American Indian Culture and Research Journal

In August 1779, members of the Hasinai Caddo confederacy spotted a wave of people trekking through East Texas and heading toward the site of the Mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches, where the migrants eventually settled. The group appeared to be Spanish. Situated among several Hasinai villages, Spaniards had left the mission, and the area, six years prior. Now they returned. This migration “caused a great murmuring among the neighboring Indians,” for it occurred during a moment of social and political disquiet for the Caddo peoples. Several Caddo chiefs recently had perished from the latest bout of epidemic disease that struck the region. After the death of these political leaders, the Native people looked to their allies and consulted with Spanish officials during their quest for new leaders who understood Spanish-Indian diplomacy in the Texas colonial borderlands. The Hasinai also were trying to fend off Osage pressures from the North, which required armaments and military support. Like the ravages of disease, Osage raids brought the Caddo-Spanish alliance to the center of Indian diplomacy. Enemy violence made trade with the Spanish that much more crucial to the defense of Hasinai communities. For these reasons, the return of the Spaniards after a six-year hiatus instantly caused murmurs among the Hasinai; however, what the Hasinai did not know was that the Spanish establishment of the town of Nacogdoches would become central to Caddo-Spanish trade relations and diplomacy as well as to Hasinai life on the East Texas frontier. The 1779 settlement of Nacogdoches and the town’s trade networks played a strong role in forming a boundary between Texas and Louisiana. The Spanish and Hasinai redirected trade routes in Texas after 1779 and produced new spaces along the Texas and Louisiana corridor.