Bolton, Herbert E. The Native Tribes About The East Texas Mission’s, Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, April 1908.
Southwest of the Hainai village, nearly straight west of the Nacogdoche, was the Neche village, near the east bank of the Neches River, and near the crossing of the Camino Real. The diaries usually represent the distance from the Neche to the Hainai as about the same as that from the Hainai to the Nacogdoche some eight or […]
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Above the Hainai, on the waters of the Angelina, were the Nasoni. Joutel, in 1687, reached their village after going from the Nabedache twelve leagues eastward, plus an un-estimated distance north. Terán, in 1691, found it twelve leagues northeast of the Neche crossing below the Nabedache village. The founding, in 1716, of a mission for
The tribes in question commonly have been called the Texas, but more properly the Hasinai. Concerning the meaning and usage of these terms I shall only present here somewhat dogmatically part of the results of a rather extended study which I have made of these points and which I hope soon to publish. The testimony
For the rest of the tribes in this group our information is less definite. The Nadaco, though a prominent tribe, can not be located with certainty until 1787, when they, or at least a part of them, were on the Sabine River, apparently in the northern part of Panola County. But in 1716 they were
A starting point or base from which to determine the location of most of the tribes is the founding of the mission of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe at the main village of the Nacogdoches in 1716, for it can be shown that this mission remained on the same site until it was abandoned in 1773;
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Across the Neches from the Nabedache, only a few leagues away, and adjoining the Neche tribe on the north, was the relatively little known tribe called by Jesus Maria the Nacachau, and by Hidalgo the Nacachao. We have seen that Jesus Maria described the Neche tribe as being separated from the Nabedache only by the
The westernmost tribe of the group was the Nabedache. The main village was a short distance perhaps six miles west of the Neches River, above the crossing, near a stream that early became known as San Pedro, and at a site that took the name San Pedro de los Nabedachos. It is this name San
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For determining the location of these tribes our chief materials are the Journal of Joutel (1687), the Relación of Francisco de Jesus Maria Casañas (1691), De Leon’s diary of the expedition of 1690, Terán’s for that of 1691-2, those of Ramon and Espinosa for the expedition of 1716, Pena’s for that of Aguayo (1721), Rivera’s
On the east bank of the Angelina River, a little north of a direct west line from the Nacogdoche village, was that of the Hainai. This tribe, whose lands lay on both sides of the Angelina, was the head of the Hasinai confederacy, and for that reason was sometimes called Hasinai. It is to this
It is easy to gain an exaggerated notion of the numerical strength of the native tribes. Popular imagination, stimulated by the hyperbole of writers for popular consumption, has peopled the primitive woods and prairies with myriads of savages. Students however, have shown that this is an error, and that the Indian population has always been,
Of the location of remaining tribes we know even less than of the last, and can only record the few statements made of them by the early writers. Three leagues west of the Nasoni Joutel entered the village of the Noadiche (Nahordike) who, he said, were allies of the Cenis, and had the same customs.
Since Indian political organization was at best but loose and shifting and was strongly dominated by ideas of independence, and since writers were frequently indefinite in their use of terms, it would not be easy to determine with strict accuracy the constituent elements of this Neches-Angelina confederacy at different times. However, a few of the
The purpose of this paper is to furnish a partial introduction to the early history of the Spaniards in eastern Texas the scene of their first systematic activities between the Mississippi and the upper Rio Grande by presenting some of the main features of the organization of the compact group of tribes living in the upper Neches and the Angelina River valleys, the first and the most important group with which they came into intimate contact. These tribes furnished the early field of labor especially for the Franciscans of the College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro, who worked for fifteen years in the region and founded in it five missions, while one was founded there and maintained for more than half a century by the College of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas. It is hoped that this paper will throw new light on the all too obscure history of these interesting establishments, particularly with respect to their locations.
It will be helpful, as a means of conveying an idea of the true nature of the work attempted by the early Spaniards, to present a brief sketch of the general character of these Indian settlements and of their numerical strength. They were a people living in relatively fixed habitations, and would be classed as
The Hasinai belonged to the Caddoan linguistic stock. This family, which was a large one, was divided into three principal geographic groups of tribes: the northern, represented by the Arikara in North Dakota; the middle, comprising the Pawnee confederacy, formerly living on the Platte River, Nebraska, and to the west and southwest thereof; and the
