|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
Ethnological Relations, Historical Importance
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
The Hasinai belonged to the Caddoan linguistic stock. This family, which was
a large one, was divided into three principal geographic groups of tribes: the
northern, represented by the Arikara in North Dakota; the middle, comprising the
Pawnee confederacy, formerly living on the Platte River, Nebraska, and to the
west and southwest thereof; and the southern, including most of the tribes of
eastern Texas, together with many of those of western Louisiana and of southern
Oklahoma.1 Of this southern group the tribes about
the Querétaran missions were one of the most important subdivisions. They,
together with the related Caddo tribes to the north, represented the highest
form of native society between the Red and the upper Rio Grande rivers, a
stretch of nearly a thousand miles. This fact gave them from the outset a
relatively large political importance. While it has been clearly shown by
writers that the immediate motive to planting the first Spanish establishment
within this area was French encroachment, little note has been made of the fame
and the relative advancement of the Hasinai Indians as factors in deter-mining
the choice of the location. LaSalle's colony, which first brought the Spaniards
to Texas to settle, was established on the Gulf coast; and had the natives of
this region been as well organized and as influential among the tribes as the
Hasinai, and, therefore, as likely to become the theater of another French
intrusion, the logical procedure for the Spaniards would have been to establish
themselves on the ground where the first intrusion had occurred, and within
relatively easy reach from Mexico both by water and by land. But the Karankawan
tribes of the coast proved hostile to the French and Spaniards alike, and, while
their savage life and inhospitable country offered little to attract the
missionary, their small influence over the other groups of natives rendered them
relatively useless as a basis for extending Spanish political authority. These
considerations entered prominently into the Spaniards' decision to establish
their first Texas missions far in the interior, at a point difficult to reach
from Mexico by land and wholly inaccessible by water. Events justified their
estimate of the importance of the Hasinai as a base of political operations.
But, while the control of these tribes and their Caddo neighbors remained for a
century or more a cardinal point in the politics of the Texas-Louisiana
frontier, it was soon learned that the less advanced and weaker tribes of the
San Antonio region, nearer Mexico and farther removed from the contrary
influence of the French, afforded a better field for missionary labors.
East Texas Indian
Missions
1. Powell, "Indian
Linguistic Families," in the Seventh Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology,
with map; Handbook of American Indians
(Bureau of American Ethnology, Bui. No. 30),
182.
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
|
