The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 246
641 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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246
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
cident of note, and found the village and settlement abandoned.47
Taking up their quarters in the vacant houses, they were joined there
by Capt. Scott48 and McFarland9 with a small reinforcement. There
being a supernumerary force of twelve or fifteen men unorganized
who attached themselves to Captain Scott's company. They resumed
their march for San Antonio about the middle of October, with a
force, rank and file, of about three hundred men,50 ten or twelve
beeves, and fifteen mules loaded with flour and military stores-
making slow progress until their arrival at the Brazos river, where
they were detained two days in providing means for and crossing
that river. They then proceeded with more dispatch, and were met
at the Colorado river by a Mexican, sent from San Antonio to warn
them that Governor Salcedo,51 who was no doubt, well advised of
their movements, was marching out on that road, with three pieces
of cannon and a large cavalry force to meet them. A halt was or-
dered, and after a short consultation, they changed their plans and
turned their course for Labahia,52 being conducted to that road by
47This settlement was founded in 1805 by Nemesio Salcedo, governor of the
Interior Provinces and friend of Z. M. Pike. (Salcedo has at times been confused
with Manuel Salcedo, Governor of Texas.) The settlement was made to expedite
communications between Nacogdoches and Bexar and to keep the Indians under
control. Hatcher, Opening of Texas to Foreign Settlement, 18oz-1821, 93.
48All that can be found about this man is a statement by Thrall that he resigned
fiom the expedition during the siege of La Bahia and, with Davenport, "returned
to their homes on the Sabine." Thrall, A Pictorial History of Texas, 116.
49John McFarland or Richard MacFarlane, had been an Indian agent and
assisted in forming an alliance with some of the neighboring tribes. In 1799, one
Juan McFarrel, an American who had a passport from the commandant at
Nacogdoches, was ordered out of the country. Later Juan McFarlan was suspected
of a connection with the contraband trade. Villars describes McFarland as a
foreigner. MacFarlane collected about three hundred men, mostly Indians, whom
he brought to the army after the siege of La Bahia. Ibid., 112; Hatcher, Opening
of Texas to Foreign Settlement, 1801-182z, 55, 146; Information derived from John
Villars, in Gulick and others, Lamar Papers, VI, 146-147; Extract, unknown to
Sibley, March 5, 1813, included with Shaler to Monroe, April 13, 1813, Shaler Papers.
aoCompare with footnote 46.
51Manuel Maria de Salcedo had lived with his father, the Spanish governor of
Louisiana, until 18o3, when he returned to Spain. On April 24, 1807, the Council
of the Indies appointed him governor of Texas. He arrived in Texas in the summer
of 18o8. To stop the advance of the Americans, he advised the government to settle
Texas with Spaniards, to establish more Indian trading posts, and to send more
troops. Castafieda, Catholic Heritage, V, 349-350.
52La Bahia, the present town of Goliad, Texas, was founded as a presidio to
protect the mission Nuestra Sefiora de Loreto; it was moved in 1726 to a point on
the Guadalupe River fourteen leagues northwest of Matagorda Bay. In the fall of
1749 both presidio and mission were moved again, further inland, to a point on
the San Antonio River. The presidial settlement was renamed Goliad on February
4, 1829. The town stood on an eminence on the south bank of the river. A little
stone fort stood in the center of town. Magee described it as a stone square, one
hundred yards on a side with two bastions, containing a large, well-built stone
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963, periodical, 1963; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101196/m1/268/?rotate=90: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.