15
Reorganisation and New Policies, 1770-1800
its garrison. They would have to depend on the support of the settlers for defence. For the same reason, help from Sonora or Nueva Vizcaya was an even more remote possibility. The Indian policy in New Mexico was to have as its cardinal point the maintenance of peace and the cultivation of the friendship of the Yutes to use them in opposing the Comanches on the northern and eastern frontier. It was equally important to stir up still more the enmity between the Navajos and Gila-Apaches, in order to set one against the other so as to secure their ultimate destruction or subjection. At Taos the J icarilla-Apaches and the Co- manches were both to be courted and their friendship and confidence won through kind treatment, judicious distribution of gifts, and the establishment of trade. 19 Recommendations concerning Nuevo Leon and Nuevo Santander. For military purposes the provinces of Texas, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Nuevo Santander were placed under the immediate command of Colonel Juan de Ugalde, who had previously served as governor of Coahuila and had successfully campaigned against the Apaches in this region. Ugalde, being subordinate to the commandant general only in a general way, was given authority over the available troops in the four provinces and full discretion to conduct the war against the Indians. The viceroy pointed out that in these four provinces the chief enemies were the Mescalero-Apaches. Their kinsmen, the Lipans, maintained a nominal peace in Texas and Coahuila, as also did the Comanches further to the north. But au · Indians, including the various tribes generally designated as nations of the north, were to be distrusted. All officers, however, should scrupulously observe the terms of peace negotiated by Governor Domingo Cabello and other agents, giving no justification for the renewal of open hostilities with any Indians now at peace. But every unprovoked violation or infraction of these terms by the natives was to be severely punished. Caution was to be exercised in ascertaining the perpetrators of outrages, because it was well known that the Lipans in particular took great pains to blame either the Mescaleros or the northern tribes. While firmly enforcing the terms of peace, they were to court the friendship of all these tribes and to build bonds of interest by developing active trade with them. At the same time the traditional rivalry between the Apaches and the northern Indians was to be tactfully kept alive
19/bul., pp. 220-222.
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