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Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
When the victims of the Indians' rapacity returned to their companions without a stitch of clothes upon their bodies, the unfortunate survivors suddenly gave a shout of joy, thinking in their simple minds that they had discovered the reason why the Indians continued to follow them. Each one urged the other to take off his clothes. In a few minutes, the entire company undressed, leaving their clothes piled in the field for the Indians; and feeling that having nothing left of value, the natives would cease to pursue them. Great was the shock which the women in the party and the sons of St. Dominic experienced in carrying out the orders dictated by stern necessity. This, however, proved to be but a useless sacrifice. The Indians, amused no doubt at the actions of their marked victims, gathered the clothes with much shouting and dancing; but far from desisting in their pursuit of the poor Spaniards, they redoubled the attacks upon the stragglers and harassed the entire group continually. "Many of the women and children fell dead in their tracks and the others toiled on, famished, thirsty, and totally exhausted." 16 After several days of incredible suffering, the weary travelers reached the Rio de las Palmas, the present Rio Grande, coming upon the river somewhere in the vicinity of present Brownsville. After they had aban- doned their clothes, it had been arranged for the women and children to march in the vanguard, two or three miles ahead of the men, in an effort to protect them from the Indians who hovered in the rear. The measure availed them but little and many of the women and children were killed before the Rio Grande was reached. The chronicler of this sad event has left us a graphic picture of the suffering endured by the survivors. "The wounded children ran crying to their mothers asking for help and the poor mothers suffered more than the children, feeling the pain of the arrow wounds of the children more than if they themselves had received them .. . No sooner would a mother stop to help a child than an arrow found its mark ... If a mother lingered by the side of a dying baby she soon joined him in death ... If the mother fell first and the child ran to her, it was not long before the cruelty of the savages put an end to his sorrow as they had done with the mother." 17 Of the three hundred who had started a few days before, confident they would arrive in Panuco within three or four days, a scant two hundred remained, half of whom were seriously wounded.
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16 Davi!a Padilla, op. cit., pp. 276-277 . 17 /bid., pp. 278-279 .
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