THE QUARTERLY OF THE TEXAS STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
VOLUME XV JULY, 1911, TO APRIL, 1912
PUBLICATION COMMITTEE A. W. Terrell Eugene C. Barker E. W. Winkler Z. T. Fulmore W. J. Battle EDITOR Eugene C. Barker ASSOCIATE EDITORS E. W. Winkler Charles W. Ramsdell AUSTIN, TEXAS PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION 1912CONTENTS
NUMBER 1; JULY, 1911
The Aguayo Expedition Into Texas and Louisiana, 1719-1722 Eleanor Claire Buckley 1
The Jumano Indians in Texas, 1650-1771 Herbert E. Bolton 66
Notes and Fragments 85
Book Reviews and Notices 87
NUMBER 2; OCTOBER, 1911
The Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico in 1680 Charles Wilson Hackett 93
Destruction of Historical Archives of Texas E. W. Winkler 148
Documents 156
Notes and Fragments 162
Book Reviews and Notices 167
Affairs of the Association 172
NUMBER 3; JANUARY, 1912
Declaration of Causes for Taking Up Arms Against Mexico Eugene C. Barker 173
Missionary Activities Among the Eastern Apaches William Edward Dunn 186
British Correspondence Concerning Texas Edited by Ephraim Douglass Adams 201
Notes and Fragments 266
NUMBER 4; APRIL, 1912
Diplomatic Relations of Texas and the United States, 1839-1843 Thomas Maitland Marshall 267
British Correspondence Concerning Texas, II Edited by Ephraim Douglass Adams 294
Notes and Fragments 356
Book Reviews and Notices 357
Affairs of the Association 360
Vol. XV JULY, 1911 No. 1
The publication committee and the editor disclaim responsibility for views expressed by contributors to The Quarterly.
1. The Spanish Establishments.—The desire of Spain to fasten her claims on eastern Texas had resulted by 1719 in what was at best a very weak hold on that region. Its maintenance was in the immediate charge of the Francisean friars of Mexico, backed by a military force never exceeding twenty-five soldiers. Six straggling missions, scattered the Neches River within a few miles of the Red, had been erected in 1716 by a mere handful of missionaries. The missions were, San Francisco de los Téxas, on the Neches; La Purísima Concepción, on the Angelina; San Joseph, north of Nacogdoches, among the Nazonis; Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, at Nacogdoches; Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, at modern San Augustine; and San Miguel de los Adaes, some seven or more leagues southwest of Natchitoches, Louisiana. 2 The first three were under the charge of the Franciscan College of Querétaro, with their capital at the Mission of La Purísima Concepción, the last three under that of Zacatecas, with their capital at the Mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. 3 The small garrison of soldiers that protected them was near Mission Concepción. In the center of the province were the as yet weak Mission of San Antonio de Valero and the presidio of San Antonio de Bexar, established in 1718 by Father Olivares and Governor Alarcón.
The condition of these establishments was far from flourishing. The expedition of Alarcón had been charged with the replenishment of the impoverished missions of eastern Texas and the settlement of their surrounding Indians in pueblos. 4 These things, however, it failed to do, and the missionaries continued to suffer from extreme want. In the years 1717 and 1718 the crops of beans and corn failed, and the Spanish were forced to resort to wild herbs; game was so scarce that the unpalatable crows were used for meat; while the church supplies, the wax for candles and the necessary articles for the celebration of the mass, were all but exhausted. Urgent requests for alleviation were sent to the home government both before and after Alarcón's expedition, but for various reasons no relief came. 5
Thus when our narrative opens, there were in eastern Texas a few missionary priests caring for the six missions, relying for supplies on the inadequate providence of the government authorities in the City of Mexico, and contending with the cupidity of the surrounding Indians. The latter's hostility could be kept in check only by constant gifts, as they were continually alienated by the indiscreet acts of the military, and were in natural antagonism to the chief aim of the missionaries, which was to settle them in pueblos as a first step to their christianization and civilization. 6
2. The French Establishments.—Facing the Spanish establishments in eastern Texas were the outposts of the French in western Louisiana. In 1698 they had made a settlement at Mobile, twelve leagues from the Spanish fort of Pensacola. Their occupation had rapidly extended westward, and by 1717, as an obstacle to Spanish encroachment through Texas and as a base for western Indian trade, they had erected a presidio at Natchitoches, 7 not far from los Adaes. As early as 1717 it was evident that they had designs on the interior Cadodacho lands, 8 designs which were consummated in 1719.
The committing of Louisiana to a rich trading company in 1712 had made its extension and occupation by the French much more probable, for on the success of the commercial enterprise depended the personal fortunes of the promoters of the company. The extension of French influence, which, for trading purposes, was naturally toward the west, made it a factor in Spanish activities in eastern Texas. Thus the Spanish missionaries, in addition to their other difficulties, had to contend with the inherent racial advantages possessed by the French of easy and rapid amalgamation with the aborigines, for French priest, French soldier, and especially French trader, each readily made the Indian his friend. 9
3. Change in the French Frontier Policy.—The Aguayo expedition, which is the theme of this paper, had its cause in a crisis in the affairs of this Texas-Louisiana Frontier. For some time there had been evident a tendency toward a more positive policy on the part of the two nations occupying this border territory. At first the political policy of both had been mutually forbearing, inconsistent, and self-damaging. As regards France, while she consistently claimed Texas after La Salle's attempted settlement, she made no definite effort to occupy the country. Moreover, the persistent efforts of the authorities in Louisiana, beginning with 1712, to open up a land trade with Mexico resulted in the occupation of eastern Texas by Spain in 1716 with six missions and a presidio with twenty-five soldiers. As for Spain, she maintained a jealous, but inactive attitude, until, stirred by imminent danger of a French occupation, she was aroused to spasmodic and weak efforts to secure her claim on Texas, first in 1691 and again in 1716. But the history of early Spanish missions in Texas is a history of successive failures on Spain's part to properly support establishments that were destined to guard what was clearly a danger point. This failure had led one of the early fathers 10 to seek aid among the French of Louisiana, and a later one not to disdain a clandestine encouragement of the French trader at the very time that the latter was carrying French influence into regions claimed by Spain. 11
On account of the forbearance on the part of the French and their avowed eagerness for trade, it has been said and implied that the French of Louisiana were willing, anxious, even solicitous, that Spanish establishments be made in eastern Texas, as a means to promote trade on the border. 12 There seem to be good grounds to doubt the truth of this in general, and by 1719 there are evident signs of the existence of an aggressive policy on the part of the French. Some of the indications that the French did not wish to encourage Spanish settlements in eastern Texas are the following: First, there is a manifest dissatisfaction on the part of the French authorities with the outcome of St. Denis's enterprise, which resulted in the Ramón expedition and the founding of six missions and a presidio in eastern Texas in 1716; 13 second, this feeling of dissatisfaction and disappointment was converted into a desire to resist, and resulted in an aggressive movement on the part of the French in 1719, when, at the order of Bienville, the Governor of Louisiana, Blondel, the commandant at Natchitoches, attacked the mission of los Adaes and brought about for some time the general and complete abandonment of eastern Texas. 14 This aggressive French movement was the immediate cause of the Aguayo expedition, whose object was the reoccupation of the abandoned province.
4. Spanish Fears of the French.—Even before the advent of St. Denis in Mexico, Spanish officials had apprehended danger from the French. As a barrier to those who had advanced as far as Natchitoches after the Ramón expedition of 1716, the missions of San Miguel de los Adaes and Nuestra Señora de los Dolores were established in 1717 along the route formerly used by the French through Texas to Mexico. 15 In the same year an attempt was made to anticipate the French at the Cadodachos, 16 and in 1719 La Harpe learned from the missionary at the mission of los Adaes that Alarcón had ordered an establishment among the Nassonites. 17
Fears of aggression from this quarter were frequently expressed by the missionaries who were in Texas at the time. In June, 1718, Father Olivares at Mission San Antonio de Valero, in writing to the viceroy, said that the French had won the Indians over by their gifts and their disinterestedness, and warned him of danger from this source should war break out, “for they [the French] are supplying the Indians with arquebuses in addition to their arrows.” 18 Father Espinosa, priest at Concepción, on the Angelina, commenting on French influence, relates that at the reception of Alarcón in 1718, the Indians on the frontier “fired off more guns than all the Spaniards put together,” and that in that one mission he had out of curiosity counted ninety-two guns in the Indians' possession. 19 And in the letter of July 2, 1719, by the two missionary presidents, Margil and Espinosa, to the viceroy, an important source for the period, reference is made to former letters they had written expressing similar, if not more personal, fears of the French. 20
Finally, these fears, together with other difficulties of the missionaries, were presented at the viceroy's court by a special messenger. About the middle of 1718, the fathers in eastern Texas were driven to a high degree of impatience by Alarcón's delay at San Antonio, and despaired of getting any relief from him at all. Father Margil sent for Father Espinosa, therefore, and at the former's mission of Dolores a conference was held, at which six religious were present. It was there decided to send two representatives to Mexico, one from each college of friars, to make a personal appeal to the government, in the hope of removing certain misconceived prejudices, and of awakening the authorities to the real danger of the situation in Texas. President Espinosa was the Querétaran representative chosen, and Fray Mathías Sanz de San Antonio, the Zacatecan. These two had gone as far as San Antonio when they met Alarcón 21 just starting for Espíritu Santo and eastern Texas. Father Espinosa, thinking it best to be present at the visitation of the missions under his charge, returned to eastern Texas, by way of Espíritu Santo, with Alarcón, leaving Father Mathías to bear the mission to the home government. 22
The latter sped on to Mexico, where he arrived in November, 1718, and remained till February, 1719. The burden of his complaint to the home government as summarized by Espinosa was: “The manifest risk of losing that province [Texas], on account of the proximity of the French, who were penetrating [adjacent lands] with new settlements, and had a fortification with many people and arms on the Cadodacho River; that information was had that they were settling the banks of the Palizada [the Mississippi] in force; and that it was to be feared on good grounds that they would attach the Téxas Indians to their side, because they fondled them much, giving them firearms in exchange for horses.” 23 Father Mathias's mission was successful as far as orders for relief of the situation were concerned, but ineffective as far as action went. The viceroy, to the end that the Indians might be subjugated and the French restrained, ordered that Spanish families should be sought and sent to Texas to form villas; issued a despatch authorizing the syndic to collect the alms which the king set aside for missionaries; and ordered that alms be collected from the royal treasury at Zacatecas. But nothing was done, and the Texas missionary left the capital in disgust for Zacatécas, February, 1719. 24
1. The Breach of Peace in Europe, January, 1719.—The proverbially slow working of the Spanish governmental authorities allowed time for the fulfillment of the prophecies and the justification of the fears of the missionaries. Before anything was done to strengthen the frontier, menace was offered by the French, and the Spanish missionaries were driven from eastern Texas.
This occurrence was the immediate result and the reflection of European complications. Out of the aspiration of Philip V to the French throne came the unnatural union between France and England in the Triple Alliance, and finally the political isolation of Spain in the formation of the Quadruple Alliance. Spain's retaliatory and aggressive policy carried out in her occupation of Sardinia and her invasion of Sicily was the signal for the declaration of war against her by France, January 9, 1719. 25
2. The Capture of Pensacola by the French, May, 1719.—On April 20, Bienville, the French governor at Mobile, received the declaration of war and an order from the Company of the Occident, then in charge of Louisiana, to seize Pensacola immediately. 26 On May 14 the French sea force surprised and captured the fort. This was the first news the Spanish of Louisiana had of the existence of war, and they claimed an unpardonable breach of faith by the French in not having given the customary two months' notice. 27
On June 29, the viceroy, by letter from Salinas, the governor of San José, received news of the fall of Pensacola, and immediately began elaborate preparations for its recapture. His fleet, however, did not arrive in time for the retaking of the fort. According to stipulations, the French were to transport the Spanish garrison to Havana and thence to Spain. When, however, the French frigates bearing the prisoners neared Havana, they were accidentally met by a Spanish fleet, commanded by D. Alonso Carrascosa de la Torre, and captured. Changing his original plans, Carrascosa now veered toward Pensacola, and on August 7 recaptured the place without resistance. 28
The French under Bienville and Serigny now concentrated their forces, increased by a number of Indian allies and, aided by a newly arrived fleet, again captured Pensacola, September 17, 1719. It finally returned to Spain by treaty in 1721. 29
3. Blondel's Attack on los Adaes, June, 1719.—From this minor war movement in Louisiana, a still smaller one penetrated to the forlorn province of Texas, and swept back for two years from its eastern portion to San Antonio, all vestige of Spanish occupation. Though the act in itself was insignificant, the effects were far from being so, and on the minds of the Spaniards, filled as they were with fears of an impending danger from that source, it made a deep impression. The contemporary writings of the missionaries, which are our principal sources for this event, are laden with details, and the accounts which they present, told with all the charm and naïveté of the simple-hearted padres, are not without humor to the modern reader.
Just what caused the Spaniards to leave eastern Texas in 1719 has been variously misrepresented. One extreme view is that St. Denis, with a large body of French and Indian allies, attacked their settlement at los Adaes; another, which is just as untrue, is that there was no attack at all, and that the missionaries fled without cause. The most important available document for this event is the letter of July 2, 1719, to the viceroy from the two presidents of the missions in Texas. 30 Written under the actual stress of the flight, it gives exact and somewhat graphic details of the plight, fears, and wants of the small band which was expected to hold Texas for His Spanish Majesty. The writers, Fathers Margil and Espinosa, were at the time of the writing at Mission Concepción on the Angelina, where they remained for about twenty days after the rest of the Spaniards had retired toward the Trinity. 31
The facts in the case, as gathered from this letter and other sources, seem to be that about the middle of June, 1719, 32 a month after the capture of Pensacola, the French commandant at Natchitoches went in person to the Mission of San Miguel de los Adaes and captured its occupants. This was not in itself a prodigious feat, for these at the time numbered two—a lay brother and a ragged soldier. It so happened that the missionary priest and his companions were absent on a spiritual errand to their superior, Father Margil, at the Mission Dolores, and so were providentially saved from arrest. Seemingly satisfied with his work, Blondel started home, taking in his custody the lay brother, the soldier, the sacred vessels, ornaments, and other utensils from the mission church. He did not spare even the chickens, which were to repeat in a lesser degree the exploits of the geese of Rome. Not submitting willingly to captivity by the French, they made desperate efforts to escape, and the wild flapping of their wings so frightened the horses that Blondel, the commandant, was thrown. In the consequent confusion, and with the aid of some friendly French soldiers, the lay brother made his escape. So, the Spanish chronicler continues, “Monsieur Commandant returned to his presidio, glorious in the triumph over one worthless soldier and the captured chickens, whose lives were presumably not spared, . . . since they had so treacherously threatened that of their captor.” 33
4. The Retreat of the Spanish across the Trinity, June-September 1719.—The lay brother fled back to Margil's mission, the bearer of his own startling news and of more given him by the friendly French soldiers. His was the first intimation the Texas Spaniards had that their stronghold of Pensacola had been captured. The French soldiers had told him that a hundred men were hourly expected from Natchitoches to mete out a fate like that of los Adaes to the rest of the Texas missions. Speeding the lay brother on with the news to the other missions, Father Margil buried his iron tools and implements, gathered together his ornaments, and retired to Concepción. 34 The information had spread terror to the other missions. The captain, who then was Domingo Ramón, and his few soldiers at the presidio of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, adjacent to the mission of Concepción, were for immediate flight; the eight women at the presidio clamored to be allowed to retreat, willing to risk the Indians and the wilds alone with two soldiers. On Father Margil's arrival, the religious held council. According to the fathers, they tried to induce the captain to await further developments, since the Indians had offered to put out spies and warn them of any French advance, and the fathers urged that there could be no immediate danger, as they were then more than a hundred leagues away from the French. But persuasion was of no avail, we are told, and in spite of opposition, the families, soldiers, and some of the religious to whom the spirit of fear had been communicated, began their withdrawal, and camped half a league from the Mission of San Francisco de los Téxas, just east of the Neches River. Father Espinosa remained in his mission of Concepción, trying to quiet the Indians who rebelled at the Spaniards' leaving. In order to assure them that the Spanish intended to return, he finally left some of the fixings of the mission in their care. But when he retired to Mission San Francisco, the Indians followed, determined that the Spaniards should not withdraw. Thus it was decided that the rest might retreat, but not beyond the farthest ranches of the Téxas Indians, while the two presidents should go back to Concepción. The captain, perhaps fearful of punishment for the act, hesitated to leave them, and only on receipt of a written statement that they were remaining voluntarily, would he consent to it. Two of the soldiers volunteered to stay with them, and the same day that the rest of the company left westward, Espinosa and Margil returned to the former's mission, where they remained about twenty days. Learning, however, that the captain and the rest of the force were going beyond the specified place, they felt constrained, for evident reasons, to follow them. 35
On July 2, from Mission Concepción, on the Angelina, the letter which we are following in the narrative, signed by the two presidents of the missions, was sent to the viceroy by two messengers. Word was likewise sent to the captains of the presidios of Béxar and the Rio Grande, and to the Governor of Coahuila, telling them that the company of soldiers and the priests were retiring, but that if armed help came the former would return to their presidio and the latter to their missions. The letter relates the events as given above, and adds that there were well-grounded fears that the French would continue their advance. The missionaries attributed their inability to resist the present hostile movement to the general failure of the government to properly support them, and, in particular, to the failure of Alarcón to follow his instructions. They complained, on the one hand, that they had not been informed of the existence of war, that the French had been steadily advancing for three years, that they had distributed guns by the hundreds among the Indians; and, on the other hand, that the Spanish occupation had made no advance for three years, that their former petitions, impressing on the authorities the danger from the French, and their requests for fifty men to settle the Cadodachos had been disregarded, and that since Alarcón's departure, they had not had a single letter from Mexico. They had less than twenty-five soldiers, they continued, mere boys, poorly clad, without mount or arms, a laughing stock to the very Indians. The crops, which had failed the year before, promised to be better, but they must now be left to the ravages of the Indians; the tools and implements which had been secured at the cost of money, time, and labor, must be abandoned. In order to appease the threatened wrath of the savages, who so objected to the Spaniards' retiring that they stole the horses and cattle, they had promised that they would retire but a short distance and return as soon as they met assistance—adding that it was only on account of future danger that they retired at all. The fathers closed their letter with a passionate appeal that the viceroy, “remembering the blood of the Son of God, shed for these poor gentiles, will moisten his pen in it to write with his own hand what may be best for the good of their souls, the service of the King and Lord, and the consolation of these afflicted missionaries.”
The best evidence we have that the missionaries were truthful in their claim that they wished to remain, and that they did not abandon their missions precipitately to the plunder of the Indians—doubted as it is by some 36—is that the presidents actually did remain alone about twenty days at the mission of Concepción. Seeing, however, that the rest of the force continued to retreat beyond the specified distance, they followed. Their first camping place was within the limits of the Téxas Indians, but moving later on, they stopped on the boundary of the Téxas country. Here they remained through July, August, and September. 37
5. Evidence that a Real and not an Imaginary Advance of the French Caused the Retreat of the Spanish.—Leaving the refugees camped near the edge of the Téxas country, let us turn to consider some points that have arisen in regard to the events just narrated. First, it has been seriously doubted whether the French made any demonstration against the Spanish, and whether the missionaries had any real or tangible danger from which to flee, it being maintained that their flight was due to imaginary fears. 38
But the weight of contemporary Spanish sources on this subject seem incontrovertible. The letter of Fathers Espinosa and Margil was written only ten days after the news of the happening at los Adaes had been received, and was sent to the viceroy at the time. Had such an account come later, in self-defense, the charge of fabrication might be considered; but it was written under the stress of events. Furthermore, it is hardly conceivable that such a tale could have been composed without any foundation whatever, even under compulsion. The letter was in fact but a logical sequel to those of 1717 and 1718 in which the government had been warned of facts which would make such an occurrence possible. Another source of undoubted excellence is Espinosa's Chronica Apostolica y Seraphica, and the essential facts and details which it contains harmonize completely with the letter of July 2. 39 A later piece of evidence that the French did make a hostile demonstration is found in the Peña Derrotero. We are told that on the arrival of Aguayo at los Adaes, the cazique of that tribe expressed his joy at the Spaniards' return, saying that “at the time of the French invasion,” 40 his Indians had been forced by the French to remove from their lands, because they had shown regret at the Spanish retreat, and that the French had persecuted them, taking their wives and children for slaves when they left the country. 41
Such is the evidence afforded by the contemporary Spanish sources, and with it contemporary French sources are in complete agreement. First, Bienville, two years after the event, says that he ordered such an attack on the Spanish mission. He was at the time of his statement, December 10, 1721, protesting against a Spanish establishment at los Adaes, and after expressing surprise at such a step, he adds, “Besides there is no one who does not know of the order which I gave on the occasion of the declaration of war to sieur Blondel, Commandant of said Natchitoches, to go with a detachment to the place where the Reverend Father lived to compel him to retire with his domestics.” 42 Second, Blondel admitted that he had gone in person to los Adaes and had taken possession of the ornaments and sacred vessels. 43 Third, he was taken to task for this act by La Harpe upon the latter's return to New Orleans, where he said “he learnt some of the circumstances regarding the expedition of M. Blondel to the Mission of los Adaes.” 44 Fourth, all the reports that reached La Harpe at the Nassonites were to the effect that the French had driven (avaient chassé) the Spaniards out of los Adaes. In the course of his explorations of Red River, La Harpe arrived at the Nassonites, April 5, 1719. 45 His first intimation of hostilities came June 16 through some Nadaco savages. They brought “very confused news about the Spanish, who, they said, were angry with us that we had driven them out from los Adaes, 46 and that the governor of the Assinais and his warriors were retiring from their presidio.” 47 The next information that the French trader received came from the Oulchionis, 48 June 24. They added the information that the French were at war with the Spanish, and that they had been sent by the chief of the nation to ask the Nassonites to declare in favor of the French. La Harpe's third and fullest information was brought by Saint François, a corporal whom he had sent immediately after the first news of June 16, to learn further of the matter. Saint François had left June 20, 49 and had gone as far as the Amediche, 50 where he remained till after the retreat of the Spaniards beyond the Trinity, and returned August 1. 51 He bore the intelligence that Monsieur Blondel, the commandant at Natchitoches, had driven the Recollect Fathers out of the Mission of los Adaes. 52
Blondel's testimony, given at the time, November, 1719, casts light on the subject because of its interesting contradictory nature. When taken to task by La Harpe for having driven the Spaniards out of los Adaes, he assured the latter “that he had gone there only with the intention of protecting that mission from the aggressions of the Indians, who when they knew the breach between us [the French and Spanish] would not have failed to destroy it”; but that the fathers, not knowing his intentions, had fled, abandoning the sacred vessels and other effects “of which the Indians had taken possession.” 53 Thereupon La Harpe dictated a letter which Blondel should write to the fathers. In it he expressed the fears that he had entertained for them on account of the Indians, and stated that he had gone there to protect their reverences. He did not find the reverend father there, however, and Brother Manuel, not trusting in his (the Frenchman's) promises, had fled, abandoning the effects, of which he (Blondel) had taken possession “to prevent their profanation by idolaters.” He assured the priests that should they be sent for, the ornaments would be gladly delivered. 54 It is true that Blondel does not mention the soldier which the Spanish claim he captured, but it is curious to note that when scolded by La Harpe, he declared that the Indians had taken the ornaments, but when writing to the fathers he was forced to admit that he had taken them and had them in his possession. This little incident in itself betrays a lack of candor in Blondel's position, and leaves something to be explained by those who say that there was no attack on los Adaes.
The other extreme view taken of the matter is that St. Denis, at the head of a French and Indian force, attacked the Mission of los Adaes and drove the Spaniards back; and the impression is left that such is the view given by Spanish writers and sources. Bancroft says that, “a party of French and Indians from Natchitoches took possession of the Mission of San Miguel de los Adaes,” and cites indefinitely some of the best secondary Spanish authorities. 55 Now, as a matter of fact, no such allegation is made by contemporary Spanish sources available for this paper, and they include all those cited by Bancroft, and more. First, as to the commander of the forces, various assertions are made by English writers: Dr. Garrison is the only recent writer that correctly states that “Blondel must be the commander of the attacking force, if there was any attack at all”; Bancroft suggests the probability of Blondel's connection with the affair; while in other works such as Thrall, Yoakum, and Brown, La Harpe and St. Denis are given credit for the attack. The last mentioned writer gives all the credit to La Harpe. 56 The fact is that no mention is made of St. Denis or La Harpe in this capacity by either French or Spanish contemporary sources, while Blondel is unequivocally named as the leader of the French. It is also noteworthy that secondary writers such as Villa-Señor (Theatro) and Cavo (Tres Siglos) do not mention the first two. It is true that other early Spanish writers, as Bonilla and Altamira do erroneously name St. Denis as the leader of the invading force. They are, however, not contemporary. 57
As to the composition of the force, Bancroft states that “a party of French and Indians” took possession of los Adaes. He also claims, without specifying citations, to have had access to “Spanish authorities which imply that St. Denis was in command of a party composed mainly of Natchitoches and Cadodachos Indians.” 58 It is improbable that these Spanish sources were contemporary. Indeed, of those he cites only one could be called such, and him Bancroft misrepresents. No primary source available for this paper gives any indication of this being the fact. 59 The only mention of Indians by Spanish contemporary sources is that the French were trying to ally themselves with the Indians, 60 and feared that the latter would be perverted by them. 61 Later writers like Bonilla have distorted the facts.
It is doubtless true, however, that the contemporary sources left exaggerated impressions of the French invasion. Having had real grounds for alarm, the Spaniards allowed their fears to assume magnified proportions. Still, though this is true, irrefutable facts should correct the impression made by writers who represent the withdrawal of the missionaries as an unworthy flight on groundless fears and without real cause.
6. The Character of the Retreat.—Writers also represent the withdrawal as a precipitate retreat to Bexar. Though the company finally retired there, they did not do so immediately, but camped for three months west of the Trinity, waiting for reinforcements. They stayed at their camp through July, August, and September, 62 suffering from want, being irregularly supplied with meat, having poor flour, and being totally without salt. Finally, despairing of succor, all except Father Espinosa, who had gone ahead to Mexico, retired in September or October to San Antonio de Valero, where the religious of the two colleges erected straw huts, and lived until Aguayo came in April, 1721. It was while waiting here that Father Margil, under Aguayo's patronage, founded the Mission of San Joseph y San Miguel de Aguayo. 63
1. The Marquis of Aguayo.—The answer of Spain to the French act of aggression and the consequent abandonment of eastern Texas was the appointment of a capable governor for the provinces of Texas and Coahuila, and the adoption of vigorous measures to reoccupy the abandoned country. The appointment fell to the Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo, and to him also was committed the work of reoccupation. The marquisate of San Miguel de Aguayo embraced a large portion of the present State of Coahuila, and the Marquises had long been distinguished men in Coahuila and Neuvo León. One of the principal haciendas of the family was San Francisco de los Patos, between Saltillo and Parras, a place still in existence and with the same name. Comparatively little is known to us of the early, or indeed of the later, career of this particular Marquis. His name and title as given in the official print of the Peña Derrotero is “D. Joseph de Azlor, 64 Knight Commandant of the Kingdom of Aragon, Governor and Captain General 65 of the said Province of Texas, New Philipines, and of this of Coahuila, New Kingdom of Estremadura.” He had served the King in Spain before going to Mexico, and when our story opens he was evidently stationed in some military capacity on the northern frontier, with headquarters either at Los Patos or Parras. In 1716, writing from Santa Maria de las Parras, he says that he has been there four years. 66
He first comes to notice in relation to Texas in connection with the quest of the Gran Quivira, which, since the time of Coronado, had gradually receded from far off Kansas toward the Téxas country. In a correspondence with the viceroy in 1715 and 1716, Aguayo asked that Joseph Urrutia 67 be sent to discover the Gran Quivira, of whose wonders and riches he had heard from an Indian from the interior during his sojourn among the Texas tribes. 68
The crisis in the Texas affairs seemed to offer Aguayo a chance to gratify his ambition, and as soon as he heard of the French attack, he offered “his life, sword, and property” in the service of the king. The answer to this offer was his appointment to the governorship of Texas and Coahuila and the further commission to head the expedition that was to reoccupy Texas. 69 He apparently took possession of his office December 19, 1719. 70 He is lost sight of, almost completely, after the expedition, but was evidently on the northern frontier, where, “for ten years, he has defended the country from the attacks of the Indians, giving continuous help to the presidios and neighboring places, and contributing at the same time, with his kindness and gifts, to the pacification of the revolting tribes.” 71 The last we hear of him is that he was appointed Mariscal de campo in 1743.
2. Instructions for the Expedition.—A year before the French attack, June 11, 1718, the king had sent the viceroy a royal cédula, whose specific instructions met exactly the demands of such an emergency. This cédula had been written at the instance of a letter from the viceroy, in which he reported the conditions in Texas which had brought about the Alarcón expedition, and of letters from Gregorio de Salinas, of Pensacola, telling of the danger that the French would occupy Espíritu Santo Bay. The king's cédula ordered that no French ships be allowed in any Spanish port; and charged the viceroy to exert himself to supply and maintain the Texas missions, and to place the greatest number of missionaries at San Antonio, on account of its being the nearest settlement to Espíritu Santo. He ordered that at the latter place there should be erected a fort, on the spot where La Salle's had been; that to facilitate this work two ships should be sent from Vera Cruz; and that for military and religious reinforcements, soldiers and missionaries should be sent from the various presidios and missions in Mexico where their service was not especially required. Particular care was to be exercised in selecting the leader of the enterprise, and he was to be instructed that “if Frenchmen, by land or sea, should attempt another entrada [he] should place the commander in the Castle of Acapulco, and the rest in the mines of Mexico.” 72 On November 1, 1719, the king issued another order. 73 It can not be said with certainty that this was based on a knowledge of the occurrences in Texas, but it repeated in effect the foregoing one of June 11, 1718, and added that “since la Movila, Massacra, and the rest of the territory belonging to my royal crown is now occupied by the French with no right whatever, you [the viceroy] shall make the necessary provisions to cause them to abandon it, dislodging them from it.” 74 And it does seem that it was on the basis of these two royal orders that the viceroy issued his instructions to Aguayo. In these, the viceroy specified, in addition to what the king had ordered, the erection of a fort on the Cadodacho River. A copy of the instructions was sent to the king, August 8, 1720. 75
In the midst of his preparations, October 5, 1720, Aguayo received word from the viceroy which modified his original instructions. The latter had been sent news of the truce between the two nations, and accordingly modified his orders, so that Aguayo was to maintain only a defensive war with the French. 76 The viceroy at the same time made known to Aguayo the instructions contained in a despatch from the king regarding intercourse with the French. One of the provisions of the instructions was to admit those Frenchmen who might wish to join the Spanish force or to live among the Spaniards. 77
By March 16, 1721, the king seems to have returned in some degree to his original intent, as expressed in the cédula of November 1, 1719. In 1720 (August 16), the viceroy had written to the king, telling him that notwithstanding the fact that the premises of the king's previous orders had been changed by the suspension of arms, he had, nevertheless, sent Aguayo to establish a presidio among the Cadodachos, and to increase the forces occupying Texas. In the cédula of March 16, 1721, the king approved these measures of the viceroy, and ordered that “if the French make any movement in continuance of their designs, you will have them thrust by force from the province of Texas and from the rest of what they have occupied in the last war.” 78
On May 26, 1721, due doubtless to the treaty made between the two countries, the king ordered the viceroy to suspend immediately the execution of what he had ordered in his cédulas of November 19, 1719, and March 16, 1720, though still approving the plan for the erection of a presidio at the Cadodachos and the occupation of Espíritu Santo Bay. 79
3. Espinosa's Work of Preparation.—As we have seen, Father Espinosa had left the retreating party of Spaniards at the Trinity, and had gone to hurry up matters. He had gone first to the Rio Grande and finally to Mexico, where he was influential in bringing about the expedition that was to reoccupy eastern Texas. On his way he had met the new governor, Aguayo, at Monclova, and, arrived at the City, he used his personal influence with the viceroy and the judges. What he urged most persistently was the sending of married soldiers and settlers, included in which should be mechanics and craftsmen—all to go voluntarily and be paid by the government for two years in advance. The head of a family was to receive what was equal to a soldier's salary for a year, while the wife and the boys over fifteen were to receive half as much. The settlers, on their arrival in Texas, were to be given land, which could be transmitted from father to son. Espinosa reasoned that this arrangement would insure the parents' interest in Texas for their children's welfare, and the latter's interest, as in their fatherland.
Before he left the City, Espinosa succeeded in securing a viceregal decree embodying what he desired relative to the families, and he had also gotten seven, who were in distress, to volunteer to go to Texas. He was, however, disappointed in the final outcome and arrangements, for the rest of the expedition was not so selected, but was recruited from different cities, and in general from the jails. 80 At any rate, the families must have played a minor part in the expedition, for they are mentioned but once in the Derrotero, 81 and Espinosa says no more about them.
4. Supplies and Recruits.—Preparations for the expedition went on apace. On receipt of the news of the trouble in Texas the viceroy had ordered Aguayo to raise as large a company as possible in Saltillo and Parras. By September 5, the latter had recruited and fitted out at Saltillo, partly from his private funds, eighty-four men. When Aguayo received his commission as governor and as the head of the force that was to reoccupy Texas, he repaired to Monclova, October 21, 1719. He found the forces on that frontier scarce, and, at his instance, the viceroy decided to recruit five hundred in the districts of Zelaya, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, and Aguas Calientes. As for funds, the viceroy appropriated thirty-seven thousand pesos, and advanced a year's salary of four hundred and fifty pesos to each soldier. Aguayo had used nine thousand of his own in recruiting and fitting out the eighty-four men at Saltillo. After much trouble and delay, caused by the extreme drought, some three thousand nine hundred and fifty horses were secured. By the middle of October, 1720, the trains of six hundred mules 82 with the clothing, arms, powder, and six cannon reached Monclova from the City of Mexico.
Interesting light is thrown on the make-up of this expedition through abuses which occurred in gathering recruits in the jurisdiction of Zelaya. 83 If we may judge that the preparation and make-up of this expedition was typical of all the early ones sent to Texas, as perhaps we may with safety, we must draw sad conclusions concerning their disorganization, disregard of viceregal orders, and the tatterdemalion character of the crowd sent to Texas. Zelaya was one of the districts chosen by the viceroy to supply the men for the expedition. Its quota was to be one hundred and twenty men and five hundred horses. Pedro de Guinda and Antonio Cobian Busto, Aguayo's representative sent to oversee the work, reported gross abuses on the part of the alcalde mayor of Zelaya in the work of recruiting. Guinda's letter stated that the alcalde had expressed himself as well pleased with the levy, since he could benefit his jurisdiction by thus getting rid of its vagabonds, and was willing to supply two hundred men instead of the one hundred and twenty; that he had appointed an excessive number of commissioners to carry out his plans; and that these, availing themselves of their position, had pressed into service two hundred and fifty men, forcibly relieving them of their private possessions, such as spurs, harness, saddles, horses, etc.; but that though they had impressed two hundred and fifty men, they had finally reported but one hundred and seventeen, having used the surplus to their own advantage by releasing such as were able to buy their freedom; and finally that of the one hundred and ten accepted out of the one hundred and seventeen, only twenty-seven were married, whereas the viceroy's order had required the recruiting of married men accompanied by their families.
On the receipt of this report, the viceroy, May 13, 1720, ordered the alcalde of Querétaro, Bentura Jaque Lorio y Quiñones, to make a secret investigation of the conduct of the alcalde of Zelaya. As a result of the “process,” the accused alcalde was almost completely exonerated. The testimony, in general, was to the effect: (1) that the reason only one hundred and seventeen were furnished was that, on various excuses, Guinda refused to accept many of those presented; and further that the alcalde had not promised two hundred men, as was charged, but had simply remarked that it would be easier to supply that number of men than five hundred horses; (2) that though some of the commissioners had been guilty of confiscating private property, all of it had been returned by the alcalde; (3) that the appointment of commissioners had been necessary, because as soon as the news of the levy had been received all the vagabonds had scattered, some to the mountains, and some to monasteries; (4) that the alcalde was not guilty of releasing men for pay, but that some had been given their freedom because they were respectable men (“hombres de bien”), an interesting commentary on those who were not released but were accepted for the expedition, and (5) that it was not that officer's fault that the wives and families did not accompany their husbands, for Guinda had rejected one hundred horses that might have served to transport the women, and moreover, had said that the families might wait till the following year and go in wagons. 84
Returning to the recruiting at Zelaya, on April 20, 1720, before a noatry public, the list of the one hundred and seventeen recruits was formally presented for inspection to the two attorneys, Guinda and Busto. Names were rejected, added, and again rejected, till the number that finally went was one hundred and ten. Most of the rejections were on the ground of physical infirmities. One was thrown out for debt, and one for being married to a mulatto. This is strange, since so many of the men accepted were mulattoes themselves. Some extracts from the list will show how detailed was the manner of registering recruits and reveal the low types of the men in Aguayo's command. Some of the entries read: “Antonio de Flores, coyote, single, inhabitant of this city [Zelaya], twenty-five years of age, tall, black hair—he has been in prison twenty-five days; Antonio Rodrigues, Spaniard, forty years of age, inhabitant of the town of San Juán del Rio, married to Juana de Dios, two children who are in that town—it is thirty days since he has been imprisoned; Juan Manuel Barrera, single, Spaniard, inhabitant of Esmiquilpa, eighteen years of age, dark complexioned, beardless,—he has been in prison twenty days; Bentura de Tobar, a free mulatto, single, inhabitant of this city [Zelaya], thirty-five years of age, good physique,—he has been in prison thirty days; Bernardo del Carpio, a free mulatto, inhabitant of Guadalajara, twenty-five years of age, small in body, blond, married in the city of Guadalajara to María Flores, Spanish, and has three children,”—and so on for the one hundred and seventeen. Of that number, seventeen were mestizos, twenty-one coyotes, forty-four Spaniards, thirty-one mulattoes, two castizos, one free negro, one Indian of Sapotlan, and one lobo; 85 one hundred and seven were taken from the jail, leaving ten of the expedition who were not jail birds; one of these went voluntarily, and one “was sent by his father.” Though Guinda said that three men were accompanied by their wives, the certified list mentions but two, Gertrudes Sicilia, wife of Juan Cristóbal, and Ana María de Aleman, wife of Juan Carranca, the latter accompanied by their two children.
Another inspection was made on the 28th, when those unable to go by reason of infirmities were rejected. The next day the surgeon was called before the proper authorities to certify as to the physical infirmities of the sick, and on the same day the authorities proceeded to the public jail where the men were called out to start on the expedition to Texas.
5. The Founding of the Mission San Joseph y San Miguel de Aguayo.—While waiting for his supplies to reach Monclova, Aguayo, at the petition of Father Margil, who was waiting at San Antonio to join the expedition when it went to eastern Texas, gave permission for the founding of another mission at San Antonio. It was situated one league from the presidio of San Antonio de Béxar, was called San Joseph y San Miguel de Aguayo, and was until 1722 the only one in San Antonio under charge of the College of Zacatecas. The viceroy approved its foundation, and provided that the customary aid be given it. 86
A good deal of opposition to the establishment of the new mission seems to have been made on the part of the friars of the College of Querétaro. On February 23, 1720, a petition signed by Father Olivares of Mission San Antonio de Valero, the alcalde, and all the cabildo, was presented to Juan Váldez, lieutenant-general and alcalde mayor of the presidio and villa of Bexar. Its object was to ask him not to give possession of the necessary lands to the missionaries of the College of Zacatecas. The reasons assigned for their opposition were, first, that the viceroy Valero had given San Antonio and its vicinity to the College of Querétaro, and second, that the Indian nations for whom the mission was being erected, the Pampopas, Suliejames, and Pastias, were “ab initio” enemies of those at the Mission of Valero, and trouble would be the inevitable result. 87
Váldez, however, in obedience to orders, was constrained to refuse the request, and required that the missionaries of both colleges, Captain Alonzo de Cárdenas and his company of eighty men, his sergeant, Nicolás Flores y Valdez, and Captain Lorenzo García, the last two having seen such a ceremony performed before, to accompany him to witness the formal giving of possession. 88 The founding was probably early in March, 1720.
1. From Monclova to the Rio Grande.—Our story of the expedition is obtained in the main from the diary of Peña, the chaplain, who accompanied it. 89 Aguayo divided the five hundred men 90 into eight companies and organized a battalion of mounted infantry, which he called San Miguel de Aragón. The following officers were selected: lieutenant-governor and captain general, Fernando Pérez de Almazán; captains, Tomás de Zubiría, Miguel Colón, Manuel de Herrera, Francisco Becerra Luque, Gabriel costales, Joseph de Arroyo, Pedro Oribe, and Juan Cantú. Of these Pérez de Almazán later became prominent as governor of Texas. Great ceremony marked the initial steps of the expedition. Three standards were blessed, one bearing a picture of Our Lady of Pilar, San Miguel, and San Rafael, with the motto inscribed, “Pugnate pro Fide et Rege”; the second having a picture of our Lady of Guadalupe, San Miguel, and San Francisco Xavier; while on the third was their patron saint, James. Mass was duly celebrated, and the day was made a feast in general. 91
Aguayo, detained by duties of his new office, in order to insure the proper forwarding of provisions for the expedition from Mexico after his departure, on November 16, 1720, sent forward his train under his lieutenant Almazán. Its composition was as follows: a picket of veteran soldiers who were familiar with the road, the equipage, the companies in the order of their seniority, the baggage, provisions, munitions of war, and, finally, the droves of animals. 92
Delayed three weeks in crossing the Sabinas, the one considerable stream between Monclova and the Rio Grande, the expedition did not reach the latter river 93 until December 20. On account of its swollen condition, the passage was not begun until after Christmas. Canoes had to be constructed, because those which the Indians made, of wood covered with skin, proved useless for lack of resin. Finally a raft of ten beams floated on barrels was successfully used. Such was the excess of cold, sleet, and snow, Father Peña tells us, that in effecting the crossing the force had to take advantage of rainy days, when the temperature moderated. The passage was finally accomplished by fifty swimmers pulling the raft after them and bearing but six “cargoes” at a time. The expedition was thus delayed till March 23, 1721. Aguayo and Father Espinosa joined the expedition before its crossing, evidently immediately after Christmas, and a few days later, Doctor Joseph Codallos y Rabal, who was coming to Texas as vicar-general of the Bishop of Guadalajara. 94 The expedition was further increased by the companies of Juan Cortinas and Alonso de Cardenas, and a Texas missionary, Benito Sánchez, 95 who was then at the Mission of San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande.
2. Rumors of St. Denis.—While on the Rio Grande, Aguayo February 2, 1720, received disquieting tidings from Captain Mathías García, of the presidio of San Antonio de Béxar. García had been informed by some Sanas 96 Indians that St. Denis and other Frenchmen, with unknown designs, were in convocation with many Indian nations thirty miles from García's presidio. A council of war, held by Aguayo, immediately despatched one hundred and sixteen men with Captains Tomás de Zubiría and Miguel Colón under Lieutenant-Governor Almazán to investigate the report. In the meantime García had sent out for the same purpose Juan Rodríguez, a chief of the Ranchería Grande Indians, who was then in San Antonio petitioning that a mission be founded for fifty families of his nation. Juan Rodríguez returned February 25, stating that he had gone to the neighborhood of the Brazos, but had not dared to go farther; that he had not seen any of the Indians of the Ranchería Grande, whose settlement he would have passed in the distance he had covered, and who, he supposed, were at the convocation; that this supposition had, in fact, been confirmed by a Sanas Indian, who said that the Ranchería Grande Indians were at St. Denis's convocation, with many other nations, all of whom were well equipped with horses and guns, and that the gathering was between the two branches of the Brazos, above the Téxas road. 97
On account of these disquieting rumors, Aguayo hastened his passage of the Rio Grande, and set out for San Antonio March 24. In the main, his route lay on the camino real, the royal highway, then apparently well established, though now and then the expedition had to make short detours in order to avoid the brush on the road. On April 4 they reached the presidio of San Antonio, and went immediately to the mission of San Antonio de Valero, where their arrival was joyously celebrated. 98
3. Aguayo's Activities at San Antonio.—The expedition was here joined by Father Margil, of the Zacatecan missions, and by Fathers Gabriel Vergara, 99 Joseph Guerra, 100 Joseph Rodríguez, and Brothers Joseph Albadadejo and Joseph Pita. 101 Since it was near the advent of Holy Week, and the troops were in need of rest, Aguayo was prevailed upon to delay his march for a short time. To keep the men busy, however, he sent out an expedition to hunt for the salt deposits said to be near San Antonio, and made several minor raids to check the Indians who infested the nearby districts. He was further anxious to establish amicable relations with the much dreaded Apaches. 102
While still at the Rio Grande, Aguayo had sent forward a company of forty soldiers, as a vanguard, under Captain Domingo Ramón to occupy Espíritu Santo Bay. This company probably came as far as San Antonio with the detachment under Almazán. 103 At any rate, it left that place for Espíritu Santo March 10. Not having heard from it since its departure, on April 4, the day of his arrival at San Antonio, Aguayo despatched four trusty Indians to find out something about it. On the 18th, a lieutenant and four soldiers brought the news that Ramón had taken possession of La Bahía or Espíritu Santo, in the name of His Majesty, and had raised the cross and royal standard on April 4. 104 Ramón reported also that for lack of timber for building a canoe he had as yet not been able to sound the harbor. However, he described the place as a beautiful one, whose harbor could accommodate many ships. The news was duly celebrated at San Antonio. On the 26th the Marquis sent a messenger to the viceroy, informing him that possession had been taken of Espíritu Santo. Further, he assured him that he was ready to resume his march for eastern Texas, but made patent to his excellency the difficulty of keeping the army properly sustained at the distance of four hundred leagues from the base of supplies, and asked permission to start a ship plying between Vera Cruz and La Bahía, offering to bear all the expenses. Presuming that this request would be granted, he wrote at the same time to his attorney in Mexico to buy or rent such a vessel and fit it out with the requisite provisions. 105
4. The Route from San Antonio to the Neches.—On the 10th of May, Aguayo ordered that the expedition be in readiness to start again on the 13th. It had been decided in a council of war to abandon the old Texas road now, where great and many obstacles would be found in the form of brush, lagoons, large overflowing rivers, and in an unbroken course of from fifty to sixty miles through the monte grande, or Cross Timbers. Under the guidance of the Indian chief, Juan Rodríguez, they were to seek another route higher up, where the country was said to be plain and free from brush, where the rivers were divided into many smaller branches, and by which route the Cross Timbers would be avoided. The country through which their chosen route lay was infested with Indian enemies and great care was taken to insure the proper disposition of the military guards on the march.
A study of Aguayo's route may be more profitable if it is compared with the earlier and some of the later courses followed by the expeditions into eastern Texas. 106 So varied and distinct were the early routes broken by the pathfinders, and so profusely and promiscuously were names scattered on the rivers, that it is hard to make any safe generalizations. One of the most patent facts, however, is that the routes moved back from the coast, west, as far as San Antonio, and thence north and east to eastern Texas, a fairly well established road being finally laid out. However, of all the diaries studied no two seem to follow exactly the same course. De León, the leader of the first expedition to eastern Texas (1690), crossed the country far to the south and east, passing the Guadalupe, roughly speaking, in the vicinity of Victoria, turning east to La Bahía, and then northeast to the Téxas country. The expedition under Terán (1691), was the first to break the road from the Hondo to San Antonio, and to cross the San Marcos and Guadalupe as two rivers. He apparently crossed the Colorado near La Grange, the Brazos near Bryan, and the Trinity, just north of Falba in Walker County, about at the point where De León had struck it in 1690. In 1709, Fathers Espinosa and Olivares took the road still farther north, crossing the Colorado not far below Austin; while in 1716, Ramón, after crossing the Colorado near the same point, sought a new route, going as far north as the San Gabriel before turning east to the Téxas country. It will be seen that Aguayo, determined to avoid the monte grande, which started just east of the San Gabriel, led his expedition still farther north, not turning east till he struck the Brazos near Waco, and then going south and east to reach the old highway. 107
Aguayo's route, somewhat in detail, was as follows: On the 13th the long and tedious journey began. Starting northeast, it lay by the irrigating ditch of the mission of San Antonio de Valero, then veered to the east, northeast, when the expedition halted two days on both the Salado and Cíbola creeks. 108
From the Cíbola the expedition traveled over plains, which were described as literally covered with flowers, till on the 17th they crossed three rivers. The first they call San Pascual Baylon, the second they identified as the Guadalupe, and the third they named the San Ybon. 109 The one which they identified as the Guadalupe was undoubtedly the present Comal River, and their crossing was very nearly at the spot where New Braunfels now stands; the one they named the San Ybon was the present Guadalupe. For Peña describes their crossing of the former as being one-fourth of a league from the well known springs that are the source of the Comal, while the latter river he describes as having a deep bed, subject to overflows, with its sources, lying far to the north, as not having then been discovered. The crystalline water of the former, the luxuriant growth, and the surrounding plains, attracted attention to the locality as a suitable place for settlement.
With the route still lying to the northeast, with veerings to the east-north-east, by May 20, they had crossed the San Marcos, 110 not recognizing it by that name, however. Its lower branches they named las Penuelas, the river proper, los Ynocentes, and modern Plum Creek, the San Raphael. 111 At this last river a squad of Sanas Indians fitted out with horses, pikes, and arrows, and whom Aguayo himself had provided with clothes while at San Antonio, were waiting to renew their allegiance to the Spanish King.
Continuing in a direction more north than east, on May 22, the expedition reached the vicinity of the Colorado, 112 and camped on what is now Onion Creek, 113 crossing it later, apparently at the site of the present McKinney Falls. The crossing is described as being over “a strip of rocks which spans the river and makes a beautiful waterfall,” distant some six or seven miles from the Colorado. The expedition was delayed in crossing the droves over the latter river, which is described as being twice the size of the former ones and as lined with trees and vines. From the time it crossed the Colorado, May 23 to May 31, the route took them over numberless little streams, crossing as many as twenty arroyos in one day. 114 The two considerable ones which they crossed, the Spaniards called Las Animas and San Xavier, doubtless the present Brushy Creek and San Gabriel River respectively. 115
Taking a more northerly route than they had been hitherto following, on May 31st the Spaniards reached what is now Little River, 116 at a point about three-fourths the distance from Cameron to Belton. They were delayed three days before crossing because of the swollen condition of the river and because of steps that had been taken by a council of war. This council had sent out a detachment to reconnoiter the country, to look for the Ranchería Grande, a group of Indians who were usually to the eastward near the Brazos, and to ascertain what they could of the French and their Indian convocation in the same neighborhood. The Spaniards were at a total loss to know what was transpiring, for they had met no Indian on their route thus far. The reconnoitering party did not return until the 12th of June, after the main body had effected the crossing of Little River and had waited several days. The detachment had gone thirty leagues, but had seen nothing but the long deserted huts of the Indians. It confirmed the opinion that the Little River was one of the branches of the Brazos de Dios (Arms of God). 117
For some days Aguayo's route now lay almost directly north. Trying to avoid the rivers and lagoons, he followed thus the watershed of the tributaries of Little River and the main Brazos. Veering then to the northeast, he entered the brushy region of mesquite, and camped, June 18, a short distance from the main Brazos. The Spaniards named it the Jesus Nazareno. Judging from the direction followed from their crossing of Little River and the distance traveled, they must have struck the Brazos near the present site of the city of Waco. Further evidence to the same effect is the fact that a branch of the river, evidently the present Bosque, joined it half a league from their crossing. 118
After crossing on the 19th, they continued east-northeast two days, when they turned and began their southward journey. From the 21st to the 26th inclusive, their direction was in the main southeast, and took them on a line parallel with and very close to the Brazos River. Their journey covered, first, flowery plains, then broken and plain ground, and finally woodland and vine-covered country. 119 For the next three days the route lay east and northeast—the purpose of this detour most probably being to seek higher ground. Approximately speaking, the course here took Aguayo and his party to about the center of Robertson county. The last part of the march lay in boggy, wooded land, with the ground covered with flint stones which wounded and poisoned the cattle. 120
After again turning south, the march became more and more laborious, over swampy, marshy land, where the horses and droves slipped and bogged. Finally on July 2, after the main body had traveled six leagues southeast, word was brought back by scouts that three more leagues would bring the expedition to the “old Téxas road.” By great effort the mounted battalion managed to make the distance, but the rest of the expedition, infantry and cattle, were left scattered about to be brought up later. They reached what is now probably Big Cedar Creek, not far from where it joins the Navasota, and the next few days were spent in bridging a river which they called the San Buenaventura, the present Navasota. 121
From the crossing of this river, the route, given as northeast, lay on the old Royal Highway (Camino Real), or the Téxas road. On the 8th of July, some ten or fifteen miles from the Trinity, the Spaniards for the first time in this expedition, came upon Indians. That morning a party of soldiers, accompanied by Father Espinosa and two other religious, was sent out to inquire into rumors of nearby Téxas Indians. Following a path south, off the main road, across a small stream, they came upon a settlement where were all the nation of the Ranchería Grande, whose chief Juan Rodríguez was guiding the Spanish force, and some of the Bidays and Agdocos (Deodosos) nations. When Aguayo approached, the bugles sounded and the royal standards were unfurled, the Indians marched out in order, bearing a white taffeta flag with blue ribbons, which had been given them by the French, and fired their guns, with which they were well supplied, in salute to the Spaniards. Aguayo ordered them to place their flag beneath that of Spain, thus symbolizing their submission to the Spanish King and their reception under his royal care. He then laid his hand on about two hundred in token of their submission and obedience. 122
The next day many of the chiefs and Indians of the Ranchería Grande came to see Aguayo. He advised them to remain in peace, and to withdraw beyond the Brazos, “where they were accustomed to live,” promising on his return from eastern Texas to found a mission near San Antonio for them. He told them, however, to meet him on the Trinity, foreseeing that their assistance would be needed to effect a crossing of the river, and that he would there give them clothing and presents. When he reached that river, he loaded two mules which he sent back to their people with a Spanish interpreter named Nicolás Santos. 123
On the same day, July 9, the march was resumed and the Trinity 124 reached. Sixteen days were spent before the crossing was effected. This was finally done by means of a canoe which the missionaries had built on their retreat from eastern Texas in 1719. On the 25th Aguayo was met by the cazique of the Aynay 125 tribe, recognized as head of the Assinais nations, and at whose “village the mission of La Purísima Concepción was founded in 1716.” 126 He was accompanied by eight of the chief Indians and four women, among whom was one Angelina, 127 who had been raised on the Rio Grande and spoke both the Spanish and the Téxas languages. The Aynay cazique received the Spaniards with tears of joy, saying that he had heard of their being at the Trinity fifteen days before, and, impatient at their delay, had come to meet them. He said that when the Spaniards had retired in 1719 they had promised the Indians to return soon, and that if they had delayed much longer in reoccuping Texas, it had been his intention to go to San Antonio after them. Aguayo delivered his customary harangue on the goodness of the Spanish king in sending soldiers to protect the Indians from their enemies and missionaries to instruct them in the Christian faith. He then gave the cazique the silver-headed cane, appointing him captain and governor of the Téxas Indians. 128
By the 28th the expedition reached the San Pedro, just west of the Neches, the site of the first mission of San Francisco de los Téxas, 1690. 129 The Indians from the surrounding settlements brought the Spaniards flowers, corn, beans, and watermelons, receiving in return presents and clothing. The chief of the Neches with seventy of his tribe came to meet the Spaniards and smoke the pipe of peace. 130 Among his tribe had been located the second Mission of San Francisco, 1716. The next day the remaining four leagues to the Neches were accomplished, 131 and the six days following were spent in bridging the river. While camped here, a hundred Indians—men, women, and children—of the Nacono 132 tribe met the Spaniards. They were led by their high priest and chief, 133 who, as spokesman, delivered himself of the sentiment “that that which they most esteemed was God, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, and the Spaniards; that air, water, land, and fire, were nothing in comparison thereto.” The following day the exchange of presents took place, the Indians receiving glass beads, pocket knives, butcher knives, earrings, rings, mirrors, combs, scissors, awls, blankets, baise and sackcloth.
On the 28th, while Aguayo was still west of the Neches, there had come a message from St. Denis, sent “from the capital of the Téxas,” that is, the Aynay tribe. It was to tell the Spanish commander that if the Frenchman were assured safety, he would go to make known the orders, which, as commandant of the French arms on that frontier, he had received from Mobile. Having received a satisfactory answer to his request, on the 31st he swam his horse across the Neches and reached the Spanish camp. He asked to spend the night with the missionaries, 134 and the next morning had a conference with Aguayo. He had come to say that he was commandant of the French arms on the frontier, and that he proposed to keep the truce then existing between the Spanish and French nations if Aguayo would do likewise. The latter answered that he would, provided that St. Denis and all the French would immediately retire from the province of Texas, and not interfere, directly or indirectly, with the reoccupation by the Spaniards of all the latter had hitherto occupied, including los Adaes. St. Denis agreed to this. He was unable, however, says the account, to conceal his unwillingness to lose the latter place, and emphasized the unhealthfulness and unproductiveness of the locality,—as if, the Spanish writer continues, they who had had a mission there should not know whether the land was good or not. At any rate, St. Denis left, promising to retreat at once to Natchitoches. 135 When Aguayo reached Concepción, across the Angelina, August 6th, he was informed by Juan Rodríguez, his Indian guide, who in turn had received the facts from the surrounding Indians, that St. Denis, after his return from his interview with the Spaniards on the Neches, had tarried three days seven leagues from Concepción; and that he had had with him the Indians of the Cadodachos and other nations “whom since winter he had gathered to go to take possession of La Bahia del Espiritu Santo, and from there to San Antonio, but that this cloud had disappeared with the coming of the Spaniards.” 136
5. The Reoccupation of Eastern Texas.—On the second of August, while still west of the Neches, Aguayo sent ahead two detachments, one with Father Joseph Guerra to the site of the second mission of San Francisco, the other under Fathers Gabriel Vergara and Benito Sánchez to the mission of Concepción, to rebuild the churches and houses.
(a) The Refounding of the Mission of San Francisco de los Téxas.—On the 3rd the expedition crossed the river, and on the 5th witnessed the formal re-establishment of the Mission of San Francisco de los Neches, “commonly called de los Téxas.” 137 Due solemnity and appropriate exercises marked the refounding, the order of ceremony being what, in general, was observed at the founding and refounding of all missions. Solemn high mass was celebrated, salutes fired, bells rung, bugles blown, and drums beaten; next Aguayo formally invested with a cane the one whom he had chosen captain of the tribe; then followed the distribution of clothing and gifts,—which in this case, we are told, was more lavish than had ever before been witnessed by the Indians. Father Espinosa, spokesman for the Spaniards, since he knew the Assinais language, explained that their coming was primarily through His Majesty's zeal for the salvation of the souls of the Indians, and that he was receiving them under his royal care to protect them from their enemies. This evidently referred to the French. Espinosa skillfully called their attention to the fact that while the French (their enemies) made them gifts with the view of receiving in return skins, buffaloes, horses, and especially their wives and children as slaves, the Spaniards, on the other hand, distributed most generously, yet asked for nothing. He was safe in making this assertion, for Peña says Aguayo had been careful not to accept a single skin from the Indians. Finally came the formal acts of possession, by which Aguayo, in the name of the king, gave the Indians the lands and waters nearby, and left in charge of the mission Father Joseph Guerra of the College of Querétaro. 138
In the course of Espinosa's discourse, he had striven to impress on the natives the necessity of gathering into pueblos, around the mission, something that the Spaniards had always considered essential in their work among the Indians and something which these Indians always failed to do. They promised this time, however, that they would do so. Thus, in addition to the mission, Aguayo founded, prospectively, so to speak, the town which he expected they would form, naming it San Francisco de Valero. 139
(b) The Refounding of the Mission of La Purísima Concepción.—Before crossing the Neches, Aguayo had sent forward Fathers Benito Sánchez and Gabriel Vergara with a party to make ready the church and habitations at Concepción, beyond the Angelina. As soon as the ceremony of refounding San Francisco was over, Aguayo and his expedition set out, the same day, for the next mission. Traveling in a direction between northeast and east-northeast, they crossed the Angelina 140 on the 6th. This mission, which was the only one that had not been entirely destroyed, was less than half a league beyond the river. One league still farther on was the site of the presidio which had been erected in 1716 and abandoned in 1719, and it was here that the expedition camped. 141 The location of this mission has been described as follows: “Espinosa tells us that he founded the Mission of Concepción a mile or two east of the place where the highway crossed the Angelina, near two springs, in the middle of the Hanai village. This site could not have been far from Linwood crossing.” 142
The church was completed on the 7th, and Aguayo arranged that on the next day, the battalion, the companies of Alonso Cardenas and Juan Cortinas, and the eight companies that had made up the expedition from Monclova, making ten in all, should be present at the refounding. Father Margil celebrated mass, Father Espinosa preached “an eloquent and touching” sermon, while the Indians, “among them some eighty Cadodachos,” were awed by the simultaneous discharge of the artillery and at the presence of so many Spaniards. Aguayo assured the natives that their occupation would this time be permanent. And to gain the good will of Cheocas, the Aynay chief, seeing that he had a large following, he requested the Indian to assemble his people, that gifts might be distributed among them. When the day came the eighty Cadodachos were present among the four hundred to be regaled. The Spanish commander took special pains to please these, sending clothes and trinkets to their people at home,— hoping thereby to gain their good will in advance of his arrival. The day's work was closed by the formal act of placing the College of Querétaro in possession through its representatives, Espinosa and Vergara, 143 and by the formal investiture of Cheocas as governor. 144
(c) The Refounding of Mission San Joseph de los Nazonis.— On the 9th Aguayo sent a lieutenant with an escort and Father Benito Sánchez, to rebuild the church and priest's house at the Mission of San Joseph de los Nazonis, eight leagues northeastward from Concepción. 145 On the 13th, leaving the main part of the force to rest at Concepción, Aguayo passed to the Nazonis, and solemnly re-established the mission, leaving as missionary Benito Sánchez 146 of the College of Queretaro. This mission has been located “some fifteen or more miles northeast of the Hanai (i. e. Purisima Concepción) . . . by one of the southern tributaries of Shawnee Creek, near the north line of Nacogdoches County.” 147
(d) The Refounding of the Presidio of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.—Aguayo returned to Concepción on the 15th, and installed Juan Cortinas and his company of twenty-five soldiers in the old presidio founded by Ramón, in 1716. The presidio was one league from the mission, which in turn was half a league from the Angelina. It occupied an advantageous position on a hill, overlooking the country, with the arroyo of Nuestra Señora de la Assumpción (evidently the first eastern branch of the Angelina) running at its base. 148 The fortifications were not outlined until Aguayo's return from los Adaes. The fort was to be square, with two bastions on diagonal corners, each to cover two wings, which were to be sixty varas in length. 149 The diary gives the impression that the company installed had formerly occupied the presidio. The company may have been the same, but Cortinas was evidently the captain at this time.
(e) The Refounding of the Mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Nacogdoches.—On the same day, the 15th, the expedition, took up the march for the next mission, at Nacogdoches. 150 On the 18th the new church was dedicated. Father Margil, 151 on behalf of the College of Zacatecas, received possession, and Father Joseph Rodríguez remained as missionary. Aguayo repeated the presentation of the silver-headed cane to the chosen captain, enjoined upon the Indians the formation of pueblos, distributed gifts lavishly, and clothed one hundred and ninety Indians. 152
(f) The Refounding of the Mission of Nuestra Señora de los Ais. 153—On the 21st of August, after traveling three days through lands of walnuts, pines, oaks, and glades, having had to bridge several streams, 154 the expedition camped one-fourth of a league beyond where the mission of Dolores had stood. The mission was rebuilt here, beside a stream, and near a spring of water, where the high and clear grounds and the surrounding plains offered inducements for planting. 155
The distance and direction from Nacogdoches, the topographical evidence given by this and other diaries, tradition and present ruins, all unite in locating this mission at modern San Augustine. The stream at whose side it stood corresponds to Ayish Bayou, while springs are abundant about the city. In 1767, the soil around the mission was described as reddish and indicating a mineral composition, and the statement is made that gold had been found near by. 156 In the La Fora diary for 1767, the location of the mission is described as on a hill with a stream running at its base toward the west. 157 The Telegraph and Texas Register for September, 1837, states that “gold has been found near the Old Mission south of the City [of San Augustine].” Conclusive evidence, taken with the preceding, is furnished by a letter from Reverend G. L. Crockett, Rector of Christ's Church, San Augustine. He says that the site of the old mission lies half a mile south of the town on the old King's Highway, which strikes its southeast corner, as originally laid out, but now runs right through the town, and that the mission was located on a little conical rise at the edge of the bottom of Ayish Bayou. Its site is marked by a flat surface on the top of the little hill, in a somewhat quadrangular shape, which was evidently the location of the house. He supposes that the house was of logs, but it has entirely disappeared and no trace of it is left in the memory of any one in the town. He adds that outside this quadrangular space, graves have been opened, and that while trying to dig a well on the top of the hill, a grave was opened and a quantity of beads and other relics were dug up. 158
(g) The Refounding of the Mission San Miguel de los Adaes. —On the 24th, Aguayo left Dolores for San Miguel. The route lay for the six days of his travel east-northeast, through brushy lands of walnuts, pines, and oaks, over glens and plains, and across many streams. The most important of these were the modern Palo Guacho, 159 the Patroon 160 and the Sabine.
On the 29th he reached the site of the mission, and camped half a league beyond it. No Indians were found at los Adaes and parties were sent out to hunt for them. On September 1, the cazique of the Adaes nation with many of his following visited the Spanish camp. All expressed themselves as joyful at the return of the Spaniards, and explained that at the time of the French invasion they had been driven out of their land because they had shown regret at the Spanish departure. The French had, moreover, they said, taken some of the Adaes women and children as slaves, and had shown such hostility that the Indians were compelled to leave that locality and retire to a less fertile one higher up, hence their absence when the Spanish arrived. Learning now of Aguayo's intention to erect a presidio and a mission, they decided to return to their old home. 161
The same day, September 1, Aguayo received a letter from Rerenor, the French commandant at Natchitoches. After the usual courtesies, it stated that St. Denis on his return from Texas in August, had immediately proceeded to Mobile, to inform the governor of the coming of the Spaniards. Therefore, Rerenor, not having orders to let the Spanish settle, asked the commander to abstain from definite action till St. Denis could return. In answer Aguayo wrote that, as “the matters of war could not be well settled by pen,” he was sending his lieutenant Almazán and Captain Gabriel Costales to have a personal conference with the commandant at Natchitoches. The former were instructed to observe the situation and condition of the French post. Almazán explained to Rerenor that the Spaniards had come determined to occupy los Adaes, as they had already done at los Téxas, to rebuild the mission of San Miguel, and to erect a presidio on that frontier where might seem most fit. Rerenor replied that he had no definite orders either to agree to or to prohibit such an act, and that he would therefore be content with a mutual observation of the truce between Spain and France. Thus, the Spanish writer says, “was concluded the conquest and recovery of the province.” December 10, 1721, Bienville, having evidently just heard of the Spanish reoccupation, entered a vigorous protest against it. Aguayo had already rebuilt the mission and added the presidio at los Adaes, and had been a month on his return march when this letter was written, 162 so that, aside from its expressing Bienville's sentiments, the letter was of no significance.
Aguayo delayed unusually long at this place, the cause doubtless being to see that nothing was left undone which would insure permanency to the new hold on that critical and important point. It was not till October 12 that the dedication of the new church and the presidio of Nuestra Señora del Pilar was celebrated. The latter was not completed until November 1. It was located one-half league beyond where the mission had formerly stood, by a spring or brook of water, on the side of a hill, where it could command the surrounding country. It was a hexagon, with three bastions, each covering two curtains, fifty varas in length. A hundred soldiers, thirty of whom were to be always on guard, were stationed at this presidio, and the only six pieces of cannon which had been brought from Mexico were left there. 163
Opposite, one-fourth of a league from the presidio with a creek intervening, and also on a hill, was built the new mission of San Miguel de los Adaes. Father Margil, president of the Zacatecan missions, remained here in charge. 164 This relative position of mission and presidio is shown by Le Page du Pratz; 165 the intervening arroyo was probably the arroyo Hondo. The location of the presidio and mission is described by the Derrotero to be on “the camino real de Natchitoos,” seven 166 leagues from the latter place, and about a league from the lagoon of los Adaes (Spanish Lake). As near as can be ascertained from distance and direction from the other missions and from other evidence, the establishment was near the present town of Robeline, Louisiana. A mission was founded for a colony of Mexicans in the early part of last century, about two miles west of Robeline, and went by the name of Adayes in the records and directories down to the seventies. This continuity of name, and, as far as can be ascertained, the approximate location, give reason to believe that the Mexican colony was settled at the site of the Spanish mission of 1721. 167
While on his way from Mission Dolores to Mission San Miguel, Aguayo was overtaken by the messenger he had sent back to Mexico from San Antonio with instructions to his attorney to fit out a ship to ply between Vera Cruz and La Bahía with provisions for his expedition. The viceroy had approved the plan, and the ship had been bought. About the middle of October, while at los Adaes, Aguayo received word that the ship had safely reached La Bahía on September 8, bringing three hundred and fifty “cargoes” of flour, one hundred and fifty of corn, and other necessaries for the soldiers. The news was a relief, for the corn in Texas had been failing, and great anxiety had been felt. On the 20th of October, forty of the “cargoes” arrived, on the mules which Aguayo had left in San Antonio for that purpose, and November 1, four hundred sheep and three hundred cattle reached los Adaes from the New Kingdom of León, some eight hundred miles distant. 168
6. The Return to San Antonio.—With the Mission of San Miguel de los Adaes rebuilt, the presidio of Nuestra Señora del Pilar erected and garrisoned with one hundred men and six cannon, and with the good will of the Indians won, Aguayo was ready to take up his return march. He had intended to leave on November 12, but a violent sleet and snow storm delayed him. According to the Derrotero, the trees were so laden with ice that more than two thousand fell in the neighborhood, killing many horses and mules. The weather moderated, the cattle were herded, and the march began on the 17th. The return was without incident. At Mission Guadalupe, Aguayo received word of the royal cédula of May 26, 169 1721. In this the king approved the entrada, renewed the order that no war be made on the French, ordered that the province be fortified with presidios wherever needed, and that La Bahía, especially, be defended. In accordance with this order, the viceroy instructed Aguayo to add fifty picked men to those already at La Bahía. On November 29, the expedition reached the presidio of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, near Mission Concepción, and the commander outlined the fortifications. 170 December 9, near the Trinity, he met the second train of provisions from La Bahía, and sent some back to los Adaes. Seeing that the waters of the Trinity were down, and learning from his scouts that the Brazos was fordable, he determined to cut across, seventeen leagues through the cross timbers, to the old camino real. The withdrawal was slow and irregular, due to rain storms, cold spells, and lack of pasture, which greatly increased the mortality among the cattle. Most of the expedition was now on foot, even the Marquis now and then traveling thus. Eighty “cargoes” of provisions had to be left behind, with twenty soldiers to guard them, other soldiers were sent ahead to San Antonio to bring back provisions, while others were despatched to Saltillo to hasten the forwarding of supplies, which would be needed if those from the ship failed.
Finally, January 23, 1722, the expedition reached San Antonio. No lives had been lost, but out of five thousand horses only fifty returned, and of eight hundred mules only one hundred survived. Word was immediately sent the viceroy, informing him of the retirement of the expedition, and while here Aguayo received word from the viceroy, thanking him for what he had done for the advancement of Spain's interests in Texas.
7. Further Activities at San Antonio.—It will be remembered that Juan Rodríguez, the chief of the Ranchería Grande Indians, and the guide of this expedition, with fifty of his tribe, had been in San Antonio in February, 1720, petitioning the Spanish for a mission for his people, that Aguayo had promised that on his return from eastern Texas, he would comply with their wishes, and that he renewed this promise when he met the rest of the tribe just west of the Trinity on his way to the Texas.
(a) The Founding of the Mission San Francisco Xavier de Nájera.—Accordingly, after his return, March 10, 1722, he founded for the fifty families still in San Antonio, the mission of San Francisco Xavier de Nájera, on the San Antonio River, between the missions of San Antonio de Valero and San Joseph y San Miguel de Aguayo. Possession was given to the College of Querétaro, the padre being Father Joseph Gonzales.
Further light has been thrown on the scanty history of this mission by a study of the mission records at San Antonio, by Dr. H. E. Bolton, who states that the site of this mission was identical with that of the present mission Concepción. 171 The same authority says, in addition, “that the Hyerbipiamos [the people for whom the mission was destined] were kept separate for some time seems evident, for Juan Rodríguez was hereafter known as `governor of the district (barrio) of the Hyerbipiamos,' and the baptisms while they were waiting for the actual foundation of the new mission, though performed at Valero, were recorded in a separate book. . . . This situation apparently continued till 1726, when the project of a separate mission was given up, for thereafter the baptisms of the Indians of this tribe are entered in the Valero book.” 172
(b) The Erection of a New Presidio at San Antonio.—Realizing that the existing presidio was exposed to fire, as the soldiers lived in jacales of grass, Aguayo began the erection of a new one, on another site. It was of adobe, with the church, magazine house, and barracks, of wood, in shape a square, with two bastions, each protecting two curtains sixty-five varas long. It was located between the San Pedro and San Antonio Rivers, two hundred varas from the latter and thirty from the former. No mention is made in the Derretoro of the number of troops or of the commander left at the presidio of San Antonio de Béxar, but other authorities say that the number of men left was fifty-three. 173
8. Aguayo at Espíritu Santo.—The idea of occupying Espíritu Santo seems to have been a predominant one in the Spanish plans regarding Texas. One of the most stressed and insistent instructions given Aguayo was for the erection of a presidio at Espíritu Santo. 174 While on the Rio Grande, January 16, 1720, upon his march to Texas, Aguayo had sent out a detachment of forty men under Domingo Ramón to take possession of La Bahía. When he reached San Antonio, April 4, without having heard from the party, he sent Indians to inquire about it, but received meanwhile the information from the party itself that it had taken possession, April 4. While in San Antonio he made arrangements for a ship to ply between Vera Cruz and Espíritu Santo, and during his sojourn in eastern Texas he received supplies from this source. On his return march, at Mission Guadalupe (Nacogdoches) he received word of the royal cédula of May 26, 1721, which approved the erection of a presidio at Espíritu Santo, with additional instructions from the viceroy to add fifty men to the quota then at that place.
(a) Fear of the French as a Motive in the Erection of the Presidio at Espíritu Santo.—It will be recalled that the immediate cause of Aguayo's sending out the detachment from the Rio Grande, was the rumor of a French and Indian convocation, of which the Spaniards could get no definite information till they reached the mission of La Purísima Concepción, on the Angelina, Here Aguayo was informed by Juan Rodríguez, who learned it from the Téxas Indians, that St. Denis, after his return from the conference with Aguayo on the Neches, had delayed for some days near the mission of Concepción, and that for a time he had gathered there a convocation 175 of Indians with the avowed object of taking possession of San Antonio and Espíritu Santo. The fact that Aguayo found eighty Cadodachos at Mission Concepción lends some appearance of truth to the statement of the Indians. 176 Added to these suspicious signs in eastern Texas, La Harpe's contemporaneous operations on the coast of Texas, having for their object the occupation of Espíritu Santo, at least leave something to be explained, and might be interpreted, not without reason, as a cooperative scheme to secure French hold in Texas. August 26, 1718, orders had been sent to the commandant of Louisiana to take possession of Espíritu Santo Bay, the land being claimed in the name of the king on the ground of La Salle's priority of settlement, and the advance of the Spaniards was to be resisted, if need be by force. 177 On August 10, 1721, in pursuance of these orders Bienville instructed La Harpe, with Belle-Isle and twenty soldiers, to take possession of that place. 178 These landed on the Bay of San Bernardo, they claimed, but on account of inhospitable Indians, they abandoned the project. 179 October 16, of that same year, La Harpe wrote, insisting that German and Swiss families be sent to hold that Bay, on account of its importance. He added that the Spanish, hearing of the expedition he had just made, would likely take action. 180
This maneuvering on the coast, the plausible tales of the Indians, the presence of the Cadodachos at the Assinais, and St. Denis's meeting Aguayo so far in the interior, all suggest the probability of an intention of co-operation between La Harpe and St. Denis.
(b) The Establishment of Mission and Presidio.—Shortly before the 16th of March, 1722, Aguayo sent fifty of the best soldiers, selected from the battalion, under Gabriel Costales to Espíritu Santo. Because of the scarcity of horses, he himself could not go until the 16th, when with forty men, accompanied by Doctor Codallos y Rabal, Captains Thomas Zuburía, Miguel Zilón y Portugal, Manuel de Herrera, and Pedro Oribe, he began his march for that place. 181 Their route lay across the Cibola, the Cleto (modern Ecleto) and the Guadalupe. After the crossing of the latter, the march lay mostly east with a few veerings to the southeast. In the latter part of the journey it came to two good-sized streams, evidently the Garcitas and Arenosa. Crossing these, the expedition turned southeast three leagues, and arrived at the “presidio of Nuestra Señora de Loreto,” March 24, 1722. Apparently it was considered already founded by the garrison.
Illness of the Marquis prevented active measures until the 6th of April, when the lines were begun for the fortification “on the spot where the French had one constructed from 84 to 90.” The excavations for the presidio enclosed the spot in which the surviving Frenchmen had buried their artillery, and nails, pieces of gun locks, and other remnants of French goods were dug up. The presidio was in the shape of an octagon, with a moat, four bastions and a tower. Domingo Ramón 182 with ninety men was left in charge.
After drawing the lines of the presidio, Aguayo made the formal grant of the mission of Espíritu Santo de Zuñiga, to the padre Augustine Patrón, of the College of Zacatecas. The mission was founded for three tribes of Indians, but from the beginning was ill-fated. “Father Peña, a member of Aguayo's expedition, recorded at the time in his diary that `it was seen that they [these three tribes] were very docile and would enter readily upon the work of cultivating the earth and their own souls, the more because they live in greater misery than the other tribes, since they subsist altogether upon fish and go entirely without clothing.' By this utterance Peña proved himself either ignorant or defiant of history, a bad sociologist, and a worse prophet.” 183
(c) The Location of the Presidio.—Attention has been called to the fact that it is customary, erroneously, to place Fort St. Louis, and consequently the Spanish presidio, on the east side of the Lavaca River. 184 In support of the conclusion that the fort lay, not on the east, but on the west side of the river, Joutel's Carte Nouvelle and Siguenza's map have been cited, and the statement made that Joutel's Journal agrees with the map. 185 The matter may be considered definitely settled by Peña's map, which shows the site of the presidio on the exact spot of La Salle's fort, on the west side of the River. 186 As to the distance inland, Joutel and De León, the leader of the first Spanish expedition to Espíritu Santo, are substantially agreed that the fort was from one and a half to two leagues inland.
The commonly accepted view is that the fort was on the Lavaca River. This, however, is not unquestioned. Winsor cites a Captain Clark, noted as a student of the cartography of New France, as being of the opinion that the fort was situated on the Garcitas, and not on the Lavaca. This opinion has been arrived at independently by Mr. C. C. Small, a student in the University of Texas. The two strongest indications that the Garcitas was the site, are (1) the French statement that it was on the smallest stream in that vicinity, and (2) the statement of the De León diary that, after leaving the French fort, a party went north six leagues and struck a large river which they called the San Marcos. This river has been identified with the Colorado. But as this can not be true, the distance given being too short, those in favor of the Garcitas claim that the Lavaca would fulfil the conditions, if the fort had been on the Garcitas. Still, there are many points in favor of locating the site on the Lavaca River. Continuity of name can not be unconditionally proposed, for the French always called the river on which their fort was erected the Revière aux Boeufs, the Spaniards in general call it the Rio De los Franceses, while Peña names it on the map the San Gabriel. Arguments in favor of the location on the Lavaca are the following: (1) By following Aguayo's diary as closely as possible, league by league, from San Antonio, we arrive at the Lavaca about four or five miles from its mouth. (2) The diary states that in the five leagues before reaching a point three leagues northwest of the fort, the route lay across two arroyos of considerable size, evidently the Garcitas and Arenosa. If the fort were on the Garcitas, there would be no two rivers to cross. (3) The questions of distance and direction to the Lavaca are fulfilled by other diaries. (4) When De León was there in 1689, in order to explore the bay he went five leagues southwest, crossing two streams (the Garcitas and Arenosa would meet this requirement) and then turned south-east, and reached the coast after three leagues. (5) The river which this expedition called the San Marcos can easily be identified with the Navidad, if the fort is located on the Lavaca. 187
9. Aguayo's Return.—Finishing his work at Espíritu Santo, Aguayo returned to San Antonio to join the rest of the soldiery. He left for Mexico May 5, 1722, and, without anything of importance happening on the route, reached Monclova on May 25. On the-31st he formally dissolved the expedition. 188
1. Strengthening of the Military Defenses.—The Aguayo expedition, the last of its kind into Texas, exceeded all others in size and results. It was perhaps the most ably executed of all the expeditions that entered Texas, and in results it was doubtless the most important. It secured to Spain her hold on Texas for about one hundred and fifteen years. This was done (1) by increasing the military strength of the province, and (2) by carrying out Aguayo's wise suggestion of securing the Spanish hold by the settlement of families in Texas.
When Aguayo retired from Texas he left ten 189 missions where before the retreat there had been seven, four presidios where there had been two, two hundred and sixty-eight soldiers instead of some sixty or seventy as before, and two presidios were for the first time erected at the points where danger from foreign aggression was most feared,—los Adaes and Espíritu Santo.
2. The Settlement of Families in Texas.—Aguayo saw that if the Spanish hold were to be made permanent, settlers must be sent to Texas. He and the corporal at Espíritu Santo made recommendations to the authorities to the effect that the greater security of the province, the reduction of the number of presidios and soldiers, and consequently the reduction of the expense to the royal treasury, would all follow if families were sent to settle in Texas. They recommended that two hundred such be sent from Galicia, the Canaries, or Havana, and two hundred more from Tlaxcala. They were to be distributed among all the missions in Texas, and a new mission was to be founded with Spanish and Tlaxcalan settlers between San Antonio and eastern Texas. These recommendations were submitted to the king, and May 10, 1723, he ruled that, since it was easier to transport families from the Canaries than from Galicia, two hundred families from the former place should be embarked for Campeche, thence to Vera Cruz, and finally to La Bahía. The authorities of Yucatán and Mexico were strictly instructed to see to the welfare of these families and to support them for a year after their settlement in Texas, until they could begin to provide for themselves. Nothing immediate came of this resolution. But February 14, 1729, the king ordered that four hundred families, including the two hundred already specified, should be sent from the Canaries to Havana and thence to Texas. They were to be embarked from the Canaries ten or twelve at a time, and were to be given the same support ordered for the first two hundred. The result of this cédula, and hence of Aguayo's suggestion, was the well known settlement of Canary Islands at San Antonio in 1731.
3. Disappointment of the Missionaries.—From the point of view of the missionaries, Aguayo's work was not as complete as they could have wished. Espinosa expresses their feeling as follows: “Considering the great stir with which the latest entry was made into Texas, the saying of the prophet Isaiah was verified, that `the people increased but the joy did not,' for these poor missionaries who had [but lately] seen so many soldiers on the fields of Texas did not have the increased pleasure of having one or more at their missions.” They were needed at the missions to help settle the Indians in pueblos. The padres also complained that they were not supplied with provisions and tools as had been intended by the viceroy, and that the soldiers, before they left, did not gather the Indians into pueblos.
The fact remains, however, that the work done by Aguayo was permanent, and that it fastened Spain's hold on Texas for more than a century. The establishments at the most important points were lasting. That at La Bahía, with two short changes in location, has remained to the present; that of los Adaes was the official capital of Texas till 1772, when San Antonio superseded it; and San Antonio, the other stronghold, in the center of Texas, remained the capital till 1836, when the Spanish dominion was brought to a close by the Texas Revolution.
1. Secondary Works
The general works in English consulted for this paper are (1) the older histories of Texas: Thrall, A Pictorial History of Texas, I; Kennedy, Texas, I; Brown, History of Texas, I; Yoakum, A History of Texas, in A Comprehensive History of Texas, I (Wooten, Ed.), and (2) the standard works, Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas, I, and Garrison, Texas. Of the first group it can be said, that the chief advantage to be gained from them is an added appreciation of the truth furnished by authentic sources, for upon this period they are replete with error.
The principal monographs in English consulted are: Bolton: (1) The Native Tribes About the East Texas Missions; (2) Mission Records at San Antonio; (3) The Founding of Mission Rosario; (4) Notes on Clark's “The Beginnings of Texas”; (5) Articles in Handbook of American Indians. Clark: The Beginnings of Texas. Cox: The Louisiana-Texas Frontier.
The secondary Spanish authorities, such as Altamira, Puntos, 1746, Bonilla, Breve Compendio (1772), and Talamantes, Historia del Descubrimiento (1805), are all brief sketches. Bonilla and Talamantes are not altogether reliable.
The older Spanish authorities used are: Espinosa, Chronica Apostolica y Seraphica (1746), which might well be classed among the primary sources on account of the author's having been present at most of the events of this expedition; Arricivita, Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica (1792); Villa-Señor, Theatro (1748); and Cavo, Tres Siglos (1835).
The secondary French authorities are: Le Page du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, which, like Espinosa, might be considered a primary source, on account of the author's being in Louisiana at the time of the events; and Heinrich, La Louisiane sous la Compagnie des Indes (1905).
2. Primary Sources
The greater part of the primary sources used for this paper are found in the University of Texas Transcripts and in Dr. H. E. Bolton's manuscripts, a collection of documents and transcripts made in the various archives and depositories of Mexico. The latter are referred to as B. MS.
The most important document for the Aguayo expedition is the Peña Derrotero, written by Father Juan Antonio Peña, chaplain of the expedition. The copy of the Derrotero used for this paper was printed in Mexico, 1722, and, so far as I know, has never before been used. It is now in Dr. Bolton's collection. The title as given in the official print is “Derrotero de la Expedicion en la Provincia de los Texas, Nuevo Reyno de Philipinos, que del orden del Exmo. Señor Marques de Valero Vi-Rey de esta Nueva España ha hecho D. Joseph Azlor, Caballero Mesnadero del Reino de Aragon, Governador y Capitan General de dicha Provincia de Texas, Nuevas Philipinos, y de esta de Coahuila, Nuevo Reino de Estramadura, etc. The copy used by Bancroft and all other writers that I know of has been the Memorias copy. By comparison with the printed copy, this is found to have numerous mistakes; sentences or phrases that change the entire meaning of a statement are inserted or omitted by the copyist, while in one place a whole day's entry is left out. Proper nouns are commonly misspelled in it.
An important manuscript is the Razon de la Fundacion de las Missiones al Sor. Virrey por aquellos missioneros. The title is misleading, for it is not an account of the founding of the missions, but a detailed account of the retreat and abandonment of eastern Texas in 1719. Other manuscripts which can not well be classified are as follows: Oposicion a la fundacion de la Mission de San Joseph del rio de San Antonio año de 1720, Santa Cruz de Querétaro; Relacion de la Sorpresa hecha por los Franceses de la Movila en el Castillo de San Carlos y Punto de Siguenza; Autos Fechos en la Bahia de el espiritu santo sobre dos muertes que executaron los Indios, 1724, Provincias Internas, Vol. 181; Autos sobre diferentes noticias que se han participado a Su Exa de las entradas que en estas Dominios hacen los Franceses por la parte de Coahuila y providencias dadas para evitarselas y fundacion de la Micion en la Provincia de los Texas, Provincias Internas, 181; Diferentes Autos y otras providencias dictadas por el Govor. Marques de S. Migl. de Aguayo, Archivo de la Secretaría de Governacíon, Saltillo, año de 1720, in B. MS. The following are found in Colección de Memorias, XXVII: Carta por el Marques de Sn. Miguel de Aguayo, 1715; Dictamen Fiscal; Representacion por el `Marques de San Miguel de Aguayo, 1715; Dictamen Fiscal, 1716; Ynforme del M. R. y Ve. P. Fr. Antonio Margil de Jesus, 1716; Carta del M. R. y Ve. P. Fr. Antonio Margil de Jesus, 1716; Carta del Capitan Domingo Ramon á S. Exa., 1716; Representacion á S. Exa. por los PP. Misioneros, 1716; Carta del P. Fr. Antonio Olivares á S. Exa.; Otra del P. Fr. Antonio Olivares; Representacion del M. R. y Ve. P. Fr. Antonio Margil a S. Exa., 1718; Carta del M. R. Fr. Ysidro Felix de Espinosa a S. Exa., 1718; Otra del Padre Espinosa a S. Exa., 1718; Carta del Pe. Hidalgo a Su Exa., 1718; Directoria pa. su viage a la Prova. de texas, 1718; Relacion de los empleos meritos, y servicios del Sargento mayor D. Martin de Alarcon, 1721.
For the comparative notes on the routes of the different expeditions, the following have been used: Derrotero de la Jornado del General Alonso de Leon, 1689, in Colección de Memorias, XXVII; De León, Derrotero, 1690, Provincias Internas, 182, in B. MS.; Demarcacion por el General D. Domingo Terán, 1692, in Colección de Memorias, XXVII; Diario de los RR. PP. Misioneros, 1691, Colección de Memorias, XXVII; Derrotero para los Misiones de los Presidios internos, 1716, in Colección de Memorias, XXVII; Espinosa; Diario derrotero de la nueva entrado, 1716, in Autos hechos, in B. MS.; Diario de Espinosa y Olivares, 1709, Santa Cruz de Querétaro, in B. MS.; Rivera, Diario, in B. MS.; La Fora, Diario, in B. MS.; Diario del P. Gaspr de Solis, 1767, in Colección de Memorias, XXVII.
The French sources are found in Margry, Découvertes et Etablissements, IV, V, and VI. The principal ones used for this paper are: La Harpe, Journal; Joutel, Journal; Pénicaut, Relation; and miscellaneous correspondence bearing immediately on the subject.
Among the many subjects on which the archives of Mexico are now shedding new and much needed light, one is that of the history of the Jumano Indians after the middle of the seventeenth century. In the early annals of New Mexico and southwestern Texas the tribe was well known, and though they were less prominent after 1629, a few references to them between that date and the end of the seventeenth century have been long available. But of their movements thenceforth students have until recently found little trace. Bandelier, writing in 1890, was constrained to say: “The Jumanos were lost sight of after the great convulsions of 1680 and succeeding years, and their ultimate fate is as unknown as their original numbers.” 190 Similarly, Hodge, in a recent study, states that until shortly before his writing he had been “baffled by what appeared to be the sudden and almost complete disappearance of this once populous tribe.” 191 The present writer, through his investigations in the archives of Mexico, had the good fortune to pick up the thread again in 1907 and to show that from 1750 forward the Taovayas, a Wichita tribe of the Red River (Texas), were regularly called “Jumanes” by Spaniards of New Mexico. 192 Hodge has taken this newly acquired information to be the key to the solution of the mystery, and, in the recent study referred to, has concluded that the Jumano formerly known in the Southwest were identical with the Taovayas, and, under the latter name, were absorbed by the Wichita, in which tribe they are now represented. 193 He has concluded, also apparently, that for the name “Taovayas,” wherever found, “Jumano” can be substituted. 194
By restating the hitherto available data concerning the Jumano and correlating it with the recent discoveries concerning the Taovayas, Hodge has done valuable service to the history and ethnology of the Southwest. That his conclusion explains the apparent disappearance of a part of the people known as Jumano, the present writer is convinced. But there has come to light in the Mexican archives a considerable fund of information which Hodge did not use; and a study of it shows that he has taken too little account of a part of the Jumano and, it may be, drawn a conclusion that is too far-reaching. The purpose of this paper is to present some of the new data, and thereby help to fill in and correct the hitherto scanty history of the Jumano tribe between 1683 and 1750.
Hodge regards the principal notices of the Jumano nation between 1629 and 1683 as referring to a people living near the Arkansas River. He recognizes toward the close of the eighteenth century a southern (with reference to New Mexico and Texas) as well as a northern people called Jumano, but seems to be able to trace them only to 1691, his discussion thereafter being devoted to the northern group. Even of this group he appears to be able to find only one faint trace between 1697 and 1719, that being in the year 1700. In 1719 he finds another trace, at which point he remarks: “No definite reference to the northern Jumano between 1719 and 1750 is found.” Finally, the Jumano of whom he finds mention are consistently hostile to the Apache, or at least allies of the enemies of the Apache.
To one who has worked extensively in the sources of later seventeenth and early eighteenth century Texas history recently made available, and has not, like Hodge, made the Jumano a subject of long and special study, the article in question contains cause for surprise on four counts: the first is that the “Nueces River,” where the Jumano were several times met between 1629 and 1683, should be identified with the Arkansas or any stream in its vicinity; the second, that references to the Jumano in the eighteenth century should be considered so scarce; the third, that the Jumano should be regarded in the first half of the eighteenth century as primarily a northern (with reference to Texas and New Mexico) rather than a southern tribe, 195 the fourth, that no mention should be made of Jumano who were not enemies but allies of the Apache, and even regarded as Apache themselves.
As one who has experienced this surprise, the writer has attempted to present, in the pages that follow, evidence to show that the “Nueces River,” where the Jumano were found in the third and fifth decades of the seventeenth century, was probably the Colorado River of Texas, rather than the Arkansas; that the Jumano were frequently encountered in southern Texas between 1675 and 1771, at least; and that in the second half of this period they were regularly regarded as allies of the Apache, or even as Apache, and, therefore, as hostile to the Wichita, a part of whom, the Taovayas, we well know, were regularly called Jumano after 1750. Everything here stated is with due deference to Mr. Hodge's great learning in matters of Southwestern ethnology.
The history of the Jumano before 1650 it is not my purpose to discuss, but for the sake of clearness it may be briefly summarized. The tribe was first seen by Cabeza de Vaca in 1535 on the Rio Grande, near its junction with the Conchos River, a place known as La Junta (the junction); in 1582 they were found in the same place by Espejo; in 1598 they were receiving religious instruction in eastern New Mexico; for several years before 1629 they visited Fray Juan de Salas at Isleta, asking him to go to live among them; in response to this request Father Salas in the year named visited the tribe more than one hundred and twelve leagues to the eastward of Santa Fé, “or, possibly,” says Mr. Hodge, “in the western part of Kansas in the vicinity of what later became known as El Quartelejo”; in 1632 they were again visited by Father Salas in the buffalo plains on a stream which the Spaniards called the “Nueces”; in 1650 and yet again in 1654, they were encountered on the “Nueces” River by Castillo and Guadalajara, respectively. 196 In a former article Hodge states that the “Nueces River” visited in 1632 and 1650 “must have been the Arkansas”; 197 and in the recent one already cited he holds the same opinion. 198
As viewed by the present writer this conclusion as to the location of the “Nueces River” does not seem warranted by the sources. The “Ynforme” of Father Posadas, 199 which is the chief authority for the expeditions to the Nueces River between 1629 and 1655, states clearly and in terms that the place visited by Martin and Castillo in 1650 was far to the south of Santa Fé. He relates that after reaching “this said place of the Rio de las Nueces and this nation of los Jumanos,” they went down stream east-southeast, and, after having traveled some fifty leagues, arrived at the borders of the Téxas country. He then continues: “Among these nations that of the Tejas must be (estará) in twenty-eight degrees; from its limits said Captains Hernan Martin and Diego del Castillo returned by the same route (rumbo) 200 to the Villa of Santa Fee, going up toward the North as far as is implied by saying from twenty-eight to thirty-seven degrees and a distance of two hundred-fifty leagues.” 201
From the foregoing it is plain that Posadas considered the Nueces River to be a stream whose middle course was several degrees of latitude south of Santa Fé. That this was his understanding is evident also from other statements which he made in the same report. He tells us that flowing eastward from Santa Fé, or, as he puts it in one place, east-one-fourth-south-east, and joined by a tributary from the north, there is a large stream called the Rio Grande; and that rising northeastward from Pecos and flowing southeast is the Nueces. “From the Noezes to this [Rio Grande] in the direction of the north will be about one hundred leagues.” From the Nueces to La Junta he considered the distance eighty leagues, 202 or only three-fourths of his estimate of the distance from El Paso to La Junta, and only two-fifths of that from La Junta to Santa Fé. Again, in summing up he says, “looking to the Southeast [from Santa Fé] one-fourth south we shall find, two hundred leagues away, the junction of the Rio del Norte and the Conchas ... and looking directly (en linca recta) to the southeast we shall find at a distance of two hundred leagues, the Rio de las Noezes in the Aijados nation.” In other words, as he understood it, this point on the Nueces River, which was adjacent to the Jumano country, was just the same distance southeast from Santa Fé as La Junta was southeast-south. 203
It is thus seen that a close scrutiny of the principal source of information regarding the “Nueces River,” seems to preclude its identity with the Arkansas. It can now be shown on the strength of positive evidence, partly drawn from the same document and partly from other sources, that there are very strong reasons for identifying it with a stream much further south, 204 namely, one of the upper branches of the Colorado of Texas.
Being especially interested in the pearls carried back by the party of Martin and Castillo, the viceroy ordered another exploration of the Nueces River, and in 1654, Posadas tells us, Diego de Guadalajara and thirty soldiers set out “in the direction stated” [that is, southeast] to execute the command. “Having traveled about two hundred leagues, they arrived at the Rio de las Noezes, and found on it many Indians of the Jumano nation.” 205
It so happens that Juan Domínguez de Mendoza, a member of the Guadalajara party, became the leader of another expedition to the Jumano on the Nueces in 1684. This connecting link between the two expeditions is important, for during the latter journey Mendoza recognized the stream which he was then on as the Guadalajara had visited, and he kept a diary which beyond question establishes the identity of the stream with one of the upper branches of the Colorado, in west-central Texas. 206
The Mendoza expedition was the result of a petition made by Juan Sabeata, an Jumano Indian, at Paso del Norte in October, 1683, for missionaries and Spanish settlers in his own country. 207 Since the story of this expedition has hitherto been marred by some errors, 208 and because of its important bearing on Jumano geography, it will be summarized here. According to his own story, Sabeata lived at La Junta “with many” of his own people and Julimes. Part of his tribe lived six days to the eastward, or three-fourths of his estimate of the distance from La Junta to El Paso. Three days from La Junta were the buffalo herds; three days [beyond] was the Nueces River, the home of a part of his tribe and of many others, friends of his own people; from La Junta to the Téxas, from whom two messengers were waiting at La Junta, it was fifteen or twenty days. 209
In response to the appeal, Father Nicolás López set out on December 1 for La Junta with two companions, Fray Juan de Zavaleta and Fray Antonio de Acevedo. Fourteen days later he was followed by the Maestro de Campo Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and a small band of soldiers. 210 On the way down the Rio Grande Mendoza noted in his diary several rancherías of Suma Indians, and at La Junta, rancherías of Julimes, on both sides of the Rio Grande. The distance from El Paso to La Junta he estimated at ninety-seven leagues, which would make each of his leagues about two miles, air line. 211 This point should be kept in mind for later reference.
Of the route traversed by Mendoza from La Junta, a minute study will be reserved for a later task, and only enough details will be given here to show that the Nueces River which Mendoza reached was clearly one of the upper branches of the Colorado. 212
On January 1, 1684, the party, leaving Father Acevedo to minister to the Indians at La Junta (or La Novedad de las Cruces, as it was now called), set out for the country of the Nueces River. From La Junta the route was evidently north, or a little east of north, to the Salado (Pecos), which was reached on the thirteenth, after going seventy leagues. 213 The point was perhaps in Pecos County, opposite Crane County, Texas, though it may have been a short distance farther west, in Reeves County. 214 Following the river for nine leagues, they crossed to the village of the Jediondas, “at the foot of a great rock which serves them as a protection against the hostile Apaches.” 215 Here Mendoza stopped seven days. Leaving the Pecos, he now marched eastward across an unwatered plain. Forty leagues out he struck the head of an east-flowing stream, remarkable for its shells (concheria). Mendoza called the river the Nueces, regarding it as the one he had come to find. It was perhaps the middle Concho. Following this stream east twenty-one (or twenty-four?) leagues, and passing by one or two tributaries, he came to the “Rio de Señor San Pedro, which is the principal [river], called de las Perlas, or, by another name, de las Nueces [nuts], although they all have them, which river is the one appearing in the order which I bear ... and which order is now fulfilled. Said point is about eight leagues further down the said River than the place where Don Diego de Guadalajara arrived.” 216 The point where this entry was written was perhaps near San Angelo, at the junction of the North and Middle Concho rivers.
Nineteen leagues further on he reached the end of his journey at an eastward flowing stream, which he called the San Clemente. He was now about forty leagues (eighty miles according to his former estimates) from the head of the “Nueces” River, and twice that distance from the point where he had left the Pecos, or eightsevenths of the distance from La Junta to the Pecos by the northward route. The place was apparently on the Colorado near its junction with the Concho. Mendoza tells us that on his return home he went straight west, much of the way near an east-flowing stream, to the Pecos, which, after going some distance along the north bank, he crossed at the point where he had passed it before.
The testimony of this diary, supplemented by Posadas's report, seems to identify the Nueces River, home of the Jumano in 1684, with the Concho, 217 whose very name is significant. Equally so is the fact that a considerable pearl-fishing industry is still carried on in the Concho River, in the neighborhood of San Angelo, which is not true of other streams of central Texas. It may be added that the Concho is today one of the greatest nut-producing streams in the Southwest.
Regardless of its bearing on the existence of a Jumano tribe on the Arkansas in the middle of the eighteenth century (and that bearing is not difficult to see), the above conclusion as to the identity of the “Nueces River” implies, of course, the presence of Jumano in southwestern Texas at that period. With this as a starting point, it is my purpose now to present evidence, much of which has never been taken into account, to show that Jumano continued to range through the same general region till after the middle of the eighteenth century, at least. Some of the evidence even points to a residence there after the time when Hodge implies that the whole tribe were living on the Red River under the name of Taovayas, and in other ways disturbs views that have been regarded as established.
It may be noted, as a preliminary to the discussion which follows, that the forms Juman, Chuman, Jumane, Jumana, Xoman, Xumana, etc., frequently occur in the Spanish documents as variants of the name Jumano. Indeed, in the Spanish sources Jumane and Jumana occur much more frequently than Jumano, the form which has been adopted by the Bureau of American Ethnology and which I have followed for that reason. Juman, Xuman, Chuman, etc., are sometimes used for the tribe while the people are referred to as Jumanes, Xumanes, Chomanes, etc. In the seventeenth century the name was probably pronounced Zhuman.
To show that during the decade between 1683 and 1693 the Jumano lived in the general region of the Rio Grande, from La Junta eastward, the evidence is ample. To go back a step, in 1675 Fernando del Bosque and Fathers Larios and San Buenaventura found the Indians of the Xoman tribe at a place called Dacate Mountain, a short distance north of the Rio Grande and east of the Pecos. 218 While there is no certainty that these Xoman were the Choman, or Jumano, known on other grounds to have been near the Rio Grande at this time, yet there is a strong probability that such was the case. We have already seen that the Jumano chief, Juan Sabeata, claimed in 1683 to live near La Junta “with many” of his tribe, and that part of the tribe were found in 1684 on the “Nueces” (Colorado) River. It is clear, moreover, that Father Posadas regarded the Jumano to be living near the Rio Grande when he wrote his “Ynforme” (about 1686). He states that at La Junta Mendoza and López “saw many Indians—Jumanas, Rayados, Oposmes, Polupames, Polaques, and others.” 219 After describing the Apache range over the great plains of western Texas, he states that the home of the Jumano is south of the Apache, on the Nueces River, but that they are now living near the Rio Grande, having been forced back by the Apache. 220
The same general impression as to the home of the Jumano at this time is given by other and entirely distinct groups of sources. The French of La Salle's party learned in eastern Texas of the Jumano as a tribe living to the southwest of their route. When among the Tedâo, of the lower Colorado country, in 1687, La Salle was informed that some members of this tribe had gone to the southwest or west and entered into relations with the Chouman tribe, friends of the Spaniards and the Cenis (Hasinai). 221 That the Chouman were unquestionably the Jumano, we shall presently see. Father Douay reported the Chouman tribe to be living only two days from the Spanish settlements. 222 And while among the Cadodacho Delisle learned of the Chouman as a tribe in the southwest and friends of his hosts. 223 In 1688 we again hear, through Spanish sources, of Jumano near the Rio Grande, on the border of Coahuila. During the uprising in that year of the Colorados, Cabezas, Tobozos, and others, the leader of the outbreak, “Don Dieguillo,” sent a messenger to the Teocodames (Terocodames), “Jumanas,” and others, to get them to join the revolt. 224 It is well known that the Terocodame tribe lived at this time near the Rio Grande about Eagle Pass, and it is quite probable that the Jumanas now mentioned with the Terocodame were the same as the Xoman seen with them north of the river in 1675. In the same year, 1688, Capt. Diego Ramón sent a messenger across the Rio Grande to call the “Jumanes” and other nations to the mission of Nadadores The messenger reported that he went to where the Jumanes were, and was told by them that a short time before they had joined some Frenchmen and Téxas Indians who had come by on a campaign against the Apache. 225 The reference is probably to the campaign made by some of the La Salle party with the Téxas. In 1689, when Alonso de León was on his way from Monclova to Matagorda Bay, he encountered five leagues south of the Rio Grande, in the neighborhood of Eagle Pass, a ranchería of Jumenes and others. 226 They may have been the same as the Jumanes previously reported in that region.
If these references to the Xoman, Jumanes, and Jumenes on the borders of Coahuila between 1675 and 1689, taken together with the account of the Mendoza expedition, are not conclusive, in the records of 1691 we find evidence which removes all uncertainty in the matter. In June of that year, while Terán and Massanet were at the San Antonio, a Payaya chief offered to guide them eastward to “the Ranchería of the Chomanes.” 227 Near the Guadalupe they found the ranchería, which was a temporary one occupied during the buffalo hunt. There was our old friend, Juan Sabeata, “con su gente y nacion de Yndios Chomas,” the chief of the Cantonas, “who brought his people with the Chomanes”; the Cibolas, the Caynaaya, and the Catqueza. 228 Massanet gave the number in the ranchería as 3000 and Terán as 2000. The autos of the Terán expedition give the number of the “Xumanas” met here as 300 warriors, and of the whole ranchería as 900 warriors. 229 The same document repeatedly speaks of them as the “nacion Xumano (or Xumana) del rio del norte y Salado”—the Xumano tribe of the rivers del Norte and Salado (or Pecos). More explicit is Massanet's statement, which also establishes the identity of the different name forms given heretofore, and beyond doubt fixes the home of the Jumano at this period on the Rio Grande. It must be remembered that he wrote after a long conference with Juan Sabeata, who spoke Spanish, and with the chief of the Catqueza, who had been raised in Parral and had lived in New Mexico, later returning to his people. 230 He says: “The said nations of Indians, Choma, Cibola, and Caynaagua are Indians who live on and whose country is the bank of the Rio Del Norte. They [or the last named, estos] are contiguous to the Salineros, who live on the banks of the Salado [Pecos] which joins the rio del Norte. They are contiguous also to the Apaches and have wars with them. The Apaches are a cordillera which runs from east to west and are at war with all. Only with the Salineros do they have peace. . . . These of the nation Choma are the Indians which in El Parral and Nuevo Mexico they call Jumanes. Every year they come to reconnoiter the Rio de Guadalupe, and some go as far as los Texas. They come to kill buffalo, and carry back [llevan] the skins, because in their country there are no buffalo. As soon as the cold weather comes they go to their country. Don Juan Labiata [Sabeata], 231 Captain of said Chomanes, displayed a commission as Governor of his nation and those who might be in his following. Another Indian of the same nation displayed another commission as Lieutenant of the said Don Juan Labiata. Both commissions were given them by the Governor of Nueva Viscaya, Dn. Juan Ysidro Pardiñas.” 232 Sabeata told Massanet that many of the people he had with him had been baptized at Parral, and asked the missionary to return with him to his country, but Massanet put him off with excuses, remarking in his diary that since these Indians entered Parral and El Paso every year, they could have ministers if they chose. 233
Writing in the same year (1691), Fray Francisco Casañas de Jesus María, missionary on the Neches, mentions the Chuman tribe as allies of the Téxas and enemies of the Apache, and living to the southwest. 234 In the summer of 1693 Gregorio Salinas carried succor from Monclova to the missionaries on the Neches. Among the tribes which he reported seeing on the way were the Jumanes. 235
We have thus been able to follow almost continuously for the decade between 1683 and 1693 a Jumano tribe living near the Rio Grande, both above and below the Pecos, or hunting buffalo in south central Texas. Their winter home was characteristically near the Pecos and Rio Grande, while in summer they journeyed to the buffalo plains of the Guadalupe and the Colorado. They were enemies of the Apaches, who had crowded them southward from the upper Colorado.
In October, 1693, Texas was abandoned by the Spaniards, and until 1716 they had relatively slight contact with the province. But even during that period we get glimpses of the Jumano in the south. At the time of the withdrawal, Joseph de Urrutia was left wounded among the Cantona, Indians of the lower Colorado. In later years, when captain at San Antonio, he declared that in the course of the seven years during which he remained among the Indians he became their “capitán grande,” leading the allies against the Apache, “sometimes with 10,000 or 12,000 Indians, and others with more, of the nations where I was [and?], of the Pelones and Jumanes.” 236 This traces the tribe till 1700. In 1706 we hear of an Juman Indian at Monclova, south of the Rio Grande, giving testimony 237 based on information gained from an Indian of the Timamar tribe, that is a tribe living near the Rio Grande, implying that the Juman had probably been in that region. 238
When the Spaniards again occupied Texas, in 1716, they found that a noteworthy change had taken place, namely, that the Jumano had become allies of the Apache and enemies of the Spaniards and of the Téxas, in which capacity they were thereafter frequently mentioned. Thus, while in eastern Texas in 1716, Domingo Ramón wrote of “finding ourselves surrounded on the north by the enemies of los Téxas, namely, the Apaches, Jumanes, Chanas,” and others. 239 It is not necessary to suppose that the Jumanes whom he mentions were living far to the north, though they may have been. The Apaches were at this time occupying most of western Texas, and the Chanes River was the present Llano. In 1718 an Indian named Juanillo “of the Jumana nation” was reported at San Juan Bautista to have been instrumental in causing a defection among the Indians of the missions on the Rio Grande which involved a threat to destroy the Spaniards. 240 Again, an item of evidence recorded in 1724 shows not only the friendliness between the Apache and the Jumano, but also that in 1721 the latter lived, as formerly, in the region of the Conchos and Rio del Norte. 241 In 1721 the Marqués de Aguayo, when crossing Texas, named a small stream east of the Brazos the “Arroyo de los Jumanes,” but the circumstance prompting him to do so does not appear.
Documents written during the serious Apache troubles at San Antonio between 1731 and 1733 make it still plainer that Jumano were frequently in Texas and were there regularly regarded as allies of the Apaches and enemies of the Spaniards. Thus, in 1731 some arrows left by Indians in a fight at San Antonio were declared by an Apache captive to have belonged to “Apaches, Pelones, and Jumanes; that all three are extremely populous and very warlike, and, confident of their great numbers, have annihilated and terrorized all the nations living in these parts, and admit no others to their friendship.” 242 A year later it was declared in a junta de guerra at San Antonio that in the campaign made by Bustillo against the Apaches in 1732 a ranchería which was attacked seventy leagues northwest of San Antonio, in the region of San Sabá, was composed of four tribes, Apache, Ypanda (Pelon?) Yxande, and Chenti. Captives taken declared that the major portion of the tribes had been at the time further west and north, “but not very distant,” “that the people who were in said ranchería were only a small portion of each nation, there not being in said Rancheria any Indians of the Jumanes Nation, which is very numerous and which we know joins with that of the Apaches to come and make war on us.” Since the fight was near the San Sabá River, this would put the Jumano in the general region of their old haunts on the “Nueces” River, i. e., the upper Colorado. 243 Again, in a letter of November 26, 1732, to Almazán, the viceroy referred to the Apache, Xumane, and Pelon (Lipan?) as common enemies of this province.” 244 Yet again, in the residencia of Bustillo y Zevallos, governor of Texas, at San Antonio in 1734, a witness declared that “he had not heard that during the administration of Bustillo the peaceful tribes had “revolted or allied to do damage to the Jurisdiction with the Apaches, Pelones, Jumanas, Chenttis, or any others who insult These Lands.” 245
Thus, there is plenty of evidence to show that the Jumano of southern Texas, who in the seventeenth century had been bitter but losing enemies of the Apache, have come in the second and third decades of the eighteenth century to be regarded in Texas as the regular allies of the Apache, and that during this period they are still to be found in their old haunts both along the Rio Grande and in central Texas.
And now the Jumano history takes on still a different phase. They come to be regarded not merely as allies of the Apache, but as a division of the Apache, and are called “los Apaches Jumanes.” The first expression of this view that has come to the writer's notice is that given in 1733 by Joseph de Urrutia, then captain at San Antonio. Writing on July 4 of that year, he told of his former campaigns with the Pelones (Lipan?) and Jumane, “who, it appears, have now incorporated themselves in the said Apaches, which to me is very strange, because in that time (1693-1700), when I lived among them, they were declared enemies.” 246 This affiliation of the Jumano is best reflected in the discussion which occurred in 1746 relative to the suppression of certain garrisons in Nuevo León and the transference of the presidio of Sacramento, in northern Coahuila, to the San Xavier River of Texas. One of the principal arguments per contra was based on the need of defending the provinces of Coahuila and Nueva León against the Toboso and the “Apaches Jumanes,” of the Rio Grande. Bustillo y Zevallos, ex-governor of Texas, wrote on May 28, 1746: “The extinction of the garrisons of Boca de Leones and Serralvo, in the New Kingdom of León, does not seem to me the safest distribution . . . being so useful and so constantly occupied with the continual war, both of the rebellious Indians of its vast jurisdiction, as well as of those who enter from la Nueva Vizcaya, and of the Apaches Jumanes, who, crossing the deserts of the province of Coahuila, pass to the Kingdom and to the neighborhood of Saltillo.” With respect to Coahuila, he said: “The arms of the capital of this province, always in the hands of the soldiers, aided by those of El Sacramento, restrain the Nations of Apaches Jumanes, who are immediately on the other side of the Rio Grande, 247 and at times on this side. With respect to this, the Governor of the province, as a result of a representation made to him by the Captains of El Sacramento, Rio Grande, and the citizens, a few days ago, made the same representation (la hizo) to this Superior Government, begging license to make a Campaign against them, since the hostilities are continuous on the part of the latter (estos) and of the Tobosos, who, with this name, pass from la Viscaya, as said above.” 248
While the above discussion illustrates the way in which in Texas and Coahuila the Jumano had come to be regarded as Apache, being called “Apaches Jumanes,” it makes it clear also that in 1746 they were habitually found in the region of the Rio Grande, on the borders of Coahuila and Nueva Viscaya, and that they sometimes made raids into Nuevo Leon.
A still different turn is given to Jumano history when, as it appears, the Jumano of the Apache alliance engage in bitter warfare with a people of northern Texas called by the same name. As has already been stated, it is now well known that from 1750 forward the Taovayas (Tawéhash) of the Red River country were by the Spaniards of New Mexica frequently called Jumanes (Jumano), 249 that they were bitterly hostile to the Apache, and frequently, if not customarily, allied with the bitterest enemy of the Apache, the Comanche. If the Taovayas in 1750 embraced all the Jumano, a fundamental change, both of affiliation and location, must have come over those found near the Rio Grande in 1746 and at that time called Apaches Jumanes. It is conceivable that such a change might possibly have occurred; but this seems hardly probable, especially in view of evidence recorded in 1771.
The evidence alluded to is as follows: About November, 1771, Alexo. de la Garza Falcón wrote to the viceroy from the presidio of San Saba (recently transferred to Villa Nueva de San Fernando) 250 of the need of more soldiers there, in view of the “imminent danger in which it now stands of being attacked by the barbarous, hostile, nations of Indians, Apaches, Farones, Natagés, Mescaleros, Jumanes, Lipanes, and other frontier nations allied with them, both on account of the continual robberies and murders which they commit [in] this neighborhood, and because there are now at a distance of ten leagues from this Presidio about 3,000 of said nations, and others not known, who, on the occasion of having come out victorious from an encounter which they had with the Comanches and Taguaias [Taovayas, Jumano], gathered to celebrate the victory and eat some of the Comanche and Taguaias prisoners whom they captured.” 251
If this experienced frontier officer, stationed at a fort on the edge of the Apachería, and which was designed originally to withstand the attacks of the Comanche and the Taovayas, knew the Indian situation, and did not by mere accident include the Jumano in his enumeration, we have in 1771 a people called Jumano celebrating a recent victory over other people called Jumano. Such an inadvertence of Falcón's part would seem hardly likely to occur, in view of the conditions which had called the presidio of San Saba into existence. Yet the fact that aside from this one, no reference to Jumano in Texas other than the Taovayas has been noted later than 1750, leads one to wonder if some such error was not made by the officer. But, if this statement was correct, it is clear that not all of the Jumano had been absorbed by the Wichita in 1771, and that at that date there were two people by the same name at war with each other. 252
Here I leave the matter without offering a solution of this point, or of several others which will now inevitably be raised. Enough has been said to show that the Jumano were by no means a lost tribe in the eighteenth century; that from 1650 (at least, and probably from 1632, as well as much earlier) they were frequently encountered in west-central and southern Texas; and that unless there were distinct divisions whose separate histories have not been traced, they more than once changed their relations with the Apache, whose enemies they have usually if not always been regarded.
NOTES AND FRAGMENTS
Columbus Day.—Chapter 37 of the General Laws of the Thirty-second Legislature, approved March 10, 1911, recognizes Columbus Day, October 12, as a legal holiday in Texas.
Mrs. Joseph B. Dibrell, Vice-Chairman of the Texas Library and Historical Commission, has been appointed Texas regent of the Confederate Museum at Richmond Virginia, to succeed the late Mrs. A. V. Winkler, who was removed by death on May 4, 1911.
The sudden death, on December 31, 1910, of Ludolf F. Lafrentz, editor and publisher of the Deutsch-Texanische Monatshefte, has suspended the publication of that magazine. Mr. Lafrentz has resided in Texas since 1852. For many years he cherished the plan of writing a history of the Germans in Texas. Fragments and reminiscences appeared in the Monatshefte.
The monument, erected by the State at Huntsville, Texas, over the grave of Sam Houston, was unveiled on the afternoon of April 21st. The attendance was large. State Senator McDonald Meachum and Hon. William Jennings Bryan were the principal speakers.
“The women of the federated clubs here have erected a life-size statue of Gov. J. W. Throckmorton on a pedestal placed on the lawn east of the courthouse. . . . It was the work of a Waco artist and is pronounced by many to be an excellent likeness. Gov. Throckmorton is represented as standing with his right hand and arm extended as if addressing a crowd.”—Dispatch from McKinney to the Dallas News of April 30, 1911.
Officers Killed in the War with Mexico.—On May 25, 1910, the Colonial Dames of America in Texas unveiled a bronze tablet, erected to the memory of the officers of the United States army who fell in the war with Mexico (1846-7). The tablet is placed under the picture “Santa Anna before Houston,” which adorns the west wall of the vestibule of the State Capitol. At the regular session of the thirty-second legislature a resolution was adopted formally accepting this gift. The introduction to this resolution is misleading; it recites that “desiring to preserve the names of the officers of the United States army, who assisted Texas and who fell in the war with Mexico.” etc., etc. Wherein have these officers “assisted Texas” more than any other State of the Union?
BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES
The Association has received from Rev. George L. Crockett, Rector of Christ's Church, San Augustine, Texas, a file of The Red-Lander, complete, except for one or two numbers, from October 2, 1845, to April 9, 1846. This paper was published at San Augustine.
The following is the title of a pamphlet recently issued: Account of the removal of the remains of Stephen F. Austin from Peach Point Cemetery in Brazoria County, Texas, to State Cemetery, Austin, Texas, October 18 to 20, 1910. The pamphlet was compiled by Guy M. Bryan, Jr., of Houston, and contains 56 pages.
The Bulletin of the Virginia State Library for January, 1911, contains a “List of the Official Publications of the Confederate Government in the Virginia State Library and the Library of the Confederate Memorial Society.” In an introduction other important bibliographies in this field are mentioned, and the libraries possessing extensive collections are named. In an appendix are reprinted four reports made by the Superintendent of Public Printing of the Confederacy.
Translations of Early Texas Session Laws.—The State Library has recently secured by purchase three rare items belonging to the early legal bibliography of the Republic and State of Texas. The most valuable of these is a translation into Spanish of 116 of the important general laws passed by the first three Congresses of the Republic of Texas, 1836-1841. The volume was printed at Houston in 1841 and the translation was made by S. P. Andrews. In addition to the laws, it contains translations of the Declaration of November 7, 1835, of the Plan and Powers of the Provisional Government of Texas, of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Constitution, adopted March 17, 1836.
The second item is a translation into German, printed in Roman type, of 101 of the general laws of the third session of the State legislature, 1849-1850; it was translated into German by Albert Max von Germar and was printed at Austin in 1850.
The third item is a German translation, printed in German type and transliterated, of 62 of the general laws and 17 of the special laws of the fifth State legislature, 1853-1854. The translator was Alexander Rossy; the press “der San Antonio-Zeitungs-Office,” 1854.
The State Library already had a German translation of part of the laws of the fourth State legislature made by C. N. Riotte and printed at Galveston in 1853.
The rarity of the volumes is apparent from the fact that they are not mentioned in Raines's Bibliography of Texas nor in any other bibliographical aid as far as has been discovered. Further, their existence was not known to the Library of Congress, the library of Harvard University Law School, the New York Public Library, or the New York State Library, which are the largest law libraries in the country, until an inquiry was addressed to them by the State Library at Austin.
Translations of session laws into German, Spanish and Norwegian (this in 1858) were authorized at various times between 1837 and 1858 but it is not definitely known just how many authorized translations were actually made. And of those made it is not known how many are still extant. Copies of these laws no doubt exist in localities where Spanish, German and Norwegian are spoken, since the laws authorizing the translations in the early days specified that they should be distributed where they would be of most use. Any one who will aid in locating additional copies of these laws or in furnishing information relative to them will receive the hearty and deserved thanks of the State Library, which is endeavoring to collect and preserve the annals of the State.
John Boynton Kaiser.
Laws and Decrees of Coahuila and Texas Wanted.—Certain decrees are omitted from the compilation of Laws and Decrees of Coahuila and Texas, translated by J. P. Kimball and published at Houston in 1839. Among those omitted are those listed below, which are much needed, and any information concerning them will be gratefully acknowledged by the State Library, Austin, Texas.
Decrees of the constituent congress:
No. 37. Regulations to be observed in the administration of the towns as regards the political economy thereof. Dated June 13, 14, or 15, 1827.
No. 39. Law for the regulation of justice. Dated June 20, 21 or 22, 1827.
Decrees of the constitutional congress:
No. 48. Rules of the executive council. Dated somewhere between March 16 and April 12, 1828.
No. 98. Municipal ordinances for the internal regulation of the ayuntamiento of Bexar. Dated May 29 or 30, 1829.
No. 99. Municipal ordinances of the ayuntamiento of Goliad. Dated May 29 or 30, 1829.
No. 102. Internal regulations of the executive department of the State. Dated May 29 or 30, 1829.
The Unvarnished West: Ranching as I found It. By J. M. Pollock. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent &Co., n. d. [1907?] p. 253. 8vo.
The author is an Englishman. In the early eighties he went to Wisconsin and spent a year as a hired hand on a farm. Then for six or eight years he lived in the Concho country northwest of San Angelo, Texas, and the volume he says is mainly “a record of experiences which fell to my lot while ranching?” The merit of the volume consists in the picture it preserves of the life on a cattle ranch in that section of Texas. Some of the topics are the trackless plains, “free-grass” troubles, droughts and windmills, prairie fires; game and hunting, skunks and rattlesnakes, coyotes; the cattle, the round-ups, cattle drives, northers and stampedes; the cow boy and his pony, horse trading, cooking and plain fare, the hard bed and unwelcome bedfellows, sunshine and shadows of the range. The illustrations, while perhaps reproduced from photographs of more recent date than the events narrated, are judiciously selected and well reproduced. The narrative is plain and straightforward and the views expressed indicate an understanding of and sympathy with the life described.
W.
Reminiscences of the Civil War and other Sketches is the title of a twenty-six page pamphlet by Ralph J. Smith, of San Marcos. Mr. Smith belonged to Company K, Second Texas Infantry. The company was organized by Clark Owen in Jackson county and ordered to Houston in October, 1861. In March of the next year it was ordered to the front and participated in the battle of Shiloh, April 6th. In this battle the author was wounded and captured, and spent the next six months in Northern prisons recuperating. After being exchanged, he rejoined his command, and served in and near Vicksburg. The fall of Vicksburg again made him a prisoner, but he was soon paroled and came home. Having been assured of his exchange, he again entered the service in October, 1863, but spent most of the time at Galveston till the close of the war.
The author does not pretend to write history. The reminisences concerning his personal adventures and of such men as Colonels John C. Moore and Ashbel Smith are told in language that is sometimes quite picturesque.
W.
Hood's Texas Brigade, Its Marches, Battles, and Achievements. By J. B. Polley. [New York and Washington: The Neale Publishing Company, 1910. Pp. 347.]
It is safe to say that no single brigade on either side in the Civil War gained greater or more merited fame than Hood's Texas Brigade. Composed at first of the First, Fourth, and Fifth Texas, the Eighteenth Georgia, and Hampton's Legion from South Carolina, and later of the three Texas regiments and the Third Arkansas, and serving most of the time in the division of its favorite commander, John B. Hood, it has always clung to its distinctive name. Proud of its reputation, the survivors have maintained an active organization, erected to their comrades a monument in Austin, and have commissioned one of their number to write “a fair and impartial history” of its career and services.
Mr. Polley has executed his commission most admirably; the volume is well conceived and well written. The greater part of the story is compiled from the memories and diaries of the author and his surviving comrades, but it is substantiated by the official records as far as they have been preserved. Naturally enough, the narrative reflects the experiences of the private in the ranks more than that of the officer, and is not the less interesting for doing that; but still it presents a fairly adequate view of the general problems of the several campaigns and thus gives to the work of the brigade its proper setting. The author's happy style has made the book very readable, very unlike the great bulk of regimental and brigade histories that are content with little more than muster rolls and the bare recital of marches and battles and losses. Humor and tragedy are mingled in genuine reflection of the life of the camp; but tragedy predominates, for we know that the ever-decimating regiments are fighting against inevitable defeat. He must be phlegmatic, indeed, who can follow without a thrill of wonder and admiration this intimate story of the weary marches, the perilous skirmishes, and the desperate charges of those poorly clad and poorly fed troops, and of the splendid fighting spirit they maintained throughout it all from Eltham's Landing to Appomattox.
The volume is illustrated with some twenty portraits, chiefly of survivors of the brigade. It contains at the end two lists: one of all officers and men who were enlisted in the Texas regiments during the war, another, in painful contrast, the meager remnant that surrendered at Appomattox.
Chas. W. Ramsdell.
A Texas Pioneer. By August Santleben, edited by I. D. Affleck. [New York and Washington: The Neale Publishing Company, 1910. Pp. 321.]
The parents of August Santleben came to Texas from Germany in 1845, when he was only a few months old. He grew up on the frontier near Castroville and served as a mail-carrier, a private in E. J. Davis's regiment—the First Texas (Union) Cavalry—1863-1865, as a stage driver, 1866-1867, and as a freight-contractor between San Antonio and Monterey, Saltillo and Chihuahua, 1867-1877. In later years he has been engaged in business and politics in San Antonio.
His autobiography, though concerned chiefly with personal experiences, nevertheless, presents an interesting picture of the anterailroad days on both sides of the Rio Grande, and especially of the methods and difficulties of transportation between Texas and Mexico when it was dependent upon the slow, squeaking, clumsy Mexican ox-carts or even the trains of huge freight wagons drawn by mule-teams. The organization of the wagon-train, the long drives between watering places, the precautions necessary against Indians and white robbers are simply but vividly detailed; while the statements as to the heavy freight charges and the infrequent arrival of the caravans emphasize to this later generation the cost and scarcity of even simple luxuries and comforts on the frontier. Here is presented considerable data, both social and economic, that may be of service to the future historian of the Texas frontier. The coming of the railroad to San Antonio in 1877 and its rapid extension westward put the wagon trains out of business and transformed the adventurous Indian-country freighter into a ward politician and the head of a transfer company in San Antonio!
The author has the helpful habit of connecting with interesting incidents the names of living individuals from his wide circle of acquaintances in both Texas and Mexico. Among the last chapters are some giving an interesting account of the settlement of Castroville and the adjacent communities. There is also a list “from memory” of prominent families in San Antonio between 1845 and 1857, a period, by the way, which belonged to the childhood of the author and before he could, by his own account, have been very well acquainted with the town.
The editor has not succeeded in correcting all errors of grammar and diction; but it would be ungrateful to cavil at the language of an old frontiersman, which, indeed, is generally clear and direct enough. Every person interested in the history of the border should be glad that the book is written.
Charles W. Ramsdell.
2. 3.
4. 5.
6. 7.
8. 9.
10. 11.
12. 13.
14. 15.
16. 17.
18. 19.
20. 21.
22. 23. Ibid.
24. Ibid. 25.
26. 27.
28. 29.
30. 31. Ibid.
32. 33.
34. 35.
36. 37.
38. 39.
40. 41.
42. 43.
44. 45.
46. 47.
48. 49.
50. 51.
52. Ibid. 53.
54. 55.
56. 57.
58. 59.
60. 61.
62. 63.
64. 65.
66. 67.
68. 69.
70. 71.
72. 73.
74. Reales Cédulas, May 26, 1729. 75. Reales Cédulas, May 26, 1729.
76. 77.
78. 79.
80. 81.
82. 83.
84. 85.
86. 87.
88. Ibid. 89.
90. 91.
92. Ibid. 93.
94. 95.
96. 97.
98. 99.
100. 101.
102. 103.
104. 105.
106. 107. The time has arrived for giving attention to the myth that St. Denis “laid out the old San Antonio road.” Starting with Yoakum, it seems, it has taken deep hold upon the credence and the imagination of readers of Texas history, and is glibly and trustfully repeated on all occasions, and even incorporated in maps and serious works. Yoakum's words are: “He [St. Denis] did them [the Spaniards] one good service; he laid out the great thoroughfare through Texas, known as the old San Antonio road, which, first traveled in 1714, has been, for a hundred and forty years, the great highway of travel for pleasure and business, for plunder and war” (Chapter VI).
This “laying out” of the road has been understood in its full literalness. Indeed, an intelligent man high in office recently told me of two rows of shrubs, still growing, which St. Denis planted by this famous road! Another man of my acquaintance was seriously taught in school that St. Denis “grubbed” the trees from the road clear across the State! The absurdity of such notions is apparent when one reflects that St. Denis merely passed on horseback at the rate of many miles a day, with a few companions, from Natchitoches to the Rio Grande in 1714-1715, when he is alleged to have “laid out” the road, and back again under similar circumstances in 1716, serving as guide part of the way for the Ramón party. (Of another trip which he subsequently made very little is known). At best he could have done no more than designate, by following it, the route which later became the old San Antonio road. If he had done even this much there might be no occasion for finding fault with the tradition as stated by Yoakum. But there is no evidence that he did.
As a matter of fact, no one knows with any definiteness what route St. Denis followed across Texas in 1714-1715, for his report of the journey is given in only the most general terms (Declaración, in Memorias de Nueva España, Vol. XXVII, 121-131; the same in Margry, Découvertes, VI, 202. 211). As Miss Buckley has shown, the Ramón expedition, of which St. Denis acted as guide for a part of the way, could not have “laid out” the old San Antonio road, as it has been known to Americans, since from San Antonio to the Brazos, at least, its route was far to the north of the later famous highway, striking the Brazos above the mouth of Little River.
As is seen from the text below, the Aguayo expedition went nearly straight north from San Marcos to Waco, while Rivera's route in 1727 was in general that of Ramón, at least as far as the Little River. As to the eastern part of the route, there are indications that from the Trinity to the Neches it, too, lay somewhat north of the old San Antonio road, striking it again west of the Neches and following it pretty continuously thence to San Augustine.
Thus we may say that while the seventeenth century routes lay far south of the old San Antonio road, that of Terán coming nearest following it, the notable expeditions of the early eighteenth century went by routes far to the north of it, especially from San Antonio to the Brazos. For the period from 1727 to 1767 we have no diaries across Texas, but it is interesting to note that there is evidence that by the middle of the century the direct route from San Antonio to the Trinity was abandoned for the Bahía road, through fear of Apaches.
108. Mention is first made of an arroyo “salogre” (salty, which is also the meaning of the word salado) in the vicinity northeast of San Antonio, in the 1709 diary of Fathers Espinosa and Olivares (entry for April 13), though the name is not definitely applied. The first definite application of Salado, in the available Spanish diaries, to the river that still bears the name, is in the Espinosa Diario (entry for May 16, 1716), and in the Ramón Derrotero of the same expedition. Entry for the same day). They both speak of it as though they knew of it by that name. Ramón evidently had the statement of the 1709 diary in mind when he said, “We reached the Salado River, though not [called that] because it is [salty]” (no porque lo sea). The same river kept that name through all later Spanish diaries. See Peña, Derrotero, entry for May 13, 1720; Rivera, Diario, in B. MS., entry for August 18, 1727; De la Fora, Diario, in B. MS., entry for August 25, 1767.
109. 110.
111. The name San Raphael was applied to modern Plum Creek for the first time in Spanish diaries in 1709 (Espinosa and Olivares, Diario, entry for April 16), and so named for the patron saint of the expedition. Considering its comparative smallness, it enjoyed a rather unusual continuity of name. Ramón (Derrotero, entry for May 20) says he named it the San Raphael. Espinosa at the same time mentions it by this name, as does Rivera in 1727 (Diario, entry for August, 1727).
112. 113.
114. 115. The name Animas was given to Brushy Creek in 1716 by Espinosa, who called it “de las benditas animas (blessed souls), because we had commended our route to them” (Diario, entry for May 28). Ramón (Derrotero, entry for May 28) and Rivera (Diario, entry for August 24) gave it the same name.
116. 117.
118. 119.
120. 121.
122. 123.
124. 125.
126. 127.
128. 129.
130. 131.
132. 133.
134. 135.
136. 137.
138. 139.
140. 141.
142. 143.
144. 145.
146. 147.
148. 149.
150. 151.
152. 153.
154. 155.
156. 157.
158. 159.
160. 161.
162. 163.
164. 165.
166. 167.
168. 169.
170. 171.
172. Ibid. 173.
174. 175.
176. 177.
178. 179.
180. 181.
182. 183.
184. 185.
186. 187.
188. 189.
190. 191.
192. 193.
194. 195.
196. 197.
198. 199.
200. 201.
202. 203.
204. 205.
206. 207.
208. 209.
210. 211.
212. 213.
214. 215.
216. 217.
218. 219.
220. 221.
222. 223.
224. 225.
226. 227.
228. 229.
230. 231.
232. 233.
234. 235.
236. 237.
238. 239.
240. 241.
242. 243.
244. 245.
246. 247.
248. 249.
250. 251.
252.
How to cite:
"Issue View", Volume 015, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v015/n1/issue.html
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