Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0098/00985.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 35KB | 537 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00985}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{The Big Bend
Part II}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tyler, Ronnie C.}
$Affiliation{National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior}
$Subject{san
frontier
rio
indians
la
bend
presidio
de
big
grande}
$Date{1984}
$Log{}
Title:       The Big Bend
Book:        Chapter 2: Spanish Explorers
Author:      Tyler, Ronnie C.
Affiliation: National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior
Date:        1984

Part II

A New Policy Toward The Indians

     Defeats and wasteful expeditions soon forced the Spaniards to reevaluate
their frontier policy in the light of the realities of the Big Bend.  The
terrain ruled out a large expedition to end the Indian threat, because the
Indians were much more accustomed to the desert than were the Spaniards. There
was serious doubt, in fact, that an isolated Spanish force could defeat them
in a pitched battle in the despoblado.

     The presidio plan recommended in 1667 by Gov. Antonio de Oca Sarmiento of
Nueva Vizcaya, therefore, received serious consideration.  One of the first
suggestions as to how to overcome the raiders, the presidio plan recognized
that a few, widely spread Spanish troops were no match for the Indians in such
a vast land.  The shrewd Oca suggested to the viceroy that a line of
"watchtowers" be established at vulnerable points.  The watchtowers, or
presidios, would be staffed with 10 soldiers and four friendly Indians each
and would be spaced evenly across the frontier so they could support each
other.  Oca was thus the first to formulate the plan that ultimately became
the backbone of the Spanish, and later the Mexican, defense of the northern
frontier.  "If the plan is not adopted our total desolation is daily
anticipated," he concluded.

     Don Jose Francisco Marin, an agent of the viceroy, refined the plan.
After viewing the disarray of the Spanish forces on the frontier, he concluded
that the nomad's advantage would be difficult to overcome unless the Spanish
troops took the offensive rather than waiting for the Indians to ride out of
the despoblado and attack another defenseless village.  Francisco Marin
further suggested that the governor of the northern provinces be a military
man, and that European colonization along the frontier be encouraged.
Revealing the Spaniard's ignorance of the canyons and rapids of the Rio
Grande, he suggested that it would be an easy matter for the colonists to
reach sites along the river, because they could simply be transported from the
gulf in boats.- Most of Francisco Marin's proposals were accepted, but his
colonization scheme was rejected.  It would be decades before the Big Bend
felt the impact of the presidial system.

     By the time Pedro de Rivera, an influential viceregal appointee,
conducted an investigation of the frontier in 1728, the situation had changed.
The Apaches were under increasing pressure from the best warriors on the
plains, the Comanches, who had migrated southward in bands searching for
hunting grounds not disputed by more powerful tribes.  A simple people who
lived off roots, insects, jack rabbits, and other wild creatures and plants,
the Comanches became supreme warriors - and predators - with the acquisition
of the horse.  Not only were the Comanches and Apaches at war with each other;
both preyed on the isolated settlements along New Spain's northern frontier.

     Rivera therefore resolved to follow Oca's plan and advised that the
presidios along the southern rim of the Jespoblado be moved northward and
located along the Rio Grande to establish a line that the raiders supposedly
could not penetrate.  Several residents of the area recommended to Rivera that
to be successful a presidio had to be located in the despoblado itself,
preferably at La Junta de Los Rios.  Some authorities also recommended La
Junta, but Rivera disagreed.  He believed that a site southeast of the
junction would be more advantageous.  The viceroy ordered Capt.  Jose de
Berroteran of the presidio of Conchos to take 70 men, march into the
despoblado, and find the best location for the presidio.

     Captain Berroteran, a cautious officer, planned his expedition carefully.
Following Jose Antonio de Ecay Muzquiz's recommendation that the easiest route
into the region was along the Rio Grande, he gathered his force at Conchos in
January 1729, and circled eastward around the despoblado - via the frontier
villages of Mapimi, Laguna de la Leche, Cuatro Cienegas, and Monclova - to San
Juan Bautista.  Although their instructions called for them to divide into two
groups to scout for hostile Indians as well as search for a site for the
presidio, Berroteran and his council decided that they should remain together
because the country was completely unknown.

     Berroteran apprehensively left San Juan Bautista on March 28.  Gone less
than a week, he received a message from the governor of Coahuila reporting
Indian raids in the Parras and Saltillo areas and requesting that he
relinquish part of his force for defense of the towns.  Proceeding cautiously,
Berroteran feared for the success of his mission and again decided to hold his
force together.  His officers warned that the Indian scouts were moving too
slowly, but were not sure if it was from ignorance of the land or an
intentional effort to hamper the expedition.  "Thus I remained in a state of
confusion," reported Berroteran, "awaiting the return of the scouts, hoping
that one of them might be able to extricate me from this labyrinth."

     As Berroteran marched into the vicinity of present-day Langtry, he
noticed that the river banks got steeper.  He crossed to the left bank of the
Rio Grande and followed it closely for 5 more days.  They camped near
present-day Dryden and held a council.  Supplies were low, they had found no
site that they could recommend for a presidio, and they feared that they would
be lost in the desert.  The council voted to discontinue the expedition.
Berroteran ordered the soldiers from Monclova and San Juan Bautista to return
by the outward route, while he and his troops elected to bypass La Junta and
travel across the a'espoblado to the Rio Conchos.  Although they marched 2
days without water and had to abandon several horses and mules, they reached
their presidio safely.

     Berroteran had been the first to cross the despoblado, but his mission
was a failure.  He had explored much new territory, yet had found neither
hostile Indians nor a site for the presidio.  Rivera denounced him for
faintheartedness.  The captain had been hesitant from the first, he claimed.
"He knew nothing of the country he was to traverse, but seemed to know
beforehand what was going to happen," Rivera wrote Gov. Ignacio Francisco de
Barrutia of Nueva Vizcaya.  Of course, "the officers and men knew nothing of
the land ahead, for it is a fact that for all discovery one presupposes a lack
of knowledge of the places ahead."  Rivera insisted that the job should have
been simple.  Although he admitted that "its banks offer some difficult
places," he claimed that all Berroteran had to do was follow the Rio Grande.

     The governor of Coahuila, meanwhile, was still interested in establishing
a presidio along his northern frontier to fend off hostile raids by the
Apaches.  After a survey of the frontier in 1734, Gov. Blas de la Garza Falcon
had asked the viceroy to permit establishment of a post at a site to be
determined, then reconnoitered the banks of the Rio Grande in search of a
location the following year.  It was a difficult march.  Reaching the Rio San
Diego, he learned that the terrain ahead did not improve and that his advance
party had found traces of Apaches nearby.  Low temperatures, snow, and dry
waterholes killed several horses in January 1736.  Somewhere near present-day
Randale, Garza Falcon decided to turn back.  Berroteran had gone farther.
Garza Falcon did recommend a site for the presidio about 30 miles south of
present-day Del Rio, and construction was completed in 1738.

     If Berroteran and Garza Falcon proved anything by their expeditions, it
was that La Junta could not be approached from the southeast via the river.
Several years of speculation regarding the nature and course of the river in
the despoblado were ended, but the unfortunate answer was that the Spaniards
could expect no relief from the agonies of the desert.  It continued to
shelter the Indians from retribution for decades.

     In his report Berroteran claimed that the Apaches raided the frontier
with impunity because there were no presidios between 33 San Juan Bautista and
El Paso.  He reported to the viceroy that after the Indians entered "this
unpopulated, long and wide gulf," they controlled the eastern border of Nueva
Vizcaya and western Coahuila and could "easily destroy and annihilate" the two
provinces.  He argued that the area could not be inhabited by settlers because
the "gulf or pocket" - the despoblado - contained "steep places, dry places,
few waterholes, and great distances." He recommended that the presidios of San
Bartolome and Conchos be moved to the Rio Grande frontier, where they possibly
would slow the Indians who came "like waves of the sea - when one ends,
another follows." Although Berroteran technically failed in his mission to
find a location for the presidio, his experience on the frontier gave credence
to his recommendations, and his opinion was still valued by the officials in
Mexico City.

     Having found no better plan, the viceroy and his advisors took up
Berroteran's suggestions 18 years later.  The viceroy agreed that the
presidios should be placed along the Rio Grande and dispatched three
expeditions to explore northern Coahuila and Chihuahua for good sites.  He
sent Capt. Joseph de Ydoiaga from San Bartolome to La Junta; Capt. Fermin
Vidaurre was to seek another route.  The new governor of Coahuila, Pedro de
Rabago y Teran led the most difficult expedition, which would attempt to cross
the despoblado from Coahuila to La Junta.

     Rabago left Monclova in November 1747 with 20 soldiers and 10 Indians. At
Sacramento he picked up 45 more soldiers.  He marched to the Rio Escondido,
then to Arroyo de la Babia.  Following the Arroyo, he found an old Indian
trail into the mountains.  He passed the Mesa de los Fresnos (about 100 miles
from present-day Santa Rosa), then marched into the Sierra del Carmen.  The
terrain was rough, with little water and several abandoned Indian camps.  On
December 2 the expedition reached the Rio Grande upriver from Rio Grande
Village.  "Its banks were explored and no passing area was found on account of
its currents coming so close to the mountain ranges," wrote Rabago.  "The
rocks make a high wall along the upper and lower part: In spite of this, I
ordered all of the train to pass from the other bank . . . and we camped . . .
thus becoming the first Spanish expedition to enter what is today Big Bend
National Park.  This new ford, located probably below Mariscal Canyon, Rabago
named Santa Rita.

     Rabago was not satisfied with his campground.  The "sandy land, some
hillocks and little grass" were inadequate to support his expedition.  He sent
17 soldiers and a corporal upriver in search of rich grassland for the horses,
then ordered his Indian auxiliaries to scout the mountains, probably the
Chisos to the north or northwest for a pass.

     After celebrating Mass on December 3, Rabago walked a short distance from
camp to inspect the "banks and hilly areas" near the river, where he found
"several veins" of ore.  After speculating about "good mineral sources" in the
Big Bend, he investigated the fertile strip that parallels the Rio Grande,
concluding that there was not enough of the lowland to support farming in the
immediate area.  The region, in addition, was "so boxed in between mountain
and mountain" that Rabago thought it impassable.  The Indian scouts returned,
reporting that several old Apache campgrounds were located in the Chisos
Mountains.

     Rabago had hoped to follow the river northwestward, but canyons and steep
banks forced him to find another route.  After learning of a better camping
place upriver.  Rabago marched in a northwesterly direction, stopping for the
night without water in his haste to find the site.  On December 5 he found one
of the hot springs along the Rio Grande.  This place he named Santa Barbara.
At another abandoned Apache camp he found three horses that the Indians had
left behind in their hasty retreat.  Encountering unusually cold weather for
the Big Bend, Rabago continued his march northwestward to an area where squash
plants grew up to the water's edge.  He named it El Real de las Calabasas.

     Rabago marched on, with the Chisos Mountains on his right and the
Terlingua Fault, which he named the "wall" of San Damasio, on his left.  He
saw the jagged bluffs of the Chisos, the twin peaks that the Anglo-Americans
later named Mule Ears, and on December 11 probably became the first European
to see steed walled Santa Elena Canyon, which he found too forbidding to
explore.  The party marched along Terlingua Creek, which they named El Arroyo,
then turned westward to the Rio Grande again, probably near the modern village
of Lajitas.  On December 18 Rabago sighted Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, one of
the pueblos of La Junta.  The Rabago expedition was the first to march across
the despoblado and reach La Junta.

     Rabago remained there for several days, visiting with the mission fathers
and inquiring about the conditions of the surrounding country.  He spent a few
days exploring the Rio Grande on either side of La Junta, then followed the
Conchos upriver for a few miles.  On December 29 he directed his party
eastward on the return journey.  They followed Indian trails to the vicinity
of present-day Terlingua.  Wanting to return via a different route, they
circled northward around the Chisos Mountains to San Vicente.  Deciding not to
follow the river back to San Juan Bautista because his scouts had sighted the
sheer walls of Boquillas Canyon, Rabago crossed to the right bank and divided
his force.  One group he directed to return to Sacramento by the path they had
followed enroute, while his force attempted to find a new route to Monclova.

     The other two expeditions explored better known territory.  Captain
Ydoiaga marched down the Rio Conchos to La Junta, in the neighborhood of what
its today the village of Shafter.  Captain Vidaurre saw what is now the
national park, but only after Rabago had already been there.  Vidaurre left
the Presidio of Mapimi in November 1747, foollowing a northeasterly course
until he reached the Rio Grande near present-day Del Rio.  He found tracks
left by Rabago's party as he marched toward La Junta.

     The despoblado was no easier to penetrate physically because of Rabago's
marches, but he had crossed the breadth of the region to La Junta and had
mapped new routes from both Sacramento and Monclova.  The land was as harsh as
ever for the unknowing, but with trails and waterholes marked, the Spaniards
could now apply pressure to their enemy even in the despoblado.

     As a result of his reconnaissance, Rabago agreed that a presidio should
be located at La Junta.  On his visit to Indian rancheria in the La Junta
area he had found horses that belonged to settlers in Saltillo, Sacramento,
Monclova, and Nuevo Leon, including some stolen from members of his
expedition.  Even among peaceful Indians, Rabago had found two Indian women
captives from missions near San Juan Bautista.  Both they and the horses had
been captured by the Apaches on their wide-ranging forays and traded to the
natives at La Junta.  He believed that a presidio at La Junta would help
decrease the number of raids.  Seeing the Rio Grande as the first line of
defense for the Spanish frontier, the captain also recommended that the
presidio of Santa Rosa be moved closer to the river.

     Never known for their hasty decisions, the Spanish officials in Mexico
City requested more information.  Rubin de Celis was sent in 1750 to explore
the territory between El Paso and La Junta.  But increased Indian raids on the
Nueva Vizcaya frontier finally convinced the authorities that a La Junta
presidio was necessary.  Work on Nuestra Senora de Belen, or Presidio del
Norte, was completed in July 1760.

     If the Spaniards thought that a lone presidio at La Junta would stop the
incursions of the Apaches, they were mistaken.  Frontier settlers could have
told them of the ineffectiveness of a few troops scattered among the mountains
and canyons of the Big Bend.  Pushed southward by their mortal enemies, the
Comanches, the Apaches continued their plundering, seemingly immune to all the
official acts of the Spanish bureaucracy.

Reforms Reach The Frontier

     Charles III, the new Bourbon monarch who came to the throne of Spain in
1759, is known as the reforming king.  He seized power in Madrid amid great
domestic difficulties and declining prestige abroad.  Strict mercantile
policies had led to widespread smuggling; centralized authority in the
viceregal capital of Mexico City had led to neglect of the frontier.  The
poorly protected frontier, in fact, was one of the most vexing colonial
problems.  Charles decreed reorganization of the colonial administration and
opened numerous colonial ports to international trade.  The impact of his
reforms finally reached the frontier when a trusted officer, the Marquis de
Rubi, made an inspection trip covering some 7,500 miles along the entire
frontier of New Spain in 1767.  While Rubi was on his way to inspect the La
Junta presidio, he learned that the governor of Coahuila had ordered the post
evacuated and relocated at Julimes, several days journey up the Rio Conchos.
Rubi turned and headed for El Paso, bypassing the Big Bend because there were
no settlements to be inspected.  After his reconnaissance, however, he agreed
with Berroteran and Rabago that the Rio Grande was a natural defense line.  If
the Spaniards could stop the Apaches before they entered the despoblado, the
settlements of Nueva Vizcaya and Coahuila would be safe.  He advised that the
northern presidios near the despoblado be moved to the Rio Grande.  The
presidio at Julimes was to be returned to La Junta.

     Two important results came out of Rubi's inspection.  First, Rubi's
engineer and lieutenant produced one of the first maps that shows the Big
Bend.  Nicholas de Lafora and Joseph Urrutia, Ensign of the Regiment of
America, were both with Rubi as he bypassed the Big Bend.  From their own
observations and by gleaning information from other maps and travel
descriptions, Lafora and Urrutia mapped the entire frontier.  Their map shows
the Big Bend trapped between a somewhat unrealistic nook of the Rio Grande and
the Pecos River, which erroneously curves abruptly to the northwest on the
map.  The presidios of Julimes, Cerro Gordo, and San Saba (all of which would
soon receive new names in the coming reorganization of the frontier defenses)
are shown adjacent to the Rio Grande on the right bank, but somewhat out of
position.  Cerro Gordo is located at what would be more nearly the
southernmost tip of the Bend, rather than in the location of present-day San
Carlos.  San Saba appears downriver from what probably is the Pecos - much too
far east for the actual site, which is present-day San Vicente. These
inaccuracies would probably have been cleared away if Lafora and Urrutia had
visited the sites while on their tour.  The Big Bend itself is correctly shown
as mountainous and occupied by Mescalero Apaches.  Despite these difficulties,
the Lafora-Urrutia map is a significant document for two reasons: the Big Bend
is shown to be an important part of the Spanish frontier defenses, and the map
is a technical achievement for Spanish mapmakers in 1771.

     The second result of the Rubi expedition was that the king is sued the
New Regulations of 1772, which embodied, among other things, Rubi's plan to
relocate the presidios along the Rio Grande frontier.  Viceroy Antonio Maria
Bucareli appointed one of his favorites, Hugo Oconor, to carry out Rubi's
recommendations.

     As a part of his frontier reorganization, Oconor made a thorough tour of
the Big Bend.  Before leaving on his inspection, he studied the diaries of
Berroteran and Rabago.  Then he headed for the frontier to supervise the
moving of the presidios.  Leaving from San Fernando de Austria in April 1773,
he camped several miles upriver from San Juan Bautista, searching for a new
site for the presidio of Monclova.  He finally decided on the Rio San Rodrigo.
Leaving men there to build that presidio, Oconor moved upriver to the Arroyo
de Agua Verde, about 20 miles south of Del Rio.  There he ordered the presidio
of Santa Rosa established.  With the assistance of Lipan guides, Oconor rode
into the Big Bend, probably following Rabago's route, where he located a site
for the presidio of San Vicente.  He positioned the fort near the Rio Grande,
next to a well-known Indian ford.  He ordered the presidio of San Saba moved
from the Rio San Saba in present-day Menard County, where it was exposed to
attack and useless to a frontier defense line, to San Vicente.  To cover the
100 miles of desert between Agua Verde and San Vicente, Oconor proposed that
another presidio be established at La Babia, south of the Rio Grande and
almost directly between Santa Rosa and San Saba.  The Big Bend country could
not be left unprotected, he argued, because it was the main trail for Indians
raiding the frontier settlements farther south.

     Oconor then moved upriver to the Arroyo de San Carlos.  He ordered the
presidio of Cerro Gordo relocated to a small mesa about 15 miles south of the
Rio Grande, believing that the new Presidio de San Carlos would benefit from
the nearby water, farming land, wood, stone, and other resources.  Oconor
finally reached La Junta, which had been abandoned in 1751, because of the
uncooperative attitudes of various frontier officials.  He was dismayed to
find only the ruins of the old presidio.  Indians had burned the buildings,
leaving only the parched adobe structure.  Oconor marched up the Rio Conchos
to investigate the presidio at Julimes, ordering it moved back to La Junta. He
continued his tour of the frontier, relocating presidios as he went.  He
returned in 1774 to check construction and found that San Carlos was almost
finished, but that San Vicente was behind schedule.

     Oconor's plan, however, was destined to fail.  As a result of his
journey, San Vicente and San Carlos were established in the Big Bend country
south of the Rio Grande.  But the plan was based on theory and on a similar
project - the Roman military colonies - that had been successfully carried
out, but under significantly different circumstances.  Oconor had not
considered the realities in the Big Bend in making his plans.  A line of posts
that proved convincing on a map in bureaucratic discussions simply did not
provide the promised impenetrable wall or even offer adequate protection for
nearby settlers.  Despite an aggressive campaign carried out under Oconor's
instructions against the Indians of the Big Bend, another investigation soon
proved that the frontier could not be guarded by widely separated posts or so
few troops.

Las Provincias Internas

     In 1776 the northern provinces of New Spain were reorganized.  According
to the reforms instituted by Charles III, the entire frontier was included in
one administrative unit called the Provincias Internas.  Charles named Teodoro
de Croix, one of his ablest military men, commander general of the provinces.
Croix arrived in Mexico City in December and remained there almost a year
studying the reports of frontier governors and captains.  He found a dismal
scene, and decided that Oconor's reorganization was a mistake.  The governor
of Coahuila reported that the number of raids had actually increased since
construction of the new presidios.  Jose Rubio, an experienced frontiersman,
described soldiers and presidios in such miserable shape that it was difficult
to tell which was a worse problem, the Indians or the soldiers.  The troops'
weapons were old and ineffectual, the officers were poorly prepared and
corrupt, discipline was lax.  Communication was slow, the soldiers' pay lagged
behind schedule, and the officers extracted a percentage when it did arrive.

     Croix hoped to implement an aggressive policy.  He immediately requested
an additional 12,000 troops for the frontier, then left on an inspection trip
along with his chaplain, Father Juan Agustin de Morfi, who kept a detailed
diary of the trip and later wrote a history of Texas.  While circling the
despoblado, Morfi noticed the situation was so desperate that many farmers had
sentry boxes in their cornfields where they could hide in case of a sudden
Indian attack.  Croix and Morfi visited the Big Bend presidios of San Carlos
and San Vicente in early 1778.  After several conferences, Croix decided that
the Rio Grande was ineffective as a defense line.  Moving the presidios to the
river left the settlements unprotected.

     Several suggestions came out of Croix's talks.  The frontiersmen urged
the commander general to mount a 3,000-man campaign against the Apaches.  The
conferees suggested that detachments from Nueva Vizcaya be instructed to march
into the despoblado, rout the Apaches, then turn northward to the presidios of
San Carlos and San Vicente and meet troops from Coahuila, who, meantime, would
have swept through the Sierra del Pino, and along the Rio de San Pedro, the
Ojos de Ias Nuezes, and the Agua Amargosa.  Croix's officers also hoped to
turn the Indians against each other by signing treaties with one faction or
the other, thereby renewing old tribal hostilities, but they did not place as
much confidence in this suggestion as in the offensive campaigns.  Finally,
Croix urged that the presidios again be relocated nearer the people.

     Croix's plans for a massive campaign against the Indians were doomed,
however, when Spain entered the war against England in 1779.  With all his
military might sequestered for the European conflict, the king ordered Croix
to employ peaceful means to overcome his enemies in New Spain.  The commander
general was, nevertheless, allowed to modify the frontier defenses to suit his
scheme.  He was convinced that placement of San Carlos and San Vicente on the
Rio Grande was an error that created an artificial frontier.  There was little
support for either fort, communications were poor, and they were isolated,
even though they had been intended to guard two important fords. Croix
suggested that the garrisons be moved, but that the physical plants of the two
presidios be kept to serve as bases against the Indians.  Only La Junta would
remain in the Big Bend area.  Croix wanted to defend what he considered to be
the real frontier, the area of the northernmost villages along the edge of the
despoblado, not a false frontier created by bureaucratic decree.

A More Aggressive Policy

     Still, the Spaniards were not helpless.  Juan de Ugalde, the governor of
Coahuila, undertook a series of campaigns designed to break up the Apache
concentrations in the Big Bend.  The soldiers had ventured cautiously into the
Bolson de Mapimi, in the heart of the despoblado, in 1779.  A second campaign
in 1780 took them to San Fernando de Austria, then to Monclova Vieja, and
finally to Agua Verde.  In 1781 Ugalde got as far as the Arroyo de la Babia
and the deserted presidio of San Vicente before turning back.  He found that
the Indians had burned the presidio, destroying the roof and the main gate; it
would provide little protection in a campaign.  Ugalde made a third expedition
into the despoblado in the spring of 1782, capturing or killing 50 Indians and
regaining some 400 head of stock.  A fourth expedition, terminating in early
1783, led him into the Big Bend country and completed his sweep of the entire
Bolson region.

     After the close of the American Revolution and the Spanish commitment of
troops to Europe, the Spanish bureaucracy allowed hostilities to resume along
the frontier.  Ugalde's most extensive campaigns came in 1787.  He set out in
the snow of winter and reached San Vicente in March.  After learning that the
Indians were camped in the Chisos Mountains, he crossed the Rio Grande into
the Big Bend National Park area and attacked the Mescalero band under chief
Zapata Tuerto.

     When Ugalde marched to San Carlos, he received a warning from the captain
at La Junta that he was now in Nueva Vizcaya, beyond his range of authority.
Ugalde angrily responded that he was in hot pursuit of Indians who had
attacked his domain, but then realized that the Mescaleros who lived in this
region were friendly to the Spaniards who occupied La Junta and had, in fact,
signed treaties with them.  It was the usual procedure for the Indians: they
were friendly to the soldiers who guarded the region where they lived, and
raided only in other areas.

     Although Capt. Juan Bautista Elguezabal of La Junta insisted that the
redmen were at peace with the Spaniards and tried to stop Ugalde, the Coahuila
governor continued his assault.  He raided a small rancheria near the
Bofecillos Mountains, killing one and capturing six Indians.  He turned
northward, hoping to find another camp, but the Indians had been warned and
had fled toward the Pecos.  After further reconnaissances, Ugalde returned to
Santa Rosa in August, where he met Picax-ande Ins-tinsle, the pressured
Llanero leader, and concluded a treaty.  Ugalde had risked a campaign into the
despoblado and a jurisdictional conflict with his neighbor to the west, but he
had achieved the desired end: peace in his domain.  The viceroy approved.

     About 1783 an unknown Spanish mapmaker, confessedly using maps of foreign
cartographers as well as travel accounts by various explorers, attempted to
set down in graphic form all that the Spaniards then knew of the Big Bend. The
general outline is fairly accurate.  The bend in the river is recognizable,
with the southernmost dip coming in Mariscal Canyon.  San Carlos and San
Vicente are correctly located south of the river, while the Chisos Indians are
shown to be in control of the domain to the north.  The Chisos Mountains are
correctly positioned, and what appears to be the Basin, where the motel and
cabin facilities are located today, is labeled "Basilio," which in today's
usage translates as Basilian (a monk), but might have been somehow related to
"basin" or "cloister" in the language of the 18th century. Dedicated to the
"principe de la Paz" - hence the name "La Paz" map - the chart is probably the
most accurate contemporary Spanish map of the Big Bend, even though it is the
work of a cartographer who most likely never visited America.

     Judging from the La Paz map, the Spaniards probably knew more about the
Indians than the Big Bend itself.  To keep the Apaches at peace, the Spaniards
had to protect them, for the warlike Comanches continued to press southward.
The officials at La Junta guarded one Apache party during a buffalo hunt, and
Ugalde offered protection to a group of Mescaleros who ventured into buffalo
territory in late 1787.  The Comanches attacked, but were repulsed by the
Spaniards.  The system apparently was working.

     During the last quarter century of Spanish rule in New Spain, the Indians
were virtually at peace with the Spaniards on the frontier.  Gov. Juan
Bautista de Anza of New Mexico and Gov. Domingo Cabello of Texas concluded a
treaty with the Comanches which called for the Comanches to aid the Spaniards
in defeating the Apaches still at war.  The increasing number of soldiers and
location of the presidios made the raiding more difficult. Rubi's inspection
along with Oconor's recommendations and Croix's visits had increased the
efficiency, discipline, and training of the troops.  Oconor, Croix, and Ugalde
had carried out campaigns designed to disperse the concentration of Indians
throughout the despoblado, and Ugalde continued his forays, staying out as
long as 7 months in 1789.

     In addition to putting military pressure on the Indians, the Spaniards
also held out several inducements to peace.  A friendly attitude by the
commanders of the presidios made the Indians realize that the Spaniards could
make their life easier.  Reviving a program that had been used for over a
century to help the Pueblos, the Spaniards offered the Indians food for their
first year of peace and farm equipment and seed in subsequent years.  The
Spaniards also took advantage of the Apaches' fear of the marauding Comanches.
When Viceroy Revilla Gigedo outlined a realistic program for peace in 1791 -
the Spaniards would protect the Indians if they lived in peace - the Indians
were quick to accept.

     Thus, a century of conflict came to an end.  The Spaniards withdrew from
the Big Bend.  Their initial exploratory efforts had been failures.  When it
became evident that the Indians were difficult converts and that the Big Bend
was not another Mexico, with gold and silver stored by the roomful, the
Spaniards turned their attention elsewhere.  They entered the Big Bend only
because it was in the way; for years the route to New Mexico led down the Rio
Conchos to the Rio Grande and up that river to Santa Fe.  The Big Bend finally
captured the Spaniards' attention because of the nomadic and hostile Indians
who hid there.  It then became necessary to find a route through the
Jespoblado, to locate presidios there, and finally to conduct raids of several
months' duration in the heart of the present-day national park.  The Spaniards
were never interested in the Big Bend for any reason other than peace; it was
an obstacle to overcome in establishing a secure frontier.  But their peace
did not last.  The hostile Comanches continued their southward migration, soon
presenting an even more serious threat that the Spaniards would not be around
to answer.