San Antonio and Goliad Early Texas Settlements
Episode 17 – (Chapter 6) San Antonio and Goliad
In the earlier chapters, I mentioned a couple of early Texas settlements, San Augustin, and Nacogdoches and some of the issues settlers faced when they moved to Texas from the United States. In this chapter, I want to discuss other early settlements San Antonio and then Goliad. San Antonio was established in the 1700s and played an important role both in the development of Texas and the hostilities that would take place both in the 1820s and then again during the fighting of the 1830s.
San Antonio is perhaps my favorite city in all of Texas. It has a rich history, and its heritage is built upon a melding of multiple cultures over the centuries. The roots were planted around 1691 when Domingo Terán de los Ríos lead an expedition through the region. He was on his way to the Nacogdoches and on June 13, which is the Feast Day of Portuguese Franciscan friar Saint Anthony of Padua named the San Antonio River. At that time there was an Indian settlement there, which the Spanish called Yanaguana. In the area were a series of Indian trails which developed into a system of roads that ultimately became one of, if not the, main trade route from South to East Texas. In 1709, The Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition explored that region that was to become San Antonio and named a newly discovered source of water the San Pedro Spring. It wasn’t long before the government and the church realized the benefits that could be found in the area and pn the first of May in 1718, Franciscan Antonio de San Buenaventura y Olivares established San Antonio de Valero, the first of five missions to be located along the San Antonio River. Five days later on the 5th, Martín de Alarcón, governor of the province of Texas, founded San Antonio de Béxar Presidio. The early community consisted of both military and civilians, as well as the mission Indians. The land containing San Pedro Springs, which was recognized as a vital source of water, was declared by the Spanish crown in 1729 to be public land. This makes San Pedro Springs Park one of the oldest municipal parks in the United States.
In 1731 immigrants from the Canary Islands formed the villa of San Fernando de Béxar and established the first regularly-organized civil government in Texas. This group is recognized these days with a section of downtown San Antonio, known as La Villita, which recreates the buildings and streets of the original settlement. San Antonio de Béxar became the capital of Spanish Texas in 1773 and over the next years continued to grow. The population was mostly comprised of Europeans, mestizos, Indians, and castas (racial/ethnic groupings). There were persons of mixed race, mostly identified as mulatto, which included individuals of American Indian/mestizo and American Indian/Black descent. There were also a portion of the population that were Afro-Mexicans. These were people of African descent who were part of the Hispanic population of New Spain, and they included both free Blacks and a small number of slaves….
For a complete transcript of the program, please go HERE
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