East Texas Historical Journal Volume 5 Issue 2 Article 7 10-1967 Maps and the Discovery of Texas- a Reexamination Ford Dixon Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj Part of the United States History Commons Tell us how this article helped you. Recommended Citation Dixon, Ford (1967) "Maps and the Discovery of Texas- a Reexamination," East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 5 : Iss. 2 , Article 7. Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj/vol5/iss2/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in East Texas Historical Journal by an authorized editor of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. East Texas Historical Journal 101 MAPS AND THE DISCOVERY OF TEXAS A REEXAMINATION FORD DIXON Few American historians have addressed themseJves to the problem of when and by whom was the coast of Texas discovered. Most have ignored the actual discovery or simply concluded that it naturally followed the land ing of Cortez in Mexico. Others, like Dr. Carlos E. Castaneda of the Univer sity of Texas, have assumed that the 1519 map supposedly reflecting the explorations of Alonso Alvarez Pineda! was the first drawn of the Texas coastline. In his great study of Spanish Texas, Our Ca.tholic Herita.ge in Texas, Volume I, Castaneda writes: The full significance of the Pineda expedition lies in fact, then, that it was the first to explore and map the coast line of Texas.. ,J Apparently using Castaneda as a source, writers like Dr.