Ottr C atliolic If eritage in Texas
208
of Judaism. He was taken to Mexico, where he died in prison a few months later. Castano de Sosa set out from Almaden in search of the mouth of the Pecos and, as pointed out before, he was the first to ascend this river on his way to New Mexico. It will be remembered that even at that early time there was unmistakable evidence that Spaniards from this outpost had visited the Rio Grande and were familiar with the country in the vicinity of the juncture of the Pecos and the Rio Grande. Castano de Sosa, it will be recalled, led the settlers of Almaden to New Mexico under questionable circumstances and dubious authority. His subsequent arrest and the failure of his undertaking resulted in the practical abandonment of this outpost . Several efforts to refound it failed and it was not until 1673 that a settlement in its vicinity was again established. 24 Searcle for the Dtttcle in Texas, 1638. While the governor of the Nuevo Reyno de Leon was in Cerralvo, in 1638, he heard confused rumors which soon became much clearer reports of a strange group of men who had landed on the coast to the northeast. According to the reports of the Camalucano, Amapualas (Amapolas) and other Indian tribes, it was said that thirty leagues from their lands, on the coast, there was a group of men different from the Spaniards "with blonde beards and hair, who wore red socks, steel plate corselets and hats, and who carried longer arquebuses" than those of the Spaniards. It was further said that these men had other guns, which they kept on the coast and which were thicker than a man's body. With these arms they could kill the natives "in bunches" at a long distance, even when hiding in the woods. The guns made a terrific noise like the roll of thunder in heaven and were enveloped by thick clouds of smoke. But the Indians declared that the strangers treated them kindly and gave them clothes and many trinkets such as strings of beads, rattles, mirrors, and other things they liked. "This filled the governor with uneasiness," says the chronicler, "who questioned the Indians closely." It seems the governor had heard also that Dieguillo, a notorious pirate from Havana, had been active at this time on the Gulf coast. "He concluded, therefore, that either the latter could have entered the Rio de las Palmas, or that the Dutch, according to the signs given, which left no room for doubt, were attempting to 24The general summary here presented is based chiefly on Leon, Alonso, Historia de N11evo Leon (Genaro Garcia, Documentos /neditos, Vol. 25); Portillo, Esteban L., A,Punles para la Historia Antigua de Coahrd/a :Y Texas.
Powered by FlippingBook