USA > Texas > A Twentieth century history of southwest Texas, Volume I > Part 2
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In other words, the Indians existed. But the day circumscribed all their acts and purposes. Institutions they had not, there was none of the fabric of organized society. They were in the various stages of bar- barism. At the beginning of the sixteenth century these creatures of the forest and the plain had not reached the state of mental and social de- velopment which had been attained by races from the far-away plains of Mesopotamia and in the Nile valley three thousand years before.
Thus the places which these red men inhabited were as they had been for ages. The comings and goings of the aborigines did not make for progress. Their abodes and their society were swept away in the same hour which noted their own departure-no architecture, no art, no in- dustries, no laws, descend from these races as a heritage to bless and elevate humanity. Therefore they have no proper history, and the reg- ions that knew them once know them no more. The red man through- out American history figures very much as his compeer the wild animal- something to be reckoned with by civilized men as an element of danger or assistance, but not as an equal nor as a foundation upon which might be erected a stable society and system of institutions. Indeed, as will be noticed hereafter, every attempt by the Spanish or the French to transfer
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the civilization and governmental institutions of Europe and impose them upon the Indian tribes of America found the barbarians unequal and un- able for the change, and all such Utopias and American empires were from the first doomed to collapse. The red men could not amalgamate with or form a part of new world civilization and even now after cen- turies of association and training cannot, and they had to be pushed aside and disregarded by the enterprising men of the old world.
Therefore, despite the presence of Indians, Texas was, from the standpoint of historical narrative, one vast barren before the dawn of the sixteenth century and the advent of the European to the gulf coast. And even then, two centuries were destined to pass before any other than a chance explorer should seek this vast region for purpose of occupation. Indeed, during the last years of the seventeenth century the impression prevailed among such eminent Frenchmen as La Salle that the Red river was the northern boundary of Mexico, thus entirely eliminating from the geography of the time that country of imperial magnitude which we now call Texas.
In a very vague and general way the land bordering the Gulf of Mexico became known to Europeans in the sixteenth century: By virtue of the discoveries of Ponce de Leon and others all this country was claimed by Spain and was known by the name Florida, comprising all the region westward from the present state of that name to Mexico, and including the portion since called Texas, but which at that time was almost a terra incognita, without name and boundaries.
Cabeza de Vaca.
The first well authenticated visit of Europeans to Texas is that of the Panfilo de Narvaez expedition, which started to explore the gulf coast from Florida. This enterprise met with disaster, and it was the lot of one Cabeza de Vaca, with several companions, to first cross a large part of Texan territory. His route lay from the mouth of the San Antonio river to the Rio Grande, and thence to the Pacific coast. This happened about 1535. Some ten years later it is probable that Coronado, in quest for gold or wealthy kingdoms, crossed northern Texas. There is some reason to believe that Hernando de Soto, on his ill-fated march to the Mississippi, also penetrated some portion of North Texas. The fact that Spain was in actual possession of Florida from 1565 and much before that time had conquered and established an empire in Mexico, makes it certain that expeditions again and again passed between the two seats of settlement, and thus repeatedly trod the soil of Texas.
Until the very last years of the seventeenth century Texas is nearly bare of annals. Spanish ambition and conquest were in the meantime pushing north from the central kingdom of Mexico, and the expeditions of priest and soldier added somewhat to the knowledge of the region to the east of the pueblos and mines of New Mexico. Various adventurers, for personal aggrandizement or other designs, invented fabrications con- cerning the wealth, magnificence and civilization of the country north- east of Mexico, but in 1686 Alonzo Paredes rendered a report, honest and fairly accurate, describing the status and geography of the country. .He pronounced the wealthy kingdoms to be fiction, but told of tribes of
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Indians living along the coast who subsisted by agriculture and were superior to the roaming tribes further west; also speaks of various rivers, although the many streams flowing toward the gulf make such references in early Texas history confusing. Along certain of these rivers, prob- ably between the Colorado and the Trinidad, mention is made of a race of superior Indians, the Tejas, and as this is the first reference to the name which later was used to designate our great state, it will be well to speak here of the source of the designation by which the Lone Star state is known to the world.
In regard to the name Texas, various interpretations and origins have been assigned, some fanciful and traditional, but the one most gen- erally accepted by historians is set forth in the following paragraph from Bancroft: "Tejas (Tehas) was the name of the one of the tribes in the south, as the Spaniards understood it from their neighbors, rather than from the people themselves. This word, or another of similar sound, was probably not the aboriginal name of the tribe, or group of tribes, but a descriptive term in their language or that of their neighbors. Indeed, there is some evidence that the word meant 'friends.' The name was retained by the Spaniards and applied to the province. It was some- times written in old-style Spanish, Texas (Tejas and Texas are both pronounced in Spanish, tay-hass), and this form has been adopted in English with a corresponding change in pronunciation."
La Salle-1685.
The first definite and important event in the history of Texas is a tragedy. Nearly two centuries passed after the journey of Cabeza de Vaca before the first real occupation of Texan soil was attempted. And as the story of this venture is in itself a drama, likewise is it the last act in the tragic career of one who "without question was one of the most remarkable explorers whose names live in history."
While, as we have seen, during all these years Texas was nominally a possession of Spain, it was reserved for a party of men under the fleur de lis of France to plant the first settlement on its shores.
Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, known to history as La Salle, had during the last half of the seventeenth century, by exploration and the planting in the western wilderness of fortified outposts, gained over to France all the vast region bordering the great lakes, and along the eastern tributaries of the Mississippi, and had journeyed down to the mouth of the Father of Waters itself. By building Fort St. Louis on an impregnable rock by the Illinois river he had given the French a commanding posi- tion as the center of a great Indian confederacy, and thence was pre- paring to extend the sway of New France southward to the gulf. With the French dominion already extending from the mouth of the St. Law- rence to the headwaters of the Mississippi, it was his ambition still further to hem in the English colonies on the Atlantic coast by securing com- plete control of the Mississippi from source to mouth. His scheme in- volved the placing of forts near the mouth of the river, of which he had already taken possession in 1682. naming the country Louisiane in honor of his king.
To gain permission for the fulfillment of his plans La Salle returned
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to France and set forth in a memorial to King Louis XIV the advan- tages that would accrue from the possession of this western country, declaring what rich conquests might be effected, how it would be pos- sible to invade Mexico and seize the mines of silver and gold, etc. This petition was granted in 1684, and the zealous explorer at once made ready for the enterprise which was to crown all his past efforts in the wilds of America.
The expedition which sailed from France in 1684 consisted of four ships, the Joli, the Belle, the Aimable and the St. Francis; some three hundred persons-a hundred soldiers recruited from the dregs of the French populace; some gentleman volunteers, besides professed me- chanics, laborers, some maidens who embarked with the hope of pro- curing husbands, Recollet friars, and three priests, one of whom was Cavelier, La Salle's brother. Such a motley company, a counterpart of many others sent out from Europe to America during the seventeenth century, contained too little of moral character and hardy industry to ever effect a permanent colony on the inhospitable shores of the new world. All the stamina of this expedition was in the leader, who was powerless to carry out his vast plans alone.
Embarrassments beset the enterprise from the first. Beaujeu, the commander of the fleet, was insubordinate and continually opposed La Salle, whose haughtiness and unwillingness to share his command with others proved the ultimate undoing of both himself and his undertaking. The first serious misfortune was the loss of the store ship St. Francis which was captured by the Spaniards and gave the viceroy the first in- formation of an expedition to the region claimed by Spain. Then when the fleet reached Santo Domingo La Salle was stricken with fever, and during two months of illness his followers gave themselves up to all manner of vice and dissipation on the island. Finally La Salle on the Aimable, followed by the Joli and the Belle, headed for the mouth of the Mississippi. He was in unknown waters and when land was sighted he was far to the west of the mighty river. He coasted the shore for some distance in search of the mouth, and on reaching a point below the present Matagorda bay he was joined by the other vessels, and after a conference the conclusion was formed that he had gone too far west. Thence he coasted north and entered Matagorda bay, which he believed one of the mouths of Mississippi. Here came another disaster. The Aimable was wrecked in crossing the bar, and all the stores and sup- plies on board became an irretrievable loss.
La Salle was firm in his conviction that he had reached his sought- for river, and a few weeks later Beaujeu, with the Joli, sailed for France, leaving the bold explorer with one hundred and eighty persons and the ship Belle to hold the outpost of French dominion on the gulf which was hundreds of miles distant from the Mississippi, with no possibility of communication with the fort on the Illinois, with none of the elements or purposes of a permanent colony-a mere germ of civilization destined to blight and decay and final annihilation.
A delightful spot a short distance up the La Vaca river was chosen for the seat of the settlement; where to the north stretched alternate grassy prairies and belts of woodland, and to the south the gray mists
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or blue waters of the bay; the verdure of a semi-tropical climate sur- rounded them, and fruit, game and fish abounded. A fort, called St. Louis, was constructed. Even in this work appeared the elements of weakness which boded no good for the colony. "Carpenters and other mechanics knew nothing of their pretended trades; slight attempts at agriculture were not successful. The vagabond soldiers and settlers had no idea of discipline; many of them were suffering from deadly and loathsome diseases contracted in Santo Domingo; and the leading men were divided into hostile cliques, several minor conspiracies being re- vealed. The leader showed unlimited courage, but became more haughty and unjust as difficulties multiplied, and was hated by many in his com- pany.'
La Saíle made several expeditions in search of the Mississippi, but each time returned unsuccessful, after having endured incredible hard- ships in fording the swollen streams and marching under the southern sun and suffering dangers from man and beast. Then came the wreck of the Belle, which might have afforded the survivors a last means of es- caping the country. By the beginning of 1687 hardly fifty persons were alive at the fort, but the iron heart of the leader was still not subdued. The only hope for the doomed company seemed to lie in the possibility of opening communication with Canada or the brave Tonti at the fort on the Illinois.
Accordingly, in January, La Salle, taking about half the men at the fort, bade final farewell and set out to the northeast for Canada. In March the party had reached the Trinity river, when several of the men, inspired with hatred of La Salle, lured him into an ambuscade and cow- ardly shot him, having just previously murdered his nephew and two followers.
Thus came to his end, on Texas soil, one of the foremost men of early American history, and although his last resting place beside one of our great rivers cannot be definitely ascertained, his name must always re- main as the first on the Texas roll of fame. In the words of Parkman, "he was a hero not of principle nor of faith, but simply of a fixed idea and a determined purpose," but in the end he had "attempted the impossible and had grasped at what was too vast to hold."
Of the party which accompanied La Salle, the conspirators nearly all met violent deaths at the hands of themselves or of the Indians in Texas, and the friends of the commander finally reached the Mississippi and rejoined their countrymen in Canada.
And lastly the decimated little band at Fort St. Louis on the La Vaca passed into oblivion. The story of their end reached the world only through the Indians and the Spanish, and all the suffering and misery which crowned their last days must be left to the imagination. Smallpox scourged the remnant of twenty persons, and toward the end of 1688 the Indians fell upon them and with arrows and knife dispatched all but four or five who were carried into captivity, and subsequently de- livered over to the Spaniards. "In ignominy and darkness died the last embers of the doomed colony of La Salle." The buildings and fortifi- cations of Fort St. Louis went to decay until in the end nothing re-
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mained to tell of the place where the first settlers of Texas lived, suf- fered and perished.
Alonzo de Leon.
In the meantime the capture of the store-ship St. Francis by the Spanish had aroused jealousy on the part of the latter, and while the colony was still meagerly existing along the La Vaca the ships of Spain were scouring the coast bent on its destruction. At last, guided by one of La Salle's former followers, Alonzo de Leon of Coahuila, marched with a force of one hundred men to the northeast across the rivers of southern Texas, to which he gave their present names, and in April, 1689, arrived at the site of the French stronghold. Here he found a scene of desolation, a dismantled fort, and the bleaching bones of some of the colonists. With these evidences that the French settlement had come to naught, he returned to Mexico, taking very favorable reports of the beauty and fertility of the country and the friendliness and superiority of the natives.
CHAPTER II.
SPANISH ENTRADAS-ESTABLISHMENT OF MISSIONS
The information by which Captain Leon had found Fort St. Louis was supplied through Frav Damian Manzanet, a missionary friar in Coahuila, who had inquired among the Indian converts at the mission and ascertained that the French were established among the northern Indians along the coast. Father Manzanet accompanied de Leon on his expedition of 1689, as chaplain, and was diligent in his inquiries con- cerning the Indian tribes associated under the name Tejas. While the Tejas chief was being entertained at the Spanish camp on the Guadalupe river. Manzanet urged upon him the acceptance of Christianity for him- self and people, and, meeting with encouragement, promised to send priests to his villages. Thus was conceived the Tejas mission.
This news about the Texan country, combined with rumors about further attempts at occupation by the French, led the Spanish viceroy of Mexico to send de Leon upon a second expedition. The arguments of de Leon showing the value of occupying the region from a political standpoint were reinforced by the accounts of Manzanet concerning the splendid opportunities for advancing Christianity by establishing a mis- sion among tribes who had already declared their willingness to accept conversion.
De Leon's Second Expedition.
This second expedition, which set out from Coahuila March 28, 1690, consisted of one hundred and ten soldiers, lead by Captain de Leon, a missionary force headed by Father Manzanet and three Franciscans. The personnel of the company was little suited for the arduous work that confronted them.
Stopping at the Guadalupe as before, a thorough search was made for evidences of renewed activity on the part of the French, and the dismantled fort on the bay of Espiritu Santo was burned to the ground. The company then moved eastward to the country of the Tejas, or Asinai. where they were received with much hospitalitv. A site for a mission was chosen, and from the trees of the surrounding forest were hewn the logs from which was constructed the first church in Texas, it being consecrated on June 1, 1600.
The village selected for the first missionary effort of Spain in Texas was situated between the Trinity and Neches rivers, in east Texas, northeast of the present city of Galveston. It was hundreds of miles from the nearest Spanish town. so that its isolation could hardly have been more complete. And on the day after the consecration of the rude little church, Captain de Leon, leaving only three soldiers to protect the friars, again plunged into the wilderness and marched back to Mexico. The names of the three friars who thus endured the solitude and hard-
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ships of the wilderness in their zeal to instill the precepts and practices of Christianity in barbarous hearts deserve to be written; they are, Miguel Fontecuberta, Francisco de Jesus Maria, and Antonio Bordoy. Father Manzanet returned with de Leon.
Mission San Francisco, de los Tejas.
Left alone to maintain and spread the influence of the mission San Francisco de los Tejas, the friars had to contend with the difficulties of their physical situation, with the indifference of the natives to their teaching, with the aboriginal aversion to tribal consolidation and per- manence of residence, and finally with pestilence itself, which the In- dian medicine men were not slow to attribute to the baleful influence of the new missionaries. During 1690-91 three thousand deaths occurred among the tribes called Tejas. Father Fontecuberta himself fell a vic- tim to disease, and the other two had to bear increasing burdens and expose themselves to increasing personal peril. The friars did all that human effort could do. In June, 1690, a second mission had been built probably on the Neches river, being named Santisimo Nombre de Maria, and one of the fathers gave his attention to the conversion of the tribes in this vicinity.
Texas' First Governor.
After the establishment of the mission among the Tejas and the return of the expedition, the royal authorities entered upon a plan for extended occupation and Christianizing of Texas. Don Domingo Teran de los Rios was appointed governor of Coahuila and Texas, and was instructed to organize an expedition by sea and by land, which should direct its efforts to exploration of the region to the north of the Tejas and should establish among the native tribes eight missions. The ex- pedition, consisting of soldiers, friars and numerous attendants, with droves of horses, pack animals and cattle, crossed the Rio Grande on its northern march in the early summer of 1691. Teran was military chief of the enterprise, while Father Manzanet was religious head and also held the office of commissary. It was not long before the inter- ests of these men came into conflict, and this failure to work in harmony did much to mar the fortune of the expedition. The forces that came around by sea did not effect a junction with those on land at Espiritu Santo bay, as planned, and this also weakened the enterprise.
It was not till August that the governor and his company arrived at San Francisco de los Tejas, where the news of what had been ac- complished and the condition of the Indians was not of very encour- aging nature. After constituting of the Tejas tribes a new province. and providing for the protection and maintenance of the missions, Gov- ernor Teran returned to Espiritu Santo to meet the sea expedition. By the time this was done and the mission was again reached, it was the end of October, and on account of delays and the cross-purposes of the friars and the military, much of the spirit and energy was taken out of the enterprise. However, despite the approach of cold weather, the governor determined to carry out instructions for the exploration of the country of the Cadodachos. With increasing hardships each day, he continued north to the Red river, which was reached late in November,
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and from that point, without having accomplished more than the most meagre results of exploration and treating with native tribes, retraced his way to the missions, where the wretched company arrived December 30th. A few days later he set out for Mexico, where he and his soldiers arrived in April, 1692.
Failure of the First Missions.
From a military point of view, the expedition was fruitless, and scarcely more can be said for the missionary efforts. Not one of the eight additional missions was established. In fact, the friars soon found it impracticable, if not impossible, to maintain the two original missions. The Indians were giving trouble, the small guard of soldiers proved un- ruly, drought blighted the crops for two successive seasons, the cattle died of disease, and Manzanet, after more than a year of unsuccessful effort, confessed to the viceroy the impossibility of maintaining the establishment without sufficient military protection. But with the fear of French aggression allaved for the time, the government ceased to be concerned about Texas, and on August 21, 1693, the priests were or- dered to abandon the missions and return to Mexico.
For twenty years thereafter Texas existed only in name, and over the forts of the soldiers and the chapels of the priests the aboriginal wilderness held sway as in the years before La Salle led his little company upon the shores of Matagorda bay. The career of Texas contains many vicissitudes, and by no means least interesting of her annals is the period beginning with the advent of the indomitable Frenchman and closing with the withdrawal of the Spanish missionaries-a drama which is played through all its scenes in less than ten years.
Answering a pertinent query as to what practical results accrued from these first Spanish entradas, Mr. R. C. Clark1 maintains that these expeditions laid the foundations of experience on which subsequent mis- sionary enterprises were built. "That remote inland settlements are dif- ficult to establish, and more difficult to maintain; that the organization of an extensive system of missions must be the slow work of years, and not the accomplishment of a summer campaign; that the conversion of even the most tractable of Indians must be a mingling of force with per- suasion ; and finally that the mission could thrive only when it existed side by side with the presidio,-these were the useful deductions from Fray Damian Manzanet's costly experimenting." Furthermore, through de Leon's and Teran's campaigns the geography and physical nature of Texas first became a matter of accurate knowledge, a knowledge that was available for all future expeditions.
1 In Tex. Hist. Assn. Quarterly, Vol. v. 201.
CHAPTER III. PERMANENT OCCUPATION BY SPAIN.
Throughout the early part of the eighteenth century Texas was a mere debatable ground where the French trade enterprise pushing west from the Mississippi and the Spanish missionary and military expedi- tions from the southwest came together and overlapped. Texas history of this period concerns itself mainly with French and Spanish disputes over boundaries, with various smuggling enterprises between the two provinces, and with the establishment of some missions.
As the colony of La Salle had first instigated the Spanish to secure Texas under their dominion, so a second encroachment from the French was the beginning of all the activity which we have to witness in the land from the Sabine to the Rio Grande during the next hundred years. Indeed, it is a matter of interesting speculation, if the Spaniards had not been inspired by territorial jealousy, whether Texas territory would not have lain unoccupied throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and later presented an entirely open field to American en- terprise and settlement.
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