147
Communications Between Santa Fe and San Antonio
the Arkansas had established five trading posts in the country between the Taovaya village and New Mexico. 2 Truly did Captain Felipe de Rabago y Teran declare in 1761 that the Presidio of San Luis de las Amarillas was the bulwark of four provinces: Texas, New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya (Chihuahua), and Coahuila. Los Adaes, the remote capital of Texas, was two hundred and twenty-five leagues to the northeast; San Antonio, the strongest post in Texas, was seventy leagues to the southeast; the old Presidio of San Juan Bautista was one hundred and twenty leagues to the southwest; the new Presidio at La Junta, where the Mexican Conchos Rh·er enters the Rio Grande, was one hundred and fifty leagues to the northwest; and New Mexico was to the north, but no one knew how far. 3 Early efforts to find a roz,te from San Saba to New 111ezico. On his own initiative, Rabago y Teran undertook the blazing of a trail to New Mexico in the spring and summer of 1761. A detachment of forty men set out from present Menard and went west to the headwaters of the Texas Concho, passing by or near modern San Angelo. They appear to have struck the Pecos River in the vicinity of present McCamey. They ascended the Pecos perhaps to the present site of Pecos, Texas, where they found a large Indian settlement. The river, they declared, flowed across apparently endless plains and was about eighteen varas wide and almost two varas deep. The country along the river was more or less flat but two ranges of mountains were discernible to the west. 4 The Presidio of San Saba and its energetic commander had been instrumental in the creation of interest and the stimulation of efforts in establishing direct communication between Texas and New Mexico. But when, in 1767, the austere and grim inspector of the frontier outposts. the Marques de Rubi, finished his visit to the first line of defence of Spain in America, he returned thoroughly convinced of the uselessness of maintaining San Saba in the midst of the vast and boundless expanse of West Texas. With characteristic incisiveness, he declared, "It affords as much protection to the interests of His Majesty in New Spain as a 2 Diario del Viage que hizo Fray Joseph de Calahorra. A, G. /., A udidncia dd Mex;co, 92-6-22, pt. 2, pp. 106-11 o; Calahorra to Martos y Navarrete, October 18, 1766. 3 Rabago y Teran to the Viceroy, March 2, 1761. A. G. /., Audidncia d4 ,JIJxico, 91-3-3, pp. 15-25. 4Rabago y Teran to the Viceroy, July 12, 1761. A. G. ,JI., Historia, Vol. 94, pp. I 2-I 5.
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