Early Exploration of Big Bend Country, r683-r7 JI
345
the river as instructed. He placed entirely too much reliance on his Indian scouts and did not explore the country for himself. He should have exer- cised more judgment and initiative in an unexplored country. Rivera pointed out that to depend entirely on the information which friendly Indians were able to give in traveling over an unexplored region was foolish. The general method used by all those who had led such expeditions was to follow a given direction, the leader finding the way for himself, while his Indian scouts investigated the country to either side, keeping in contact with him by following his trail. In this manner, with the aid of the additional information, the leader could modify his route according to circumstances. He called the attention of the viceroy to the fact that much more difficult explorations had been accomplished in the past without the help of guides and without any specific instructions, such as that of Juan de Ofiate, from Santa Fe to the Gulf of California, Alonso de Leon to the country of Navedachos, and Francisco Alvarez Barreyro, who had explored the coast of Texas from the Bay of Espiritu Santo to the Neches River in the vicinity of Los Adaes, crossing many rivers and marshes. The difficulties encountered by Berroteran were not so great as he made them out to be in his report. The best index to the actual hardships of any expedition, he declared, was the number of horses and beasts of burden that were lost. In the entire expedition, Berroteran lost only twenty-five horses and three mules, which were left on the road worn out or tired. Compare this to the five hundred horses lost by Domingo Teran de los Rios in his expedition to East Texas, or the losses sustained by Alonso de Leon, who, on his return, had less than half of those with which he started, or the eight hundred which Aguayo lost in his expedition in 1722, Rivera declared. The main object of the expedition had been to explore the country between San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande and the point where the Conchos joins this river, generally known as La Junta de los Rios. This land had never been entered by Spaniards and was the known refuge of all the marauding Indians that preyed on the exposed settlements of Nueva Vizcaya, Coahuila, and Nuevo Reyno de Leon. In this attempt the expedition had been an utter failure, as it had explored this country for only a short distance beyond the Presidio of San Juan Bautista. But on the other hand, the march from Mapimi to San Juan Bautista by way of the Presidio of Coahuila was the first of its kind. It opened a new route which connected Nueva Vizcaya with the Presidio of San Juan
Powered by FlippingBook