01'r Catliolic Heritage m Texas
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to the Villa de Santa Fe, accompanied by Father Fray Juan de Salas, leaving behind, as they did, in the aforementioned place and with the said Indians, Father Fray Juan de Ortega." 11 Among these friendly Indians Father Ortega stayed fo~ six months "without receiving any harm from them." How he returned, why he left this field of labor, and what occurred during the next eighteen years in the land of the J umanos is not recorded. Expedition of Alonso de Vaca, 1634. Setting out from Santa Fe, Captain Alonso de Vaca, with a small party of soldiers appears to have traveled about three hundred leagues to the east in search of Quivira in the year 1634. At the end of his long march, the distance of which seems to be somewhat exaggerated, he came to the "Rio Grande," gen- erally thought to have been the Mississippi, but more likely the Arkansas. In the record of his expedition it is specifically stated that he did not incline to the south as in the case of previous entradas. Granting that his general course was to the east, it is more than probable that he, like all the others, marched across the present Panhandle of Texas along the Canadian for a part of the time. At the large river, probably the north Canadian, he was told that Quivira began on the opposite bank. Judging from the accumulation of information on the locality of this nation, he was either on the north Canadian or the Arkansas at the farthest. The fact that he was told that the people of Quivira lived mainly off the buffalo, tends to indicate he was not on the Mississippi. Being told that the people of Quivira were numerous and of a warlike nature, and that his small force would be annihilated by them, he turned back without crossing the large river. 19 Captains Martin and Castillo's expedition, 1650. General Hernando de la Concha, Governor of New Mexico, ordered Captains Hernan Martin and Diego del Castillo to make an exploration of the Nueces River (present Concho in Texas) and the surrounding country with a group of soldiers and a number of Christian Indians in 1650. Setting out from Santa Fe, they followed a different route from that of previous entradas for a distance of approximately two hundred leagues, or six hundred miles, and ;eached the river of nuts where the nation of the Jumanos lived. Here they stayect· for six months, during which time they took from the river a quantity of shells, which upon being burned, yielded
11posadas, "Informe" in Fernandez Duro, Don Diego de Penalosa, 57 . 19 /bid., 60-61,
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