The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 6, July 1902 - April, 1903 Page: 93
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Southwestern Historical Quarterly and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Texas State Historical Association.
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The Southwest Boundary of Texas.
huila, Nuevo Reino de Leon, and [the] colony of Santander."' In
speaking of the rivers, Morfi says, "The river Medina, the dividing
boundary between the provinces of Coahuila and Texas, has its
source in the same direction. * * * It runs twenty-seven leagues
and unites with the San Antonio."2
Father Morfi had gathered the material for his work upon Texas
in the course of a tour of inspection in company with the command-
ing general of the recently created Provincias Internas. In the
course of their journey, they cross the various rivers forming the
boundaries of Texas, and he thus describes them:
"The river de las Nueces rises in the canyon of San Saba, runs
north and south, with some inclination to the east, until it is united
with the Frio river, in whose company it empties into the Mexican
Gulf, about one hundred leagues from the mouth of the Rio Grande
and twenty from that of the San Antonio, and scarcely touching
the colony of Nuevo Santander. It forms the dividing line of that
province and that of Texas. * * * The founding of a settlement
upon the banks of this river, in the most suitable place, would be a
matter of great importance, equally for the correspondence of the
provinces of Texas and Coahuila, situated as it is midway between
them, as well as for impeding the Lipan and Comanche Indians
from the free entrance which this desert country of eighty leagues
offers them, to Nuevo Reino de Leon and the colony of Santander,
where they have already committed various outrages."3
The language of the above extract is rather ambiguous in one
respect. In speaking of a new settlement on the Nueces does the
worthy friar imply that he considered the Nueces a better bound-
ary for Coahuila and Texas than the Medina, then recognized as
such?, At any rate he joins in with the others in giving the Medina
as the boundary in the following words:
1Bk. I, Par. 2. This work has never been published.
'Ibid. The mistake of the worthy Father in saying that Nuevo Leon
touched the western boundary of Texas is a natural one for a traveler
to make in considering the relative position of these provinces as viewed
from the South. It has already been explained why Nuevo Leon did not
extend to the Texas border.
8Morfi, Viaje de Indios y Diario del Nuevo Mexico, 452, in Documentos
para la Historia de Mexico, 2nd series, vol. I.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 6, July 1902 - April, 1903, periodical, 1903; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101028/m1/97/: accessed March 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.