José de Escandón — the Father of South Texas
José de Escandón was born in Cantabria, Spain, in 1700. He emigrated to New Spain as a teenager and joined the colonial military shortly after. An ambitious social climber and enthusiastic reformer, Escandón made a name for himself in the 1730s and 40s in the pacification of Indian uprisings in Mexico’s north-central mining districts, as well as in the defense of the southern gulf coast against English encroachments. Most notably, he was credited with “pacifying” the Chichimeca Indians of central Mexico’s Sierra Gorda region, who had long resisted Spanish domination.[1]
It was this impressive résumé that landed Escandón the job of exploring the Seno Mexicano (Gulf of Mexico) and creating the new province of Nuevo Santander, which would stretch from the Pánuco River, near present-day Tampico, to the southern boundary of the province of Texas at the Nueces River. Royal authorities had long hoped to solidify Spanish control of this territory, home to dozens of unconquered indigenous groups (including many “apostate” Indians from Nuevo León who had rejected Christianization and fled to the Seno Mexicano). Crucially, the region was also vulnerable to foreign incursions from the east. By 1746, the Royal junta (committee) in charge of the colonization project had received several proposals from would-be colonizers, but Escandón was chosen for the job in recognition of his successful campaigns in the Sierra Gorda.[2]
By January 1747, Escandón was ready to undertake the initial reconnaissance of the Seno Mexicano, a vital first step in the effort to colonize the region. Unlike previous entradas (conquering and exploring expeditions) into the zone, Escandón’s expedition was to be a highly collaborative effort. Instead of a single group of soldiers and missionaries venturing in from a single point of entry, Escandón enlisted military and political leaders from the surrounding provinces (Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Texas) to mount a seven-point entrada. Military convoys from the south (Querétaro, Tampico, Villa de Valles), west (Linares, Cerralvo, Monclova), and north (Texas) would all converge on the mouth of the Rio Grande River, reconnoitering as they went and making mostly peaceful contact with indigenous groups.[3]
The Escandón expedition was successfully completed (and without loss of life) by March 1747, and the explorers returned home. Escandón’s next task, though, was to compile the copious information gathered by the expedition and convey it to the Royal junta in support of his colonization plan. The product of his laborious compilation was his Mapa de la Sierra Gorda y costa del Seno Mexicano… [Map of the Sierra Gorda and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico…]. Marking locations on his map with red crosses, Escandón suggested creating a total of fourteen settlements in the new colony, mostly in the area that would become the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. However, two red crosses are found within Texas’ future boundaries.
At the cross numbered 94, at the mouth of the Nueces River, Escandón described a place rich in “seeds, grassland, salt, fish, wood, and stone” that could prosper if the nearby Bay of San Miguel Arcángel (Corpus Christi Bay) was found to be deep enough for maritime commerce. Nevertheless, he feared it would be the most difficult to settle, given the “great distance at which it is found from the Provinces of Coahuila and the New Kingdom of León.” He suggested colonizing the settlement with “fifty families of Spaniards at a cost of 200 pesos for each one and 500 for its captain.”[4]
Cross number 95 referred to a place on the San Antonio River that Captain Joaquín de Orobio y Bazterra, from the Presidio of Bahía, named “Santa Dorotea,” when he stopped there on St. Dorothy’s February 6 feast day. For Orobio y Bazterra, “all of the good qualities that are required for a settlement converge[d] in th[is] stopping spot,” including abundant natural resources and easy access to the bay. Escandón, for his part, thought that the struggling mission and presidio of Bahía del Espíritu Santo should be relocated here, at Santa Dorotea, and he advised the Royal junta to do so. Due to rocky soil and a poor climate, the mission struggled to grow crops in its current location, Escandón explained, and it had therefore failed to attract many full-time Indian residents. Moving the mission would bring it closer to two important settlements of Cujanes and Carancaguazes (Karankawa) Indians, creating “a decent gathering [place] once the first harvest of corn, chilies, and beans are gathered.”[5] It would also reduce the isolation of the proposed Nueces settlement at cross number 94.
These two Escandón recommendations would result in the foundations of the short-lived Villa de Vedoya (near the future site of Corpus Christi) and La Bahía (Goliad), respectively. But Escandón’s map and report had other important consequences for South Texas history. Royal officials, after studying both documents, gave Escandón their blessing to carry out his colonization plan as described, bestowing upon him the title of “Count of the Sierra Gorda” and furnishing him with a budget of some 115,000 pesos.[6] Named to the governorship of the new province, Escandón was then charged with populating it and setting up a system of governance.
Phase two of the colonization effort — the recruiting of colonists and missionaries, founding of towns and missions, designating politico-military leaders, etc. — began in 1749; and it was in this phase that Escandón became the “Father of South Texas.”
Escandón ventured back into the Seno Mexicano with a massive caravan of soldiers and colonists. Reactivating the network of collaborators from his first expedition, he tapped Blas María de la Garza y Falcón, a well-connected military man from Cerralvo, Nuevo León, to help create new communities on the Rio Grande. Garza de la Falcón founded Camargo (which included present-day Rio Grande City) in 1749, settled it with Cerralvo families, and established a large ranch in present-day Nueces County shortly after. The foundations for South Texas’ storied ranching culture had been laid.[7]
Escandón’s settlement project was wildly successful. All told, 23 new settlements were founded under Escandón’s leadership over the next seven years, including a line of towns along the Rio Grande that would later be dubbed the “villas del norte,” or northern towns (Laredo, Revilla [Guerrero], Mier, Camargo, and Reynosa).[8]
Escandón’s administration of the new province soon became the object of some controversy, particularly with the settlers of the villas del norte. Yet his colonizing efforts had shaped an entire region of New Spain and in some ways laid the foundation for the sweeping, Enlightenment-inspired reforms along the Spanish borderlands in the 1760s. Escandón broke with precedents by excluding presidios from the scheme and undercutting the authority of the Franciscan missionaries. His project was also one of the first truly modern “colonization projects” in New Spain. That is because it primarily depended not on the conquest and reorganization of indigenous societies but on the large-scale transplantation of colonists — American-born Spaniards, mestizos and afro-mestizos, and “Christianized Indians” — to areas inhabited by relatively few native groups.[9] Further, unlike settlements in other parts of present-day Texas, Escandón’s were entirely civilian — they were not attached to missions or presidios — and in that way, they presaged the empresario colonies of the 1820s and 1830s.
Escandón’s exploration, mapping, and colonization of the Seno Mexicano provided the foundation for Spain to strengthen its hold on the remote territory that became Texas. Without the presence in present-day South Texas of Escandón’s settlements, and the Spanish military to defend them, the area’s development would have likely been very different. One could argue that Escandón started the craze for northern colonization that would later animate Stephen F. Austin and many others, leading to the formation of the Texas we know today.
National Hispanic Heritage Month is a celebration of the contributions of Hispanics to U.S. history, culture, and society observed annually between September 15 and October 15, a time of many historical mileposts in the Americas. The observance emphasizes the deep historical imprint of Hispanic cultures on the United States and honors the place of Hispanics in the contemporary American melting pot, where they number nearly 62 million. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we’ll focus for several weeks on the impact of Hispanic historical figures in Texas.
[1] Hubert J. Miller, José de Escandón: Colonizer of Nuevo Santander (Edinburg: New Santander Press, 1980), pp. 5–6; Handbook of Texas Online, Clotilde P. García, “Escandon, Jose De,” accessed November 30, 2017, https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fes01.
[2] Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, Vol. 3, (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1938), pp. 130–139; Patricia Osante, Orígenes de Nuevo Santander, 1748–1772 (Mexico City: UNAM, 2003), pp. 93–106; Donald Chipman and Harriet Denise Joseph, Spanish Texas, 1519–1821, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), pp. 170–172.
[3] Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, Vol. 3, pp. 146. It is important to note that our understanding of the expedition’s “peaceful” contact with indigenous people depends on Escandón’s report itself, which was meant to present a rosy picture of the colonizing work to royal officials. It is notable that the expedition recorded no loss of life in 1747. However, hostilities did increase with the formal foundation of Spanish settlements in the years to come. See Cunningham, “The Exploration and Preliminary Colonization of the Seno Mexicano,” pp. 145–148.
[4] Cunningham, “The Exploration and Preliminary Settlement of the Seno Mexicano,” p. 125.
[5] Ibid., pp. 92, 126.
[6] Escandón had originally requested 58,000 Pesos, for the entire project, a number that quickly proved inadequate. Royal officials increased the budget to 115,000 in 1748, but Sergio Vásquez-Gómez found that, all told, the entire colonization project actually set the royal coffers back some 800,000 pesos from 1748 to 1763. See Sergio M. Vásquez-Gómez, “The advance of the Urban Frontier: The Settlement of Nuevo Santander,” MA Thesis, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, 1974, p. 62.
[7] Chipman, Spanish Texas, p. 169; Galen Greaser, New Guide to Spanish and Mexican Land Grants in South Texas (Austin: Texas General Land Office, 2009), pp. 5–88; Armando C. Alonzo, Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, 1734–1900 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), pp. 27–36.
[8] Chipman, Spanish Texas, pp. 169–170; Martín Reyes Vayssade, et. al., Cartografía histórica de Tamaulipas (Ciudad Victoria: Instituto Tamaulipeco de Cultura, 1990), pp. 97–98.
[9] Osante, Orígenes del Nuevo Santander, 116–117; Cunningham, “The Exploration and Preliminary Colonization of the Seno Mexicano,” p. 223.
