Texas Almanac, 1990-1991 Page: 37
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HISTORY 37
manche was transformed into a handsome, fluid crea-
ture on horseback. Horses became the Comanches'
principal form of wealth, for which they diligently
raided and traded. So grateful were the Comanches for
this new, bigger beast of burden and provider of trans-
portation, that they named the horse "God-dog."
The use of sign language by the Comanches and
other Plains Indians is thought by some historians to
have developed after the Indians acquired horses to
provide a means for communicating over distances.
Others maintain that the Indians were using hand
signs before they became mounted. However it
started, sign language became a sort of early, primi-
tive Esperanto - a means for different tribes speaking
different languages to communicate with each other.
The Comanches were not organized as a nation;
their social structure was usually based on extended
family groups. Europeans who did not understand this
fact frequently accused the Comanche people of
breaking treaties. But the Comanches of one group or
band did not necessarily know of treaties made by
whites with other tribes. And treaties made with one
Comanche group were not considered by the Indians to
be binding on any other group.
After 1740, the Comanches, along with the Wichi-
tas, were supplied with firearms by the French. The
Apaches were allied with the Spaniards. who refused to
give them guns. Therefore the Apaches, gathered in
their rancherias in the spring and summer, were rela-
tively easy targets for the Comanches and their allies.
By the end of the 18th century, the Apaches had been
driven from the Southern Plains, and thohe Comanches
were in control. In less than a century, the Comanches
had changed from poor, scrounging, weak rabble into
a mounted, well-equipped and powerful tribe - and
not surprisingly, more than a match for the Spanish.
What happened during the first confrontation be-
tween Spaniards and Comanches in the mid-1750s was
a harbinger of events to come. In 1756, Don Pedro
Romero de Terreros, wealthy founder of the National
Pawn Shop of Mexico, agreed to finance missions for
the conversion of Apaches, missions which they had
been promised in a treaty in 1745. Fray Alonso Giraldo
de Terreros, his cousin, was to be in charge of the first
mission. Col. Diego Ortiz Parrilla was to command the
accompanying presidio and its complement of 100
men. A group of Lipan Apaches, headed by two chiefs,
listened to the plans, professed loyalty to the King of
Spain and promised to settle in the mission once it was
built. The Spaniards presented silver-headed canes
and full suits of clothes to the chiefs, and gifts of corn,
sugar cane and tobacco to all the Apaches. The Spani-
ards suspected that the Indians were more interested
in the presents than in salvation, however.
Ortiz Parilla gathered soldiers, missionaries, ani-
mals and equipment together in San Antonio. After
months of delay, the group moved to a staging area at
San Marcos, from which 61 soldiers, the missionaries
and some Tlascaltecan Indians left for the mission site
on April 9, 1757. Tlascaltecans were Spanish allies in
Mexico and were to be examples of settled Indians for
the Apaches. Traveling by way of San Antonio, the Pe-
dernales and Llano rivers to the San Saba, the men
camped near present-day Menard. No Indians met
them. The men built the Mission Santa Cruz de San
Saba on the south side of the San Saba River, while a
crude, temporary log stockade with gun platforms -
the Presidio of San Luis de las Amarillas, known as the
Presidio de San Saba - took shape on the north side of
the river two or three miles away. More men and sup-
plies arrived in June. When everyone had settled in,
300-400 persons were living at the presidio, including
237 women and children, the families of the soldiers
stationed there. Still no Indians appeared.
Then, in mid-June, a group of about 3,000 Apaches
camped nearby, but refused to enter the mission. They
were beginning a bison hunt and were going to war
with the Comanches, but they promised to return and
enter the mission after their hunt.
One disillusioned missionary left in the summer.
Two others departed in the fall, leaving only three
padres at the mission.
A few Apache groups finally came hurriedly
through but refused to stay, saying they were moving
south to avoid a large group of Nortenos, who were
sweeping down from their traditional hunting
grounds. During the winter of 1757-58, rumors of
impending attack grew. Sixty-two horses were stolen
on March 2, and four prospectors sought protection in
the presidio on March 9 after being attacked. ColonelOrtiz Parrilla tried to persuade Fray Alonso to come to
the presidio for shelter, but he refused. On March 16,
1758, 35 persons were in the mission with two cannons
for defense, when a band of about 2,000 Indians, includ-
ing Comanches and their Norteno allies, approached
the mission. Convinced of their friendly intent, the
priests opened the mission gates, and the Indians
swarmed in. Some made gestures of friendship and
accepted the priests' gifts of tobacco, even as others
were shamelessly hauling loot out of the storerooms
and stealing the horses out of the corral. To avoid
bloodshed, the missionaries continued to talk calmly,
while the Indians assured the fathers that they were af-
ter Apaches, not Spaniards. When the Indians asked
about the horses at the presidio, Fray Alonso offered to
accompany them there in order to assure the soldiers
of the Indians' friendship. As Fray Alonso moved to-
ward the gate, a shot rang out, and the friar fell dead.
That signaled the beginning of a bloody massacre, as
the Indians killed eight of the mission residents, se-
verely injured five others, then set fire to the build-
ings. They destroyed everything they could not carry
away. The fields were trampled, and the livestock
were killed or scattered. The Spaniard's first con-
frontation with the Comanches in present-day Texas
ended in bitter and bloody defeat. The Mission Santa
Cruz de San Saba was never rebuilt.
Ortiz Parilla was determined to punish t n he Indians
for the outrage at San Saba. But before he could mount
an expedition, the Indians attacked a group of soldiers
guarding the presidio's horses in a nearby pasture,
killing 20 soldiers and driving off more than 700 horses.
Each dead soldier was killed, not by primitive arrows
or spears, but with firearms, evidently supplied by the
French. By mid-August 1759 - a year and a half later
- Ortiz Parilla gathered 400 soldiers and militiamen
and about 200 Indian allies. They marched to the Con-
cho River near present Paint Rock and moved north-
east. At a Tonkawa village near the site of present-day
Newcastle in Young County, the Spaniards killed 55
and captured 149. But the Spanish and their allies suf-
fered a resounding defeat at the Taovaya village at
Spanish Fort in Montague County. With 19 dead and 33
wounded or missing, the Spanish withdrew.
For almost another decade, the presidio on the San
Saba, now under the command of Capt. Felipe de Ra-
bago y Teran, clung to life amid the hostile Indians.
While stationed at the presidio, Rabago y Teran built a
more sturdy stone presidio and explored not only the
main Concho River to its confluence with the Colorado,
but also the stretch of arid land between the headwa-
ters of the Conchos to the Pecos River. After with-
standing several years of almost continuous warfare
with the Comanches, Rabago y Teran made several
fruitless attempts to get permission to withdraw his
troops. He finally removed his men from the presidio
in June 1768 without official permission and retreated
to San Lorenzo de la Santa Cruz Mission on an upper
branch of the Nueces River in present-day Edwards
County. That retreat sounded the death knell for
Spain's attempts to convert and pacify the West Texas
tribes.
There were various other expeditions through the
region in the second half of the 18th century. Athanase
de Mezieres, a Frenchman in service to the govern-
ment of Spain as an Indian agent, visited several Indi-
an villages in West Central Texas in the 1770s. One trip
in 1772 took de Mezieres from San Antonio through pre-
sent Kendall, Gillespie, Llano, San Saba, Brown,
Eastland, Stephens and Young counties. He thought
Texas delightful.
Pedro Vial, another Frenchman in Spanish ser-
vice, was sent from San Antonio in October 1786 with
Cristobal de Santos to explore for a route to Santa Fe.
Delayed by illness, the two spent the winter in the vi-
cinity of present-day Burkburnett. In March 1787, they
started west, following the Pease River, passed near
the site of present-day Amarillo, and reached Santa Fe
by May 26, 1787.
That summer, Cristobal de Santos and Corporal
Jose Mares travelled from Santa Fe to San Antonio by
way of the sites of Wichita Falls, Jacksboro, Brady,
Kerrville and Bandera, arriving in October. Trying to
find a shorter route home, they left in mid-January
1788 by way of the site of present-day San Saba, then
probably proceeded through the Buffalo Gap area in
present-day Taylor County, arriving in Santa Fe by
April of the following year.
Pedro Vial was again active in the West Central Tex-
as region in the summer of 1788, traveling from Santa Fe
to San Antonio by way of the Taovayas village on
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Kingston, Mike. Texas Almanac, 1990-1991, book, 1989; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth162512/m1/39/: accessed May 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.