rio Grande about 104° 45’ W., they are at least ten degrees apart; while the distances between the first and last of the four these wanderers crossed along the coast is stated at thirteen leagues, or about three-fourths of a degree, making his distance thirteen and onethird times that stated by them. If he means the river “as wide as that at Sevilla,” and three others crossed further forward on their route, then the first is crossed after they had met, had gone to where the large trees bore nuts about the size of those of Galicia, had been to the prickly pears twice, and, the last time there, had fled to the Avavares, had spent the winter with them in the prickly pear range, and then gone to the crossing beyond which they found houses and saw the first gourds; and all this would have occurred east of the Trinity River, it being the first he names. It is a well known fact that there are no great quantities of fruit-bearing prickly pears east of the Trinity. It was after crossing the river “as wide as that at Sevilla,” and before crossing the next, that they saw the mountain fifteen leagues from the coast; and it is a well known fact that the first mountain within such distance of the coast, going from the mouth of the Mississippi towards Pánuco, is the Pamoranes, south of the Rio Grande. And the fact that this mountain has a stream flowing southward along its west side, and the length of the mountain is about fourteen leagues, will distinguish it from all others. It extends back from the coast slightly west of north.
28. Relation of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. Translation by Buckingham Smith (1871), pp. 95, 96.
29. Smith's translation, p. 95.
30. Captain Thomas Allen, who sailed along there for years, says: “The sandhills on Matagorda Island are about forty feet high, and extend from near Cedar Bayou to opposite False Live Oak Point, on the southeast part of what is now called San Antonio Bay, nine miles from Cedar Bayou. The foot of this point is washed by the water of this San Antonio Bay, which is the southern part of Espiritu Santo Bay.”
31. Smith's translation, Chap. XVI, p. 89.
32. Captain Allen says; “From Flour Bluff to McGloin's Bluff is ten miles, and from the latter to St. Joseph's Island is fourteen miles,” thus making the aggregate twenty-four miles.
33. Smith's translation, Chap. XIV, p. 77.
34. This information as to the blackberry was kindly furnished by an old settler on Caney Creek.
35. Delmars Givens, an attorney of Corpus Christi, and stepson of J. H. Kuykendall, says: “When I was a boy, living there on the bay, I often saw the human bones washed out by the water at the foot of False Live Oak Point. My stepfather also saw them and noted the fact in his manuscript.” The bones on the Cala del Oso have been found in quantities down to within the last ten years.
36. Naufragios, Cap. XIII.
37. Ibid., Cap. XVII.
38. Naufragios, Cap. XVI.
39. This word is usually applied to very small bays and the narrow passages connecting large bays.
40. Naufragios, Cap. XVII.
41. Ibid., Cap. VII.
42. Naufragios, Cap. XIX.
43. Ibid.
44. Naufragios, Cap. XVIII.
45. Ibid., Cap. XXVI.
46. This is quoted literally from Smith's translation, but the printer must have dropped the word were after “Indians,” or made some like mistake — Editor Quarterly.
47. Naufragios, Cap. XVI.
48. These Avavares are the ones they went to when they ran off.
49. Naufragios, Cap. XXVI.
50. Smith's translation, Chap. V.
51. Naufragios, Cap. X.
52. Ibid., Cap. XVI.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., Cap. XIX.
56. Naufragios, Cap. XIX, XX.
57. Ibid., Cap. XXI.
58. The pods turn dark and hang on the tree as late as December. John M. Priour gathered two dozen from a tree on his place near Corpus Christi in October, 1898, and gave them to the writer.
59. Naufragios, Cap. I.
60. Ibid., Cap. IX.
61. Ibid., Cap. XIII.
62. Ibid., Cap. XVI.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., Cap. XVII.
65. Ibid., Cap. XXVI.
66. Ibid., Cap. XXVII.
67. Ibid., Cap. XVI.
68. Ibid., Cap. XXVIII.
69. Naufragios, Cap. XXII.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid.
72. Naufragios, Cap. XXI.
73. Ibid., Cap. XXII.
74. Ibid.
75. Naufragios, Cap. XXII.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid., Cap. XXIII.
78. Dic. Cast. h. v.
79. Naufragios, Cap. XXVII.
80. Ibid., Cap. XXVII.
81. Naufragios, Cap. XXVII.
82. The mouth of Beleño is three miles above Jamaica crossing. The flint rock is a mile above there. The ochre is there in several places, both red and yellow.
83. Prieto: Historia Geografica y Estadística del Estado de Tamaulipas, pp. 186-7.
84. Velasco: Geografia y Estadística, Nuevo Leon, p. 8.
85. Prieto: Historia, etc., p. 175.
86. Ibid., p. 152.
87. Naufragios, Cap. XXVIII.
88. Naufragios, Cap. XXVIII.
89. The map copyrighted by S. Voisin, A. D. 1884, gives a fair represensentation of this section of Tamaulipas.
How to cite:
Coopwood, Bethel, "THE ROUTE OF CABEZA DE VACA ", Volume 003, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 108 - 140. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v003/n2/article_2.html
[Accessed Tue Dec 2 20:30:40 CST 2008]
