The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 98, July 1994 - April, 1995 Page: 56
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
great achievement fell into oblivion through the loss of the original at
B6xar and the copy sent to Chihuahua, as well as the copies that surely
went from Chihuahua to Santa Fe and to Mexico City.
Fortunately, the Comanche peace was of such urgent importance to
the crown that copies of the Vial-Chaves diary and related documents
from Texas, as well as reports of the concurrent peace efforts in New
Mexico,6" were dispatched with all possible speed from Chihuahua to
Spain. There the reportage on the Comanche peace received prompt at-
tention at the court of Charles III, who was greatly pleased.
Eventually the file of documents on the Comanche peace fell into the
routine pattern of shipment from the court to the general archive at
Simancas. That it remained there was probably accidental. On October
14, 1785,64 a month before the Vial-Chaves diary left San Antonio, Spain
began transferring most documents about the Americas, other than mili-
tary records, from Simancas to the newly established archive of the In-
dies at Seville. Most materials on the Americas would thenceforth go to
Seville. Hence the file on the Comanche peace became an anomaly at
Simancas, not readily found but safely preserved. That it has now be-
come available is a boon for Comanches and Wichitas as well as histori-
ans and anthropologists, and would surely please Vial and Chaves and
Cabello.
69 Several of the documents on the Comanche peace in New Mexico that are filed at Simancas
with the Vial-Chaves materials have been published from copies found in the Spanish Archives of
New Mexico at Santa Fe, the Archivo General de la Nac16n at Mexico City, and the Archivo de
Indies at Seville. See Alfred Barnaby Thomas (trans. and ed.), Forgotten Frontzers. A Study of the
Spanish Indian Policy of Don Juan Bautista de Anza, Governor of New Mexico, 1777-1787; From the
Onginal Documents in the Archives of Spain, Mexico and New Mexico (Norman: University of Okla-
homa Press, 1932), 292-342. Since there was no direct communication between New Mexico
and Texas, the commandancy general at Chihuahua sent the governors of those provinces
copies of each other's reports on their negotiations with the Comanches as speedily as possible,
in the hope of coordinating their efforts. At the time of the Vial-Chaves mission, reports from
the commandancy general had always gone directly to the crown in Spain rather than to the
viceroy in Mexico City. In 1786, however, the new viceroy, Bernardo de Gilvez, gamed jurisdic-
tion over the Provincias Internas and instructed the commandancy to send him immediately all
papers bearing on relations in Texas, which of course would include the Vial-Chaves diary. Ap-
parently the commandancy general did not comply. In 1788, another new viceroy, Manuel Anto-
nio Flores reiterated the demand. He ordered Commandant General Ugarte to release those
records for transport from Chihuahua to Mexico City by Manuel Merino, the acting secretary of
the commandancy general, who was being transferred to an important post in the secretariat of
the viceroyalty. See Elizabeth A. H. John (ed.), John Wheat (trans.), "Views from a Desk in Chi-
huahua: Manuel Merino's Report on Apaches and Neighboring Nations, ca. 1804," Southwestern
Histoncal Quarterly, XCV (Oct., 1991), 143. Given that the Vial-Chaves diary must have been
among the papers delivered to Mexico City by Merino, another copy may eventually turn up in
that capital.
64 Computerization Projects for the Archivo General de Indias (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, Direc-
ci6n General de Bellas Artes y Archivos, 1990), 40.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 98, July 1994 - April, 1995, periodical, 1995; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101216/m1/84/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.