The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 15, July 1911 - April, 1912 Page: 44

Texas Historical Association Quarterly

ing were spent in bridging the river. While camped here, a hun-
dred Indians-men, women, and children-of the Nacono1 tribe
met the Spaniards. They were led by their high priest and chief,2
who, as spokesman, delivered himself of the sentiment "that that
which they most esteemed was God, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars,
and the Spaniards; that air, water, land, and fire, were nothing in
comparison thereto." The following day the exchange of presents
took place, the Indians receiving glass beads, pocket knives, butcher
knives, earrings, rings, mirrors, combs, scissors, awls, blankets,
baise and sackcloth.
On the 28th, while Aguayo was still west of the Neches, there
had come a message from St. Denis, sent "from the capital of the
T6xas," that is, the Aynay tribe. It was to tell the Spanish com-
mander that if the Frenchman were assured safety, he would go
to make known the orders, which, as commandant of the French
arms on that frontier, he had received from Mobile. Having re-
ceived a satisfactory answer to his request, on the 31st he swam
his horse across the Neches and reached the Spanish camp. He
asked to spend the night with the missionaries,8 and the next
morning had a conference with Aguayo. He had come to say that
he was commandant of the French arms on the frontier, and that
he proposed to keep the truce then existing between the Spanish
and French nations if Aguayo would do likewise. The latter an-
swered that he would, provided that St. Denis and all the French
would immediately retire from the province of Texas, and not in-
terfere, directly or indirectly, with the reoccupation by the Span-
lards of all the latter had hitherto occupied, including los Adaes.
he and the missionaries went ahead to look for a site for the second San
Francisco mission he was about to establish (Ram6n, Derrotero, entry for
June 30, 1716). As will be seen later, the presidio was located just east
of the Concepci6n mission.
'This tribe has been located five leagues below the Neches crossing
(Bolton, "The Native Tribes about the East Texas Missions," in TuE QUAR-
TERLY, XI, 267). The same authority noticed that the Memorias copy of
the Derrotero erroneously calls this tribe the Macono (Colecci6n de Me-
morias, XXVIII, 36). In the printed copy of the Derrotero, 15, it is cor-
rectly called the Nacono.
2Their leader was blind. The Derrotero "presumes" that after he had
been their captain a long time that his people had blinded him, "as was
the custom of the Indians," so that he could be their high priest.
$Derrotero, 15. This seems to suggest that St. Denis did not feel exactly
safe among the Spaniards.