The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898 Page: 280
334 p. : ill., ports., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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280 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
pages and is styled by Bancroft "the best narrative extant of Texan
annals from 1789."* The account of the return of Saint-Denis to
Texas accompanied by the Spanish friars and soldiers, and of the
actual occupation of the country by the Spanish, is contained in
the voluminous official report of Don Ramon who commanded the
troops on that occasion. The same story is told from the ecclesi-
astical point of view in the works of thepadre Espinosa who was
one of the friars in charge of founding the missions among the
Texas Indians. The works of this friar have been published, but
I doubt if there exists to-day in the entire State of Texas a
astical point of view in the works of the padre Espinosa who was
search among the church archives at Quer6taro and Zacatecas may
unearth reports that will throw much new light on this subject.
Saint-Denis' Declaracion, the minutes of the junta de guerra, and
Don Ramon's report have, I believe, never been published.
It is not my purpose here to follow the history of Saint-Denis
beyond his return to Louisiana in 1719. This can be done suc-
cessfully and in detail only when more of the sources are available
than I have at hand. I may be pardoned, however, for calling
attention to another conspicuous error which has become a part
of at least two of our histories of Texas. At the time of the great
Natchez uprising against the French in 1728, it seems that Saint-
Denis was in command of a small garrison at Natchitoches. Dur-
ing the progress of the war the Indians sent a force to destroy this
post and dispose of one of their most dreaded enemies. They at-
tempted to gain entrance into the fort under pretence of restoring
a captive woman, but their intentions were suspected and admission
to the fort denied them. They then burned the captive before the
eyes of the French, constructed some kind of fortification, and
began a siege. I compare below in parallel columns the account
of the fight that followed as given by Brown's History of Texas
and the story of the same incident as told in Dumont's memoirs.
* Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas, vol. I, p. 613. 1789 is
evidently a misprint for 1689.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898, periodical, 1897/1898; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101009/m1/306/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.