A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 2

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968

USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 2

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

HISTORY OF TEXAS.

evidence that the word meant 'friends.' The name was retained by the Spaniards and ap- plied to the province. It was sometimes written in old-style Spanish, Texas (Tejas and Texas are both pronounced in Spanish, tay- hass), and this form has been adopted in Eng- lish with a corresponding change in pronuncia- tion."

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 remark- able 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 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 position as the center of a great Indian con- federacy, and thence was preparing to extend the sway of New France southward to the gulf. With the French dominion already ex- tending from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the headwaters of the Mississippi, it was his ambition to still further hem in the English colonies on the Atlantic coast by securing com- plete control of the Mississippi from source to mouth. His scheme involved 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 to France and set forth

in a memorial to King Louis XIV the ad- vantages that would accrue from the posses- sion of this western country, declaring what rich conquests might be effected, how it would be possible 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 gentlemen volunteers, besides professed mechanics, laborers, some maidens who em- barked with the hope of procuring 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 ef- fect 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 at variance with La Salle, whose haughti- ness 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. Then when the fleet reached Santo Domingo La Salle was stricken with fever, and during two months of illness his fol- lowers 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 his be- loved river. He coasted the shore for some dis- tance in search of the mouth of the great stream, and on reaching a point below the present Matagorda bay he was joined by the

HISTORY OF TEXAS.

other vessels, and after a conference the con- clusion 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 the Mississippi. Here came another disaster. The Aimable was wrecked in cross- ing the bar, and all the stores and supplies 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 com- munication with the fort on the Illinois, with none of the elements or purposes of a per- manent colony-a mere germ of civilization destined to blight and decay and final annihila- tion.

A delightful spot a short distance up the La Vaca river was chosen for the seat of the settlement; where to the north stretched al- ternate grassy prairies and belts of woodland, and to the south the gray mists or blue waters of the bay; the verdure of a semi-tropical climate surrounded 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 con- spiracies being revealed. The leader showed unlimited courage, but became more haughty and unjust as difficulties multiplied, and was hated by many in his company."

La Salle made several expeditions in search of the Mississippi, but each time returned un- successful, after having endured incredible hardships 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 escaping 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. But the only hope for the doomed company seemed to lie in the possibility of opening com- munication 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 Trinity river, when several of the men, inspired with hatred of La Salle, lured him into an ambuscade and cowardly 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 ascer- tained, his name must always remain 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 per- sons, 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 delivered over to the Spaniards. "In ignominy and darkness

HISTORY OF TEXAS.

died the last embers of the doomed colony of La Salle."

Twice again was there an effort to revive Fort St. Louis, once by the Spaniards and once by the French, but the hostility of the natives frustrated the designs, and the buildings and fortifications went to decay until in the end nothing remained to tell of the place where the first settlers of Texas lived, suffered, and per- ished.

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, Gover- nor Alonso de Leon, of Coahuila, marched with a force of one hundred men to the north- east 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 desola- tion, 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.

This news about the Texan country, com- bined with rumors about further attempts at occupation by the French, led the Spanish viceroy of Mexico to send Leon upon a second expedition to make a beginning of missionary occupation. Early in 1690 De Leon led his company to the site of the old French fort, whence he visited the Tejas on the Trinidad

river, where the mission of San Francisco was founded and furnished with some soldiers as guards, and thus the first Spanish presidio rose on Texan soil.

Further plans of occupation and coloniza- tion were agreed upon the same year, and Texas was first recognized as a territorial entity, being combined with Coahuila, under Domingo Teran as the first governor. Teran's instructions were to explore the country thoroughly, to reduce the natives by means of kindness, and to establish eight missions. But only one mission besides that at San Francisco appears to have been erected. There were difficulties between the Indians and the friars, and after the departure of the governor and the withdrawal of all but a few soldiers the troubles increased, being aggravated by floods and droughts which destroyed the crops. The missions were too far from the central govern- ment for effective protection and support, and finally the friars left the missions, and by 1693 all plans for occupation of Texas had been abandoned.

For twenty years thereafter the province of 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 in- domitable Frenchman and closing with the withdrawal of the Spanish missionaries-a drama which is played through all its scenes in less than ten years.

CHAPTER II.

TEXAS FROM 1700 TO 1800.

After two decades of quiescence, events of moderate importance once more transpire on Texas soil. Throughout the eighteenth cen- tury this vast empire was a mere debatable ground, where the French colonization push- ing west from the Mississippi and the Spanish throwing out missionary and military feelers from the southwest came together and over- lapped. Indeed, all Texas history of this period concerns itself mainly with French and Spanish petty 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 do- minion, 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 in- teresting 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 enterprise and settlement.

Louis de St. Denis is the next important character in this story. He was an officer from Louisiana, and in 1705 is said to have traversed the country from the Red river to the Rio Grande. Various acts taxing and restraining trade between the colonies of Spain and France were in force at that time, but, be- ing almost impossible of enforcement, the most profitable employment of settlers in Louisiana

was found in smuggling or otherwise carrying on illicit trade intercourse with the Spanish. The opening up of some such commerce was the probable motive for an expedition which took St. Denis, at the instance of the governor of Louisiana, into Texas in 1714. He left Mobile with a large amount of merchandise and with twenty-four men in the fall of 1713, and, after leaving some of his goods and part of his com -. pany at Natchitoches, in the next spring he proceeded to the country of the Tejas, among whom he was able to purchase cattle in great abundance, which was the professed object of his coming. The Tejas were exceedingly desirous of the return of their former padre, who had withdrawn to Mexico after the aban- donment of the missions in 1693. This afforded St. Denis an excuse for visiting the Spanish and perfecting his trade relations, so, with a force of the Tejas to accompany him, in the following August he arrived at the presidio of San Juan Bautista, south of the Rio Grande, and which was then the northernmost Spanish post.

The commander of the presidio received St. Denis kindly, but detained him till he should receive instructions from the viceroy. In the meantime the Frenchman became enamoured of the commandant's granddaughter, whom he afterward married. This may have influenced him somewhat in the Spanish behalf, for at any rate he is afterward found acting a double part, now zealous for the French and again for the Spanish. He advocated the occupation of Texas and pictured the many advantages which

HISTORY OF TEXAS.

would come to Spain through commerce and agriculture in that region.

By the viceroy's orders he was sent to Mexico, where he made a deposition of all his purposes and plans in entering in this bold manner upon Spanish territory. Here again jealousy of the wily French proved the main- spring of action, and in 1716 Captain Domingo Ramon, as leader, accompanied by St. Denis, soldiers, Franciscan friars, and other persons, set out toward the Red river. Captain Ramon, after establishing four missions and a presidio near the Neches and Sabine rivers, went on to the French fort at Natchitoches, where, it is probable there were renewed plans for trade across the borders.

The authorities at Mexico were now thor- oughly aroused to the importance of occupy- ing the Texas country and prohibiting French encroachments. In 1716 the authority of Mar- tin de Alarcon, governor of Coahuila, was ex- tended over Texas, or the New Philippines, as the province was then termed. In 1718 the governor advanced into country above the Rio Grande, and with his coming dates the beginning of the first permanent town which was to remain through all the vicissitudes of Texan history. This was the city of San Antonio, which grew up around the nucleus of the presidio of San Antonio de Bejar and several missions. In the present city of San Antonio is to be found the most important re- mains of Texas ancient history, as also the most romantic and soul-stirring associations of its republican and revolutionary periods. As long as one stone of the old Spanish missions shall remain upon another, there will be in the mind of every beholder a long vista of histori- cal scenes portraying the quintessences of priestly self-sacrifice, of romance and adven- ture, of martyrs' deaths and patriots' beautiful devotion.

It will be well at this point to mention the means by which Spain undertook to occupy and colonize her possessions, especially in Texas, and with this understanding of her methods this portion of our history may be quickly reviewed.

The three instruments by which Spain en- deavored to hold Texas were the mission, the presidio, and the pueblo. One of the chief objects sought with more or less sincerity in Spanish colonization in America was the Christianizing of the Indians, and the mission worked to this end. The principal figures of the mission were the priests, who endeavored to instruct the natives in the arts of civiliza- tion and the Christian religion. They also tried to induce the Indians to dwell in central communities or villages and depend for ex- istence upon the settled pursuits of agriculture instead of roving from place to place, which always proved the most embarrassing quality of the Indian character. This settlement of the Indians was known as the pueblo, and both pueblo and mission were composite parts of the general scheme. In addition there was the presidio, or fortified stronghold garrisoned with soldiers, which was especially necessary when the attempt was made to plant the colony in a hostile country. Such a military post was usually placed within convenient distance of a group of several missions.

It will be seen that this plan of colonization involved considering the natives as factors and co-operators in the scheme, and the holding of the Indians in such social and administrative restrictions as would form a mixed community of white and of red men. History has proved that this was an impracticable and idealistic undertaking, and proved the weakness of both French and Spanish civilization in America. On the other hand, the English disregarded the red men altogether, and did not admit them into their scheme of society at all; put the red man on the same plane with the beasts of the forest, took his land by treaty or force, and by their own courage and hardihood and colonial enterprise founded a society strong both within and without, and able, after establishing its own boundaries, to push out and permanently conquer the western wilds.

In addition to this vital defect in her plan of Texan occupation, Spain, partly from Euro- pean wars and consequent weakness at home and abroad, lacked the enterprise necessary to

HISTORY OF TEXAS.

push out into the country northeast of her Mexican empire, and the few attempts she did make during the eighteenth century were so feeble and disjointed from any definite purposes of colonization that they were almost fruitless in results.

Governor Alarcon also established some settlements in northeast Texas, among the Te- jas and near the Red river, but in 1719, war having previously broken out between France and Spain, the French from Louisiana made a demonstration against these missions with the result that the friars and soldiers withdrew in haste to San Antonio, which for some time constituted the whole of Spanish possessions in Texas. Had the French been aggressive they might easily have driven the Spanish en- tirely out of the country, but, as has been noted, the French policy was to keep peace with their neighbors and maintain amicable and profitable trade relations.

This incursion of the French caused alarm in Mexico, and in 1721 (but after peace had been declared between France and Spain) the newly appointed governor Aguayo crossed the Rio Grande with a considerable force and, marching to the deserted missions in the north- east, established a presidio at Pilar on the east side of the Sabine, garrisoning it with a hun- dred soldiers, restored the missions, and once more, without opposition from the French, asserted the authority of Spain over these parts.

Thus for half a century continued these petty disputes, remonstrances, and expeditions, with the country between the Sabine and the Red rivers ground for rival claims and encroach- ments in the shape of forts or settlements by either party viewed with alarm and protest by the other-but throughout flourished the con- traband trade, which seems to have been the chief occupation of all on the frontier, and con- nived at if not actually participated in by the authorities on both sides. Various governors of the province of the New Philippines suc- ceeded one another, leaving no monumental results in the way of colonization or conquest, and so scarcely deserving of mention. The

hand of Spain was weak and could only im- potently grasp this great prize which a few determined hundreds of another race were destined to wrest away from it. There are edifying reports of inspectors from the central government, who examined the conditions of mission and colonizing work and made recom- mendations-which were never acted upon. And another cause of the slow development of Texas during this period, and one able just about to offset the lame efforts of the Spanish, was the hostility of the Indians, especially of the Apaches and the Comanches, who dwelt to the north and west, and were a constant terror both to the white settlers and the more peaceable natives in the coast regions. One at- tempt was made to found a mission among the Apaches, but this wild and roving race could not tame their nature so as to live in a pueblo and forget war and the chase, so the enterprise came to a wretched end. Again and again the Indian depredations occurred, and it is small wonder that the faithful padres and the colon- ists made slow progress. The powers at Mexico would send too few soldiers to afford protection, and those that were furnished to guard the missions were of the lowest orders of humanity, so that their abuse of the natives and their license and disorder counteracted the benefit of protection.

Thus says Bancroft: "It was not a period of prosperity for any Texas interest except so far as the officers, soldiers and settlers may be said to have prospered in their great work of living with the least possible exertion. Officials as a rule kept in view their own personal profit in handling the presidio funds rather than the welfare of the province. The Franciscans were doubtless faithful as missionaries, but their in- fluence, even over the natives, was much less than in other mission fields. The Texans never became neophytes proper in regular mission communities. It is evident that not one of the establishments was at any time prosperous, either from a spiritual or a material point of view. At each mission there was a constant struggle to prevent excesses and outrages by the soldiers, to protect land and water from

HISTORY OF TEXAS.

encroachment by settlers, to guard mission live stock from Apache raids, to keep the few Indians from running away, and to watch for and counteract ruinous changes projected from time to time by the secular authorities.

In 1763 the Treaty of Paris, following what is known in America as the French and Indian War, removed the source of friction between the French and Spanish settlements as to boundary, by the surrender of all the French territory east of the Mississippi to the English and of all that west of the great river to the Spanish, so that the latter, for some forty years to come, had little to fear from foreign ag- gression upon their province of the New Phil- ippines, and when that encroachment did come it signalized the approaching downfall of Latin-American dominion north of the Rio Grande.

And with this second removal of France from her field of vision, there came, as after La Salle's colony, a subsidence of the coloniz- ing and missionary zeal, and the remaining years of the eighteenth century indicate a steady decline in the affairs of Texas. Indios reducidos, or mission Indians, became more and more wretched; the withdrawal of support from the royal treasury decreased the efficiency of the missions, and in 1794 the order came for the missions to be turned over to the secular clergy, which resulted in the distribution of the lands and dispersions of the Indians and the once the Tejas had dwelt.

end of the labors of the Franciscan friars; and thus the Indios bravos, or wild tribes, were once more almost complete masters of the region from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, and political disintegration and economic lethargy were the pregnant features of Texas history.

There is no accurate information in regard to the conditions, population, and industrial prospects of Texas at the close of the eigh- teenth century, although considerable informa- tion is derived from a report by the president of the Texas missions. There were some dozen missions in existence at the time of their secu- larization in 1793, besides the many establish- ments that had been abandoned. Around eight establishments in 1785 there were some four hundred and sixty Indians. In 1782 the families of soldiers and settlers numbered about twenty- five hundred. The Indians about the pueblos were shiftless and would hardly earn their own subsistence; the stone churches, with their beautiful mural decorations and adornments seemed to belong to a golden age of prosperity long past; the settlers were little more ener- getic than the natives, and the soldiers were supported by the government-hardly a germ of civilization that was likely to reach down its roots and grow and blossom into the fair flower of social unity and strength which the next century was to behold in the land where

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 2

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co. Number of Pages: 968

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968