Escandon and Settlement of Lower Rio Grande, 1738-1779
149
timber from ships, probably washed ashore by the winds and the tide. He noticed in this area a great number of wild cattle and horses, wild onions that tasted as good as those that are cultivated, and many palms and willow trees. 16 Sur..1ivors of tl,e early settlements at t/,e nzoutlz of the Rio Grande. Among the various tribes of Indians found near the mouth of the river there was one that attracted the attention of the explorers because of its color. Unlike the other natives, they showed unmistakable signs of being descended from Africans. This made the Spaniards wonder about their origin and how they had come to this locality. Upon being questioned, they explained their origin in various ways. According to one version, they claimed they had come across the sea many years before, single men, all black, armed with lances and shields. After arriving at the river, they had captured the native women in their battles. The Indians feared them and fled from them at first, hunting them from ambush like wild beasts, but gradually they had overcome their aversion and the negroes became one of the most influential groups among the natives. Just how they had crossed the sea was not clear. According to some they had swum across and according to others they had come in ships. The chronicler of the events very wisely reflects that they certainly did not come before the discovery of the New World. It was more likely, he observes, that they were brought from the larger islands in the Gulf of Mexico. In view of their enslavement, they could not have come of their own free will. Consequently, he concludes they must have been brought by some unknown early settlers and abandoned, or from some slave trading vessel shipwrecked on the coast. Such was the very wise conclusion reached by Father Fray Vicente de Santa Maria, at the time. 17 But a more plausible explanation is that they were the survivors of the three attempts to occupy the mouth of the river already described in detail in the first volume of this series. The first of these journeys was made directly from Jamaica and the other two from Cuba. 18 16 /bid., 237. Notice the reference to the palms, which help to confirm the opinion that the earliest visitors to the mouth of the river rightly give it the name of Rio de las Palmas. 17 Vicente de Santa Maria, Relacion hi.storica del Nuevo Santandn- y Costa del Seno Mexicano, in P11blicaciones del Archivo General de la Nacion, vol. 1 5, pp. 443-444. 18 See Vol. I, Chap. I.
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