Authors: T.R. Fehrenbach
It took a better breed of man to be a
vaquero
, who had to ride independently, who worked with wholly wild, often dangerous animals, and who regularly faced the Indian peril on his own. The country, the cattle, and the requirements of living on the frontier began to force certain adaptations to the land, creating both a culture and a powerful tradition and mythology. The basic attitudes of the
charro
, or cowman hero, were originally social or economic necessities, which became genuine folk-culture. These were bravery and disregard of personal danger; comradeship with peers; an almost mystical loyalty to the hacienda and its brand; the determination to ride any horse that lived; skill with the rope; and utter disdain for any kind of work that could not be done in the saddle. The man who embodied all of these was the ideal.
The deep class cleavage of all Hispanic society remained between
hacendado
and
vaquero
, owner and worker, but the frontier produced a loyalty both up and down that had already passed out of the European experience. Mexico, like almost all frontier, seminomadic societies, began to develop a new culture with strong overtones of feudalism—but the genuine feudalism of early Hellenic or Iranic culture rather than the decaying, rigid class structures that still characterized most of Europe.
The attitudes, even the distinctive costumes of this society were well marked by the 18th century: the immense
sombreros
, or hats, broad leather belts with silver buckles, buckskin jackets with (when possible) silver buttons, the tight, canvaslike horseman's trousers, the half-boots, and chaps, or
chaparreras
. The
charro
culture even used its own jargon, which every modern English-speaking person will recognize:
corral, bronco, loco, arroyo, lazo, la reata, rodear, adobe, pinta, caballado, rancho
. Other words passed into English with changes:
mesteño
(mustang),
jáquima
(hackamore), and
vaquero
(buckaroo).
This cattle culture was already old and well developed when the government of New Spain took steps to expand the contiguous frontier to the Rio Bravo.
In 1746, Colonel José de Escandón, a Spaniard from Santander, with Royal approval, was commissioned by the Viceroy to move people north and plant settlements along the Rio Grande. By November 1748, Escandón had gathered 755 soldiers and 2,513 Spanish-Mexican colonists at Querétaro, a town 165 miles north of Mexico, and 650 south of the Bravo. From Querétaro, picking up more adventurous spirits along the way, Escandón marched north, into the modern state of Tamaulipas. Here he began to select the sites for future townships. He founded twenty towns in all.
By March 1749, Escandón had laid out both Reynosa and Camargo, on the south bank of the Rio Bravo; he also left capable settlers and leaders to put down roots. Blás María de la Garza Falcón commanded at Camargo;
Capitán
Carlos Cantu at Reynosa. Thus historic families were founded, as well as towns, planting names that would someday be carried by thousands of border people, many of whom were not actually descended from the great men.
Escandón avoided the coast. The entire Gulf was still a fever area in the 18th century, though the richest lands lay in the lower delta of the Rio Grande. The settlements were sited far up the river, in the drier and presumably healthier climate from Reynosa west. But the soils were thinner and rockier, and rainfall insufficient for agriculture without extensive irrigation in this region. Therefore, Escandón unwittingly saw to it that the Mexican cattle culture, and not the one-crop hacienda, was planted beside the Rio Grande. Regarding the country as best suitable for ranching, Escandón returned to Querétaro, and brought back a number of
rancheros
, with their
vaqueros
and thousands of longhorned Mexican range cattle. These were scattered across the arid lower Sonoran plains both north and south of the river.
Revilla (later Guerrero) was founded in October 1750, Mier in 1753, and Laredo on May 17, 1755. This last town Escandón placed on the north bank of the river, which spot he considered best. In all, Escandón settled 3,600 Spaniards, and 3,000 "Christian converts" throughout his new province, which with the usual lack of imagination of the developer he called New Santander. The borders of New Santander did not stop at the Rio Bravo; they went north to the Nueces, near Corpus Christi, then west and north to the Medina, then south again on a line along Laredo to the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madres, deep in Mexico.
Soon afterward, as Spaniards measured time, Royal surveyors and officials arrived to legally parcel out the land. The Crown had determined generous subdivisions for the cowmen moving north. Since Mexican law already recognized the primacy of water possession in land tenure (who controlled the water controlled the land), the
porciones
marked off for colonists were laid out at right angles, north and south of the Rio Grande. An average grant, called a
merced
(literally, "The King's mercy"), contained a half-mile of river front, extending many miles inland. Thus each grant had access to the river, with the riparian right.
The King's
mercedes
were quite merciful. Escandón, created Count of Sierra Gorda for his services, was awarded a colonization grant of 100 miles of riverfront beginning at the mouth of the Bravo, following the south side of the river west. This merced contained 645 leagues, or 2,850,000 acres in all. Around Camargo, beginning with the inevitable church square in the central plaza, 10,000
varas
were granted on each side to the town, or four square leagues of 4,428 acres each. Eleven
porciones
, 1500 varas wide and up to 20,000 varas deep, were allotted to the gentlemen colonists of the new town, on each bank of the river. The gentry at Reynosa received 80 very similar grants.
The territory north of the river nearest the Gulf, considered unfit for permanent towns, was reserved for wealthy hacendados and "Spaniards of reliability." Such reliable men received huge land grants that reached from the Bravo as far north as 100 miles, or to the very borders of the new province. Three of these, the Espíritu Santo, the San Juan de Carricitos, and the San Salvador de Tule
mercedes
, each contained between 250,000 and 500,000 acres.
Some of these lands were resold at reasonable prices. The Count of Sierra Gorda put up some thousands of acres at 10
duros
per league. There were some small holdings, principally around the towns. But the movement to the border was not the advance of an antlike army of small settlers; it was the carefully controlled march of feudal trains. The
patrón
, or
latifundista
, laid out his lands, received his title, and moved his cattle and his peons onto his new dominion. It was an organic, paternalistic, and quite rigid society that took hold of the Rio Grande and spilled over into Texas. It was permanent. The
ranchero
or
hacendado
and his
vaqueros
, both Indian and
mestizo
, rode together to the frontier to have and to hold, each according to his station, from this day forward. Both put a solid stamp on the south Texas frontier that was to last and last.
Settlement remained mostly confined to the south bank of the river, but cattle by the thousands spilled over and roamed north. Here, in the grassy savannahs along the Nueces, cattle and cattlemen found an unexpected refuge. The climate was mild, the land open and rich in feed, and the Indians scarce. Apaches and Comanches did not care to enter the south Texas triangle, the old Coahuiltecan grubbing grounds. Compared to the north, game was scarce. Bison did not go below the Balcones Escarpment because of the increasing warmth. The lack of fixed settlements made it a poor country for raiding, compared to the areas further west. And the position of the garrison at Béxar, in the raiders' rear, made far-ranging war parties uncomfortable. Indians, expert at ambush, knew how to avoid one.
There was nothing but lean Spanish cattle and a few
vaqueros
along the Nueces; all Indians preferred to scout a Mexican settlement or mission than to make war on a mounted, mobile, and armed Spanish-Mexican cattle ranch.
Therefore, on the savannahs just north of the Rio Grande, vast herds of cattle grew by natural increase, while Béxar and other Spanish settlements barely clung to life.
Life was also hard for the new towns along the Rio Grande. Like virtually all frontier societies, this was a poverty-stricken culture in both thought and goods. There were priests and peons, and Falcóns or Garzas who could ride their own acres for days, but there were almost no carpenters, or artisans, or men with professional skills. There was no education, except for those rich enough to leave to seek it. There was no money—but few men needed it. Sheep and goats and cattle and beans provided food enough for all classes to live.
The Indian peril never ceased. Apaches struck out of the blue-shaded mountains just to the west. Comanches rode down a well-marked trail in spring and fall. The localities furthest west suffered most; they were nearest the Indian path to Mexico. In 1771, Indians forced the township of Laredo to move to the south side of the river. For the whole border, 1792 was a terrible year, with burnings, killings, and torturings. Complaints to King and Viceroy brought promises but seldom any action.
Spanish officials and leaders held countless councils with the Indians; it was estimated that the governor at Béxar gave presents to nearly two thousand Apaches or Comanches in a single normal year. None of these brought relief to the baronies along the Rio Grande. But in a courageous, hardy, if stultified way, the culture clung. Neuvo Santander, reaching from Tampico to Corpus Christi Bay, and westward again to Laredo, contained 15,000 Spanish-speaking souls in 1800. All but a few hundred still lived south of the Rio Bravo.
This Mexican colonization of the Rio Grande affected Texas more than all the missions. It did three things, each of considerable historic importance. It carried the seeds of
charro
culture north; Mexican cattle kingdoms entered North America. It established land titles, and with them certain features of Spanish law, north of the Bravo, putting a permanent imprint upon the region. And finally, for future trouble, it seeded a breed not of Spanish priests or half-breed soldiers but tough Mexican frontiersmen along both banks of the Rio Grande, who came to stay.
But the advance of this colonization ebbed at the river. It scattered seeds, but not swarms of people, over the north bank. Beyond the river, the land remained
tierra despoblada
, populated only with lean and longhorned cows.
The first successful Hispanic colonization of Texas was not to come until much later, in the 20th century.
Part II
BLOOD AND SOIL: THE TEXANS
Chapter 6
THE ANGLO-CELTS
The Anglo-Saxons—lacking grace
To win the love of any race;
Hated by myriads dispossessed
Of rights—the Indians East and West.
These pirates of the sphere! Brave looters—
Grave, canting, Mammonite freebooters,
Who in the name of Christ and Trade
(Oh, bucklered forehead of the brass!)
Deflowered the world's last sylvan glade!
WALT WHITMAN
THE Spanish arrived in the New World in the hope and assurance that God would provide, and for some centuries they were not disappointed. They found unbelievable deposits of gold, silver, copper, and rich plantation lands and millions of potential slaves. The 18th-century Spanish empire was the world's largest, richest, and however ironical it might seem to later generations, the world's most envied. Britain and France, in this bullionist age, acquired no lands with mineral wealth and were forced to create riches through their economies. But they envied, and dreamed of wresting away, the wonderful Spanish possessions. It was not easily apparent that the flood of precious metals was having a lethal effect on the fossilizing society of Spain.
At the end of the 18th century, the Spanish empire in Middle and North America presented a glittering vista. New Spain alone contained seven million people, almost as many as Great Britain, and the City of Mexico, with 150,000, was the metropolis of the hemisphere. The life of the privileged classes was as opulent and sybaritic, if not as brilliant, as any in the world. Mexico was a great capital, presiding over a very respectable empire, which had at least twice the population of the Anglo-American states on the Atlantic seaboard.
Reaching northward from this imperial base, Spain held legal title to almost all the lands of the present United States west of the Mississippi, plus Florida and most of the Gulf coast. The Spanish flag had replaced the French over the vast Louisiana Territory. Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, though largely
tierra despoblada
, had been Spanish for centuries. Spanish garrisons and missions, sparked into activity by Russian explorations, were moving firmly up the California coast, from San Diego to Monterey.
Anyone looking at the map of the last years of the 18th century would have predicted a vastly different future for North America, if the prediction were based on geographic factors alone. But geography, in human affairs, is usually limiting but rarely determining. North of the Bravo, the Spanish lions-and-castles flew over a vacuum, which the Spanish Crown, despite valiant and expensive efforts, could not fill.