The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 9, July 1905 - April, 1906 Page: 102
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Texas IHistorical Association Quarterly.
the neighborhood of the Trinity reports of English traders, and
found what he thought to be English guns. The Indians at a
rancheria above Orcoquisac, reputed to be a center for French
trade, told him that some Frenchmen living across the Neches in
Louisiana were procuring these guns from Englishmen and bring-
ing them to the Trinity, but that the French would not allow the
English traders to come to the Indian villages in person.1 Other
reports of this kind were not lacking, and taken all together they
may have caused the governor genuine uneasiness. He hoped, per-
haps, in a settlement of the Adaesans on the Trinity, for a partial
restoration of the coast protection that had recently been with-
drawn by the removal of the garrison from Orcoquisac.2 That
this was a genuine consideration with Ripperd is borne out by
Ybarbo's activities on the coast, under the governor's direction,
after settling on the Trinity. But the fact that Paso Tomas, in
the midst of a large number of northeastern tribes, was chosen
instead of a point near the coast, is a good indication that Rip-
perda's desire to maintain an influence among these northeastern
tribes and Ybarbo's desire to return to the neighborhood which he
had left, together outweighed Ripperda's fear of the English from
the south.
The above reasons given by Ripperda for the choice of Paso
TomAs as the site for the new settlement all sound unselfish and
patriotic enough. Other persons thought, however, that the selec-
tion was determined by the governor's and Ybarbo's personal in-
terest in the forbidden Indian trade. Ripperda had for some time
been suspected of encouraging, if not of direct complicity with,
1Diary of Luis Cazorla, in Expediente sobre proposiciones, 71-72. At
this rancheria Cazorla was told that when an Englishman had come there
to trade, "giving four balls for a deer skin," French soldiers from Nat-
chitoches had arrested him and taken him to their post (Ibid). For a
report of the finding, in 1778, of remains of foreign vessels on the coast,
see Expediente sobre el abandono . . . y establacer Comercio, 3. For
another report of English on the coast, see below, page 118, and Expediente
sobre la dolosa y fingida paz, 165-7.
2The place which I have designated as the probable site of Paso Tomas
corresponds very closely with the one indicated by Bancroft (North Mexi-
can States and Texas, I, 612) as the site of San Augustin de Ahumada
before the removals which finally placed it at Orcoquisac.102
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 9, July 1905 - April, 1906, periodical, 1906; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101036/m1/106/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.