The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 11, July 1907 - April, 1908 Page: 273
vii, 320 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Native Tribes About the East Texas Missions. 273
fields." In 1716 Ram6n referred to the Hainai settlement on the
Angelina River as the "pueblo of the Ainai, where there is an
infinite number of houses (ranchos) with their fields of corn,
watermelons, melons, beans, tobacco," etc. As we have already
seen, in his passage from the Hainai to the Nasoni in 1716 Espi-
nosa noted many houses on the way.1
After several years' residence among these tribes, Espinosa, hav-
ing in mind the dismal failure to reduce them to civilized life,
described the Hasinai settlements in general thus: "These natives
do not live in congregations reduced to pueblos, but each of the
four principal groups where the missions are located are in ranchos
[separate houses], as it were, apart from each other. The chief
cause of this is that each household seeks a place suitable for its
crops and having a supply of water."2 In another place he tells
us that in their ministerial work among the Indians the padres
had to travel six or seven leagues in all directions from each of the
four missions.8
It is thus evident that the Hasinai settlements by no means
corresponded to the Spanish notion of a pueblo, built in close
order. To induce the natives to congregate in such pueblos, as a
means of civilizing them, was a chief aim of the government and
the missionaries, and failure to accomplish this was a primary
cause of the abandonment, after fifteen years of effort, of all but
one of the missions of the group.
NUMBERS.
It is easy to gain an exaggerated notion of the numerical strength
of the native tribes. Popular imagination, stimulated by the
hyperbole of writers for popular consumption, has peopled the
primitive woods and prairies with myriads of savages. Students,
however, have shown that this is an error, and that the Indian
population has always been, in historical times, relatively sparse.
In their efforts to counteract these exaggerated notions, they, in-
deed, have leaned too far in the opposite direction.
'Joutel, in Margry, op. cit., III 392; Ram6n, Derrotero, in the Archivo
General y Pfiblico, IMexico, entry for July 7; Espinsoa, Diario, entry for
July 10.
2Cr6nica Apost6lica, 440 (1746).
'bid.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 11, July 1907 - April, 1908, periodical, 1908; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101045/m1/277/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.