Camino Real De Research Articles

Reducing them to Live in Society and all Together: War, Pacification and Control on the Route Through Orizaba of the Camino Real de Veracruz (1815 – 1821)

Este artículo se enfoca en el estudio de las estrategias empleadas por el gobierno virreinal durante la guerra de Independencia para controlar el territorio comprendido entre Orizaba y Veracruz. La investigación se planteó desde la óptica de la historia regional, con base en documentación original localizada en archivos de México y España, y la revisión de diversos autores decimonónicos y contemporáneos, con el propósito de analizar las medidas instrumentadas por el virrey Juan Ruiz de Apodaca para pacificar la provincia de Veracruz, tales como el otorgamiento masivo de perdones y la formación de colonias de indultados, el repoblamiento de pueblos abandonados, y el establecimiento del hasta hoy poco conocido “camino militar” del trayecto Córdoba-Veracruz, puesto en operación en la etapa final del conflicto.

Interim measures in the crime of animal abuse. Commentary on the judicial order of November 14, 2017, issued by Court number 1 of Lugo

Throughout 7 and 8 November 2017, the Magistrate in charge of the Instructional Court number 1 of Lugo, Maria del Pilar de Lara Cifuentes, noticed the news that appeared in different Lugo newspapers and social networks, in which it was reported that a dog had been thrown into the void from a house in Camino Real de Vigo. On the same day, November 9, she initiated an ex officio criminal proceeding for an alleged crime of animal mistreatment, typified in article 337 of the Spanish Criminal Code. Once the pertinent investigative procedures had been carried out, the Judge issued an order that contained a series of interim measures applied against the owners of Catalina: the confiscation of the injured animal, the attribution of its custody to an animal protection society, the interdict to the indicted persons to approach or to communicate with the veterinary hospital, the protective society or the animal itself and the banning to the indicted persons of the possession of animals.

Transformación de las fortificaciones en el norte del Camino Real de Tierra Adentro en México: El caso del Presidio de El Pasaje

Las investigaciones sobre las fortificaciones en el norte de Nueva España son escasas. Además, aunque hay escritos aislados sobre algunas fortificaciones, no se han realizado estudios que de manera integral hagan un seguimiento de cada recinto fortificado. El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, motivo de este escrito, alberga un inmenso testimonio de los diversos procesos históricos que en su tendido se forjaron. Dicho testimonio se traduce en una gama de bienes patrimoniales que fueron construidos individual y colectivamente a lo largo de tres siglos. Su transformación da cuenta del conocimiento heredado de técnicas o modelos constructivos, y de estrategias de ocupación, lo cual le imprime un sentido de permanencia en el tiempo.

Analysis of Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Assemblages from the Gas Line Site (41CE63) and 41CE289, Neches River Basin, Cherokee County, Texas

In this article, I discuss the character of the Caddo archaeological assemblages at two sites on Bowles Creek in the Neches River basin that are just north of the important mound center at the George C. Davis site (41CE19): namely the Gas Line site (41CE63) and 41CE289. All three sites are on a broad alluvial terrace of the Neches River and Bowles Creek (Figure 1); the confluence of the two streams is ca. 4.0 km south of 41CE289. Both sites appear to have been occupied by Caddo peoples after the main occupation at George C. Davis ended at ca. A.D. 1300, and 41CE289 is not far north of a ca. A.D. 1560- 1680 Frankston phase component at the George C. Davis site on the northern part of the alluvial terrace east of the Neches River (Fields and Thurmond 1980). The Gas Line site was first identified in 1969 along an excavated gas line trench, and a surface collection was obtained from the site by a University of Texas (UT) crew. Site 41CE289 was identified and investigated by Janice Guy and Susan Lisk, both UT graduate students, just prior to a planned expansion of the Indian Mound Nursery in August 1982. At the time, the landform had been plowed, and surface visibility was excellent; Guy and Lisk conducted a general surface collection of the site, which was estimated to cover a ca. 400 x 150 m area (ca. 15 acres). At the present time, almost all of 41CE289 is on lands owned and controlled by the Texas Historical Commission at Caddo Mounds State Historic Site (see Figure 1). Another ancestral Caddo site in the vicinity of 41CE63 and 41CE289 on Bowles Creek is the R. F. Wallace site (41CE20) in the Bowles Creek floodplain near the confluence of Bowles Creek and White Oak Creek. The site is ca. 2.0 km north of the core area of the George C. Davis site (41CE19) (see Figure 1). The site is a Neche Cluster Historic Caddo Allen phase site with habitation and burial features that was investigated by A. T. Jackson (1932) and a University of Texas crew in June 1932. Human teeth, two glass beads, and ceramic sherds were encountered at ca. 58 cm bs, and the landowner had recovered two ceramic vessels from a burial feature that washed out of the site in 1930; one of the vessels is a Poynor Engraved bottle (Marceaux 2011:595), and the other was a bowl of unknown type or decoration. More than 230 ceramic sherds recovered at the site were analyzed in detail by Marceaux (2011:187- 192, 500-501, 504, 506, 524). The regular occurrence of Patton Engraved sherds, a low plain to decorated sherd ratio (0.40), a considerable proportion of brushed sherds among the decorated sherds, a high brushed to plain sherd ratio (2.07), and a brushed to other wet paste sherd ratio of 5.0, are consistent with a Neche cluster site (Marceaux 2011; Perttula 2016). These metrics are thought to be the material culture correlates of the Neche Caddo, one of the Hasinai Caddo groups that lived on the Neches River in the late 17th and early 18th century just north of the crossing of El Camino Real de los Tejas and the Neches River.

18th Century Mexican Majolica Sherds from the George C. Davis Site (41CE19), Cherokee County, Texas

During the late 17th-early 18th century, Spanish forces colonized the middle reaches of the Neches River and its tributaries when several missions were established for the Tejas and other Hasinai tribes in this locale: Mission San Francisco de los Tejas, 1690-1693, Mission El Santisimo de Nombre Maria (1690-1692), and Mission Nuestra Padre de San Francisco de Tejas (1716-1719, 1721-1730), otherwise known as Mission San Francisco de los Nechas. These missions were established along the Hasinai Trace, later known as El Camino Real de los Tejas . None of these missions have been located and identified in the many archaeological investigations that have been conducted in East Texas since the 1930s. It has been known, however, since 1940 that early 18th century artifacts have been found at the George C. Davis site (41CE19) on the Neches River at the crossing of the Camino Real. H. Perry Newell, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) excavator of the site, had noted in the published report on the 1939-1941 excavations at the George C. Davis site, that: some pieces of Spanish pottery found near a spring in one of the ravines cutting the slope a few hundred yards southeast from the mound [Mound A]…The Spanish ware were examined by Arthur Woodward, Los Angeles County Museum…The Spanish ware was analyzed as follows: “The fragment of blue and white glazed ware is Mexican majolica, made at Puebla, Mexico, sometime between 1700-76 but more than likely it dates from 1720-1750." This majolica from the George C. Davis site, about 20 sherds in total, has been recently relocated in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. The sherds are from early 18th century (ca. 1720) Puebla Blue on White plates, a bowl, and a cup. Given the rarity of majolica on archaeological sites in East Texas outside of Spanish Colonial archaeological deposits, its presence at the George C. Davis site is especially intriguing given the fact that Mission San Francisco de Tejas/de los Nechas or Neches was built in this part of the Neches River valley in 1716, then rebuilt in 1721, and finally abandoned in 1730.

The Caddo Archaeology of the San Pedro Creek Valley, Houston County, in East Texas

The Nabedache Caddo that lived on San Pedro Creek in Houston County in the East Texas Pineywoods were a prominent nation during the early years of European contact, from ca. A.D. 1687-1730, if not later. Their villages, hamlets, and farmsteads sat astride an aboriginal Caddo trail that came to be known as El Camino Real de los Tejas, and thus their community was a principal gateway to Europeans and other Native American tribes who came from the west in Spanish Texas to meet with the Tejas or Hasinai Caddo peoples. The first Spanish mission in East Texas was established amidst the Nabedache Caddo community in 1690. According to Swanton, Nabedache means the place of the thorny trees with black berries growing on them (beidatco). The “Na” is the Caddo language locative prefix meaning “the place of;” it can also “refer to the people residing at that place”. Rogers and Sabo indicate that Nabedache means “blackberry place.” The archaeology of the Nabedache Caddo, or that of their pre-A.D. 1542 ancestors, is not well understood, primarily because of the dearth of intensive investigations at a range of Nabedache Caddo sites that likely occur along San Pedro Creek as well as nearby streams in the Neches River basin. Work that has been completed, primarily on sites at Mission Tejas State Park, have included surveys and limited test excavations at a few sites that have Caddo material culture remains (sherds from ceramic vessels, chipped stone tools, etc.) and European trade goods, including glass beads, gunflints, lead balls and sprue, an iron hoe, an iron rowel, a possible strike-a-light, an iron gun cock, trigger plate, butt plate finial, and gun barrel fragments, iron cast iron kettle fragments, iron knife fragments, wrought iron nails, brass tinklers, and Spanish majolica sherds. In this article, I discuss the archaeological material culture remains from ancestral Caddo sites along San Pedro Creek, including those known to have been occupied by the Nabedache Caddo peoples after the mid-1680s.

Entre el reconocimiento y el abandono. La situación del Camino Real de Tierra Adentro en el norte de Guanajuato

The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro was the main route that for over three centuries allowed communication, trade and the movement of people between central New Spain and northern Spain. This route has been studied by historians, archaeologists, and people interested in the conservation, protection, and dissemination of Mexico's cultural heritage. The objective of this text is to analyze the process by which the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro ceased to be just a subject of historical interest and became a World Heritage Site. To this end, I will review a series of publications that allow us to learn about the different points of view from which this subject has been analyzed, and will examine a series of documents issued by UNESCO and ICOMOS that show the interest of some organizations in the Camino Real.

Caddo Archaeological Sites on San Pedro Creek in Houston County, Texas: San Pedro de los Nabedaches

The Nabedache Caddo that lived on San Pedro Creek in Houston County in the East Texas Pineywoods were a prominent nation during the early years of European contact, from ca. A.D. 1687-1730. Their villages, hamlets, and farmsteads sat astride an aboriginal trail that came to be known as El Camino Real de los Tejas, and thus their community was a principal gateway to Europeans and other Native American tribes who came from the west in Spanish Texas to meet with the Tejas or Hasinai Caddo peoples. The first Spanish mission in East Texas was established amidst the Nabedache Caddo community. The archaeology of the Nabedache Caddo, or that of their pre-A.D. 1542 ancestors, is not well understood, primarily because of the dearth of intensive investigations at a range of Nabedache Caddo sites. Work that has been completed, primarily on sites at Mission Tejas State Park, have included surveys and limited test excavations at a few sites that have Caddo material culture remains (sherds from ceramic vessels, chipped stone tools, etc.) and European trade goods, including glass beads, gunflints, lead balls and sprue, an iron hoe, an iron rowel, a possible strike-a-light, an iron gun cock, trigger plate, butt plate finial, and gun barrel fragments, iron cast iron kettle fragments, iron knife fragments, wrought iron nails, brass tinklers, and Spanish majolica sherds. In this article, I discuss the archaeological material culture remains from several Nabedache Caddo sites along San Pedro Creek that are in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin.

From the Pass to the Pueblos: El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail by George D. Torok (review)

From the Pass to the Pueblos: El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail by George D. Torok (review)

Spatial Patterning of Material Culture Remains and Animal Bone at an Early 18th Century Caddo Site in East Texas

The J. T. King site (41NA15) is an early 18th century Caddo habitation site on King Creek, a tributary to the Angelina River. It is situated on the northern route of El Camino Real de los Tejas, about 5 km east of the Camino Real’s crossing of the Angelina River. This is an area where Historic Caddo sites are relatively common, and there are sites generally contemporaneous with the J. T. King site both north and south some distance along King Creek. Archaeogeophysical and archaeological investigations were conducted intermittingtly at the J. T. King site since May 2008, following the relocation of the site by Tom Middlebrook in 2006. The archaeogeophysical work was led by Dr. Chester P. Walker, and covered a 6.1 acre area of the site. During that work, a considerable number of geophysical anomalies were defined, including 10 circular to sub-round anomalies that range from 3.7 to 12.5 m in diameter. A number of them have smaller anomalies situated in or near their centers that are likely central hearths or large post holes (i.e., center posts) inside Caddo structures.

De Teotihuacan al cañón de Chaco: nueva perspectiva sobre las relaciones entre Mesoamérica y el suroeste de los Estados Unidos

Los estudios relativos a las relaciones entre el suroeste de los Estados Unidos y Mesoamérica suelen prestar poca atención a los grupos que poblaron la Mesoamérica septentrional y que intervinieron directamente en estas relaciones. Trabajos recientes en la Sierra Madre Occidental y en Michoacán permiten dilucidar algunos de los procesos que marcaron la historia de lo que puede llamarse el antiguo Camino de Tierra Adentro. En particular, llevan a reconocer la importancia de Teotihuacan en esta historia norteña, no como metrópoli en expansión, como se había propuesto hasta ahora, sino en el cuadro de la diáspora de su población, a raíz de su destrucción violenta. Estos avances hacen posible un diálogo fructífero con los esfuerzos actuales de estudiosos hopis para confrontar los aportes de la arqueología con su tradición oral que reporta las migraciones de varios de sus clanes desde un lugar de origen llamado Palatkwapi, que podría ser Teotihuacan.

Archaeological Sites Along King Creek in Western Nacogdoches County, in East Texas

The King Creek area of western Nacogdoches County in East Texas is known to be a locality where Historic Caddo sites (of the Allen phase, ca. A.D. 1650-1800) are abundant, or at least abundant relative to many other parts of East Texas. In addition to there being at least two branches of the late 17th-early 19th century El Camino Real de los Tejas that bisect the area on their way to crossings on the nearby Angelina River, three important Historic Caddo sites have been identified not far apart in the valley: J. T. King (41NAI5), David King (41NA32l), and Wes Wisener (41NA336); the David King and Wes Wisener sites lie a short distance south of the J. T. King site, on the west side of the King Creek valley. Tom Middlebrook suggests these sites, and other Historic Caddo sites yet to be identified in the valley, are part of an early 18th century Hainai Caddo village that had farmstead compounds dispersed across at least a 3-4 km stretch of the valley. In 2009, we had the opportunity to conduct archaeological survey investigations on private land on King Creek and one of its tributaries. The survey area is about l-1.5 km northeast of the J. T. King site. The principal focus of the survey work was to identify other Historic Caddo sites in the King Creek valley. Our interest in this property had first been piqued because the landowner had reported that a iron Spanish sword had been found on the property some years earlier; the landowner also mentioned that there were preserved segments of El Camino Real de los Tejas on the property. This article summarizes the findings from a first round of archaeological survey investigations

Rediscovering the Camino Real of Panama: Archaeology and Heritage Tourism Potentials

Rediscovering the Camino Real of Panama:Archaeology and Heritage Tourism Potentials Christian Strassnig Introduction The exact course of the Camino Real de Panamá, the colonial-era predecessor of the Panama Canal, has been unknown for over two centuries. An interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, historians and experts in sustainable development is currently carrying out a research project in order to locate the colonial road in cooperation with the National Institute of Culture (INAC) and the Patronato de Panamá Viejo (PPV). The project has been funded by the National Secretariat for Science and Technology (SENACYT) since June 2008. The objectives of the project are: (1) an archaeological survey of the original course of the Camino Real, especially the documentation of cobbled sections and the location of ventas;1 (2) the preparation of a plan for cultural tourism, preservation of the cultural and natural heritage and sustainable development of communities along the road; (3) the implementation of a pilot project for sustainable development based on cultural tourism in one selected community; (4) to gain official declaration of the Camino Real and Camino de Cruces as national heritage sites and eventually as a World Heritage Site. The term camino real described all major transport routes in the Spanish colonial realm. In Panama, several roads were in use during the colonial era, the most important of which were the Camino de Cruces and the Camino Real de Panamá (Figure 1). Both connected the central isthmus between Panama City and the Caribbean. The designation "de Panamá" was omitted for the Camino Real de Panamá over the years and the abbreviated version will be used here. In addition to its importance for the Spanish colonial empire and global trade, the Camino Real had a lasting mark on Panamanian history and molded the formation of the Panamanian economy, population and culture. Its historical role is often compared to the current importance of the Panama Canal for the country and the world economy; and in fact, Panamanian society flourished with the fluctuations in the success and failures of the ferias and trade along the Camino Real. Research and publications on the Camino Real de Panamá are very limited compared to literature available on caminos reales elsewhere in Spanish America, in particular the Spanish roads of Nueva España (Castleman 2005, Crosby 1977, Rees 1975, [End Page 159] Staski 2004, Suárez Argüello 1997, West 1941) and Nueva Granada (Amodio, Navarete and Rodríguez 1997, Larrichio 2008, Melo González, et al. 1988). Hussey (1939) authored the most comprehensive article on the history and course of the Panamanian colonial roads, but without having defined the routes in the field. The article by Bohn and Joly (1978) describes the characteristics of construction of the Camino Real and the Camino de Cruces, using the example of a few sites, but without mapping the course of the roads. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Route of the Camino Real. Nombre de Dios was the terminal city until 1597, when Portobelo replaced it. Following the discovery of the South Sea in 1513 by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the City of Panama was established in 1519 by Pedro Arias Dávila as the first European city on the Pacific coast and the Camino Real became the vital transport route across the isthmus. It connected Panama City with Nombre de Dios (after 1597 with Portobelo) by a land route of approximately 95 kilometers. Travel along this route took about four days and goods were transported by mules, as the steep road, the muddy ground and the numerous rivers, did not allow the use of carts or carriages. Panama was initially still seen as a station on the way to the Spice Islands (Fernández de Oviedo 1851: 332), however, the principal route for the East Asia trade was later established between Manila-Acapulco-Veracruz. With the conquest of the Inca Empire by Francisco Pizarro in 1532/33 (who accompanied Balboa at the expedition to the Pacific in 1513), the transit of plundered and mined gold and silver over the isthmus to the Caribbean began, from whence it continued to Spain via Cuba. Although gold was highly valued by the early conquistadores...

Following the Royal Road: A Guide to the Historic Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (review)

Book Reviews Jesús F. de la Teja, Editor Following tL· Royal Road: A Guide to the Historic Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. By Hal Jackson, foreword by Marc Simmons. (Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, 2006. Pp. 226. Illustrations, maps, suggested readings, appendix, index. ISBN 0826340857. $19.95, paper.) Renewed scholarly and popular interest in die Camino Real de Tierra Adentro , the royal road running from Mexico City northward into the far reaches of New Mexico, began on the eve of the Columbus Quincentennial of 1992, which celebrated or decried the momentous events of 1492, depending on one's historical point ofview. In New Mexico, Gabrielle Palmer got the wheels turning with the formation ofthe Camino Real Project and die preparation ofa traveling exhibition that subsequendy toured all over the region touched by the famous road and to many points beyond. Activity aimed at preserving, researching, and interpreting the historic Camino Real in die United States and Mexico has been intensive for more than a decade. In the late 1990s the first of a continuing series of international conferences brought togedier scholars from a variety ofacademic disciplines from Spain, Mexico, and die United States researching various aspects of die Camino Real. Binational agreements to preserve die road followed. Publication ofcollected papers followed a number of die conferences. A dedicated group of "trail buffs," history aficionados, and scholars formed the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro Trail Association (CARTA) in 2003. Finally, in 2005 the Camino Real Heritage Center opened in its impressive location thirty-five miles soudi of Socorro, New Mexico. All this focus of attention on the Camino Real suggests that die road will attract many visitors in the future, many in need of a guide. Into the breach steps HalJackson, professor emeritus of geography at Humboldt State University and adjunct faculty member ofdie University ofNew Mexico's Department of Geography, with the first motorist's guide to the Camino Real. As would any travel guide wordiy of the name, Jackson's book provides background information on the sites to be visited and practical suggestions on routes to follow, places to eat, and recommended accommodations. Unlike your typical touristguide, Jackson's narrative is informed by die latest scholarship on the Camino Real and by historic travelogues. The book devotes roughly equal attention to die Camino Real in each country —four chapters each. The nordiern section ofthe Camino Real is located mosdy in New Mexico with a historically significant portion in die greater El Paso area, 2??8Book Reviews345 including Ysleta, Socorro, and San Elizario. In all likelihood this northern portion will be the part of the Camino Real diat motorists from the United States will explore . The much more interesting part of die road, from the standpoint of travel adventure, however, is the southern section, which is located in Mexico. It is here thatJackson really shines, offering his firsthand travel tips to out-of-die-way places, many that once were important stops on the Camino Real in Mexico and are no longer occupied and tricky to find. An excellent example of the kind of useful information the traveler will find relates to the directions to the silver-mining town of Cusihuiriáchic in the State of Chihuahua. After giving detailed directions that include looking for signs, sleuthing out cross streets, making right-hand and left-hand turns, it must have occurred to the author that there was a pretty good chance the motorist would miss a crucial street or turn. With this in mind, Jackson advises, "If you have trouble, just ask anyone for 'Cusi' and they'll direct you there" (p. 127). This would surely be a welcome suggestion to a lost traveler unsure how to pronounce the tongue-twisting name of their intended destination. With this guide in hand, the traveler should have every confidence in venturing on a Mexican trip into the past of the Camino Real. New Mexico State UniversityRick Hendricks El Gran Norte de Mexico: Una frontera imperial en la Nueva España (1540-1820). By Alfredo Jiménez. (Madrid, Spain: Tébar, 2006. Pp. 536. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 8473602218. €28.95, Paper.) The history of northern New Spain has traditionally...

Feast of Souls: Indians and Spaniards in the Seventeenth-Century Missions of Florida and New Mexico (review)

Reviewed by: Feast of Souls: Indians and Spaniards in the Seventeenth-Century Missions of Florida and New Mexico Cynthia Radding Feast of Souls: Indians and Spaniards in the Seventeenth-Century Missions of Florida and New Mexico. By Robert C. Galgano. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. Pp. 248. Acknowledgments, illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0826336485. $32.50, cloth.) Feast of Souls provides a comparative synthesis of the Franciscan mission enterprise in two provinces of the northeastern and northwestern borderlands of New Spain: Florida and New Mexico. The author's purpose is to produce a teaching volume for undergraduate classroom use in accessible language whose protagonists are the indigenous peoples of both regions and the missionaries imbued with the spirit of evangelization in new and largely unknown cultural frontiers. The seventeenth century marks the temporal framework for this study, indeed the formative period of contested hegemony and negotiated colonialism in both of these borderlands. Robert Galgano achieves his purpose, centering his narrative on the religious mission itself, with emphasis on the mixed and often contradictory messages that indigenous neophytes heard and refashioned from the Franciscans' Christian gospel. [End Page 411] Feast of Souls is a slim, eminently readable book divided into six chapters that roughly follow chronological lines through different phases of early contact, conquest, and mission settlement. Galgano addresses the ecological, epidemiological, and sociopolitical impacts of conquest and mission formation, notwithstanding his principal interest in the cultural clashes of the Catholic call to conversion and the disciplines that Franciscans attempted to impose on the Indians' religious and curing practices. He culls important cultural insights from the ethnographic literature for both regions and is attentive to the cultural frameworks that friars and secular Spaniards brought to the Americas from medieval traditions and the Tridentine canons of the early Counter Reformation. The book's strengths lie in the simplicity and clarity of the narrative. He compares the importance of chiefdoms among the Timucuan and Apalachee peoples of Florida with the relative independence of individual pueblos in New Mexico. The presence of the English frontier provided a market and physical refuge for indigenous peoples who fled from the Spanish mission system, but at the same time threatened Indians and Spaniards in Florida with aggressive military invasions during the War of the Spanish Succession (Queen Anne's War) of the early eighteenth century. Conflict and rebellion came from within New Mexico, in a series of village-level rebellions that culminated in the well-known revolt of 1680, forcing the Spaniards to abandon the province for nearly two decades. Feast of Souls reduces the colonial drama to only a few themes related to the missions and focuses on two separate provinces of the vast northern frontier of New Spain. While the comparisons between Florida and New Mexico support Galgano's main points, the narrative generally ignores concurrent historical processes in the neighboring provinces of Nueva Vizcaya, Coahuila, and Nuevo León. The resulting text seems to float suspended above the complicated tapestry of Spanish dominion in the Americas and viceregal developments in New Spain. Classroom teachers would be well advised to problematize the author's contention that the Crown's only motive for sustaining these provinces was its commitment to Catholic evangelization of Indian souls. Florida belonged to the Caribbean basin, with strategic navigational routes and European rivalries for control of territories, ports, the slave trade, and plantation economies. New Mexico, although on the margins of the mining centers of Zacatecas, Durango, Chihuahua, and Sonora that fueled the New Spanish economy, was connected to that colonial economy through the camino real de tierra adentro and provided a defensive shield for both real and imagined incursions by British and French traders and military forces. In sum, Feast of Souls offers students an engaging introduction to the history of two regions that illustrate the complexity of ecological, cultural, and geopolitical borderlands in the Americas. Cynthia Radding University of New Mexico Copyright © 2007 The Texas State Historical Association

Franciscan Missions Along the Coahuila-Texas Corridor

The introduction of frontier missions as humanitarian agencies for converting and assimilating indigenous cultures into the mainline society distinguished the Spanish colonial experience in North America from the historical record of other European nations. Among ecclesiastical communities of religious men, the Franciscan missionaries achieved notable distinction for their apostolic work in the Spanish Borderlands of North America. Their patient evangelization among the Coahuiltecan tribes of the Coahuila-Texas corridor represented a hallmark segment of an American saga. With the second wave of Spanish immigrants who followed Christopher Columbus to the Indies, Franciscan missionaries began their evangelization of indigenous cultures on the four principal islands in the Caribbean. Within one generation, Spanish explorers began probing Central America, culminating in 1521 with Hernan Cortes's conquest of Mexico. Shortly afterwards, twelve Franciscan friars arrived in the Valley of Mexico to convert the indigenous civilizations. In the first century of colonial experience, the missionaries applied the European model of conversion, namely the preaching of repentance and atonement through popular missions that did not require plazas and ancillary structures. The silver bonanza that began in earnest in 1549 in Zacatecas rapidly transformed the landscape of the central corridor of Mexico, leaving in its wake roads, mines, haciendas, towns, presidios, and missions. The success of silver mining and its attendant economic boom made possible the eventual occupation of New Mexico in 1598 at the northern end of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Meanwhile, along the eastern corridor, dominated by the Sierra Madre Oriental, frontier leaders and Franciscan missionaries in the second half of the 16th century gradually extended the line of colonization. Francisco de Urdinola the younger in 1576 settled sixty families at Saltillo, thus establishing a foundation for the subsequent development of Coahuila. Similarly, to the east, Luis de Carvajal founded Nuevo Leon in 1579, an enterprise that failed, causing government officials to appoint another leader, Luis de Montemayor, who renewed the colonial effort with the establishment of the town of Monterrey in 1596. In Coahuila and Nuevo Leon, Franciscan missionaries contributed to the eventual stability of the region. During the 17th century, Franciscans of the ecclesiastical Province of Jalisco (Guadalajara) joined military leaders in Coahuila in advancing the line of exploration to the Rio Grande. In 1675, a mutually supportive Bosque-Larios expedition traversed the Rio Grande in search of wilderness sites for future missions. By then, Coahuila emerged as a permanent frontier province. Concomitant with this