SPANISH EXPEDITIONS
TO THE LAND OF THE TEJAS.
The Site of La Salle's
Colony - Origin of the Name "Texas" - Father Massanet -
Founding of the First Texas Mission - French Enterprise
and Agression - Discovery of the Source of the San
Antonio River - A New Objective Point of Occupancy.
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A people resembling the Spaniards in color, had landed
in the year 1684 on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, not
far from the Rio Grande: This information was
gained by Fray Damian Massanet,* a Franciscan missionary
lately come out from Spain and residing in the mission
of Caldera in Coahuila, from an Indian of the Quems
nation. By him it was conveyed to Don Alonzo de
Leon commandant of the Presidio of Coahuila, who
made it known to the County of Monclova, Spanish Viceroy
of Mexico.
In obedience to a decree of Philip of Spain that no
foreigners should enter the waters of the gulf on pain
of death, orders were given at once to DeLeon
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*Or Manzanet.
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to penetrate the country
with such troops as he could gather from the garrisons
of Monclova and Saltillo, and drive out whatever
foreigners he might find, taking with him Fray
Massanet as chaplain.
De Leon, under orders from Marquis de Aguayo,
governor of the new kingdom of Leon, had already made
two unsuccessful expeditions to find the Bay of Espiritu
Santo (Matagorda Bay) and its rumored colonists.
This time his efforts were more effectual. Leaving
Monclova, March 23rd, 1689, accompanied by a party of
about eighty, with the Quems Indian as guide, they
crossed the Rio Grande and passed over broad stretches
of prairie broken with occasional hills and varied with
dense thickets of mesquite and thorny shrubs.
Continuing on their way they crossed and named the
rivers Nueces, Sarco (Frio), Hondo, Medina and Leon (San
Antonio). On April 22nd, they reached the village
and fort of Saint Louis,* on the Garcitas River near the
shore of Lavaca Bay where La Salle had
attempted to plant his colony. The place was
deserted and presented a scene of devastation - the work
of Indians less than three months before. De
Leon's task was already performed - the
settlement had been destroyed, the bay discovered.
De Leon and Massanet then went as
far east as the Colorado River where they were met by
the chief of
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*"In the discovery of
lost sites, I count as my cardinal joy the
identification of the location of La Salle's
fort, on the Garcitas River, near the shores of Lavaca
Bay," - Bolton, in the Preface of "Texas in the
Middle 18th Century."
Page 3 -
the Nabedache, the
westernmost of the Hasinai, or Texas* tribes.
After a short conference, they arranged to return the
following year to found a mission for his people.
True to this promise, and with the co-operation of the
government, they returned in 1690 with a party, going
still further eastward until the nearest village of the
Texas (Hasinai) confederacy, near the Neches River, was
reached. In the middle of this Nabedache village,
surrounded by a savage wilderness and three hundred
miles from any settlement, they founded the first
mission in Spanish Texas,†
naming it San Francisco de los Tejas.⁑
Nearer the Neches, but not far distant, was established
later in the year by the friars left at the first
mission, the second mission of that region, El Santisimo
Nombre de Maria.
The successful establishment by Fray Massanet of a
mission among the Tejas tribes, stimulated both the
political and spiritual authorities of Mexico, to
renewed enterprise. A third expedition much
more
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* From this Indian tribe
the name of our State of Texas is derived. This
word, variously spelled by the early writers, had wide
currency among the tribes of Eastern Texas, and perhaps
over a large area; its usual meaning was "friends", or
more technically, "allies". The Texas included
tribes who spoke different languages and were widely
separated. Some of these tribes did not apply the
term restrictively to themselves as a name, but used it
as a form of greeting, like "Hello, friend," with which
they even saluted Spaniards after their advent . . . I
may say in this connection, that the meanings, "land of
flowers", "tiled roofs," "presidio," etc., sometimes
given for the name Texas, I have never seen suggested by
early observers, or by any one on the basis of
trustworthy evidence. - Bolton, in
"Native Tribes About the East Texas Missions".
† El Paso being in
what was then New Mexico. - Bolton.
⁑For the exact
location of the missions referred to in this chapter,
see
Chapter XVII.
Page 4 -
extensive was planned for
the following year to be commanded by Don Domingo
Teran de los Rios, governor of Coahuila and Texas.
After reaching the Tejas village with his soldiers,
flocks, herds, and supplies brought for the support of
the mission, and delivering presents and messages from
the viceroy to the governor and captain of the nation,
Teran proceeded with due formality to constitute out of
the lands of the Tejas tribes, the New Kingdom of Nueva
Montafia de Santander y Santillana. But Teran 's
expedition failed to accomplish the primary purpose for
which it set out - the general occupation by Spain of
the lands toward the northeast through the establishment
of missions. The practical obstacles in the way of
carrying out the missionary enterprise, together with
the lack of harmony between the spiritual and military
leaders of the expedition, prevented the establishment
of even one of the eight missions contemplated.
Massanet and the missionaries left with him, continued
their efforts at San Francisco and Santa Maria, but the
work did not prosper.
There being no longer any political reason for
maintaining settlements beyond the Rio Grande - the
alarm of a French occupation having passed, and the
reports
of Fray Massanet indicating the difficulties of his
situation, the Spanish government instructed the priests
to retire from the missions. Fray
Massanet and a few padres and soldiers, after
burying their swivel guns, the bells, and other iron
implements, abandoned
Page 5 -
the missions and returned
to Coahuila. Thus the Province of Nueva Montana
was left for twenty years to the undisturbed possession
of the Indian tribes, to await until another and more
serious menace to their authority in the lands east of
the Rio Grande, should stimulate the rulers of New Spain
to a saner and more determined effort to make good their
title to that region by the fact of actual occupation.
In 1715, however, a new condition of affairs presented
itself. For many years the French had concerned
themselves but little about the territorial claims of
Spain to the Western world, nor was her right disputed
to whatever lands she might desire, but finally French
enterprise and aggression reached out across the vast
wilderness of Texas, and knocking at the barred door of
Mexico, aroused the Spaniards from their lethargy and
set in motion their friars and soldiers to re-establish
their missions among the Tejas Indians, and to make a
permanent occupation of their lands in the New
Philippines.*
In September, 1712, the Sieur Antoine
Crozat received from his king, Louis XIV,
a grant of a monopoly of the trade of Louisiana for a
period of fifteen
years. This document attempted for the first time
to define the limits of Louisiana, - the country watered
by the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and
included between the English of Carolina on the
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* A name given in honor
of Philip of Spain, but the name Texas had become
sofirmly fixed in the Spanish mind that Nuevas
Philippinas soonfell into disuse. - Fulmore,
"History and Geography of Texas as Told in County
Names."
Page 6 -
east and New Mexico on
the west. As a result, Louis Juchereau de
Saint-Denis, French trader, with twenty-four men,
and as many Indians as necessary,
was dispatched to Mexico City seeking to open the way
for a profitable traffic in French merchandise with the
markets of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. Experiencing
many thrilling adventures, he passed through the land of
the Tejas and crossed the San Antonio River, that brave
stream on whose banks so much of the early history of
the Province was soon to be enacted. Here he found
an Indian village and remarking the spot, observed it
was very suitable for a village and worthy a good
presidio.
Finally in June, 1715, Saint-Denis arrived with his
valet de chamhre at the City of Mexico from Monclova,
conducted thither by a detachment of soldiers
under orders from the government of Coahuila. As a
result of the audiencies to which he was called by the
viceroy, it was determined by the council, which met in
August, that because of this French incursion the
commerce of the north was threatened with destruction,
and valuable mines were liable to immediate danger of
being possessed by the encroaching French. Here
was an emergency that demanded imperative action, and
aroused the government of Mexico to set in motion its
slow, cumbrous mission-presidio process of occupation
and colonization.
On Feb. 17th, 1716, Don Domingo Ramon,
captain of the soldiers and leader of the new
expedition,
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set out from the villa de
Saltillo with Saint-Denis, who had evidently made a
favorable impression, chief guide and interpreter.
In addition to the military and religious contingencies,
there were two men with families, also some unmarried
men and women, and others, constituting a total of
sixty-five persons. On April 27th, they left the
Rio Grande and were conducted by Saint-Denis over a more
northern route than any previously taken, which led them
on the 14th of May to some springs at the source of the
San Antonio River to which they gave the name of San
Pedro. Captain Ramon noted the spot
as one most suitable for the building of a city, and
Fray Espinosa, president of the Queretaro
Missions around San Juan on the Rio Grande, who was
accompanying the friars, saw in it a suitable site for a
mission. The San Zavier River (San Gabriel of
today), was visited and named on June 1st; Brushy Creek,
its principal tributary was twice crossed and given the
name of Arroya de las Benditas Animas (Creek of the
Blessed Souls), which it bore almost continuously
throughout Spanish days.*
On June 20th they came to the Hasinai village where the
first mission of San Francisco de los Tejas had been
built; a spot four leagues! further inland was selected
by the Indians themselves for the location of the new
mission, San Francisco de los Neches. Other
missions were soon established, three on the
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* "It will be seen that
this expedition, led by Saint Denis, did notby any means
follow the 'Old San Antonio Road' of later days." -
Bolton
† One Spanish league
equivalent to two miles.
Page 8 -
road by which the French
had made their incursions into Texas. Of these
established by the Zacatecan friars, with that of
Concepcion nominated the capital, Fray Antonio Margil*
de Jesus was made president, with Fray Isidore Felix
de Espinosa president of the Queretaran missions,
among them that of San Jose. It was agreed between
the two presidents, that each religious fraternity
should draw its converts from the tribes in its own
immediate territory, that there might be no conflicts.
The expedition of Ramon, having found the rivals of
Spain settled upon Red River and facing aggressively
westward, showed the Spanish government that to withdraw
again meant to abandon Texas to the French. But to
make permanent the missions established among the Tejas
tribes it was necessary to go farther, to extend the
sphere of occupation, and to make a greater show of
strength. To this end and chief in the plans of
Spain, was the early establishment of a mission and
presidio on the San Antonio River, a half-way house
between the remote settlements on the Neches and Sabine
and the outlying settlements of Mexico.
There must now be no retreat; that spot at the head of
the San Antonio River, which had been observed so
commendingly by Saint-Denis, Don Ramon, and Espinosa was
soon to be the objective point of a new expedition.
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* Padre Margil
joined the expedition after it left the Rio Grande, he
being too ill at the time to accompany it. - Clark
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