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RECENT RESEARCH
from
THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
DEPARTMENT OF RESEARCH AND COLLECTIONS
VOL. 2 #1 JANUARY, 1992
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CONTENTS
Prehistoric Settlement in the Medina Valley ................... ..... ............. ........... 2
and the 1991 ATAA-ITC Field School
Thomas H. Guderjan, Bob Baker, Britt Bouseman,
Charles K. Chandler, Anne Fox, and Barbara Meissner
Arms and Armor in Spanish America ....................................................... .17
Phyllis McKenzie
Roots of Tejano Dissatisfaction with Mexican Rule .................................. 28
Gerald E. Po yo
Regional and Folk Costumes ..................................................................... .41
Laurie Gudzikowski
Traditional Values, Contemporary Lives ................... .. ............................. .45
Thomas H. Guderjan
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INTRODUCTION
Prehistoric arrow points, sixteenth-century leather armor, Tejano political documents, contemporary folk
costume--these things are the stuff of cultural research. The materials in this issue of Recent Research illustrate
a wide range of subjects and methodological approaches to the interpretation of culture.
The results of an archaeological field school undertaken by Tom Guderjan et al explain the concept of the
school itself and the way professional archaeologists, students, and volunteers can cooperate on projects, and
also show pro?1ise .for future archaeological work on sites in the Medina Valley.
Phyllis McKenzie's summary explanation of Spanish arn1S and arn10r provides basic background for future
Institute exhibits and educational interpretive activities.
In the recurrent patterns of Spanish-era documents Jerry Poyo finds evidence for Tejano (Mexican Texan)
resistance to royal decrees which limited the independence of local communities.
Laurie Gudzikowski discusses some possible definitions of "folk costume" and explores the potential
significance of such costumes for contemporary ethnic communities and museum visitors.
Tom Guderjan gathers the statements of Native Americans and academics who participated in the Institute's
program "Celebrate Native Americans" in February 1991 to testify to the diversity of contemporary Indian
experience in Texas and the value of public forums for common understanding.
Each of these pieces can also show in some way how cultural interpretation begins not at the moment we
encounter a cultural object or another individual, but much earlier, in the expectations we have formed about
them. In her statement, Ardena Rodriguez explains that Plains Indian peoples avoided mention of a person's
name in his presence as a way of deepening relationships between people. We might marvel at the benefits to
cross-cultural understanding if we were not so hasty to tell people their own names.
Special thanks again to Laurie Gudzikowski for assembling and editing this issue.
James C. McNutt, Ph.D.
Director
Research and Collections
Recent Research is an internal publication of the Institute of Tex,w Cultures. Its purpose is to provide a
record of the variety (}f research projects carried out by ResearciJ and Collections and to afford researchers
andcurators a medium in which they can begin to fonnalizc UJcir thinking about particular topics without
seekingexpensil'e and time-consuming publication in professional or academic publications. The individual
articles are the first steps in shaping and grouping the n1 W maten~1ls of rese,1rch tow,1rd flltllre Institute
projects. They WIll also even {ually serve as points of reference for other researchers and individuals working
in the Institute s collections.
Reference copies of Recent ResearcJ, are distributed to U](; various Institute departments for their use and
to other researchers and members of the university community who may request them.
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PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENT IN THE MEDINA VALLEY
AND THE 1991 STAA-ITC FIELD SCHOOL
Thomas H. Guderjan, Bob Baker, Britt Bouseman, Maureen Brown, Charles K. Chandler, Anne Fox and
Barbara Meissner.
This report briefly summarizes the accomplish­ments
of the first archaeological field school spon­sored
by the Sou them Texas Archaeological Associ­ation
(STAA) and the University of Texas Institute
of Texan Cultures (ITC). In addition, a discussion
of th~ methodology of the Medina Valley project
will provide contextual information regarding the
efforts of the field school.
Not the least important of our accomplishments
was the general success of the field school in terms
of logistics, attendance and the experiences of the
participahts. This was the first time a regional
organization has sponsored such a field school in
Texas. The experimental nature of our efforts was
made easier by the ST AA's experience in hosting
the 1990 Texas Archeological Society's field school
near Utopia. Nevertheless, the experience was a
new one for all of us. The focus of this report is not
the logistic aspects of the field school, but the
research we had undertaken.
There are ethical concerns about archaeological
field schools which also should be noted. First, as
archaeological resources are finite, their consump­tion
only as a training device is unjustifiable. We
cannot dig sites during field schools and fail to
conduct high quality research any more than we can
support bulldozing sites for construction without
mitigating their loss. On the other hand, we cannot
ethically use students and field school participants
as free labor. They, too, deserve more than that. In
effect, a good field school must incorporate both
research and teaching in a balanced manner.
The actual activities in 1991 included excavation of
the Quinta Medina site (site number 41ME53),
surveys and assessments of other sites, documenta­tion
of historic buildings and laboratory work
associated with the field work. The research into
prehistoric materials was guided by a general and
evolving research design. In order to place the
current work in perspective, it is useful to review the
2
broad tenets of the research design before discuss­ing
the results of this year's work.
Background and Previous Research
The study area is the Medina River valley, approxi­mately
20 miles west of San Antonio. It is defined
on the south by Highway US 90. On the east, the
Medina/Bexar County line roughly marks the
boundary. The north end is about the latitude of
Bandera. Then, the boundary heads S-SE to in­clude
Medina Lake and southward to include the
hills overlooking Castroville (Figure I).
Very little research had been done in the Medina
Valley before our efforts began. For example,
fewer than 50 sites had been recorded in Medina
County prior to the initiation of our work. By
contrast, over 950 have been recorded in Bexar
County.
In 1970, a group of avocationalists excavated
Scorpion Cave (41Me7) near Medina Lake in the
far northw'estem portion of the current study area.
Aided by Lynn Highley, the excavated materials
were later published (Highley, Graves, Land and
Judson 1978). Scorpion Cave yielded evidence of
an Early Archaic occupation (2 Martindale points)
and further occupation through the Late Prehistoric
period. Excavation was conducted in arbitrary
levels and the natural levels were not recorded.
Therefore, we cannot comment upon the intensity
or duration of individual occupations, etc.
Also, during the past several years, C.K. Chandler
has recorded a number of sites in the upper Medina
and San Geronimo drainages and published a
report on Gulf coastal shell artifacts of the area
(1991). The only other formal work has been done
by UTSA's Center for Archaeological Research
which conducted surveys of a residential develop­ment
in Castroville (Snaveley 1985).
Then, in 1989, the Institute of Texan Cultures
excavated part of Cueva Corbin in the San
Geronimo canyon and helped ST AA members
survey the area around the cave. Cueva Corbin
yielded · a Late Prehistoric occupation and several
earlier, well stratified occupational deposits which
have not yet been dated (Guderjan, in press; also
reported previously in Recent Research Vol. 1 , #2).
Mark Kuykendahl and C.K. Chandler were able to
provide information on other sites in the area of
Cueva Corbin (Kuykendahl, in press). These
relatively small efforts also led us to realize the
great potential the valley holds for understanding
how ancient people lived in Texas.
The study area is focused on the Medina River. In
its northern sector, the river and its major tributary,
San Geronimo Creek, cut deep gorges into the
limestone of the Edwards Plateau, in the Texas Hill
Country. The Medina is a free flowing stream as
far north as Bandera. San Geronimo is a normally
dry stream, which probably once flowed freely
before recent lowering of the water table. Flowing
southward onto the South Texas coastal plain, they
join and the floodplain expands to become nearly 5
miles wide in the Castroville area.
The area along the Edwards Escarpment edge is an
ecotone (Riskind and Diamond 1986). Ecotones
occur where two major ecological zones merge and
typically have higher biological mass and diversity
than either of the merging zones, combining ele­ments
of each. This makes ecotones a very attrac­tive
area for human settlement.
One factor which makes the ecotone attractive is
that the canyons were used by herds of bison to
pass from the hill country into south Texas. In the
19th century, for example, some of the last remnant
bison herds were found in the valleys near Uvalde.
The "funnel effect" of the valleys, then, potentially
made big-game hunting an easy enterprise for
prehistoric inhabitants. (Joel Gunn, ms.). Some of
these valleys became 19th century refuges for bison,
well after they were nearly extinct in the general
area.
Other factors attracted settlement to the Medina
Valley. First and foremost, abundant water was
available. And with water comes fish and riverine
plants. For example, a "wild rice," today only
3
found on the San Marcos River, probably once
grew along the Medina and provided food for its
inhabitants. Pecans, berries, and other plant foods
also grow in the sheltered canyons.
Also with the river comes abundant stone for
making tools. High quality chert is needed for
stone tools and it is very common in the valley.
While thefrrstTexas inhabitants, the Paleo-Indians,
travelled long distances to acquire chert, the later
and more settled Archaic people focused their
efforts on local resources.
So, not only does the valley flow through an eco­tone,
it also can be viewed as a "long oasis" with
abundant special resources. Further, through a
trick of nature, the Medina also probably had relics
of ancient forests before it was so completely
cleared for agriculture. During the Pleistocene,
which ended about 12,000 years ago, Texas was
much cooler and wetter. The East Texas forests
were much further west than today and they have
been retreating eastward since (Bryant and Shafer
1976). In the valleys along the escarpment which
remained cooler and wetter than the surrounding
hills, remnants of some of these forests remained.
Lost Maples State Park and Lost Pines State Park
are examples. Each of these provided other special
resources for the ancient people who lived near
them.
While human adaptation to oases has been exten­sively
explored in Egypt, only very tentative study
of such ada pta tions in Texas have been undertaken.
Joel Shiner and his students studied the Paleo­indian
remains in the Aquarena Springs vicinity of
San Marcos. Shiner believed that he saw stylistic
homogeneity of Paleo-Indian materials at the
springs but stylistic heterogeneity in the hills near­by.
Though his conclusions were vehemently
debated, he interpreted this pa ttero as resulting
from a near-permanent "in-group" band residing at
the springs and various, more nomadic, "out­groups"
in the surrounding area (Shiner 1983; see
also Johnson and Holliday 1984). This analogy, of
course, was drawn from his own previous work in
Egypt.
So, the task of the Medina Valley project and the
field school is to find evidence of how prehistoric
people used the resources and landscape of the
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valley. Further, we will explore the dynamic chang­es
which occurred in how the valley was utilized and
attempt to distinguish changes which were cultural
responses to changing climatic conditions and
which were not.
The Medina Valley work, then, has three primary
goals:
l. Establish a sequence of climatic change so that
we can understand the environmental factors
involved with human settlement.
2. Relate the distribution of prehistoric sites and
functional types of prehistoric sites to geographic
variables. This will enable us to understand the
settlement patterns and strategies of prehistoric
people or how and why they used the land.
3. Do #2 for each of the discernable time periods
involved and compare that information to the
climatic sequence. Therefore, we will be able to see
changes in settlement patterns and detem1ine
whether they were caused by environmental or
cultural changes.
Methodology for the Analysis of Prehistoric
Settlement Patterns
Three principal variables will be initially considered
in the analysis: the dates, settings and functions of
archaeological sites. Each of these are related and
by collecting infoDnation regarding all three, we
will be able to obtain an understanding of the
dynamics of change as well as the relationships
between man and land at any given time.
Ascertaining the occupational dates of sites is quite
simple. Dates will be detemlined through standard
analysis of the shapes of the excavated artifacts. It
is not necessary to undertake large scale excavations
in order to do this. In general, lin1ited excavation
will reveal the occupational dates with reasonable
accuracy and precision.
It is not difficult to characterize an individual site's
setting. It is, however, not simple to do so in a way
which allows for many sites to be usefully com­pared.
Factors such as vegetation patterns, soil
types, slope and distance to water are commonly
used. In the Medina Valley, there is a direct
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relationship between most resources and soil types.
Therefore, soils will be used initially to characterize
site settings and to stratify the environment for later
analysis.
The soils of Medina County have been described
and mapped by Dittmar, Deike and Richmond
(1977). Seven major soil associations exist in the
county. While each of these have several divisions
and sub-divisions, our purposes allow us to use
them at the broadest scale (Figure 2).
1. The Knjppa-Afercedes-Castrovjlle c'lssocjatjon
consjsts of deep, nearly level to gently SlOping and
clayey, calcareous SOils. Thjs assodatjon is on
bro,1d, smooth uplands, generally between the
Edwards Escarpment and the southern port jon of
the area and covers approxllJ1ately 30% of the
county. It supports tr,1nsjtjonal hill country-South
Texas plc'ljn vegetatjon.
2. The T;lrr,1nt-Re'11-BnlC.:kett c7ssocj;]{jon consjs[s
of very shallow and sh,71Imv, gently slopjng ,1nd
undu1atjng to steep'/oamy, gravelly loan7Y and
cobbly c!tlyey, c,7lcareous soils. Thjs aSsociatjon is
on the more slopIng, djssected areas and covers
about 19% of the county, generally covenng the
more sWble surfaces above the Edw,1rds Escarp­ment.
It supports the general hill country vegetll­tjon.
3. The Olmos- Yologo-Hindes assocjc7tjon consIsts
o/ ve(v shallow [0 moderately deep, gently slopjng
to slopjng and undulaong, gravelly c7nd loamy,
noncah.:;zreous to c;llcareous SOIlS. ThiS ilSSoc/~7fjon
js on gnz velly, upland n'dges ,1nd covers about 15%
of the county, generc7lly in the southern and centr,1!
poro·on. It supports a general South Texas pI/un
veget,1tjon.
4. TheDuval-Jafjguel-Amphjanassocjatjonconsjsts
of deep, nearly level to gently slopjng, 10,1my,
nonc,1lcareous sojls. ThiS associ:1tjon covers ,1bout
14% of the cOllnty, generally in the sOllthern por­tjon
oJ'the count)'. It sllpports .1 gena,11 South
Tex,1s p/;l1n vegewtjon.
5 The SpeL'k-Pratley-lvferett,1 <1SS0Ci~1tjon consIsts
of moderately deep ,1nd slwffoll', ne,1rly level to
gently SlOpIng and undul<1l1ng, loamy and clayey,
noncalc,1{eous to calcareous sojJs. ThiS ,1ssocIatjon
2 /
/
/ .
/
/ 2
Figure 2. Soils of Medina Valley Study Area
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covers about 10% ofthecounty, generally along the
side slopes near the Edwards Escarpment.
6. The Nueces-Pat110-Eufaula association exists in
the far southern portion of the county, but not
within the study area.
7. The Atco-Divot associ€1tion consists of deep,
nearly level to gently sloping loamy, calcareous
soils. This association covers about 6% of the co un­ty,
along the major drainages such as the Medina
River and Hondo Creek. (Dittman, Deike and
Richmond 1976)
Considerably more complex is the determination of
site function. Certain features present at sites, such
as burnt rock middens, clearly speak to the func­tional
nature of the site. Even so, the precise func­tion
of burnt rock middens themselves remains in
debate. Nevertheless, it is possible to functionally'
distinguish sites with such middens from those
without them.
Likewise, a number of techniques have been
developed which use the most common kinds of ar­tifacts
found at a site to distinguish functional
differences. One of the more sophisticated tech­niques
involves graphing the length offlakes against
their edge angles (Raab, Cande and Stahle 1979).
These "debitage graphs" may be compared from site
to site to determine the relative range of variability
and, therefore, the range of human behavior, repre­sented
at each site. The senior author, however,
prefers a categorical analysis which is much faster
to perform and reveals more detail about the
specific activities represented (Guderjan 1981). By
creating categories of stone artifacts types which are
based on the reduction process inherent in stone
tool manufacture, use and maintenance, more is
revealed about site function. By graphing the
percentages of an artifact assemblage which are
Primary Flakes, Flakes, Core Trimming Elements,
Biface Thinning Flakes, Cores, Chips, Retouch
Chips, Biface Thinning Chips, Marginally Re­touched
Pieces, Unifacial Tools, Bifacial Tools and
Projectile Points, two ends are accomplished.
Graphs of assemblages from various sites may be
compared and a data base for sophisticated statisti­cal
manipulations such as cluster and factor
analyses and multivariate discriminant analysis has
been created.
6
Once this has been accomplished, the sites them­selves
may be placed in categories which are derived
from the data. At this point, it becomes a rather
simple task to compare the number of sites of each
type found in each setting during each time period.
Functional site types may increase or decrease in
individual environmental zones. Environmental
zones themselves may be abandoned or newly
occupied in particular time periods.
Excavations
The princi pal exca va tion work during the 1991 field
school was conducted at the Quinta Medina site
(41Me53) under the supervision of Barbara
Meissner. Quinta Medina is a Late Prehistoric and
late Archaic Site which includes residential
materials and an Archaic burnt rock midden. A
single Clear Fork Biface was also found which
may date to the Middle Archaic.
The site is located on the bluffs near the Medina
Valley. It does not overlook the valley, but is
located adjacent to a drainage which reaches the
valley in less than 1 km. Today, a small spring still
flows just below the site and a stock tank, above
that spring, constantly holds water. Above the
stock tank and site, other springs flowed regularly
in recent memory of the owners. Aside from the
presence of abundant water itself, the water would
have provided associated flora and fauna for
human use.
The bluffs in the vicinity of the site are capped by
extensive chert gravel deposits which were probably
deposited shortly after the main events of the
Balcones Uplift during the Miocene, perhaps 15-
20,000,000 years ago. During this period, the
Medina River or its predecessors would have been
rapidly down cutting limestone from the Edwards
Plateau and depositing harder chert gravels on what
have become terraces of the current river valley.
This chert would also have become an important
resource and attraction for prehistoric human
settlement.
In addition to immediately available stone, water
and associated resources, the site was very near
locations where much of the valley could be over­looked.
Further access to the valley by way of the
drainage adjacent to the site was very easy.
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QUINTA MEDINA -
41 Me 53
Trench C Profile
(East-West)
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Midden
50 '
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Bedrock
Figure 3. Quinta Medina: Profile of Trench C
7
Area B was a distinctive burnt rock midden (Figure
3). The initial testing was done by excavating
backhoe trenches in each area. Trench B exposed a
burnt rock midden approximately 50 ems. deep.
No artifacts were recovered from direct association
with this midden, but we believe it to date to the
Middle and/or Late Archaic periods.
Our excavations, though, focused on Area A of the
site, presumably the "residential" zone (Figure 4).
Backhoe Trench A crosscut a buried gully which
had been cut into the hill surface prior to deposit of
any evidence of occupation (Figure 5). At that
time, the hillside was stripped of gravels and the 2
m. deep gully was formed. Confirming evidence for
this event was found in Trench C, hand dug and
perpendicular to Trench A. At the grid west end of
Trench C, we found chert gravels in place on the
higher stable surface. As the slope increased
towards grid east, these deposits became thinner,
then ceased to exist. While we cannot directly date
this erosional event, it certainly predates the Late
Archaic period (3,000 - 2,300 Before Present) and
may well predate the Middle Archaic (4500 BP -
2000 BP) and may date to the Altithermal (6-8,000
BP) and disrupted human occupation (Antevs 1948,
Meltzer 1991).
Feature B consisted ofa hearth just above the main
accumulation of burnt rock, which in turn, was
found just above bedrock. A Marcos point found
in Feature B dates it to the Late Archaic period.
The bulk of the effort at Quinta Medina was
expended by excavating the upper, Late Prehistoric
living surfaces adjacent to Trench A. While none of
these materials have yet been analyzed, flakes and
tools were virtually all found at a horizontal angle
of repose, indicating that the integrity of the deposit
was quite good and the occupational surface was
apparently intact. As this process was a very slow
and tedious one, we did not complete the horizontal
block excavation. A preliminary analysis will be
conducted this year and we will continue excavation
next year.
Below the Late Prehistoric materials along Trench
A and on the side of the exposed gully, were small
Late Archaic burnt rock midden deposits. Another
burnt rock midden feature, Feature B, was
8
discovered immediately on top of the bedrock
caliche surface while testing other sectors of the site.
Feature A was found in the wall of Trench A. This
is either a pit or small erosional gully which the
trench crosscut. Within the feature were found
large primary flakes and processing tools as well as
semi-articulated faunal materials. Angles of repose
were generally jumbled but largely vertical,
indicating that the artifacts were deposited into the
feature, rather than on top of a stable surface. Our
initial evaluation was that the faunal remains were
of bison, wild peccary and deer. A date for Feature
A has not been ascertained. It appears to have
eroded from or been dug from the upper portion of
the Transitional Archaic zone. However, no
temporally diagnostic tools were recovered and we
have not yet run a radiocarbon date. Next year, we
will expand our investigation of Feature A in order
to determine its nature and extract further
information.
In summary, Quinta Medina site materials were
deposited on top of a more ancient erosional sur­face
which includes a deep gully. The event which
formed this erosional surface may have occurred
during the Altithermal. Then, after an unknown
period of time and unknown number of aggrada­tiOn/
degradation cycles, a substantial Late Archaic
occupation occurred. Colluvial sediments con­tinued
to accumulate because of slope wash at the
site and repeated occupations occurred through the
Late Prehistoric period.
Surveys and Site Assessments
While the Quinta I.,,1edina operations proceeded,
C.K. Chandler organized a survey party to investi­gate
the adjacent ranch . Two sites were discovered;
41Me70 and 41Me71. While41Me71 is a minor site .
and the party did not see a purpose in further
in vestiga tion, 41 Me 71, the Tschirhart Site, was
considerably more substantial. Bob Baker led a
testing team to the site. The survey and testing
groups recovered La lita, Marco and Nolan
points which indicate occupation during the Early
and Late Archaic periods. The site consists of a sta­ble
surface terrace with about 60 ems. archaeologi­cal
deposit covering several acres. Interestingly,
little or no burnt rock was found at the site.
~' Grid North
Mag ~orth
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25, 10
20, 10
15, 10
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25, 15
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Road Bed
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25. 25 \(-
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20. , . \ \ \11111" 11 11 1 II "1 1/1/ 1 ~'"
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........ ''' Disturbed Area
QUINTA MEDINA
41 Me 53
Area A, Site Plan
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25, 30
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15, 30
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10. 15 10, 20 ~ o . 25 '-___ ---", 10, JO
D D Trench B
Figure 4. Quinta Medina: Site Plan of Area A
9
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T
15,30
T
"'--- - __ ~~ ArtffKt lIearing Zone ........... -----:-t:------
C_FIII '\.. _
.............. / - _..-._Oully
~130
GUadalupe TOOl
Burnt ROCk Midden
Bedrock
Figure 5. Quinta Medina: Profile of Trench A
10
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Quinta Medina
41 Me53
Backhoe Trench A
West Wall
':5,30
Degr_ Bedrock
--,Orld_h
1 __
Chandler also documented several other sites and
collections owned by local land owners. The most
intriguing item was an intact Clovis point from a
site (41Me75) on the bank of Hondo Creek (Figure
6). This site has not yet been visited. However,
along with other sites and lands to which we now
have access, it will be visited in preparation for next
year's field work.
o
Figure 6. 41Me75: Clovis Point
Full scale
During the field school, Britt Bouseman led a team
to 41Me8 near Scorpion Cave (Figure 7). We were
interested in the site because Judson had noted a
"Plainview" point from beneath the Middle Archaic
midden there on the site form which he filed with
TARL in 1979. Guderjan had visited the site
several times prior to the field school and was
interested in whether such a deposit actually exist­ed.
The site is a 6-8 m. tall alluvial bluff along the
Medina River with a burnt rock midden on the
surface. Bouseman's team cut a profile section of
the blufTand discovered a buried soil at a depth of
approximately 3 meters (Figure 8A). From the soil,
they recovered a bifacial tool (Figure 8B) and two
chert Oakes. After the field school, Guderjan was
able to obtain access to the material which Judson
had recovered. Judson had found a Golondrina
11
point in the soil (Figure 7 A) and a Barber point
nearby at the base of the bluff(Figure 7B). Despite
considerable erosion of the bluff due to flooding, it
is clear that an intact Late Paleo-Indian component
exists.
(A) Golondrina Point
Full scale
(B) Barber Point
Full scale
Figure 7. 41Me8
-
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~. : , : . '." .' .~ .' I;
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(A) Paleo-Indian bifacial preform and depositional break
(B) Paleo-Indian bifacial preform
Full scale
Figure 8. 41Me8
12
The depositional unit in which the Paleo-Indian
component at 41Me8 is found continues inter­mittently
downstream along the Medina River and
is very clear in the Castroville-LaCoste area. It
appears to be the same depositional unit in which
. the Paleo-Indian components of the Richard Beane
site were found at what was to have been the
Applewhite Dam site.
Palaeoclimatic Eyents in the Upper Medina
Yal1ey
Developing an environmental context for prehistor­ic
settlement of the Medina valley is a task which
requires vastly more data than is currently available
to us. While this work is still in its embryonic
stages, enough infomlation has now been collected
to justify a status report.
So far, our information suggests a period of much
higher stream flow and probably precipitation
during the period somewhat before the Golondrina
occupation of 41Me8 which then continued until or
before the Middle Archaic. At that tinle, surfaces
apparently stabilized and, based on the general
numbers of sites found, occupation of the area may
ha ve intensified.
During a period prior to the Middle Archaic,
evidence from the Quinta Medina site indicates a
severe dry period which was followed by sufficient
rainfall to strip the hillside of soil and create a large
erosional gully. By correlating this information
with that from 41Me8, it is very likely that the
alluvial deposition at 41 Me8 ceased prior to the
Middle Archaic.
This may well be correlated with the Altithermal
period on the southern plains (Antevs 1948). The
Altithemlal was just such a tinle, when erosion was
severe and human populations diminished or
adapted new approaches to subsistence at 6-8,000
BP (Meltzer 1991).
From the Middle Archaic through the Late
Prehistoric, occupational surfaces appear to have
been quite stable and evidence of climatic condi­tions
is lacking. However, a short period of severe
flooding or at least a single large flood occurred pri­or
to about 700 AD.
13
The most recent event in our record comes from
Cueva Corbin, 41Me13. Cueva Corbin is located in
San Geronimo canyon, very near the Edwards
Escarpment. This small rockshelter was excavated
in 1989 and includes discrete occupational surfaces
as recent as the Late Prehistoric period (700-1500
AD) and perhaps as early as the Late Archaic
(Guderjan, in press; also reported previously in
Recent Research Vol. 1 #2). Spalling of roof ma­terial
onto the floor of the shelter created the bulk
of the floor deposit. Spalling episodes were inter­spersed
with occupational events. Beneath the most
recent occupational event which occurred during
the Late Prehistoric period, flooding of the San
Geronimo Creek left distinctively bedded sand
deposits. Therefore, this represents a single event or
a series of events occurring within a very short
period of time, during which water flow in the
creek was substantial, at least 5 meters above the
current creek bed.
These data only represent a starting point for
. studies of climate change at the escarpment's edge.
Perhaps more than anything else, they leave the
clear impression that such studies will be well
rewarded when applied to a geographically
coherent and sufficiently large region.
Historic House Documentation
Concurrent with the \'lork on prehistoric
archaeology, Anne Fox led a team which doc­umented
historic structures in and around
Castroville. Castroville provides an opportunity for
very useful research into vernacular housing
because of its background as an Alsatian settlement
founded in the 19th century.
The basic intent of the historic team was to learn
how to document historic house sites, using
Castroville houses. The team spent some time
learning about historic artifacts that would be
present on such sites, pacing off and drawing plans
and elevations of existing houses and their sur­rounding
lots, observing architectural details with
an eye to using them for dating and for reconstruct­ing
the history of a house, and researching the
ownership history of a property in the county
archives. Additionally, several owners invited us to
see the interiors of their homes.
-
Future Planning
In summary, we were successful in documenting
very early evidence of settlement in the Medina val­ley
by finding the Clovis point and the site with
Golondrina points. As importantly, we were able
to obtain significantinfonnation regarding the Late
Archaic and Late Prehistoric occupations at the
Quinta Medina site. Further. we obtained access to
land and sites which we had not previously been
able to visit. This will allow us to begin to expand
our data base to other geographical settings within
the valley and bring us closer to our goal of
comparing site functions with site settings.
Next year, we will expand all phases of the work on
prehistoric material. While we will continue exca­vations
at Quinta Medina, we will also work on 4-5
other sites. Small scale excavations of many sites is
the best approach to the kind of 'eco-functional
study in which we are engaged. Additionally, we
will continue survey and assessment work to expand
our data base.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Ray Blackburn,
chainnan of the Southern Texas Archaeological
Association, for his commitment to this project and
further public education and Dr. Rex Ball,
Executive Director of the Institute of Texan
Cultures, for his support. Paul and Frances Ward
began the process which led to this project and
continue in their overwhelming support as
landowners and hosts to 150 persons for 9 days,
despite spending 2 days disabled with a virus. We
very m.uch appreciate Lea Worchester's efforts as
the Assistant Laboratory Supervisor. Maureen
Brown acted more than ably as the Laboratory
Supervisor. Initial site testing at Quinta Medina
was done by Ray Smith. He and Candy Smith han­dled
registration and logistics for the field school.
Corporate support from the project came from
Discount Cellular in San Antonio and Union
Carbide in Victoria, Texas. The artifacts were
drawn by Richard McReynolds
14
References Cited
Antevs, Ernst
1948 The Great Basin, with Emphasis on
Glacial and Postglacial times. University of
Utah Bulletin. 38:168-191.
Bryant, Vaughn M., Jr. and Harry J. Shafer
1977 The Late Quaternary Paleoenvir­onment
of Texas: A Model for the Arche­ologist.
Bulletin of the Texas Archaeolo~i­cal
Society 48:1-26.
Chandler, C.K.
1991 Marine Shell Artifacts from Bexar and
Medina Counties, Texas La Tierra
18:1: 8-15.
Dittmar, Glenn W., Micheal L. Deike and David L.
Richmond
1977 Soil Survey of Medina County. Texas
USDA, Soil Conservation Service
Guderjan, Thomas H.
1981 The Caney Creek Site Complex:
Li thic Resource Conserva tion and Technol­ogy.
Southeastern Archaeological
Conference Bulletin 24: 115-117.
(in press) At the Escarpment's Edge: An
Initial report on Excavations at Cueva Cor­bin.
La Tierra. Also previously reported in
Recent Research, Vo!.l #2.
Gunn, Joel
ms. (1986) Mobility Patterns in Central
Texas. Paper prepared for Aboriginal
Central Texas: Culture Change along the
Central Texas Ecotone. edited by John
Fox.
Highley, Lynn, Carol Graves, Carol Land and
George Judson
1978 Archaeological Investigations at
Scorpion Cave (41 Me7), Medina County,
Texas. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological
Society.
Johnson, Eileen and Vance T. Holliday
1984 Comments on "Large Springs and
Early American Indians" by JoelL Shiner.
Plains Anthropologist 29: 65-70.
Kuykendahl, Mark
(in press) Archaeological Survey on the
Lower San Geronimo Creek watershed,
Southcentral Texas. La Tierra (Volume
19).
Meltzer, David J.
1991 Altithermal Archaeology and paleoe­cology
at Mustang Springs, on the South­ern
high Plains of Texas. American
Antiquity 56: 2: 236-267.
Raab, L. Mark, Robert F. Cande, and David W.
Stahle
1979 Debitage Graphs and Archaic Settle­ment
Patterns in the Arkansas Ozarks.
Mid-Continental Journal ofArchaeo\ogy 4:
167-182.
Riskind, David H. and David D. Diamond
1986 Plant Communities of the Edwards
Plateau of Texas: An Overview Emphasiz­ing
the Balcones Escarpment Zone between
San Antonio and Austin with Special At­tention
to Landscape Contrasts and
Natural Diversity. lnThe Ba1cones Escarp­mrot
edited by Patrick L. Abbott and
C.M. Woodruff, Jr.
Shiner, Joel L.
1983 Large Springs and Early American
Indians. plains Anthropologist. 28:1-7.
Snavely, Ralph
1985 Archaeological Survey and Testing:
Castroville's Country Village, Unit One,
Medina County. Archaeological Survey
Report. No. 145., Center for Archaeolog­ical
Research, University of Texas at San
Antonio.
15
. ~
, I ... ;.
J~."" ,,:.
~
Figure 1. Chain mail tunic, ca. 1550
Spanish chapel de fer, ca. 1500
The artifacts in this and all succeeding photographs are on display at the Institute of Texan Cultures.
16
ARMS AND ARMOR IN SPANISH AMERICA
Phyllis McKenzie
During the sixteenth century, as conquistadors led
expeditions into America, armor was growing
obsolete in Europe. The mechanical crossbow,
introduced four centuries earlier, delivered suffi­cient
force to pierce armor. After 1550 firearms
became widely available on the European conti­nent.
Although these early firearms were slow and
dangerous to use, they could bring down an ar­mored
knight at a distance of a hundred yards. I
In the New World armor retained certain advantag­es,
at least in the early years before Native Ameri­cans
acquired firearms through trade. Armor
sufficed to deflect flint-tipped arrows. But in the
New World Spaniards encountered a mobile oppo­nent
who did not stay put on the field or play by the
rules of European warfare. Armor was hot to wear
in Sou thwestern clima tes and ham pered movemen t.
Shipment of supplies from Europe, including
replacement parts; was sporadic at best. On the
frontier multi-purpose tools quickly proved them­selves
more practical than specialized weapons like
a fencing ra pier.
Under these conditions am1S and arnlOr in New
Spain reflected European styles, but developed in
new directions dependent on local conditions. This
paper will explore some of these developments, with
reference to arn1S and armor on display at the
Institute of Texan Cultures.
Armor
When Coronado entered the Texas Panhandle in
1541, his foot soldiers wore chain mail tunics
similar to that in Figure 1. His cavalrymen were
more heavily armored, some very probably wearing
full suits of plate arn10r. Even the horses bore
protective plates over vulnerable parts of their
anatomy. This gear represented the owner's pride
and the culmination of centuries of evolving
technology.2
Expeditions moving through what would become
the southern U.S. found plate arnlor stifling to wear
17
as well as difficult to transpon. It dangerously re­stricted
movement. Eleven of De Soto's arn10red
men drowned when their canoe capsized in the
Mississippi.3
Chain mail worn by infantry was cooler and lighter
than plate armor, but it had problems of its own.
Six months were needed to fashion a mail tunic and
individually rivet its 250,000 links. Mail was diffi­cult
to repair when torn. Although chain mail
protected against cuts, it deformed when struck,
leaving the wearer vulnerable to bruises and broken
bones. Arrows sometimes splintered upon impact
and penetrated the small openings. The full weight
of a mail tunic (14 to 30 pounds) fell from the
shoulders, where links dug into the skin. To keep
these hot links from burning, soldiers wore cloth
gamlents underneath the mail.4
In Europe poorer classes of fighters, unable to
afford plate or mail, had long worn padded cloth
into battle. In the New World Spaniards noticed
that the Aztecs wore a type of padded cloth armor
that was as effective as steel against Indian arrows.
This inexpensive armor was soon widely copied and
issued to Spanish troops, particularly in Florida.5
By the time Spain established outposts in Texas in
the eighteenth century, frontier soldiers wore a
quilted leather armor several layers thick. From
this annor they became known as sofdlldos de
cuera.
Headgear
Like body armor, protective headgear was in a state
of transition when it was brought to America.
Completely enclosed helmets fell from favor in
Europe following the introduction of armor-pierc­ing
crossbows and muskets. These solid old hel­mets,
no longer impregnable, severely limited both
movement and vision . During the sixteenth century
several lightweight styles developed that permitted
greater movement and field of vision, while still
affording some measure of protection to the head.
Coronado's troops seem to have worn a variety of
helmets reflecting styles current in Europe.6 There
is some confusion due to the vagueness of the term
"helmet" in Spanish documents. The least well-to­do
soldiers simply wore steel skullcaps which they
lined with padding and placed under their hats.
Some infantry and light cavalry certainly wore
salades, an old close fitting helmet that hugged the
sides and top of the head. Sixteenth-century ver­sions
of the salade featured an open face with a
hinged visor that could be pulled down. Another
type of helmet popular in the early years of the
sixteenth century was the chapel de fer, which
literally means "iron hat." An elongated hemi­sphere
formed its crown, and a moderately wide
brim sloped downward without covering the lower
head (see Figure 1).
By 1550 several open helmet styles had developed
from the chapel de fer prototype. A cabasset,
looking rather like a half-melon standing on a plate,
had a minimal brinl that projected outward rather
than angled down. The boat-shaped marion fea­tured
a comb added to the crown and a brim turned
up into peaks above and behind the crown. In the
latter half of the sixteenth century a fonn combin­ing
features of the two, the morion-cabasset, ap­peared.
The final type of sixteenth-century open
helmet, the burgonet, featured a comb for the
crown and a broad brim extending over the eyes
7 only.
Officers' helmets were resplendently . decorated:
acid-etched, gilded, engraved. Common soldiers
lucky enough to afford a helmet typically possessed
only very plain examples.s Bluing was rubbed onto
both plain and fancy helmets ~s a design element
and to prevent rust (Figure 2).
Shjelds
Among specialized fighters accompanying early
Spanish expeditions were foot soldiers known as
targeteers. Targeteers carried a sword and a round
or oval shield ("target") made of steel or of lea ther
around a wood core. Common decorations includ­ed
Moorish designs like crescents and lightning
bolts. Shields had a boss in the center and some­times
a metal band ("sword breaker") designed to
catch and break the point of an adversary's
sword.tO
18
European armories of the sixteenth century offered
two lines of products: one for show, the other for
combat. The shield illustrated in Figure 3 is an
example of the former, or "parade" style. Engraved
in fancy Italian patterns, such a shield would stand
out in ceremonies yet be strong enough to with­stand
blows in tournaments.
Shields are cumbersome and useless in battles with
firearms. The fact that shields were still issued to
presidio soldiers in the eighteenth century indicates
that firearms . were not yet a decisive factor in
frontier conflict. Regulations of 1772 specify "a
shield not to vary from those already in use."ll
For Texas and most of the Spanish borderlands,
this was the leather adarga, several layers of
bullhide bound into a heart or double kidney shape
(a configuration borrowed from the Moors).
Frontier soldiers chose their own designs and
stitched them into the shield with leather laces. 12
Polearms
Conquistadors brought a number of polearms· to
America but relied principally on the halberd and
lance. The halberd was a versatile weapon devel­oped
by thirteenth-century Swiss mountaineers in
defense of their homeland. Its long shaft ended in
a point for thrusting; one edge held an axe head,
and other side had a hook that could pull a horse­man
from the saddle. By 1575 firearms had ren­dered
the halberd obsolete as a fighting weapon in
Europe. It evolved into a ceremonial object to
indicate rank, still carried, for example, by the
Pope's Swiss Guard. In America, where firearms
were minimal, halberds saw combat for at least
1 lJ anot 1er century.
The lance was issued to Spanish troops throughout
the Colonial period and became their trademark.
No other Europ,ean or Colonial anny carried the
lance regularly. 4 Spanish lances were typically 10-
14 feet in length and ended in a triangular leaf­shaped
point. Nornlally these points were forged
by local frontier smiths rather than imported from
Spain or Mexico.
Spaniards were heirs to a proud tradition of dexteri­ty
with the lance in hunting and fighting: It had
originated as the cavalryman's spear, served as a
boar-hunting weapon, and been instrumental in
Figure 2. Italian Morion with etched designs, ca. 1550
This morion is also pictured on the cover of the 1991 San Antonio telephone directory.
Figure 3. Italian shield, ca. 1575
19
driving the Moors from Spain. 15 In the New
World lances proved less useful, for Native Ameri­cans
employed hit-and-run tactics and rarely re­mained
for hand-to-hand fighting in the European
tradition. Nonetheless, proficiency with the lance
was so ingrained in the Spanish population that
lancers formed contingents of Mexican troops as
late as the Mexican War (1846).16
Swords
The basic weapon of a Spanish soldier was his
sword. Every man on military duty was required to
carry a sword whether or not he bore a firearm,
shield, or other amls.17 Sixteenth-century Span­iards
disseminated two types of edged weapons in
America: (1) the knightly sword; (2) the rapier. The
knightly sword, whose antecedents extended as far
back as the Viking era, was a sturdy weapon em­ployed
in cutting and whacking on horseback and
on foot. At times these s\vords approached six feet
in length, requiring both hands of an infantryman
to wield. 18 The rapier was a more graceful imple­ment
with slender blade. Early rapiers had a dual
cutting edge, but as the art of fencing developed in
Europe, edges became blunted and rudimentary.
During the same period rapier blades grew longer,
thinner and more rigid for better penetration, until
the rapier was a weapon intended only for thrust-
• 19 mg.
The hilts of rapier and sword developed along
parallel lines. Early swords had a simple cross
guard, large pommel and short grip. During the
sixteenth century the quillons of the hilt were bent
into a letter "S" shape, tipped slightly fonvard, and
augmented with iron branches. By 1575 thisconfig­uration
had become the "swept hilt," with a com­plex
swirl of counterguards to protect the hand and
balance the weight of the blade (see Figure 5).20
Swept hilts were attached to both rapier and sword.
In the seventeenth century the swept hilt gave way
to the cup hilt, with straight quillons and a hollow
iron cup for the hand. The cup hilt offered greater
hand protection and durability than the swept hilt,
but sacrificed some of its balance.21 The deepest
cup hilts were popular only in Italy, Spain and the
Spanish colonies. Grips were made of wood or
hom, often with checkered designs. Mounted
20
soldiers attached swept hilts to straight, long (30-
36"), double-edged sword blades. Foot soldiers
utilized swept hilts most often on rapier blades.
One version, the Caribbean cup-hilt rapier, attained
notoriety as the sword of pirates.22
.
i
,~
,h 1--
Figure 4. Cup-hilt sword and cup-hilt
rapier. On the rapier, the cup and
horn grip have fallen away, leaving
the rivets exposed.
Dating of Spanish bladed weapons is difficult due
to their amalgamated nature. When blades became
broken or worn, blacksmiths sinlply joined new
blades to older hilts. Some blades were forged in
the colonies, others imported. Spanish and Italian
blades enjoyed a reputation for quality and were
traded throughout Europe, where they were at­tached
to hilts by local craftsmen.23
While cavalry troops persisted in carrying the long
knightly blade and infantry adopted the slender
rapier, a new type of blade was developing among
civilians in Spanish colonies. During the seven­teenthcentury
these colonists used a medium-length
wide sword for hunting. This sword had practical
applications as a brush knife and wood axe as well
as a weapon (it was, in fact, the antecedent to the
modern machete). Blades produced in Oaxaca,
Mexico, frequently bore sun, moon, stars, and arm­with-
sword engravings. Some were incised with the
saying, Nomesaques SiI1I,1Z0n, nomeemb,7inessin
honoI ("Do not draw me without reason, do not
sheath me without honor"). Broken long sword
hilt blade
r -- ---------y- -_. --- "
forle foible
d r V \ d c-- f.l• • - .... =----------.:..(~~
point of' ".-reunion j d.
\.. e ge )
"1h. sword. is always a •• cribed in this position_ The sieie
towal'ei the viewer i. tho obvene siae. The otl-\eT is tlul reverse ~
capstan rivet • __
o-------pommel , "
grips -------
crU1lon .
1
ric:a.sso
al\l\ea\l,
SWEPT HIL'r ClU)SS GtMllD Wl'l'H ~NEAU
Figure 5. Development and terminology of the sword
From Harold L. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America. 1526-1783
21
blades were re-honed in the colonies and made into
24 shorter swords.
By the eighteenth century this short sword had
become a definite type, the Spanish espada ancha
(Figure 6). Typical features included a square grip,
a D-shaped knuckle guard, and a leaf or shell­shaped
ornament forged as part of the guard and
used to clip the sword to a belt. Most grips were of
horn (sometimes wood), bound on the sides by iron
strips riveted through the tang. Blades were short
and heavy, 18-26" in length and roughly 2" wide.
Some blades had a straight double edge, others had
a single edge that curved slightly upward.25 Regu­lations
of 1772 specified the espada ancha as the
official sword for presidio soldiers and attempted to
set standard sizes and weight. In practice most
swords of this period were made by local black­smiths
who produced individual variations in both
,blade and hilt.26
i
Figure 6. Two versions of the espadc'l anchc'l,
both made in New Spain, ca. 1800.
Fjreanns
Proudest and most vaunted weapons of the six­teenth-
century were fiream1s. During the early
years of this century, Europeans introduced their
newly developed matchlocks to America. Invento­ries
of the Coronado expedition show twenty-five
matchlock muskets carried by troops who wound
through New Mexico and Texas in 1540-41. The
22
musket, a heavy military gun developed in S~ain, is
first placed in America by these documents. 7
Firing a matchlock required bringing a match into
contact with priming powder. The gun emitted a
terrible flash ahd roar that instilled respect in all
comers. Nonetheless, the matchlock had serious
limitations: The lighted match set off deadly
explosions when it inadverten tly con tacted powder.
Sudden thunderstorms and heavy winds could
douse the flame and render the weapon useless. A
flame was easily visible at night, casting the soldier
into a target and making 'surprise attacks impossi­ble.
The 20-lb. matchlock required a forked rest to
hold it steady for aiming and firing. Reloading was
a slow, several-step procedure. Native Americans
soon learned to wait until the gun was fired once,
then attack while the hapless soldier struggled to re-
~8 load.-
European am1S manufacturers made efforts to
improve their wares. When Onate entered New
Mexico in 1598, he brought 15 new wheel-lock
muskets along with 19 older-model matchlocks.29
Invented in Germany as early as 1520, the wheel­lock
operated on the same principle as a modern
cigarette lighter: it produced a spark by pressing a
piece of pyrite against a revolving rough-edged
wheel. This was a much safer weapon than the
matchlock and easier to load. But the wheel mecha­nism
was complex and delicate, beyond the abilities
of a frontier novice to repair. Prohibitive prices
keep wheel-lock muskets from arriving in America
in large numbers. 30
By the seventeenth century European manufactur­ers
were producing a variety of flintlock firearms
that eventually displaced both matchlocks and
wheel locks. Cheaper and more durable than their
predecessors,3l flintlock weapons created a spark
by striking a piece of nint against a bar of steel.
Modern students recognize at least six varieties of
flintlock, some of Which were prototypes of later
versions and some of which were regional variations
(see Figure 7).32 The final form, or "true" flint­lock,
developed in France 1610-1615. One of the
regional variations, the miguelet lock, developed in
Spain in the mid-sixteenth century and spread from
there to Spanish colonies and to Italy. Heavier than
the French mechanism, the miguelet is considered
a "primitive" flintlock.33 Its distinguishing features
were a mainspring placed outside of the lock plate
and a ring on top of the hanmler to provide lever­age
for loosening the jaws and changing the flint.
With the introduction of relatively inexpensive and
versatile flintlocks, new gun styles proliferated in
Europe. These included pistols, carbines, blunder­busses,
fusils and fowlers, as well as new varieties of
musket. By the eighteenth century an amlS trade
flourished in the New World. But guns did not
prove to be a panacea in New World warfare. In
Europe the inaccuracy of early firearms mattered
little, for they were fired into a compact mass of
assembled enemy. In America few Native Ameri­cans
cared to stay the field for that kind of fight­ing.
34 What was needed in colonial fuearms was
long range accuracy.
I
."
Figure 8. Spanish miguelet lock pistol,
ca. 1800, of the type issued to
presidial soldiers.
Soldiers on the Spanish borderlands, forced to settle
for what could be procured, often carried amlS of
French or English manufacture.35 In 1772 and
again in 1791, Royal Regulations prescribed a
musket and a pair of pistols for presidial soldiers
and further specified the Spanish miguelet-Iock
firing mechanism (officials considered the French
lock too fragile for frontier use).36 In actuality,
sufficient quantities of firearms never reached the
frontier provinces during the Colonial period.
Ammunition ran in continual short supply, and
some shipments were of the wrong caliber for the
23
weapons at hand. Presidial soldiers, most of whom
were mestizos recruited on the frontier, were re­quired
to service their firearms themselves and to
pay for damage or loss. Yet they received little
training in maintenance and repair. Spare parts
were almost impossible to obtain. Soldiers were
billed for any gunpowder use in excess of their
three-pound allotment. Under these conditions
frontier soldiers placed little trust in whatever
firearms might be available to them. They relied on
the lance and sword as their fighting weapons until
the very end of the Colonial era. 37
(A) "True" (French) flintlock
(B) Spanish miguelet lock
Figure 7. From Harold L. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America. 1526-1783
24
~
l. Byron A. Johnson, "Arms and Annor of the
Spanish Conquest: A Brief Description." Unpub­lished
paper, Albuquerque Museum, 1988, p. 10.
2. Harold L. Peterson, Arms and Armor in
Colonjal America. 1526-1783 (New York: Bramhill
House, 1956), pp. 103, 106, 125.
3. Ibid., p. 103.
4. Ibid., pp. 107-108; Albuquerque Museum
exhibit, "Four Centuries: A History of Albuquer­que,"
copyright 1983, exhibit label #19, Mail
Hauberk, Europe, 16th century.
5. Peterson, AnTIS and Armor, pp. 124-125.
6. Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 110-112;
Albuquerque Museum exhibit, "Four Centuries: A
History of Albuquerque," exhibit labels #54, Hel­mets;
#55, Sallet and Bevor, Germany or Spain,
circa 1500; and #57, Archer's Sallet or Skullcap,
Italy, circa 1500.
7. Descriptions from Peterson, Arms and
Armor, pp. 113~ 115; Albuquerque Museum, "Four
Centuries: A History of Albuquerque," exhibit
labels #58, Morion, Gemlany, circa 1570-1590, and
#59, Cabasset, Europe, circa 1580.
8. Albuquerque Museum, "Four Centuries: A
History of Albuquerque," exhibit labels #60,
Burgonet, Italy, circa 1560, and #62, Morion,
Nurnberg, Gem1any, circa 1570.
9. Peterson, Arnls and Armor, p. 123.
10. Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 115-116;
Albuquerque Museum, "Four Centuries: A History
of Albuquerque," exhibit labels #48, Shields; #49,
Target or Buckler, Spain, circa 1500; and #50,
Target or Buckler, Italy, circa 1500.
11. Sidney B. Brinckerhoff and Odie Faulk,
Lancers for the King: A Study of the Frontier
Military System of Northern New Spain. with a
Translation of the Royal Regulations of 1772
(phoenix: Arizona Historical Foundation, 1965), p.
21.
?­-)
12. Odie B. Faulk and Laura E. Faulk, Defend­ers
of the Interior Provjnces: PresjdialSoldiers on
the Northern Frontier of New Spain (Albuquerque:
Albuquerque Museum, 1988), p. 59.
13. Johnson, "Anns and Annor of the Spanish
Conquest," p. 12; Albuquerque Museum, "Four
Centuries: A History of Albuquerque," exhibit
labels #20, Anns and Armor of the Conquistadors,
Halbardier ca. 1598, and #52, Halberd, Spain,
1644; Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 93-95.
14. Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 92-93.
15. Peterson, Arnls and Armor, p. 91; Albuquer­que
Museum, "Four Centuries: A History of Albu­querque,"
exhibit label #20, Anns and Annor of the
Conquistadors, Boar spear, Spain, circa 1500-1550;
Faulk and Faulk Defenders of the Interior Provjnc­e.
s, pp. 62-64.
16. Sidney B. Brinkerhoff and Pierce A. Cham­berlain,
Spanish Military Weapons in Colonial
America. 1700-1821 (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole
Books, 1972), p. 108.
17. Peterson, Arms and Annor, p. 69.
18. Albuquerque Museum, "Four Centuries: A
History of Albuquerque," exhibit label #29, Two­handed
Sword, Gem1any, circa 1475-1525.
19. Peterson, Arms and ArmQr, pr. 69-71; John­son,
"Arms and Armor of the Spanish Conquest,"
p.8.
20. Peterson, Arms and Armor, p. 73; Albuquer­que
Museum, "Four Centuries: A History of Albu­querque,"
exhibit label #30, Swept-hilt Rapier,
Spain, circa 1550-1575.
21. Albuquerque Museum, "Four Centuries: A
History of Albuquerque," exhibit labels #28,
Swords, and #31, Cup-hilt Rapier, Spain, circa
1650-1670.
22. Brinkerhoff and Chamberlain, Spanish
Military Weapons in Colonial Amerjca, pp. 72-74;
Albuquerque Museum, "Four Centuries: A History
of Albuquerque," exhibit labels #28, Swords, and
#31, Cup-hilt Rapier, Spain, circa 1650-1670.
23. Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 84-85;
BrinkerhoIT and Chamberlain, Spanish Military
Weapons, p. 72-73.
24. BrinkerhoIT and Chamberlain, Spanish
Military Weapons, pp. 74-75; Albuquerque Muse­um,
"Four Centuries: A History of Albuquerque,"
exhibit label #32, Espada Ancha, circa 1700-1750.
25. Descriptions of espadas anc.:·has from
Brinkerhoff and Chamberlain, Spanish Military
Weapons, pp. 74-76; Faulk and Faulk, Defenders
of the Interior Provjnces, p. 61; Marc Simmons and
Frank Turley, Southwestern Colonial Ironwork:
The Spanish Blacksmithing Tradition form Texas
to California (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico
Press, 1980), p. 176; Albuquerque Museum, "Four
Centuries: A History of Albuquerque," exhibit label
#32, Espada Ancha, New Spain, circa 1700-1750.
26. Faulk and Faulk, Defenders of the Interior
Provinces, p. 61.
27. Albuquerque Museum, "Four Centuries: A
History of Albuquerque," exhibit label #45, Match­lock
and Wheel Lock Firearms; Peterson, Arms and
Armor, p. 18.
28. Description of matchlock's disadvantages
from Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 14-17, 19-20;
Albuquerque Museum, "Four Centuries: A History
of Albuquerque," exhibit label #45, Matchlock and
Wheel Lock Firearms.
29. Peterson, Arms and Armor, p. 25.
30. Peterson~ Am)s and Armor, p. 22; Albuquer­que
Museum,"Four Centuries: A History of Albu­querque,"
exhibit label #45, Matchlock and Wheel
Lock Firearms.
31. Johnson, "Arms and Armor of the Spanish
Conquest," p. 12.
32. Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 25-26.
33. Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 32, 35.
34. Peterson, Arms and Armor, pp. 5,160-162.
35. Faulk and Faulk, Defenders of the Interior
26
Provinces, p. 64.
36. Faulk and Faulk, Defenders of the Interior
Provinces, pp. 64-66; BrinckerhoIT and Chamber­lain,
Spanish Military Weapons, pp. 31,49.
37. Descriptions of frontier conditions from
BrinckerhofT and Chamberlain, Spanish Military
Weapons, pp. 18-19; Faulk and Faulk, Defenders
of the Interior provjnces, pp. 68-69, 72-74; Peter­son,
Arms and Arnlor, p. 5.
N
Nacogdoches.
TEXAS
• Valle de "
5mb Rosa
~ Mondova •
~ Lampazos
u
Zacatecas •
• San Luis PotOSI
Queretaro •
Mexico City •
~
Gulf
of
Mexico
o 100 200 MILES , ,
o 100 200 KILOMETERS
27
ROOTS OF TEJANO DISSATISFACTION WITH MEXICAN RULE
Gerald E. Poyo
Introduction
In recent years, historians have acknowledged
Tejano participation alongside Anglo Americans in
the Texas rebellion of 1836. While this attention to
Tejano involvement represents an important his tor­iographic
advance that begins to lend balance to the
traditional Anglophile interpretation of the rebel­lion,
the focus has been for the most part limited to
biogra phical approaches that highlight the activi ties
of individuals without providing a broader under­standing
of why Tejanos--Mexicans--would have
joined a rebellion instigated by Anglo Americans
against Mexico. Unfortunately, the glaring lack of
research on the Tejano community during the
Mexican period does not allow for a definitive
answer at the moment, but research on the late
Spanish period provides some exciting clues about
patterns of relationships between Texas and the
Mexican heartland that appear to have continued
after Mexican independence from Spain. Only
further research on Mexican Texas can confirm
whether these patterns continued and, in fact, do
offer a viable explanation for Tejano participation;
my purpose here is to suggest what these patterns
were and how they originated.
San Antonio de Bexar:
From Buffer Settlement to Community
On the eve of the death of Spain's reformist mon­arch
Charles III in 1789, in the distant and obscure
colonial province of Texas, two prominent residents
of San Antonio de Bexar, don Juan Flores and don
Marcario Sambrano, presented the interim
governor, don Rafael Martinez Pacheco, with an
official memorial signed by the cabildo, or town
council. Speaking in the name of "our town and the
citizenry of jurisdiction," the documen t announced
the cabildo's intention and obligation to "defend
[the community's] rights and possessions, as we
have defended and protected them up to now."l
And indeed, since its foundation in 1731, the
cabildo had always guarded local interests with
considerable effectiveness. It was during the years
28
of Charles III, however, that political and economic
developinents in the Spanish empire and in Texas
initiated a process of change that placed Crown
authority and local autonomy at odds. The memo­rial
presented to governor Martinez Pacheco by
councilmen Flores and Sambrano reflected a specif­ic
grievance, but the document also clearly ex­pressed
community solidarity in the face of expand­ing
Crown influence over local affairs. While this
divergence of local and Crown interests emerged
dramatically during the 1770s-1790s, the patterns
persisted, outlasted the eighteenth century and
brought severe complications to Texas within the
next twenty or thirty years.
The establishment during the first third of the
eighteenth century of the province of Texas and its
early settlements--Los Adaes, La Bahia, and San
Antonio de Bexar--responded primarily to French
encroachments in the northeastern regions of New
Spain. Interested in defending their prosperous
Mexican heartland from European rivals, Spanish
authorities founded the presidio of Los Adaes and
several missions on the Louisiana frontier. To link
these communities with Mexico, officials ordered
the establishment of a settlement along the San
Antonio river.
Founded in 1718, the settlement of San Antonio de
Bexar began as a mission and presidio outpost.
Within fifteen years, four additional missions and a
civil settlement, San Fernando de Bexar, \','ere built
along the banks of the river, converting the region
into Texas' most populous. The settlement grew
rapidly during the next fifty years," In 1777, 1,351
individuals lived in the civilian and presidio com­munities
and another 709 resided in the five mis-
. 3 slons.
While the Crown founded Bexar as a buffer settle­ment
to defend the northeastern reaches of New
Spain from French encroachment, the town natu­rally
took on a life of its own, with its particular
traditions and identity. During the five decades
after Bexar's foundation the inhabitants developed
a sense of belonging to the region and they increas­ingly
shared aspirations and goals .that did not
always conform to the Crown's strategic objectives.
This sense of community emerged only slowly
among the residents however. Indeed, the settlers
along the San Antonio River did not initially form
a cohesive community. Administered by Francis­can
priests, the missions constituted independent
social units designed as pueblos for Texas Indians.
Mexican frontiersmen from Saltillo, Monterrey and
other northern territories of New Spain garrisoned
the presidio, while immigrants from the Canary
Islands founded the formal town of San Fernando
de Bexar. Despite their physical proximity and
shared allegiance to Crown objectives, as a practical
matter, in 1731 the three principal population
groups competed more than they cooperated. In
fact, initially each group sought exclusivity rather
than interdependence and a vision of a common
future.
In time, however, cultural integration, social ac­commodation,
similar economic interests and
political convergence contributed to the emergence
of a sense of community. The strict divisions that
initially separated the ethnic groups slowly dimin­ished.
Intemlarriage and other kinship ties linked
the Canary Islanders and the members of the
presidio community creating a mestizo elite by the
final third of the eighteenth century. Furthermore,
cultural traditions based on the local agricultural
and ranching economy gave local residents a sense
of unity that overcame the sharp differences in
heritage that existed when various groups first
arrived. 4
The ranching economy particularly tied the local
residents to a sin1ilar economic vision and destiny.
By the 1770s, Bexar had developed a relatively
lucrative ranching industry which relied on markets
in Coahuila and Louisiana.s
The development of Bexar's culturaIIy distinct and
self-sufficient frontier lifestyle led to relative pol iti­cal
autonomy. Located deep in New Spain's north­eastern
frontier where they daily faced the realities
of a hard and isolated life, Bexar's residents grew
used to self-government. Although members of the
cabildo and the presidio captain naturally identified
with the Spanish empire and its political stnlctures,
29
they also developed a certain independence of
action aimed at maximizing community interests.
These officials oversaw affairs in Bexar, often com­pletely
autonomous of the governors who usually '
resided in Los Adaes and concerned themselves
with monitoring the French presence on the Texas­Louisiana
border.6 This resulted in a population
in1bued with an independent spirit that eventually
came into conflict with a rapidly changing Spanish
empire intent on centralizing power and reforming
its economic system.
Winds of Reform in New Spain
By the tin1e Charles III assumed the Spanish
throne, the people of Bexar had developed their
own way of life and grown used to conducting their
local affairs with minimal interference from the
Crown. Their original commitment to advancing
Crown objectives by acting as a buffer to French
expansionism into the heart of New Spain had been
complemented by a desire to promote their local
community. At the same tinle, developments in
Spain initiated a political process that impinged on
the autonomy of the local populations in the Amer­ican
colonies.
With the passing of the last Spanish Hapsburg at
the end of the seven teenth century, Spain embarked
on a period of in1perial reevaluation under the
French Bourbon dynasty. Spain suffered from
declining commerce, inefficient bureaucracies, and
regional conflict that undernlined its status as a
European power. Spanish reformers responded by
attempting to solidify Crown authority and seeking
solutions to the persistent and dangerous problems
on the Iberian Peninsula. The Bourbon monarchs
sought to create a more efficient and effective
government, a prosperous economic system, and a
society rooted in secular ideas. Reforms had swept
through Spain by the 1740s, but their extension to
the American colonies did not occur in a systematic
fashion until the ascension to the throne of Charles
III in 1759.
Reforms received a special boost in New Spain
during the tin1e of Jose de Galvez who traveled to
Mexico in 1765 to report on the sta te of the colony
for the Spanish monarch. G,llvez arrived with the
authority to inlplement reforms and he quickly
launched an all out attack on what he considered to
-
be a sluggish system controlled by entrenched
interests dedicated to their own prosperity, often at
the expense of the Crown. Experimentation and
change thus characterized the final half of the
eighteenth century during which, for better or for
worse, crown authority asserted itsele
The Crown's interest in reform also affected Texas
and the rest of the northern provinces. Policy
concerns continued to be primarily defense related
and influenced by dramatic changes in international
conditions. The end of the Seven Years' War in
1764 altered borders considerably in North Ameri­ca.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, Spain
ceded Florida to Great Britain in return for Havana
and Manila which had been occupied during the
war. Spain received Louisiana from France, and
British sovereignty extended to the Mississippi.
Moreover, the Russians had become active in the
Aleutian Islands and posed a threat to Spain's
control over California. Finally, increased hostili­ties
with the Indians affected Spain's defense capa­bilities
which threatened to destroy altogether the
Spanish presence in these northern regions.
In response to these developments, Galvez ordered
an inspection of the northern provinces and reorga­nized
the frontier defense system in 1772. This led
four years later to the establishment of the northern
provinces as an independent administrative unit,
the Provincias Internas, governed by a Comandant
General responsible directly to the Council of the
Indies in Spain.8 The impact on Texas was signifi­cant.
The 1772 reorganization eliminated the East
Texas presidio of Los Adaes and its associated
m1SS10n. With Louisiana safely under Spain's
control, the community of Los Adaes no longer
seemed necessary to Crown officials. Most of the
area's residents relocated in Bexar, as did the
governor, making the central Texas community the
provincial capital. For the first time the local
cabildo had to contend with a resident governor
whose presence and Bourbon-inspired authority
challenged the comm uni ty' s independen t tradito ns. 9
The Struggle for Political Authority;
Goyernor ys Cabildo
The governor's transfer to Bexar might not have
caused significant problems in earlier years when
the officials often winked at Crown regulations and
30
prohibitions, but the reform mentality of the 1760s
and 1770s brought a new breed of Spanish bureau­crat
to Texas. Governors dedicated to Crown goals
and trained in the autocratic and reform philosophy
of the Bourbons appeared in Texas where they
asserted the power and prerogatives ofoffice. lo The
governors immediately came into conflict with the
local cabildo.
Since 1731 Bexar's Canary Islander founders had
used their cabildo offices to attain a privileged
social and economic position with the community.
On arriving in Bexar, ten Islanders, or Islenos had
received life appointments to govern the villa. Six
regidores(councilmen), an aJgu~7cil(constable), an
escribano (notary), a JJwyordomo (overseer of
lands), and a procuradoI (legal officer) annually
selected the two alcaJdes ordiJJarios (regular magis­trates)
who ruled on the legalities of community
life. I I Initially, the only non-Isleno in a position of
authority in the cabildo was the presidio captain,
who served as justicia mayor (senior magistrate).
The precise powers of that office are not clear since
daily administrative and legal activities seem to
have been handled by the regular magistrates, but
the office did moderate Isleno power to some
11 degree. -
While technically subservien t to the governor in Los
Adaes, in fact the cabildo ruled in Bexar. One way
or another the council usually had its way. Despite
the wishes of some governors to the contrary,
Islenos, for example, used the cabildo to ensure
control over economic resources. The council
successfully side-stepped viceregal rulings in 1734,
and again in 1745, decreeing that land and water be
distributed for use among all the town's residents. I:;
In later years, others in the community became part
of the ruling elite and also llsed their influence in
the cabildo to promote their status in Bexar.1-l
Those governors who did aspire to some influnece
in Bexar cooperated with the cabildo. Too far away
to manage the town's affairs on a daily basis and
preoccupied with the French presence on the Texas
border, governors through the 1750s did not often
contradict Bexar's leading citizens.
Beginning in the 1760s, however, governors began
to abandon their passive posture. This began with
Governor Angel Martos y Navarrete's inspection
tour of Texas in 1762. During his stay in Bexar the
-
governor received numerous petitions from settlers
demanding access to agricultural lands. Discover­ing
the cabildo's obvious disregard for long-stand­ing
viceregal decrees relating to land distributions,
the governor ordered that residential land grants be
alloted to needy citizens from the town's communal
holdings north of the town plaza. The governor
also reaffirmed the right of settlers to construct a
new dam on the San Antonio river, to dig another
irrigation system, and to expand the settlement's
agricultural lands. This was a direct assault on the
cabildo's de facto authority to regulate the expan­sion
ofirrigable agricultural lands in Bexar. Several
prominent meplbers of the cabildo openly objected
to the action, causing the governor to threa ten them
with removal from office if they did not cease their
"civil disturbances.,,15
Thus, gubernatorial authority had already partially
asserted itself when Colonel Juan Maria Vicencio
de Ripperda arrived in Bexar during 1770 to take
up the task of ruling Texas. A native of Madrid
steeped in Bourbon traditions of refonn and regal
authority, Ripperda set out to "inlprove" govern­ment,
economy, and society in Texas. On inspect­ing
the province, the new governor quickly discov­ered
that local practices did not always confom1 to
Crown military and civilian regulations. Presum­ably
interested in impressing his superiors so as to
reduce his time in the purgatory that was Texas,
Ripperda and his successor Domingo Cabello
exhibited an uncompromising attitude toward the
population's less than orthodox interpretations of
royal law.
Furthermore, these Crown officials often expressed
open disdain for what they considered to be a crude
Texas society. Such attitudes were not uncommon
among Spanish state and church officials who
visited the northern frontiers . In writing about
Bexar, for example, Franciscan priest Juan Agustin
Modi, who accompanied one official inspection
tour, characterized the people as "indolent and
given to vice" and thus "not deserving of the bless­ings
of the land.,,16 Mor1i expressed a basic aversion
to frontier life and he criticized a previous governor
mightily for living "among the Indians at Los Adaes
with so little pride that in his dress and manners he
resembled one of them more than the commander
and governor.,,17
32
Ripperda reacted similarly when he observed what
he considered to be an unindustrious populace
consumed by vice. Believing they needed a firm
rule to establish acceptable standards, Ripperda
challenged the local elites to serve as examples for
the rest of the population. Shortly after arriving,
the new governor took steps to promote agricultur­al
production. He also attempted to reduce what he
perceived to be the residents' indolence. To this end
he enforced regulations against local production of
alcoholic beverages by ordering all stills destroyed.
Further, he initiated the practice of inspecting local
reserves of aguardiente, an alcoholic beverage. In
a particularly humiliating affair for constable
Vicente Alvarez Travieso and several other promi­nent
residents, Governor Ripperda ordered their
aguardiente tested for purity. An investigation
revealed that the constable and several other citi­zens,
who apparently sold agllardienle out of their
homes, not only overcharged their customers but
also adulterated the drink. The Governor warned
the offending residents to heed the established
standards and fined them for their excesses.18
Much to the governor's dismay, however, the local
residents in Bexar jealously guarded their way of
life and demonstrated refined skills in utilizing the
Spanish bureaucratic system to derail or at least
delay the implementation of measures they deemed
detrimental to their interests. The governor re­ceived
a taste of local defiance when he attempted
to extend his authority in the political arena during
1771. He confron ted the cabildo on an issue tha t,
for the local population, took on an in1portance far
beyond its immediate practical significance. In­deed,
the disagreement symbolized the clash of
interests between Crown and local objectives which
became a central dinlension of politics in Texas
during the reign of Charles III and beyond.
One of Governor Ripperda's first acts on arrriving
in Texas was to prepare a report to the viceroy
describing conditions in the province. Among other
things, he pointed out that the barracks and guard­house
were in an advanced state of deterioration
and he asked for ten thousand pesos to rebuild the
structures. The viceroy refused to provide the
money "because it is the obligation of the ... popula­tion
of the villa and presidio ... to build the said
palisade or fortification ." 17 The Governor in­formed
Bexar's residents of their obligation and
ordered that they lend their services to the task.
The cabildo immediately objected and reacted in its
time honored fashion to an order it did not intend
to obey: it petitioned the viceroy for relief. The
petition informed the authorities in Mexico City
that the residents had always cooperated with all
reasonable requests from Crown representatives. In
this case, however, the governor's requirements
created excessive hardship. "He has forced them
[the residents] to personally transport in their own
wagons, pulled by their own oxen, beams and
rocks, in order to build the barracks ... and the jail
now in construction."18 The problem, the cabildo
argued, is that "this new imposition .. .is not allowin&
them any time for the cultivation of their lands."
The petition also complained of the poor tinling of
the decree, issued just as the residents needed to be
seeding their lands. Moreover, the lack of compen­sation
for their work was unjust. The cabildo
succeeded in stalling implementation. To its de­ligh
t, officials in Mexico City accepted their protes­tations
and advised the viceroy to instruct governor
Ripperda to negotiate terms \vith the cabildo for
building the barracks and jail.20
Despite efforts by viceregal officials to encourage a
compromise, the cabildo refused to cooperate on
the grounds that any such work had to be compen­sated
financially. Finally, losing all patience,
Ripperda suspended the cabildo members from
office, only to be reprimanded by Viceroy Antonio
Bucareli for overstepping his authority. Bucareli
ordered the governor to restore the cabildo and
encouraged him to find a "peaceful" and satisfacto­ry
solution to the problem.2l No doubt frustrated
by the cabildo's ability to maintain its position
through constant appeals and litigation, Ripperda
finally tired. The barracks and jail remained in
disrepair.
Ripperda's successor, Governor Cabello launched
a second effort to build the barracks and jail in
1785. Dusting off the viceregal order of 1771 to
reconstruct the barracks and jail, the governor
ordered the cabildo to select individuals to trans­port
boards and beams on carts and to choose
others to assist in the construction, "to which the
troops will contribute as much as is necessary."
Again the cabildo refused. This time the governor
arrested the council members. Despite the gover-
33
nor's actions, the town leaders continued to insist
that they were under no obligation to work for the
governor without compensation.22 Apparently,
Cabello never succeeded in having the barracks
constructed before he departed for a new position
in Havana in 1786.
While Governors Ripperda and Cabello never
managed to intimidate the cabildo and force it to
accept their authority beyond the rhetorical level,
they did initiate a process that led eventually to the
SUbjugation of the cabildo to gubernatorial authori­ty.
Despite the council's constant resistance, gover­nors
after Cabello expanded their authority
throughout the 1790s and another series of disputes
after 1800 finally led to the cabildo's demise. In
May 1807, Governor Manuel de Salcedo received a
ruling from his superiors that, in fact, the cabildo of
San Antonio de Bexar had no legal standing.
According to the ruling, Bexar had been given the
right to establish a cabildo, but the institution had
. never actually been confirn1ed. The citizens had no
recourse and the governor received the authority to
function with or without a council, as he saw fit.
After over seven ty years of continuity and tradition,
Bexar's local governing body had been stripped of
all authority. Salcedo proceeded to reduce the
number of cabildo of!icers from ten to five, and in
December 1808 he elimina ted elections altogether in
favor of an appointed body.23
Economic Reform and Commercial Restriction
This political struggle in Bexar evolved from the
governors' insistence on exercising their authority;
an attitude that was consistent with their under­standing
of the entire thrust of royal policy during
the reign of Charles III. On the other hand, eco­nomic
reforms enacted during the same period \vere
less a result of direct gubernatorial initiatives than
of the political reorganization of the northern
frontier areas. The crea tion of the Provincias
lnternas in the 1770s was in.part calculated to place
the burden of economic accountability on regional
of!icials. Charged \vith establishing security on the
frontier without increasing Crown expenditures,
regional officials looked to the local communities
for solutions.
Until about the 1760s, Bexar had little to offer the
Crown economically and the local residents went
-
-
about their business with a minimum of interference
from governors or other outside officials. Initially,
Bexar's settlers concentrated on agricultural pur­suits
and an intricate acequia, or irrigation system
provided the basis for farming in the civilian and
mission communities. Later, however, ranching
became the most important economic activity. The
missions fIrst exploited the cattle resources in Texas
on their extensive lands between Bexar and the
settlement of La Bahia to the south. Franciscan
friars and Indian vaqueros pursued what became a
relatively lucrative enterprise of rounding up cattle
that roamed freely on mission and surrounding
lands. Civilian settlers also requested and received
ranching lands during the 1740s and 1750s. By the
1770s they were full partners in a thriving ranching
economy.
Predictably, however, competItIon between the
missions and civilian ranchers for control of cattle
became the province's most difficult political
problem. Settlers struggled to restrain the physical
growth of missions by opposing their requests for
additional lands. Moreover, they often took the
liberty of rounding up cattle on mission ranches. 2~
Perhaps exasperated at his inability to subdue the
cabildo on the barracks construction issue,
Ripperda prosecuted several prominent ranchers
and leading citizens for trespassing on mission lands
and appropriating cattle illegally. A bitter trial that
lasted for some seven months resulted in their
convictions and set the stage for stronger actions
than even Ripperda himself had contemplated.25
During late 1777, Teodoro de Croix, Commandan t
General of the Provincias Internas, arrived in Bexar
on an inspection tour. Preoccupied prin1arily with
developing an effective Indian policy in Texas, he
met in Bexar with Ripperda, Captain Luis Cazorla
of Presidio La Bahia and Captain Rafael Martinez
Pacheco of the Presido La Babia. Much to his
distress, however, Croix found himself having to
lend his attention to an' angry populace seeking
clarification on the land and ranching issues.
Petition after petition from missionaries and local
ranchers crossed Croix's desk seeking redress of one
kind or another.26
The central and recurring theme was lack of defini­tion
regarding the ownership of the province's stray
cattle herds. Croix listened to the concerns of the
34
inhabitants, studied the problem, and concluded
that a regulatory action in the spirit of the Bourbon
reforms could simultaneously solve a number of the
issues in question. In January 1778, Croix stunned
the community with a decree declaring all stray
cattle and horses in province the property of the
king. In addition, the decree ordered officials to
regulate and tax the cattle industry and apply the
funds to local Indian affairs. Furthermore, regula­tion
protected the wild herds from destruction
through the unrestrained exploitation by local
ranchers and presumably removed the main source
of controversy between the missionaries and the
civilian ranchers.27
The ranchers and missionaries, however, viewed the
action as an unprecedented Crown imposition on
their long-standing rights and traditions. They
insisted that "we, the inhabitants of the villa of San
Fernando and the presidios of Bexar and Bahia,
plus the Indians of these missions, are, have been,
and always shall be the recognized owners of the
cattle and horses found on the pastures between
here and the Guadalupe River, which we have
possessed in good faith for the past sixty or seventy
years.,,28 Historically in competition and conflict
over local resources, missionaries, soldiers, and
civilians pooled their energies for the first time to
try to overturn the ruling. Decision after decision,
however, confirmed and extended the Crown's
authority over Texas' ranching industry.29
Despite the Crown's firm intention, local residents
violated the new ranching regulations with some
frequency. Left with the task of enforcement,
Governors Ripperda and Cabello incurred the
wrath of Bexarenos. The governors brought nu­merous
indictments against the local ranchers who
refused to obey the new cattle regulations. One
prominent family, the Menchacas, particularly
suffered the consequences of attempting to main­tain
their traditional way oflife. Among the oldest
of Bexar's families, the Menchacas participated in
the founding of the presidio in 1718. Luis Antonio
Menchaca launched his family into ranching in the
1750s and served as captain of the presidio in the
1760s. By the late 1770s, Menchaca was probably
the most successful rancher in the province. Ac­cording
to the 1777 census, he owned about three
thousand cattle, horses, goats, sheep, and mules.
Furthermore, he and other family members
(
regularly served in the cabildo. \Vhen Governor
Cabello arrested several of the Menchaca family for
illegally rounding up and exporting cattle, he
challenged one of the region's most influential
families. In time, the Menchacas and others suf­fered
economically for their defiant attitude, which
accounts for their active opposition to Spain during
the turbulent times after 1810.30
The resentment in Bexar over the ranching regula­tions
became even more intense as a result of the
Crown's inconsistent policy with regard to com­merce.
For generations the Spanish Crown had
embraced mercantilistic economic philosophy and
prohibited free trade. Only designated American
ports traded with Spain and commercial interac­tions
between the colonies and foreign powers was
absolutely forbidden. Despite Spain's inflexible
commercial policies, settlers on East Texas' frontier
engaged in illegal trade with French Louisiana from
the moment the communities formed. Initially
trade was modest but necessary for Los Adaes' very
survival since supplies did not usually arrive in a
timely fashion from Mexico. This trade grew with
the development of Bexar's ranching economy.
Bexar's ranchers marketed their ca ttle and horses in
Louisiana and in return received tobacco and
European manufactured goods.)l While this trade
proved lucrative, it was also troublesome for Texas'
residents since they always risked arrest. Fortu­nately,
many Texas governors understood the
importance of this trade to the province's survival.
Some ignored the illegal trade while others partici­pated.
Before the 1750s, an understanding existed
between the people and their governors.
Al though the international develo pm en ts tha t made
Louisiana part of the Spanish empire in 1762
offered the possibility of regularizing Texas-Louisi­ana
trade, commercial reforms were not forthcom­ing.
Texas' inhabitants could understand and
accept, though not obey, Spanish trade prohibitions
when Louisiana belonged to the French, but after
the mid-1760s Texans increasingly resented such
restrictions. Not only was Louisiana no\\' a part of
the Spanish empire, but during that decade the
Crown had embarked on an ambitious policy of
liberalizing commercial arrangements throughout
the Americas. In 1765, Spain allowed trade be­tween
Cuba, other Caribbean ports, and several
Spanish cities. This trend continued until 1789
36
when Spain allowed free trade across the entire
American colonial empire. Even New Orleans
received the privilege of trading directly with Spain,
a commercial reform that proved to be an economic
boon for Louisiana.
On the margins of the empire, however, Texas did
not exercise sufficient influence to change its situa­tion
despite the efforts of some Crown officials. In
1783, for example, Teodoro de Croix urged officials
in Mexico City to allow trade between Texas and
Louisiana. Furthermore, he recommended that a
seaport be licensed on the Texas coast. He received
support from Jose de Galvez, now Minister of the
Indies in Spain. Galvez pointed out that the only
way to ensure Spanish control of the borderlands
provinces in the face of an expanding and aggres­sive
Anglo-American frontier was by encouraging
Texas' economic development. Officials who
formulated New Spain's commercial policies did
not agree. They argued that New Spain depended
heavily on the pastoral and agricultural products of
the northern provinces, which Louisiana trade
would syphon off. Probably interested in winning
friends in Mexico City, Texas Governor Cabello
agreed and, perhaps more to the point, added that
trade with Louisiana would create competition for
central Mexico's merchants. The entrenched
merchant class of Ivlexico City and Vera Cmz
feared that free trade \V'ith Louisiana and the estab­lishment
of a Texas port might undem1ine their
long-standing commercial monopoly in northern
New Spain. No doubt they made their views
known to the king, who maintained the status
quO .)2
During the last thirty years of the century, Crown
officials in Texas had little choice but to enforce the
trade prohibition. The lax attitude with regard to
trade regulations that existed before the 1750s gave
way to a more inflexible position by the 1770s. In
fact, during 1750s and 1760s at least two Texas
governor's fell victim to prosecution for their in­volvement
in illegal commerce. Probably cognizan t
of the fate of their predecessors, Governors
Ripperda and Cabello spent considerable energy
keeping contraband under control. 33 In response to
a royal cedula, during the 1770s and 1780s the two
governors named agents to watch for contrc7blwd­jStc7S.
34 All concerned received direct rewards [or
apprehensions. In one case, an auction netted four
hundred and ninety-one pesos and four reales from
contraband items, which was partially distributed
among the governor, the contraband official, the
apprehenders, and the informer. The remainder
was deposited with the presidio paymaster to
purchase playing cards. 35 Smuggling between Texas
and Louisiana never ceased and instead grew
throughout the period of Spanish rule. The trade
prohibitions restricted the province'S economic
growth and served as a constant source of friction
between the local residents and their governors.
Conclusion
During the la te eigh teen th cen tury, Bexa r' s rela tio n­ship
with the Spanish Crown suffered a period of
considerable stress. Bexar's socioeconomic devel­opment,
cultural affinities, and political autonomy
combined to create an awareness among its inhabit­ants
that, although they comprised part of the
Spanish empire, their local and regional traits and
interests often conflicted with the broader objectives
of the Crown and other power centers in New
Spain. This contradiction between local and out­side
interests and objectives became a major theme
in Bexar's development during the following half
century and was expressed in the 1813 rebellion
against Spanish rule and the 1836 revolt against
Mexican rule. Though each of these conflicts must
be understood within their own context, the central
theme in each conflict was local antagonism against
the damaging economic effects of outside rule. The
Crown's efforts to establish a stronger presence in
New Spain during the 1770s and 1780s · set into
motion a pattern of relations that ultimately result­ed
in the emergence of political separatism in Texas.
37
~
1. "Memorial from the governmen t of the villa of
San Fernando and the Royal Presidio of San
Antonio de Bexar to Governor Martinez Pacheco,
regarding the people's right to the mesteiIa horses
and cattle to Texas," Bexar Archives Translations
(hereafter BAT), vol. 150, 1787,2.
2. For the most detailed narrative discussions of
the establishment and settlement of the Province of
Texas see Herbert Eugene Bolton, Texas in the
Middle of the Eighteenth Century (Austin, Univer­sity
of Texas Press, 1970) and Carlos E.
Canstaneda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas. 1519-
l23..6., 7 vols. (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones
Company, 1936-1958), see volumes 1 and 2. For
informa tion on the establishment and demographic
growth of San Antonio during the eighteenth
century see Jesus F. De La Teja, "Land and Society
in 18th Century San Antonio de Bexar: A Commu­nity
on New Spain's Northern Frontier," (PhD
dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1988),
73-88.
3. "Estado General de la Tropa de el Presidio de
San Antonio de Bexar y Vecindario de la Villa de
San Fernando," Archivo General de Indias,
Audiencia de Guadalajara, Legazo 283. See also
Alicia V. Tjarks, "Comparative Demographic
Anal ysis of Texas, 1777-1793," South western
Historical Quarterly, 77:3 (January 1974),302-303,
table 1.
4. For a detailed discussion of this process see
Gerald E. Po yo and Gilberto M. Hinojosa, eds.
Tejano Origins in Eighteenth Century San Antonio
(Austin: University of Texas Press for the Institute
of Texan Cultures, 1991).
5. On the development of the cattle industry in
Texas see Jack Jackson, Los Mestenos: Spanish
Ranching in Texas. ]721-]82] (CoJlege Station:
Texas A & M University Press, 1986).
6. See Poyo and Hinojosa, eds., Tejano Origins in
Eighteenth Century San Antonio.
7. On the Bourbon Reforms see James Lockhart
and Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Latin America: A
History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil
-
-
-
-
-
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983),
315-368 and Colin M. MacLachlan and Jaime E.
Rodriguez O. The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A
Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1980),251-293.
8. Max L. Moorehead, The Presidio: Bastion of
the Spanish Borderlands (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1975),47-74.
9. On the withdrawal from Los Adaes see
Castaneda, Our Catholic Heritage, IV, 273-302.
10. Governors that fit this description for Texas
during the reign of Charles III were Hugo O'Conor,
1767-1770; Juan Maria Vincencio de Ripperda,
1770-1778; and Domingo Cabello, 1778-1786. On
these governors see Paige W. Christiansen, "Hugo
O'Conor: Spanish-Indian Relations on the Fron­tiers
of New Spain, 1771-1776" (University of
California, Berkley, PhD dissertation, 1960); Fritz
Hoffman, "The First Three Years of the Adminis­tration
of Juan Maria Baron de Ripperda, Gover­nor
of Texas 1770-1773," (University of Texas at
Austin, Master's Thesis, 1928); Helen Dixon, "The
Middle Years of the Administration of Juan Maria
Baron de Ripperda, Governor of Texas, 1773-177 5"
(University of Texas at Austin, Master's Thesis,
1934); Odie B. Faulk, "Texas During the Adminis­tration
of Governor Domingo Cabello y Robles,
1778-1786" (Texas Technological University, PhD
Dissertation, 1960).
11. For a discussion of the functions of these
offices see l\'lattie Alice Austin, "The Municipal
Government of San Fernando de Bexar, 1730-
1800." Quarterly of the Texas State Historical
Association, 8, no.4 (April 1905).
12. Apparently the senior magistrate served as an
appellate judge in San Fernando. Austin, "Munici­pal
Government of San Fernando de Bexar," 317.
13. On cabildo resistance to guberna torial a uthor­ity
see Archivo General de la Nacion (Mexico),
Provincias In tern as, vol. 32 and Vol. 163.
14. Early disputes over land and '.vater between
Canary Islanders, missionaries, and soldier-settlers
are included in Archivo General de la Nacion
(Mexico), Provincias Internas, vol. 163. Subsequent
38
conflicts are revealed in "Tanto y testimonio de una
escritura deconcordia entre los senores yslenos y las
misiones, 1745," Spanish Materia·ls of Various
Sources, 2Q237, Barker Texas History Center,
University of Texas at Austin, and "Proceedings in
Connection with the Establishment of Complaints
of Monopoly by the Cabildo." Translations BAT,
vol. 30, 1756, 54-62.
15. See "Certified Copy of the Proceedings Rela­tive
to the viS'jtamade by Martos y Navarrete to the
Administration of San Fernando," BAT, voL '36, .
1756-1762, 186-187; ' "Documents Concerning
Distribution of Water and New Irrigation Canal at
San Fernando," BAT, vol. 37,1762,27-39; Andres
Ram6n to Governor, August 31, 1762, Land Peti­tion
(LGS-550), Bexar County Archives (BCA),
Bexar County Courthouse, San Antonio; "Docu­ments
Concerning Civil Disturbances Caused by
Vincente Alvarez Travieso and Francisco de
Arocha," September 6-15, 1762, BAT, vo1.37, 1762,
40-47.
16. Fray Juan Agustin Mortl, Historv of Texas,
1673-1779, 2 vols. trans. and ed . by Carlos E.
Castaneda (Albuquerque, New Mexico: The
Quivira Society, 1935),92 . .
17. Modi, History of Texas, II, 395.
18. See BAT, vol. 48,1770,155-172 and vol. 56,
January 4, 1774 -July 31; 1774, 67-76. Also see
Robert S. Weddle and Robert H. Thonhoff, Drama
& ConDict: The Texas Saga of 1776 (Austin:
Madrona Press, 1976),49-73.
19. BAT, vol. 48, 1770, p. 136.
20. BAT, vol. 49, 1771,78-93.
21. See BAT, vol. 50,1771,5-14,30-31; vol. 53,
1772, 43-50, 56-64; vol. 54, 1773, 37-42; vol. 55,
1773.
22. BAT, vol. 134, October 1, 1785 - October 29,
1785, 42-81.
23. Elizabeth May Morey, "Attitude of the Citi­zens
of San Fernando Toward Independence Move­ments
in New Spain, 1811-1813" (University of
Texas at Austin, Master's Thesis, 1930),36-43. See
also BAT, vol. 31, November 13 - December 31,
1807, p. 199.
24. See "Protest of Don Vincente Alvarez
Travieso and Don Juan Andres Travieso Against
Claims of the Missions of San Antonio, 1771-1783,"
in Grazing in Texas Collection, Box 2R340, Barker
History Center, University of Texas at Austin and
"Petition and Testimony Concerning Lands of San
Antonio, Missions, 1772," Archivo del Convento de
Guadalupe, Reel 3, 3600-3628.
25. For a detailed discussion of these trials see
Jackson, Los Mestei'los, 125-171.
26. On Croix's visit to San Antonio see Elizabeth
A. H. John, Stonns Brewed in Other Men'sWorlds:
The Confrontation ofIndians. Spanish. and French
in the Southwest. 1540-1795 (College Station: Texas
A & M University, 1975), 5094-505.
27. Jackson, Los Mestei'los, 155-157.
28. "Memorial from the governmen t of the villa of
San Fernando and the Royal Presidio of San
Antonio de Bexar to Governor Martinez Pacheco,
regarding the people's right to the mestelJ,1 horses
and cattle of Texas," BAT, vol. 150, 1781,54-55.
29. On local attempts to have the original ranch­ing
regulations overturned see Jackson, L..Qs
Mestei'los,279-319.
30. See Jackson, Los Mestei'los, 303-308. While
additional research is needed on this point, it seems
that many of the prominent ranching families of the
1770s and 1780s had lost considerable economic
and political influence by 1808 and 1809. For
example, when the cabildo was appointed by the
governor, the Menchacas no longer figured as
officers. See BAT, vol. 31, November 14-December
31,1807, p. 199 and "Manuel de Salcedo to Manuel
Barerra, on orders to summon the ayun t,1mien to to
resolve several municipal ordinances." Bexar Ar­chives
Microfilm, 11119/09, f.0379.
31. On early contraband trade with Louisiana see
Bolton, Texas in the Middle of the Eighteenth
Century, 336-337,426-431; Castel1eda, Our Catho­lic
Heritage, III 75-82; J. Villasana Haggard, "The
Neutral Ground between Louisana and Texas,
39
1806-1821" (University of Texas at Austin, PhD
dissertation, 1942), 147-212.
32. Haggard, "The Neutral Ground," 150-154.
33. See "Expediente sobre la causa formado en
Mexico contra el Colonel Don Jacinto de Barrios y
Jauregui sobre el trato ilicito que tuvo siendo
govern ad or de la provincia de Texas con los Fran­ces
y Indios fronterizos no sujetos," Archivo Gener­al
de Indias, Guadalajara, 103-6-27 in Dunn Tran­scripts,
1756-1766, Barker History Center, Universi­ty
of Texas at Austin. This trial· is discussed in
Doris Clark, "Spanish Reaction to French Intrusion
into Texas from Louisiana, 1754-1771," (University
of Texas at Austin, Master's Thesis, 1942). See also
"Proceedings Concerning Confiscation of Contra­band
Money and Merchandise Belonging to Gover­nor
Angel de Martos y Navarette, 1767," BAT, vol.
42,114-160, vol. 43,1-39; vol. 4413-56.
34. BAT, vol. 81, 7-10.
35. BAT, vol. 55, 52-53.
Swedish dancers, dressed in regional costume, at the Texas Folklife Festival
40
,...
-
REGIONAL AND FOLK COSTUMES
Laurie Gudzikowski
Recently, the Institute of Texan Cultures added a
new costume to its Swedish exhibit. In preparing
the label, I researched costume in general and
Swedish folk costume in particular. I was pleased
to fmd that costume is a subject that has been well
. studied and documented in Sweden. I was sur­prised
to discover that costume and clothing are
much more complicated topics than I had anticipat­ed.
Where I had expected to be concerned with
problems of construction, ornamentation, and
design; I found that my biggest concerns became
philosophical issues.
What exactly is "folk costume"? What do
folk costumes have to do with the story of
ethnic immigration to Texas?
What do these costumes say to our visitors?
Does a folk costume, in an exhibit, clarify or
confuse?
Why do we have these costumes in our
museum? What is the role ofa folk costume
in an ethnic history exhibit?
Costume is a complex matter. Is "clothing" the
same as "costume"? What is the difference bet\veen
"regional costume" and "folk costume"?
Clothing can be defined as ordinary wear.
Costume is festive or ceremonial attire. l
In the strictest sense folk costume is the
everyday clothingofpeasants in a preindus­trial
community.
Regional costume is symbolic of a particular
community. It is easily identifiable, differ­ing
from other communities' attire. "Re­gional
costume" is contemporary and is
worn by people of all classes on special
occasions. Evervone who we;lrs re!!iomli /' ? ~
costwne c11so has other clothing.-
41
This last definition most closely describes the "folk
costumes" in ITC exhibits. It has been used as a
definition of "folk costume" and is the meaning I
will use when referring to folk costume. It describes
the apparel of many Texas Folklife Festival partici­pants.
Folk costume, in the strict sense, has little or noth­ing
to do with the immigration experience of most
ethnic groups to Texas. At the tinle that these
groups came to America, they were not preindustri­al
peasants. By that tinle, folk costume had long
since ceased to be everyday dress.
What do visitors think when they see an elaborately
embroidered, or beaded costume in a museum
exhibit? They may think it represents everyday
attire. The label may identify it as ceremonial or
festive garb, but, not all visitors read labels. Some
will read the headline "Swedish Folk Costume" and
assume that everyone in Sweden goes around
dressed in similar fashion. People often make such
assumptions. For example, many people believe
that all Texans wear traditional cowboy garb, every
day.
A costume is large. It makes a dramatic display.
Visitors may go away with their only memory of an
exhibit being something that had little or nothing to
do with the historical experiences of an ethnic
group. Should a museum have an exhibit that
could perpetuate such a distorted image?
So, why do we display this type of costume at the
Institute of Texan Cultures? While true folk cos­tumes
disappeared with the advent of industria liz a­tion,
there has been wave after wave of folk reviv­als.
These revivals began almost as soon as true
folk dress disappeared. They express a longing for
and an identification with the past, a simpler way of
life, familial roots. They began in Europe, have
spread to America, and exist world wide.
In Sweden, this process has been carefully studied
and documented, It includes the study and preser­vation
of local history, home crafts, and dance as
well as costume.
Communities all over Sweden have established
specific folk costumes to represent their regions.
Sometimes these costumes are based on ancient
garments actually used in the region. At other
times entirely new designs have been commissioned.
Unlike historical folk costume, these contemporary
folk costumes never change and are unique to their
region. Even when the design is based on historical
garments, the result is not actually howpeople from
that community dressed in the past, but how it is
imaginedthat they dressed.
An important function of these costumes--the
reason for their regional uniqueness and unchang­ingmode--
is to give Swedes, and expatriate Swedes, .
an anchor to their home community. There are
now 550 Swedish communities with their own
women's costume and 270 with their own men's
3 costume.
Swedish Texans, in common with many other
ethnic communities in Texas, have, to a great
extent, assimilated with the An1erican mainstream.
These groups have seized upon these revived region­al
costumes as a way of defining themselves, a way
of expressing nostalgia for a homeland that they
never knew, a homeland that 'may never have
existed outside of their grandparent's memories.
These costumes may not say much about the past,
but they speak volumes about the present.
The two costumes in the ITC Swedish area are good
examples of the modern functions of folk costumes.
The first costume is a recently replicated costume
representing the Barkeryd region. It was fabricated
in Texas by members of two Swedish cultural
organizations. The second, representing the Skane
region, was made in Sweden. A Swedish Texan,
visiting his home community in 1922, had it made
for his daughter.
Most Swedish Texans came from Barkeryd, a
parish in J6nk6pingCounty, in the northern part of
the province of Smaland. When the Institute
renovated the Swedish exhibit, the members of
SVEAS of Texas and Linneas of Texas offered to
42
replicate the folk costume of the area that repre­sents
"home" to the majority of Swedish Texans.
Under the leadership ofInga-Lisa Callissendorf, an
expert on Swedish folk costume, the ladies of
SVEAS and Linneas of Texas lovingly researched
and replicated the costume. When the exhibit was
installed, Miss Callissendorf made a trip to San
Antonio to ensure the costW11e was properly
pressed and to oversee the dressing of the manikin.
This costume was made to be displayed; it has never
been worn. It represents an organized expression of
the love that Texan Swedes have for their home­land.
The costume from the SkAne region has a very
different history. It was custom ordered for a
young lady by her father when he visited his family
home in 1922. She wore it often to church affairs,
community pageants, and other special events. The
blouse is sweat stained. The outfIt, as loaned to the
Institute, has two vests. Examination reveals that
one vest is smaller than the other. The smaller vest
is made from older fabric; it has unusual hooks and
eyes; its lacing rings have been removed. It seems
likely that this vest was part of the costume that was
made in Sweden. It may be that the slim young
lady added pounds along with years, and had a
new, larger vest made using the original as a pat­tern,
matching the fabric as closely as possible, and
reusing the lacing rings. This costume was well
used over many years and exemplifies the continu­ing
importance offolk costume to Swedish commu­nities
in Texas.
As these examples illustrate, the value of folk
costumes in an ethnic history museum lies in their
importance within the communities today. The
communities find these costumes meaningful.
Regional costumes are worn at festivals and cele­brations,
the Texas Folklife Festival for example.
They play an important role in folk dance and craft
revivals. It is important to the community to have
their folk costumes exhibited. Folk costumes play
an important role in defIning the self image of
contemporary ethnic communities.
What we need to keep fIrmly in mind is that these
costumes have little in common with their function
and significance in times past.4 Museums need to
try to make this as clear as possible to visitors,
through labels, docent interpretation, and exhibit
design. This facet of contemporary folk culture,
despite the problems it entails, is important to
contemporary ethnic communities. Consequently,
it is important to museums which document and
exhibit the culture of these groups.
A Swedish· poem expresses the nostalgia that is
represented by these costumes:
"Doesn't your native language sound the loveli­est?
Aren't our homes bound together with double
yarn?
Doesn't the Jugen flower shine the brightest
green _
On the plot where you played as a child?")
43
Notes
1. Don Yoder, "Folk Costume," in Folklore and
Folklife: an Introduction, ed. Richard M. Dorson
(Chicago, 1972),296.
2. Ulla Centergran, "Folk and Provincial Cos­tumes,"
Sweden and America, Winter 1991.
3. Centergran,"Folk and Provincial Costumes."
4. rnga Arno-Berg and Gunnel Hazelius Berg, Eclk
Costumes of Sweden - a livjng tradition (Stock­holm,
1985), 11.
5. Translated from Swedish by Inga-Lisa
Callissendorf.
Fonner ITC Executive Director, John McGiffert
making a traditional Pendleton blanket presentation to Diana Begay-Baca
44
TRADITIONAL VALUES, CONTEMPORARY LIVES
Thomas H. Guderjan
Introduction
As part of an ongoing program of study, publica­tion,
exhibits, and public programs, the Institute of
Texan Cultures hosted a public symposium and
"family day" on Saturday and Sunday, February 2
and 3, 1991 titled "Celebrate Native Americans."
The program was sponsored by Mallory Invest­ments
of San Antonio with additional support from
Pendleton Mills. On Saturday from 9:00 AM-
3:30 PM, the symposium was held in the ITC dome
theater on the main exhibit floor. The attendance
for the day of over 1,100 people exceeded all of our
expectations and more than doubled our previous
highest attendance level for such a symposium
("Texans in the Land of the Maya"). In general,
this report will focus on the events of the Saturday
symposium. The follO\ving day, we hosted a "fami­ly
day" during which Indians and non-Indians
demonstrated Native American crafts, storytelling
and culture. Again, attendance exceeded expecta­tions
at over 1,900 people.
In essence, the high attendance clearly demonstrat­ed
the degree of interest in these people and this
topic by the public. Much more importantly, the
open communication among demonstrators, speak­ers
and the public opened the way for greater
cultural understanding and appreciation on both
sides of the ethnic division.
The event was conceived as an opportunity for
Indians to speak to a general public audience about
themselves and their lives. The speakers were given
only minimal thematic direction. They were told
that the theme of the program was to be "Tradition­al
values and contemporary living." Within this
broad context, individualspeakers were encouraged
to discuss their personal backgrounds and situa­tions
as well as tribal situations. First and fore­most,
we wanted to provide a forum for Texas
Indians of widely divergent backgrounds to speak
to the general public about themselves and issues
which concern them. We wanted to expose the
audience to the real human issues which Indians
45
face today. In this process, we sought to expose the
public to the fact that Indians today are an impor­tant
ethnic group which does not fit into "Holly­wood
myth-building." Further, Indians are not
a·ctually a single ethnic group; no more so than are
all Hispanics. In reality, the people called "Indians"
or "Native Americans," are comprised of many
intemallinguistic, tribal and ethnic groups.
The symposium, organized and moderated by Dan
Gelo and myself included 8 participants and was
followed a Caddo dance performance. Participants
were selected in order to represent people from the
3 tribes with formal recognition and reservations in
Texas as well as people from the urban areas of
Dallas-Ft. Worth and San Antonio. The partici­pants:
Dr. Thomas Guderjan is an anthropologist
at the U.T. Institute of Texan Cultures and the co­author
of The Indian Texans. Greg Gomez is a
Lipan Apache from Dallas where he works with the
Human Services Administration and advises the
Dallas independent School District. Ardena
Rodriquez is a Southern Arapaho and Cheyenne
living in San Antonio. She is a past president of the
San Antonio Council of Native Americans. Dr.
Chris Nunley is an anthropologist of Indian
descent with the University of Wisconsin at Mil­waukee.
She has been worked with the Kickapoo
Indians for many years. Zetha Battise is an Ala­bama
Indian living on the Alabama-Coushatta
reservation near Livingston and a member of the
tribal Council. Dr. Daniel Gelo is an Assistan t
Professor of Anthropology at UTSA and has
worked, for nine years, with Indian groups in
Oklahoma and Texas. Diane Begaye-Baca is a
Navajo living in San Antonio and President of the
San Antonio Council of Native Americans. Ray
Apodaca is the Tribal Governor of the Tigua tribe
in EI Paso and was formerly the Texas Indian
Commissioner. The Michael Edmonds Dancers
are a Caddo family and dance group who have
performed throughout the US and in Canada.
It is important to note here that most of the speak­ers
are not trained students of their own culture.
Instead, they are participants in that culture. While
their views may not always be academically "cor­rect,"
neither are most European-American views
regarding Columbus. For academic correctness, we
could read books. To feel their emotions and
understand them, as people, we need to listen to
what they say.
Indians in Texas:
A Perspective on their Status and Problems.
Today, Indians live in all but 4 counties in Texas:
Loomis, McMullen, Jim Wells. and Kent. Howev­er,
the best known groups are the Tigua in EI Paso,
the Alabamas and Coushattas near Livingston and
the Kickapoo. While the Texas Band of the Okla­homa
Kickapoo Tribe has a reservation near Eagle
Pass, their more traditional homeland is at
Nacimiento in Coahuila, Mexico. In addition to
these groups, concentrations of Indian population
exist in all major cities, most notably the Dallas­Fort
Worth area. In Dallas, several inter-tribal
groups have been established. The 1980 census
counted at least 40,000 Indians in Texas. Approxi­mately
10,000 of whom live in the Dallas area.
However, some estimates of the Texas population
are as high as 70,000.
The tribal groups (Alabamas & Coushattas,
Tiguas and Kickapoos) all are relatillely recent
migrants into Texas as all of the indigenous peoples
were removed to Oklahoma or simply exterminated.
The Alabamas and Coushattas are Creeks from
today's state of Alabama who moved west in
advance of European expansion. They entered
Texas in the early 19th century. The Tiguas were
brought by the Spanish to EI Paso del Sur from the
New Mexican pueblo of Isleta in the late 17th
century. Today, their community is known as
Pueblo Ysleta del Sur. The Kickapoo Indians are
Algonkian speakers who once lived near the Great
Lakes and migrated onto the plains, again in ad­vance
of the Europeans. By the 19th century, they
were raiding in Texas and the government of Me xi­co
offered them land along a major pass from Texas
to Saltillo, Coahuila. This gave the Kickapoos a
certain amount of security and the Mexicans gained
a buffer community between Saltillo and the
Apaches. During the last 30 years, Kickapoos have
been relocating into the United States, through a
19th century enabling document.
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The urban COmmUnItIes have largely formed
through the general processes of 20th century
urbanism. However, the Bureau of Indian Affairs
undertook a relocation program in the 1950's and
1960's which brought many people off the reserva­tions
and into cities. Dallas, being the closest city
in Texas to the Oklahoma reservations, received a
disproportionate number of relocated families and
individuals.
Indians throughout the country struggle with how
traditional values can be maintained within contem­porary
life. Whether on a reservation or a 17th
floor office, individuals must choose for themselves
how to deal with the dilemma. In every case which
I am familiar, "conservative" or "traditional" and
"liberal" factions exist within every group. Not only
do individuals today decide for themselves, they
decide for their children and their children's chil­dren.
It is difficult to say whether what is saved
today will be perpetuated tomorrow. But it is
certainly true that what is lost today is lost for all
time.
Presentation Notes
Recorded by Mary Grace Ketner
Morning Session
Greg Gomez opened the day by placing flags of
the four sacred colors (races) in the four directions
(seasons), lighting sage from the Rosebud Reserva­tion
in South Dakota where the Sundance Circle (of
which he is an initiate) is held, cleansing and purify­ing
himself and offering the smoke to guests for
cleansing and purification.
Tom Guderjan opened the formal program by
discussing the nature and diversi ty of con temporary
Indians in Texas. He then reintroduced Greg
Gomez as a speaker.
Greg Gomez introduced himself as a Mescalero
Apache now living in Dallas. defined the territory
through which the Mescalero Apache's formerly
ranged. and noted their present reservation near
Cloudcroft, NM.
He spoke of the impact the coming of Europeans
had on Natives ("When Columbus was lost and we
discovered him ... ) in the areas of:
-
-
RELIGION: Natives had their own religion and
their own creation stories. Perhaps that life began
here (with choice of mythical methods) and migrat­ed
across the Bering Straits to Asia. Some cultures
were able to blend easily with Catholicism because
Indian religion and European religion had similar
ethics. (E.g. the Pueblo CatholiclNative faith.) The
only public rite of passage left is the moon cycle
ceremony for girls.
He spoke of other ceremonies such as the Sundance
Circle, a Sioux ceremony of four days preceded by
sweat lodge prayers. It is not a "prayer" to, but an
acknowledgment of, the sun. Breast piercing
dances are a way of saying "thank you" to the
grandmothers for bleeding during menstruation and
childbirth.
EDUCATION: Though some might call his father
and his grandfather "illiterate," Greg could not, for
he knew that they had great kno\'.1\edge and wisdom
that did not come from reading the white man's
words. "Literacy" depends on who's talking. He
contrasted the American education system--giving
facts to be learned by memory and calling for their
reproduction--with Indian educa tion--tellingstories
and asking people to think for themselves.
CULTURE: Diseases were a greater cause of the
disseniination of the People than was military
aggression. Contrasted MatrilineaVMatriarchal
society with Patriarchal. Discussed concept ofland
ownership--how it was inconceivable to people who·
"lived with" the land or "cared for" the land .
Greg's words were simple and gentle and put
anxiety to rest. He is both humble and proud. He
asked for acknowledgment of the contributions of
Indians in order to build pride among the young.
Ardena Rodriguez presented a prepared discus­sion
and provided a text which is reproduced below
in its entirety.
Ladies and Gentlemen, guests of the Institute,
Doctors Gelo and Guderjan and staff, my name is
Ardena Rodriguez. I'm a member of the southern
Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma and re­tired
civil servant. My husband, Robert, who is
also retired from civil service and the Air Force,
and I currently reside in San Antonio. We have
47
three children and four grandchildren. My two
sons have served in the US Navy: one is currently
on active duty. at Norfolk, Virginia, aboard the
frigate, USS McCandless.
When I was asked to be one of the speakers today,
I gladly accepted but thought long and hard about
what type of speech I would make. It was suggested
that I speak about tribal customs and traditions
that I continue to practice while living in contempo­rary
society. This proved to be very difficult be­cause
I have maintained a hom·e and raised a family
as any other American family. I had the same
desire as any other military family of creating a
balanced life and instilling Christian values to my
children while living in Europe, Central and South
America and throughout the United States. My
children grew up as "Air Force brats" in military
commuOltles. While not practicing any of the
customs of my tribe in my home, I have, neverthe­less,
often spoken of my heritage and how proud I
have always been, in spite of negative views held· by
your average American.
Perhaps the most important thing to me today is
the ed ucation of the public about Native Americans
and our contributions to our country in spite of the
great injustices done to our ancestors.
Let me first emphasize that we do not all live on
reservations. There are many of us who have never
been to a reservation and probably never will.
Living offa reservation, however, doesn't make you
less an Indian. In fact, it makes you stronger by
viewing two cultures simultaneously and becoming
more aware of who you are. My tribes, the south­ern
Cheyenne and Arapahos, were forcibly moved
to Oklahoma. Many members of the tribe returned
to our homeland in Montana pursued by the Army
but were allowed to remain. This is the reason for
the northern and southern distinctions. My tribes
were each allotted 160 acres in Indian Territory
which is now Oklahoma. I own part of the allot­ment
which belonged to Chief Powderface, an
Arapaho clan chief. He is my Great-Great Grand­father
on my maternal side, the Arapahos. On my
paternal side, the Cheyenne side, I am related to
Chief Roman Nose, who was a great Cheyenne
warrior. A state park is named for him in Oklaho­ma.
That's about as close to fame as I can get.
There are no storybook tales of Indian princesses,
or someone who changed history forever.
There are, however, many stories within my two
tribes about our history and how we came to be.
During my adolescent and teen years, I paid little
attention to these stories; preferring to concen­trate
on frivolous things that concern youth. How
I wish now that I had paid more attention, especial­ly
to my maternal grandmother who was quite a
story-teller. I do remember some stories about
rabbits which were a little on the racy side. In our
legends, all animals can talk. There were many
other stories with other animals and, later, stories
of "Nee-Ah-Tha", the whiteman.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes are considered
part of the Great Plains tribes who lived on the
prairies subsisting on the buffalo. These great herds
gave so much to the people that they were revered,
studied and imitated. Knowledge of the bison's
make-up, habits and religious connotations was
essential to the Indian student. Children were
named after the bison so that they would be hearty
and strong. Societies were also named after the
buffalo. Medicine men called upon its powers to
help perform their rituals. Buffalo skulls were
frequently painted wit