While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
It will be helpful, as a means of conveying an idea of the true nature of the
work attempted by the early Spaniards, to present a brief sketch of the general
character of these Indian settlements and of their numerical strength.
They were a people living in relatively fixed habitations, and would be classed
as sedentary Indians, in contrast with roving tribes, such as the neighboring
Tonkawa west of the Trinity. They subsisted to a considerable extent by
agriculture, and lived, accordingly, in loosely built agricultural villages, for
miles around which were detached houses, located wherever there was a spot
favored by water supply and natural or easily made clearings. Their dwellings
were large conical grass lodges, which accommodated several families. In all of
the tribes concerning which we have relatively full data there seems to have
been a main village, which the surrounding communal families regarded as their
tribal headquarters. It is these central villages that I have represented on the
map.
The arrangement of the settlements may be most safely learned from the accounts
of some of the early eyewitnesses. Joutel tells us, in 1687, that from the edge
of the Nabedache village, west of the Neches River, to the chief's house in the
middle of the settlement, it was a "large league," and that on the way there
were "hamlets" of from seven to fifteen houses each, surrounded by patches of
corn. From this village to that of the Neche tribe on the other side of the
river it was some five leagues, but in fertile spots between them there were
similar "hamlets," sometimes a league apart. So it was with the country to the
northeast. When he left the Neches River at a point above the Neche village he
wrote, "We pursued our route toward the east, and made about five leagues,
finding from time to time cabins in 'hamlets' and 'cantons,' for we sometimes
made a league and a half without finding one."1
Between the Trinity River and the main Nabedache village De Leon, in 1690,
encountered only one settlement. It consisted of "four farms (haciendas} of
Indians who had planted crops of maize and beans, and very substantially built
houses, with high beds to sleep on."2 On the edge of
the Nabedache village he "arrived at a valley occupied by many houses of Texas
Indians, around which were large fields of maize, beans, calabashes, and
watermelons. Turning to the north by a hill of oaks, about a quarter of a league
further on we came to another valley of Texas Indians, with their houses, their
governor telling us that his was very near. We pitched our camp on the bank of
an arroyo, and named this settlement San Francisco de los Texas."3
The "governor's" house was about half a league from the camp.
Of the country beyond the Neches Terán wrote in 1691, "We continue our march
[from the Neches]. The country is very rough with frequent open groves, but no
openings larger than a short musket shot across. In these openings, some in the
lowlands, and some in the sand, their houses are located."4
Joutel, in describing his passage from the lodge of one Nasoni chief to that of
another, says, "Those who had escorted us went ahead and conducted us to his
house, about a quarter of a league away, where his cabin was located. Before
reaching it we passed several others, and on the way found women and children
cultivating their fields." In 1716 Ramon referred to the Hainai settlement on
the Angelina River as the "pueblo of the Ainai, where there is an infinite
number of houses (ranchos) with their fields of corn, watermelons, melons,
beans, tobacco," etc. As we have already seen, in his passage from the Hainai to
the Nasoni in 1716 Espinosa noted many houses on the way.5
After several years' residence among these tribes, Espinosa, having in mind the
dismal failure to reduce them to civilized life, described the Hasinai
settlements in general thus: "These natives do not live in congregations reduced
to pueblos, but each of the four principal groups where the missions are located
are in ranchos [separate houses], as it were, apart from each other. The chief
cause of this is that each household seeks a place suitable for its crops and
having a supply of water."6 In another place he
tells us that in their ministerial work among the Indians the padres had to
travel six or seven leagues in all directions from each of the four missions.7
It is thus evident that the Hasinai settlements by no means corresponded to the
Spanish notion of a pueblo, built in close order. To induce the natives to
congregate in such pueblos, as a means of civilizing them, was a chief aim of
the government and the missionaries, and failure to accomplish this was a
primary cause of the abandonment, after fifteen years of effort, of all but one
of the missions of the group.
4. Descripci6n y Diaria
Demarcaci6n, op. cit., 48.
5. Joutel, in Margry, op.
cit., Ill 392; Ramon, Derrotero, in the
Archive General y Pãblico, Mexico, entry for
July 7; Espinsoa, Diario, entry for July 10.
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
The Native Tribes About The East Texas Mission's, Quarterly of the Texas
State Historical Association, By Herbert E. Bolton, April 1908
