 Soon after Columbus landed and continued to return to the New World, other explorers followed. And after that, we see the beginnings of Spanish settlement. So in this lecture, we're going to look at Spain's Northern Frontier. Normally we think about missions as being evidence of Spain's owning the land for so many years. Spain landed in 1492. The English didn't land and established permanent residents in the New World until about 1620. So Spain had been in the New World a lot longer than the English had. Cavesa de Vaca had said that there were golden cities. He hadn't seen them, but the Indians reported that they were out there. And so after he was recaptured or at least brought back into the Spanish fold and wrote about his explorations, other explorers decided to follow him to see if there really were additional sites of gold. In 1520, you know that Cortez had found the golden city of the Aztec, Tenochtitlan, what we would call Mexico City. So maybe Spanish figured there were others. So Spain sent explorations in from three different ways. Straight up from Mexico, around through the state of where we would call Florida today. And also up from Mexico into what's today the American Southwest. So let's look at these expeditions. The expedition, the De Soto, Moscoso expedition came in from Cuba and Hispaniola over Florida and into probably around what's today Waco. De Soto himself died somewhere in the Mississippi River area and was buried. So his lieutenant Moscoso came up and finished the expedition. And they reached Texas in about 1542. A priest for a Marcus de Niza, also following up on Cavesa de Vaca's report, did indeed meet some of the people that Cavesa de Vaca had talked about. And again had heard stories of gold in cities, but he had not seen any himself. And he came straight up from Mexico City north into Texas. Finally, the Coronado expedition, probably the largest expedition of this time period. Coronado and his men explored the American Southwest. They were the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon, for example. And they went as far from Arizona as to modern-day Wichita, Kansas. And Coronado was later arrested and tried for cruelty to Native Americans on his expeditions. But he left a legacy of exploration behind him. Several years later, Juan de Oñate set up on an exploration up through what's today El Paso, up the Rio Grande into New Mexico. He established a town of Santa Fe and established the New Mexican territory. He also brought Christianity with him and established missions in the region. But he was known for being a harsh, harsh person. And he punished Indians, especially in Acoma Puebla, where he put down several revolts and rebellions. And left a very bitter taste in the mouths of both the Native Americans and other Spanish settlers who went with him. As a result of these early expeditions, the Spanish didn't find any gold. And so they kind of lost interest in New Mexico and Texas. But they were the first explorations and they solidified their claim on the land. And one of the things that you see, very important things in history, is this idea of the Colombian exchange. This trade between the old world and the new world of people, of animals, of plants, of diseases. And so this exchange where this mixing and mingling is going to have very significant effects later on. While Spain had lost interest, other countries were more interested in the new world territory between Spain and the British colonies because of series of revolts and rebellions that happened both overseas and on the continent. In 1680, the Pueblo Revolt, these were Native Americans living in New Mexico who launched a revolt under the leadership of Pope. And they drove the Spanish settlers out of New Mexico down the Rio Grande back to a place called Corpus Christi de Esleta, which we today call El Paso. And it actually helped El Paso grow into a city. And it was years before the Spanish could get back up the Rio Grande into the New Mexican territory. Another threat came from the Mississippi River and actually from France. Rene Robert Cavallier, the Sur de la Sal, had been an explorer up in the Great Lakes region. He had heard about this great river that flowed south. And he explored until he found the Mississippi and came down the Mississippi and laid claim to all of the land that drains into the Mississippi for France. Now that was a huge land claim. Everything from the Rocky Mountains to basically the American Midwest, he claimed for France. In 1685, he returned to the United States with the authority given by the French King to establish a settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi River around where New Orleans is today. But they didn't make it because of storms and just getting lost. They were shipwrecked and it wasn't until recently that we knew where they were shipwrecked. They built a fort near what's today Victoria and they called it Fort St. Louis. The Spanish learned very quickly about this fort and began exploring for them. By the time they found the fort in 1689, La Salle and many of the other French settlers were dead. Some had walked all the way from around Victoria up the Mississippi River into Canada to go back home. Although they did run into some Native Americans who looked very European and their thought is that some of the Europeans began living with the Native Americans. But the French threat was gone by this time. It was this relationship between New Spain and New France between both colonies in the New World, one based out of Canada, the other based out of Mexico City. They began competing one another not just with trade and with relationships between Spain and France itself but also in their partnerships with Native Americans. They wanted to establish missions. Both were Catholic countries, Catholic colonies and so Spain, for example, allowed the Franciscan order to really hit up mission building. One of those priests, the father Francis Hidalgo, had come up to Texas, settled in East Texas and helped to establish missions. In 1693 the Spanish pulled out and Hidalgo wanted to continue his missionary activities. In 1711, upset that he was not allowed to continue into Texas, wrote a letter to the French governor in Louisiana asking for permission and help in order to get him back to East Texas. A French merchant named Louis Saint Denis arrived in Eagle Pass on the Rio Grande River looking for Father Hidalgo. Saint Denis and Father Hidalgo had both then been sent to East Texas in order to continue the missionary activities and to establish a trade route from Mexico into Louisiana. They established a midpoint, the Presidio San Antonio de Bejar in 1718 and very nearby the Mission San Antonio de Valero in 1718. Both of those established the town of what is today San Antonio. In 1719, however, there were concerns, problems, international problems between the French and the Spanish, the so-called Chicken War. The capital of Texas at that time was in what is today Louisiana in a place outside of Nacotish, Louisiana called Los Adais. Supposedly the French attacked the mission. At least that's what the Spanish priests thought. Actually it was just a Spanish soldier and some other soldiers who came writing up looking to talk to the missions, looking for help or maybe food and scared a bunch of chickens. The chickens flew up. The priests retreated because they thought they were under attack. When the Spanish troops from the Presidio came to investigate they said nothing really happened. But this sets up the attitude and the context of the situation of this immense distrust between French and Spanish settlers and the fear of an invasion. In 1721, the Marquis de San Miguel de Aguayo began an expedition into East Texas to reconnoiter and to re-establish settlements along the Camino Real, the King's Highway as it was called. This led to a renewed interest in Spanish settlers. One of the things de Aguayo called for was how about bringing settlers in from the Canary Islands to settle the region. To help the missions and the Presidios by bringing in more settlers and giving the missions and the Presidios people to take care of. This was at the beginning of the Seven Year War or at least the Seven Year War came about shortly thereafter and it ended of course to the Treaty of 1763. Sometimes we call it here in the United States the French and Indian War and it was a war between the Catholic countries and the Protestant country of Great Britain. 1767, just a few years later, the Marquis de Ruby came in and established this regulation for Presidios. Presidios are the fortresses. He suggested they close the East Texas missions and Presidios because they were too expensive. He wanted to strengthen San Antonio and the real concern was not the French anymore because after the treaty they left the region but the Apaches. They also wanted to establish trade routes. Pierre Vial's expeditions, Jose Mars's expedition and the Amanguele expedition were all set to establish trade routes between Native Americans and settlers in Texas. One of the most significant things that happened was the Louisiana Purchase. In 1800, Spain returned Louisiana to France. This was because Napoleon was in power and had forced the Spanish king to step aside and let the Spanish diet run the country and he was really kind of in control. He put his brother on the throne in Spain and so then his brother gave Louisiana back to France. But in 1791, a rebellion in the Caribbean of Toussaint Louverture dashed Napoleon's dreams for a Caribbean empire. What he hoped to do was use the Louisiana territory to supply all the raw materials to supply the French settlements and colonies in the New World. But he was never able to overthrow Toussaint and the rebellion and so he just sold the territory to the United States who was waiting for him to sell it to them. This resulted in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The French were no longer a threat. At long last, the French were finally out of the picture but now they had to deal in New Spain with the Americans who were hungry for land. Much of what Spain did was a reaction against threats on their gold and silver mines in Mexico. And so they were concerned about the French taking over. They were concerned about now the United States coming in. It was a reaction to the threats against their gold and silver mines. They were also responsible for continued exploration of Texas in the Great American Desert or the American Southwest. They reflected a desire in this exploration and in their activities for the 3G's gold, glory, and God. They wanted to expand Christianity. They wanted to gain personal fame and increase the wealth of themselves and the king. This idea was known as mercantilism is that it was up to the nations to make as much money as they could. One of the ideas that was a continuation of the Colombian exchange was this idea of cultural and racial mixing. Mestizaki, the people of the old world, the Spanish, the Africans who came into the new world and intermixed with Native American people. And so you have a racial hierarchy that is increased by these new groups. And in fact in your sources I've listed one of the ideas of how these different castes should fit into the picture. This is called racial mixtures. It's in your sources. The other thing we need to know about are the Spanish institutions have remained. Spain ruled the region for 300 years. So a lot of the names of the physical world, the rivers, the mountains, the plains, the towns are given Spanish names. And there's also built features. I said towns and other settlements, the missions all remain Spanish named. And of the Spanish institutions, the towns, the ranches, farms, missions and presidios, they were very complex institutions and were very integrated with one another. And so let's look at this a little bit. First of all, nobody settled, nobody established a mission, nobody moved into an area without Spanish authority. Spain had a very hierarchical system. Actually most European countries did. So under the auspices of the Spanish authority, missions were established. Priests came and lived there along with Native Americans who converted to Catholicism. They were protected by the presidios, the soldiers. So because the presidios and the missions were usually the first in a region, they got the best land. And as other people moved in, there was an increased competition for the land. Around the missions and the presidios grew towns. These are the seats of the local government and the Spanish authority. You also had merchants, political officials and towns people, residents who may be related to people in the presidios or may be related to people in the missions. You also had farmers and ranchers. And in these farms, these were family organizations, family working places, but they also hired laborers to work for them in both regions. So farmers grew crops while ranchers grew cattle and grew horses and goats and sheep and pigs. And so they usually had larger amounts of land than the farmers did because farms all done by hand was limited on the amount of farmland you could possess and actually work. So they were often in competition for land as well. But they were also in competition not just with each other but with the missions and the presidios. The missions were also, the priests and the missions were sometimes also very upset with the soldiers who they thought were corrupting the converts either through liquor or through sexual relations and other ways of corrupting that the priests were very concerned about. But there were also love and relationships. Many of the people living in the town were the offspring of the converts, the Native Americans and the soldiers. On the ranches and in the farms, there was competition between each other. They grew food and they raised cattle that was used by the presidios and by the townspeople. But the missions were also doing the same thing. So there was competition between the missions and the farms and the ranches. So it was a very complex relationship but it gives you an idea of the complexity and the rhythm and the importance of the Spanish institutions in North America and Texas.