TEXAS HISTORY – LEARNING FROM OUR PAST TO INFLUENCE OUR FUTURE

The Spanish Explorer Who Changed Life for the American Indian... (From the 4th grade “Six Flags Over Texas” segment)

In 1598, fifty years after the initial settlement attempts and failures of earlier Spanish , Juan de Oñate was ordered by King Philip II of to colonize the northern frontier of . He crossed the Rio Grande, proceeded northward up the river, and claimed all of for Spain. In 1601, he led a large expedition to the Great Plains of Texas.

Four hundred soldiers, a small group of priests, and 130 families of the soldiers accompanied Oñate on his journey north. The soldiers came to subdue the Indian population; the priests came to Christianize them; and the families came along to establish permanent colonies of Spanish peasantry north of the Rio Grande. But Oñate unwittingly introduced a far more important resource to Texas -- his expedition included a herd of seven thousand domestic animals -- European cattle and Spanish colts and mares.

Why was this livestock so important? Quite simply because the animals introduced new mobility to the Indians -- a critical factor in expanding their potential for finding food and in protecting themselves against the European invaders. Earlier conquistadors had found the more pliant Indian cultures easily subdued. As Oñate ventured further into northern Texas, he encountered the more hostile Wichitas and Apaches, who ultimately gained access to horses as a result of the more permanent colonization policies. When Oñate introduced the Spanish horses into the High Plains area, he “recruited” the more docile Indians to tend the stock. The natives learned the details of horsemanship, and took to it with a passion.

Naturally, some of these Indians escaped to the western mountains and high plains, taking their considerable new skills…and stolen horses…with them. Oñate’s introduction of the horse and its care, on a large scale, to the native culture completely changed the course of Texas history. In the first half of the seventeenth century, the newly developed horsemanship skills were passed to the Apache, and later, to the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne-Arapaho and other plainsmen. For the first time, the American Indians were equipped to meet their European masters on an equal, if not superior, footing in their own homeland. This new mobility allowed the Indians to keep the Spanish at bay…to aggressively and successfully defend what had been their homeland and hunting grounds for centuries -- an advantage that would last until they were finally driven onto Indian Territory reservations by the U. S. Cavalry some three hundred years later.

And like the horse, Oñate’s herd of several thousand Spanish Longhorns had a lasting impact on Texas history far beyond anything the Spaniard could have imagined. When he arrived, there were enormous herds of bison that freely roamed the midcontinent…herds the Indians were dependent upon not only for their food, but for shelter, clothing, tools, and weapons, as well. In addition to the tens of millions of bison, the Indians also had countless thousands of pronghorn antelope, deer, rabbits, turkey, and an occasional bear for menu items. Because of this ample, readily available food supply and the Indians’ easy exploitation of bison (they were stupid animals, easy to kill, even on foot, but could be slaughtered at will by horse-mounted hunters); the hardy Spanish cattle introduced by Oñate thrived on the virtually predator-free, Texas plains.

By the mid-1800’s, their numbers had grown from a few thousand to 3-5 million. Newcomers to Texas…entrepreneurs from the eastern states... quickly saw the huge profit potential offered by the “free” cattle. The availability of these abundant Longhorns resulted in the great, legendary cattle drives of the mid-19th century -- along the well-known cattle trails called Chisholm, Western, Santa Fe, and Goodnight-Loving -- into New Mexico and across Indian Territory (now ) to markets in Colorado and to railheads in …Topeka, Wichita, Abilene and Dodge City.

A booming cattle industry and beef market arose from the descendants of the little-known Spanish explorer’s herd of European Longhorns. And major support industries required to truly settle the dry and arid regions of north, west and southwest Texas thrived, as well: barbed wire, which helped strangle the cattle drives, but which accelerated the development of pure breeds of cattle; and the American version of the windmill that pumped water out of the ground, thereby making possible the settlement of the more arid regions of Texas; and the expansion of the railroad which transported settlers and entrepreneurs to the great State of Texas.