Texas and Northeastern Mexico,1630-1690
by Juan Bautista Chapa, William C. Foster
Category: History

In the seventeenth century, South Texas and Northeastern Mexico formed El Nuevo Reino de Leon, a frontier province of New Spain where Spanish settlements were widely scattered and subject to clashes with the Native American inhabitants. In 1690, a resident Spanish official looked back over the eventful, sometimes tumultuous history of Nuevo Leon and penned a richly detailed account of the years 1630 to 1690. Although Juan Bautista Chapa's Historia de Nuevo Leon was not published until 1909, it has since been acclaimed as the key contemporary document for any historical study of Spanish colonial Texas. This book offers the only accurate and annonated English translation of Chapa's Historia. Drawing on the Discourses of Governor Alonso de Leon (the elder), which cover the years 1580 to 1649, and on his own experiences as permanent secretary to the governors of Nuevo Leon, Chapa traces the history and colonization of Texas and Northeastern Mexico from the 1630s onward. He presents the only account of the Spanish expeditions in the 1660s against the Cacaxtle Indians, who had raided south of the Rio Grande for horses and slaves, and the only diary account of Alonso (the younger) de Leon's 1686 expedition to the Gulf of Mexico in search of La Salle's French settlement. Chapa was also an authority on the local Indians, and his Historia lists the names and locations of over 300 Indian tribes. This information, together with descriptions of the vegetation, wildlife, and climate in seventeenth-century Texas, will be of interest to ethnographers, anthropologists, biogeographers, and other scholars.