Ottr Catliolic Heritage in T exa-s
making periodic visits to the country of the Tejas. The chief of these allied tribes of nomads was Juan Sabeata, who, it will be recalled, had been instrumental in inducing Father Lopez and Captain Juan Dominguez de Mendoza to undertake their notable expedition in 1683-1684. It seems that in the spring, this tireless wanderer of the western plains was in the habit of leading his followers to the east to hunt buffalo and to trade with the friendly Indians of the Hasinai Confederacy on the Neches and Trinity Rivers of East Texas. Here it appears that each year the Indians held a fair in which the plunder obtained from the Spanish outposts along the whole northern frontier of New Spain was bartered and traded. In the fall, before cold weather set in, Juan Sabeata led his people back to the region of La Junta de los Rios where they spent the winter. In the fall of 1687, a group of Jumano and Cibolo Indians who had just returned from the country of the Tejas and were visiting among the missions of La Junta, informed the missionaries that there were other Spaniards living near the land of the Tejas. They asked the good Padre to give them a letter to take back in· the spring. Skeptical of the veracity of his informers, Father Agustin de Colina jestingly told them to bring a letter from the other Spaniards first. This they gladly promised to <lo. Early the following September the vanguard of the annual pilgrimage began to arrive at La Junta. They brought many details about the for- eigners who were living near the country of the Tejas. They declared that the strangers were trading freely among the Indians, that they lived in wooden houses near the sea and that they had other wooden houses in the water, but that one of these had been lost. They said that these other white men wore armor, and that they had told the Indians that the Spaniards of Parral were no good; that they would soon enter the country and take possession of it. The Indians also told of a man, whom they called "Moro," Moor, who was living among a tribe of Indians near the Tejas. They said that this chief led the natives in their cam- paigns against their enemies. They assured the astonished missionaries at La Junta that their chief, who was now on his way, would confirm all these facts and report more in detail everything concerning the strangers. 39 39Declarations of various Indians and of Fathers Colina and Juan de Hinojosa at Presidio de San Francisco de Conchas, November 21-23, 1688, in Autos £hos por el Sor. Gour y Capn. Gen! de la Nueua Viscaya ... A. G. I., A11die11cia de G11ada- lafam, 67-4-11 (University of Texas Tran~cripts, New Mexico, 1683-1697). The
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