Читать книгу The History of Texas - Robert A. Calvert - Страница 28

For years, Jumano Indians had traveled to the Pueblo country in New Mexico to conduct trade. In 1629, the Jumanos asked the Spaniards they met there to visit them in their West Texas lands and instruct them in the religion to which they had been introduced by the “Lady in Blue.” According to some church historians, this personage was the Spanish nun Madre María de Ágreda, who asserted that she had spiritually visited New World lands through miraculous bilocation. Whatever the truth to the mystery surrounding this figure, the Spaniards responded to the invitation with an expedition to Jumano country in 1629 commanded by Fray (Father) Juan de Salas, and another one in 1632, led by the Franciscans.

Their desire to proselytize Native Americans notwithstanding, the Spaniards also held interests in more mundane things in Jumano country: namely, freshwater pearls (found in mollusks living in the western tributaries of the Colorado River) and the countless buffalo on the West Texas plains. Also appealing to them was the possibility that Jumano country might become a base for trading with the Caddo Indians; the eastern tribes, according to the Jumanos, comprised a wealthy population of many villages. In 1654, therefore, Diego de Guadalajara returned to Jumano country in search of pearl‐bearing conchas (shells) in the present‐day forks of the Concho River of West Texas. At that time, however, Spanish officialdom lacked the resources to pursue their plans to trade with East Texas Indians through the Jumanos.

Finally, approaches to West Texas were made in 1683 and 1684. By now, the Spaniards resided a bit closer to the Jumanos, for the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, in which the Pueblo tribes attacked and destroyed the Spanish settlements of the upper valley of the Rio Grande, had caused much of the Spanish population of New Mexico to take refuge in El Paso (modern‐day Juárez), where a Franciscan mission, which sheltered a small band of Jumanos, had existed since 1659. From this distressed and impoverished civilian settlement the Spaniards returned to West Texas when the Jumano Chief Juan Sabeata asked that priests be sent to his land in West Texas and, parenthetically, for assistance in countering threats from the Apaches. Responding to Sabeata’s request, Spanish authorities dispatched an expedition led by Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and Fray Nicolás López down the Rio Grande from El Paso to today’s Ruidosa, Texas, then into the San Sabá River area, where they established themselves at Mission San Clemente. From temporary quarters there, the expedition’s men slaughtered some 4000 buffalo. In fact, Sabeata’s primary motive in luring the Spaniards into Jumano country may have been to get the Spaniards to protect his people from the Apaches while the Jumanos hunted buffalo. The Jumanos then planned to carry Spanish goods and trade them with the Caddos of East Texas. But the Spaniards’ motivations went beyond converting Indians and shielding Sabeata from the Apaches. Aside from the previously mentioned desire to find pearls, acquire new sources of food or raw products (such as hides), and establish trading links with the Caddos, they sought to bring relief to the starving civilian community in El Paso. They also surmised that exploring West Texas might lead to an alternative site for settlement, for the El Paso region seemed unable to produce basic necessities. Whatever the motives for all involved, the Spaniards left after six weeks of hunting in San Clemente, returning to El Paso with a bounty of buffalo hides, promising the Jumanos to return at a later date.