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Page 15 text:
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Texas Although the development of Texas covers but a century, the Vivid history of this great territory goes back more than fourjhundred years. It was in 1519, a century before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, that Alonzo Alvarez de PinedaJ Spanish explorer sailing from Jamaica, made an involuntary landing near the mouth of the Rio Grande and drew the first map of the Texas coast. In 1528, Cabeza de Vaca, a ship- wrecked survivor of the expedition which Narvaez led to Florida, landed near the present Galveston with several companions. He lived for six years among the coastal Indians, finally mak- ing his escape and setting out on an in- credible journey which took him across Texas and finally to a Spanish outpost 011 the lViIeXican west coast. His Vivid account of his adventures, published in Spain, is the earliest detailed description of the Southwest. The first organized effort to explore the region was made in 154.1 by Coro- nado, a captain whose expedition was sent to locate seven fabled cities of Cibola which the Spaniards believed to exist in the North. Coronado found no gold, but he did cross the western portion of Texas, as well as states to the north. He was the first of a line of conquistadores whose exploits established the Spanish claim to the Southwest. Despite frequent explorations, a cen- tury and a half passed before colonists followed the conquistadores to Texas. It was in 1682 that a colony of Spaniards and semi-civilized Indians, driven from New NIeXico by an uprising of Pueblos, settled on the Rio Grande just below the present city of El Paso and called their 4:111:
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Page 16 text:
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Village Ysleta. Although its population today numbers only 200, Ysleta is gen- erally accorded the distinction of being the oldest site of Civilization in Texas. Soon after, in 1685, the French Hag was raised over Texas soil by La Salle, who landed at Lavaca Bay and established Fort St. Louis. Searching for gold and for the mouth of the Missis- sippi, La Salle made several expeditions from the fort, on one of which he was murdered by a subordi- nate. His colony was soon wiped out by disease and Indian raids. Stirred by reports of the French set- tlement, the Viceroy of Mexico deter- mined to make Texas safe for Spain by establishing missions in this region. The first was erected near the present town of Crockett in 1690 and given the name, San Francisco de los Tejas. tTejas, or Texas, is an Indian word for llfriendsfw This mission was soon abandoned. French incursions from Louisiana, particularly the expedition of St. Denis in 1714, hastened the Spanish program. During the early 1700is missions were founded from the Rio Grande to the Louisiana border. Among these were posts near the present sites of Nacog- doches t1716y,San Augustine t1716l, and San Antonio t1718l. These earliest missions were built of logs and several were abandoned and fell into decay within a few years. The missions that stand today, notably the San Antonio group of five, were begun during the middle 1700is. Before 1800 only two Civil settle- ments of any importance had grown up in Texas; San Antonio in the southwest and Nacogdoches in the east. When the United States purchased Louisiana from France, in 1803, the American nation found itself bordering the huge, poten- tially promising and still practically uninhabited land that is Texas today. When, a few years later, Mexico began its series of revolts against Spain, the temptation to Ameri- can adventurers was irresistible. Several soldiers of fortune organized and led eX- peditions from Lou- isiana into Texas with the avowed pur- pose of making Texas, either alone or with Mexico, free of Spanish rule. Notable among these was the audacious exploit of Augustus Magee, an Ameri- can, and Bernardo Butierrez, a Mexican, who headed a free-lance army which captured Nacogdoches, Goliad, and San Antonio in 1813 before their force was defeated by Governor Salcedols troops. The era of American settlement in Texas really began with Moses Austin, of Missouri, in 1820. Riding horseback to San Antonio, Austin, with the aid of his friend, the Baron de Bastrop, ob- tained a permit to plant an American colony in Texas. The elder Austin died, however, be- fore his colonization plans began to take shape and the venture fell upon the shoulders of his 27-year-old son, Steph- en. Meantime, too, Mexico had rid itself of Spanish rule in 1821 and it was nec- essary for Stephen Austin to make the trip to lWeXico by horse to get new au- thorization. Under the revised agree- ments, he was to settle 300 families, who were to assume Mexican citizenship, on lands between the Colorado and Brazos Rivers in south Texas. The first of these colonists arrived the same year. Many :l:121:
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