The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 16, July 1912 - April, 1913 Page: 7

The Spanish Occupation of Texas, 1519-1690

that in 1662 he had made an expedition several hundred leagues
east and north, and succeeded in finding the city of Quivira. That
Pefialosa made such a, journey at all is doubted by most scholars,'
but the news that he. was telling the tale at the court of
France, for the purpose of getting up an expedition against
Spain's possessions on the Gulf, aroused Spain in 1678 to take a
livelier interest in Texas than she had before manifested, and to
renewed talk of searching for Gran Quivira.2
Father Renavides's proposal.-TIn 1630, when Quivira was at-
tracting so much attention, Father Benavides, custos of the mis-
sions of New Mexico, made a most interesting suggestion regard-
ing the eastern country, and one which later bore fruit. Writing
of the "kingdoms" of Quivira and Aixaos, he described them as
rich in gold; and, as a means of subduing them, restraining the
English and the Dutch, and providing a shorter route from Cuba
to New Mexico, he suggested the occupation of a place on the Gulf
coast known as the Bay of Espiritu Santo, shown on the maps as
somewhere between Apalache and Tampico, and, as Benavides
thought, less than a hundred leagues from Quivira. In 1632
Benavides published another memorial urging the same plan.4 It
will be seen that nearly half a century later the Spanish govern-
ment took the proposal under consideration, and had set about
putting it into effect before the La Salle expedition occurred.
Expeditions to the Jumanos: News of the. Texas.-Much more
satisfactory is our information concerning a similar series of ex-
peditions made in the seventeenth century to the Jumano Indians
of the upper Colorado River, in the interest of missionary work,
pearl hunting, trade in skins, and exploration.
The Jumanos left a most interesting and, on account of the
numerous localities in which people of that name were encoun-
tered at different times, a somewhat puzzling record. They were
found, for example, on the Rio Grande below El Paso, in eastern
1For the Peialosa expedition, see Cesaro Fernandez Duro, Don Diego de
Penalosa y su Descubrimiento de Quivira (Madrid, 1882); John Gilmary
Shea, The Expedition of Don Diego Dionisio de Penalosa (New York, 1882) ;
Miller, E. T., "The Connection of Peilalosa with -the La Salle Expedition,"
in TIIE QUARTERLY, V, 97-112.
2See pp. 17-18.
8Benavides, Memorial, translation in the Land of Sunshine, xiv, 139-140.
4Duro, Don Diego de Pealosa, 132.