1690 - Spanish Texas
The first explorers of the area were Spaniards, Cabeza de Vaca in 1528-36, and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado from 1540-42. Other Spainish gold hunters traversed the State occasionally during the next 140 years but it was not until 1682 that a still-existing Indian pueblo under Spanish auspices was found at Ysles near modern El Paso, a town 200 years younger. La Salle, driven west by a storm while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi down which he had sailed, three years previously, built in 1685 near Matagorda Bay a fort which was soon destroyed by the Indians.
Four Frenchmen found refuge among the more peaceable Tejas Indians who, as a result, have their tribal name perpetuated as "Texas". Alarmed by this accidental and unsuccessful French invasion, the Spaniards of Mexico established in 1690 the Mission San Francisco de los Tejas near modern Nacogoches, but this far-away mission was soon abandoned. Later various other scattered missions and forts were estabishcd, but in 1800 those at San Antonio. Nacogdoches and Goliad were the chief centers of over 200 years of Spanish colonization San Antonio, begun in 1718, became in 1730 the first civil European settlement in Texas.
For two centuries, evangelization worked with sedentary groups. In Texas, the mission system would adapt to the nomadic cultures of the southern Plains with great difficulty. The independent hunter-gatherer nomads who balked at conversion baffled the missionaries. For thousands of years, the Plains tribes had developed sophisticated survival systems and a true warrior caste unparalleled in the European military tradition. Those and other cultural traits the many Plains tribes shared enabled them to hold out against Spanish, French, and Anglo-American expansion for over three centuries. Consequently, Spanish missionaries generally concentrated their efforts on the weaker tribes, namely the so-called Coahuiltecos that stronger tribes had intimidated or defeated. Although missionaries attempted to work among Caddoan, Comanche, and Lipan Apache tribes, their efforts rarely succeeded.
Between 1690 and 1720, the Spanish centered their missionary effort in east Texas. The establishment of the presidio-mission complex at San Antonio in 1716 by Alonso de Alarcón proved to be a brilliant strategic move on Spain's part. During the 1730s and 1740s, the Spanish mission field spread from east Texas to San Antonio and La Bahia. The Spanish partially abandoned the east Texas missions and moved the missions to San Antonio. San Antonio de Valero, San Juan Capistrano, San Francisco de la Espada and Purísima Concepción formed a cluster of missions along the Río San Antonio. Supported by a Spanish population center and presidio at the Villa de San Antonio de Bexar, the area became an important trade center. Unlike east Texas, which depended on the French at Natchitoches for supplies and the presidio-mission at La Bahia, which lacked a population base save for the few dozen presidial soldiers with families and missionaries, San Antonio was comparatively self-sufficient.
In 1799 Philip Nolan, an American, invaded the country from Louisiana with a small party for the ostensible purpose of purchasing horses. Two years later on a second expedition the Spaniards attacked the adventurers, killing some and sending the rest to Mexican mines. This was the beginning of the end of the Spanish regime. After the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, the people of the United States, and especially the inhabitants of the Southwest, looked on Texas as part of the destined dominion of the Republic and never lost an opportunity to strike at the Spanish power.
In 1806 it looked as though war must result with Spain over the possession of the region. The United States claimed westward to the Rio Grande on the strength of the French occupation; Spain as stoutly disputed the claim, and in October, 1806, armies of the two powers stood facing each other across the Sabine. However, Gen. James Wilkinson, who commanded the Americans, was glad of the opportunity given him by the retreat of the Spaniards to the west of the Sabine and by the excitement attending the rumored conspiracy of Aaron Burr to make a neutral ground treaty with the opposing commander, Herrera, which practically conceded to Spain the territory west of the Sabine.
In 1810, when the great revolution in Mexico against Spain had begun, the Southerners sympathized intensely with the natives, and before very long were lending secret aid to Mexico. A filibustering expedition into Texas was led by James Long, a Natchez merchant and ex-officer in the United States army. At Nacogdoches Texas was declared a republic and a provisional government organized; but the Spanish forces soon broke it up. For several years the coast of Texas became a rendezvous for pirate and adventurer. Louis de Aury, Captain Perry, General Mina, and Lafitte are best known. They made Galveston Island their headquarters.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
