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!
For the rest of the tribes in this group our information is less definite.
The Nadaco, though a prominent tribe, can not be located with certainty until
1787, when they, or at least a part of them, were on the Sabine River,
apparently in the northern part of Panola County.1 But in 1716
they were clearly near the Nasoni, and sometimes the two tribes seem to have
been considered as one. Hidalgo, who must have known, for he was on the ground,
distinctly states that the mission of San Jose was founded for the Nasoni and
the Nadaco.2 Although the mission was commonly known to the
Spaniards as that of the Nasoni, the French writers, in particular, including
San Denis, sometimes called it the Nadaco3 mission. Frequent
references made by La Harpe in 1719 to the Nadaco show that he is either
speaking of the Nasoni or of a tribe in their immediate vicinity, more probably
the latter, since in other instances the tribes are so clearly distinguished.
For instance, he tells us that when at the Kadohadacho village on the Red River,
not far from Texarkana, "they assured me that sixty leagues south was the
village of the Nadacos, where the Spaniards had a mission, and that they had
another among the Assinais, in the Amediche [Nabedache] tribe, which was seventy
leagues south-one-fourth-southwest from the Nassonites [which were near the
Kadohadacho]."4 In 1752 the Nadaco were only a short distance
northward from the Nasoni, apparently northeast, and the two tribes then had a
single chief.5
Supposing the Nadaco and the Nasoni to have lived in clearly distinct
settlements at the early period, the Nadaco could hardly have been near the
highway from the Nasoni to the Kadohadacho, for, as we have seen, the Nasoni
always figure as the last station on the way to the Kadohadacho. It seems more
probable, considering this last fact with the statements made about the mission
of San Jose, that the two tribes lived in a settlement practically continuous,
to which sometimes one and sometimes the other name was given. An upper branch
of the Angelina is now called Anadarko (Nadaco) Creek, and it is possible, in
spite of the above considerations, that this stream was the home of the Nadaco
at the coming of the Spaniards and the French, but it seems more probable that
it was applied in later times as a result of the removal of the tribe to that
neighborhood.
It is clear, at any rate that in the early eighteenth century the Nadaco village
was very near that of the Nasoni.
1. Francisco Xavier Fragoso,
Diary, in the General Land Office, Austin,
Texas, Records, Vol. 68, p. 174.
2. Letter to Mesquia,
October 6, 1716, in the Archive General de
Mexico, MS. The Memories copy of Ram6n's
itinerary (XXVII, 158) calls this mission
that of the "Noachis," but the original
reads plainly "Nasonis."
3. Thus, La Harpe noted in
his journal that San Denis, who conducted
the expedition of 1716 that founded the
missions "proposed, sometime after his
arrival, that he should be the conductor of
nine missionaries to the tribes of the
Adayes, Ayches, Nacocodochy, Inay and
Nadaco" (Extrait du Journal manuscrit du
voyage de la Louisiane par le sieur de La
Harpe et de ses découvertes dans la partie
de 1'Ouest de cette colonie, in Margry,
Découvertes, VI, 194). San Denis himself
regarded the mission as having been founded
in the Nadaco tribe. This is the inference
from a correspondence carried on in
1735-1736 between him and Sandoval, governor
of Texas. Sandoval wrote to San Denis on
March 10, 1736, acknowledging a letter of
December 2, 1735, in which San Denis
outlined the basis of French claims to
country west of the Red River. Judging from
Sandoval's summary of the letter (I have not
seen the letter) he alleged that, with
Bienville, he had explored the country as
far back as 1702; that in 1715 he had
journeyed from the "Asinais" to Mexico,
seeing on the way only vestiges of the old
Spanish settlements; that he conducted Ram6n
into the country, "the result of which was
the foundation [of missions], which it was
requested of your lordship should be
established among the Nacogdoches, Nadaco,
Ainais, and Naicha, and the subsequent ones
among the Ays and Adais, maintaining the
ministers of the Gospel at your expense."
(Triplicate of Sandoval's letter, in the
Archive General, Secci6n de Historia, Vol.
524, formerly in Indiferente de Guerra. With
this letter there are several original
letters of San Denis.
4. La Harpe, Relation du
Voyage, in Margry, op. cit., VI 262. See
also Ibid., 266.
5. This is on the
well-founded assumption that the Nadote
discussed by De Soto Vermudez were the same
as the Nadaco (De Soto Vermudez,
Investigation, MS.)
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
