SPANISH INDIAN POLICY IN THE INTERNAL

PROVINCES, 1765-1786

by

MARIA ROSARIO MATZ, B.A.

A THESIS

IN

HISTORY

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty

of Texas Tech University in
Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for
the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Accepted

December, 1998
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Those who have contributed toward the making of my thesis have my

gratitude. Dr. Allan Kuethe gave his constructive criticism and support. The

staffs of the Archive General de Indias in Seville, the Biblioteca of the Palacio

Real and the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, the Archive Provincial and the

Biblioteca Municipal in Cadiz helped me in my research. Sergeant Francisco

Parrillo, from the Archive Militar in Cadiz also helped me. Without the financial

support provided by the History Department of Texas Tech University this thesis

would have been impossible. Thanks are also due to Alberto Gullon Abac from

the University of Cadiz, Enrique Javier Porrua and to Colonel Jose Pethenghy,

who patiently read the whole thesis giving me many useful ideas. Finally, a

special word of thanks to my parents, family and friends who always were there

for me.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. THE NEW WORLD: BACKGROUND 7

Enlightenment and the American Indian 10

The Apache 14

III. SPANISH BORDERLANDS 19

Spanish Colonization System in the Borderiands 25

The Interior Provinces during the First Half of the Eighteenth-Century....30

Spanish Borderiands and the Bourbon Military Reforms 37

IV THE REALIZATION OF THE BOURBON ENLIGHTENED MENTALITY IN

THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS, 1765-1786 40

IV. CONCLUSION 82

BIBLIOGRAPHY 88

III
 ABSTRACT

From the sixteenth century, until approximately the second half of the

eighteenth century, Spanish Indian policy in the New Worid was characterized

by the idea of integration of the Indian tribes Into colonial society. Beginning

with the second half of the eighteenth century, the policy changed drastically .

Within the so-called Bourbon reforms was a chapter concerning the

northern frontier of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and a new policy that ordered

the total extermination of the "hostile Indians." The reason for this radical

change in Spanish policy, which dated from 1765 to 1786, was the English

menace in the territory west of the Mississippi after 1763. Spain considered It

necessary to reevaluate its frontier policy. The English threat to that territory

was enhanced by the local population of hostile Indians, who desestabilizated it.

In order to avoid larger problems, the crown adopted as Its solution to

exterminate those Indians. When England abandoned this area, after the War

of the American Revolution and the independence of the United States, the need

for control diminished and the extermination policy accordingly disappeared. In

other words, the new Spanish policy created for the Interior Provinces between

1765 and 1786 was not simply the consequence of the Indian hostility but

developed because England posed danger to the Spanish possessions in

nearby Mexico.

IV
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the policy that the Spanish crown

established, between 1765 and 1786, for the northern limits of the Viceroyalty of

New Spain. Conflicts between Indian nations and Spain during the eighteenth

century were constant. In 1765, the Marques de Rubi conducted an expedition

into the Northern frontier of New Spain; he created a new policy toward the

Lipan Apaches: total extermination. In article number sixteen of his Dictamen,

Rubi explained that the reason for his proposal was double: the Lipans had

gained a reputation as the great masters of treachery and perfidy in the border

area of Coahuila-Texas. In fact, the Indians promised to thwart the Spanish

establishment of missions. On the other hand, the Comanches and other tribes

from the north (enemies of the Lipans), unless the Spanish Indian policy

changed, would attack the Spaniards because of the Spanish alliance with the

treacherous Apaches.

The government based the new Spanish policy on two different strategies:

to eliminate from the frontier its most dangerous enemy, the Lipan Apaches, and,

simultaneously, to win the friendship of tribes that could help in that process. To

effect this elimination, an extermination policy (a sangre y fuego) was selected

and continued in spite of the royal order issued by Charies III (1779) that later

prohibited it. On August 26, 1786, the viceroy of New Spain, the Conde de
Galvez, sent new instructions to the commandant general of the Internal

Provinces, which conveyed orders to sign treaties with the Comanche nation to

pacify the Apaches. The new viceroy of New Spain, Manuel Antonio Flores,

issued a report, in 1787, in which the word "extermination" was not mentioned

and where pacification was again favored over belligerency.

My hypothesis is that the geo-strategic importance of the northern frontier

crystallized between 1765 and 1786. As a result of the Peace of Paris, 1763,

Spain considered that re-evaluating its frontier policy was imperative: the British

controlled East and West Florida, and on the Mexican Gulf, they could impede

the departures of ships loaded for Spain. The English advance made immediate

the need to control and protect the northern frontier; for Spain, this vast territory

had, overall, a defensive role. It was a bulwark to protect what she already had

to the south. It was essentially a military frontier, as the poverty of the land

between Louisiana and California, from an economical and commercial point of

view, did not justify its occupation. From a strategic point of view, the Spanish

northern borderiand was the outer defense of New Spain, having extraordinary

importance.

The main purpose of the northern borderland was to filter to keep the

enemy, barbarians^ or British soldiers, far away from the main targets, New

Spain's silver mines. As a result of the English advance after Britain's sweeping

^ The Spanish word used in the documents is Barbaras or Indios bctrbaros,

which I have translated as barbarians; most of the historians have used it as
synonym of enemy. It has a political rather than a cultural meaning.
victories in the Seven Years' War, to control, keep and consolidate the

borderland area, and controlling or exterminating the hostile Indians who

terrorized it, became an objective of the greatest priority. Consequently, after

1763 the administrative organization of the Internal Provinces changed as the

Spanish authorities looked, from the geo-strategic point of view, for a suitable

system to control such an important land. When England left the area, following

the independence of the American colonies, the need to control the territory

decreased, and as a parallel result, so too did the policy of eliminating bariDaric

Indians.

During this period (1765-1786), the main objective was extermination. In

analyzing this extermination policy, key questions arise: Were the Spanish

simply a group of butchers who tried to carry out the genocide of an Apache

group? Did the image that Bartolome de las Casas featured in the Brevisima

Relacion de las Destruccidn de las Indias about the Spanish barbaric cruelty in

the sixteenth century still apply? How could these "enlightened" men, who

sprang from the cradle of the enlightened, liberating universal culture of that

time, embrace such cruel legislation at the end of the eighteenth century?

To answer these questions, the extermination concept requires careful

analysis. In the twentieth century, extermination would equal genocide, the

death or systematic destruction of a race, people, or social group because of

racial, religious, or political reasons. However, the term should be analyzed,

not from our present perspective, but from the view point of those who employed
it in the eighteenth century. For them, extermination did not equal genocide.

"Reduction" was the synonym that came to their minds, and by that, they meant

to control a specific social group and to make it productive and loyal subjects of.

the crown. In other words, reduction meant to reestablish the loyalty of those

who had abandoned the law. The Marques de Rubi, when he wrote about the

Lipan Apaches, treated these terms as synonyms, reduction and extermination

meaning the same thing.

In spite of what most of the Anglo-Saxon historiography wants to believe,

the Spanish colonization policy was one of integration, not one of annihilation;

on the other hand, in the Anglo-Saxon system integration was not the rule, just

the opposite. As an example of the Anglo-Saxon system, the words of General

Phillip Sheridan who said, in an oft-quoted remark, "the only good Indians I ever

saw were dead"^ or General William Tecumseh Sherman who after the

Fetterman massacre said "we must act with vindictive earnestness against the

Sioux....even to their extermination, men, women, and children.'^

Keeping in mind all the different meanings of the term extermination, for

the Spaniards, the idea of reduction using weapons ireducddn por medio de las

armas) or "extermination" was not entirely new for the Spanish administrative

^ Cited by John A. Gan-aty The American Nation Vol. II Eighth Edition

(New York: Harper Collons College Publishers, 1995), 473.

^ Robert M. Utiey The Indian Frontier on the American West 1846-1890.

Histones of the American /ironf/er (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1983), 105.
system. In certain cases, and as an emergency solution, it was something

perfectly acceptable, legislated and applied by the crown. For example, at the

beginning of the seventeenth century, on the Araucanian borderiand in South

America, the Spanish crown had to cliose between the extermination of the

hostile Indians using a sangre y fuego (blood and fire) war, which in the end

would force the Mapuche Indians to surrender, or to establish a long-lasting

peace. The solution that the govemment decided to apply was the first one. It

tried to reduce the Indians by using weapons although the Church finally

mediated, and through this mediation, Spain signed treaties of peace with the

Mapuche."* A century and one half later, 1772, in Nueva Granada, on the

Riohacha borderland, the policy of extermination or reduction by using weapons

in a sangre y fuego war was used again.^

Such a drastic solution was also utilized on the frontier of northern New

Spain, where, due to strategic reasons, the importance of the land assumed

greater relevance. In the region this thesis addresses, the main cause was the

English presence on the other side of the Mississippi river, which increased the

strategic importance of the territory known in eighteenth-century documents as

the Apacheria. The Spanish crown could not permit an alliance between the

'' M. J. Merge and P. Martinez, "Los grupos indigenas en Chile." Los

primeros americanos.. Carlos Aldonate (Santiago, 1988).

^ Allan Kuethe. "The Pacification of the Riohacha Frontier," Hispanic

American Historical Review. L, N° 3 (1970).467-481.
English and the Apaches nor the disruptions that the Apache incursions were

causing in the Apacheria.

The eighteenth-century Spanish Indian legislation was just a solution to a

problem which had become more complex. Theoretically, using punitive

campaigns against the hostile Indians, taking captives and selling them as

slaves or mixing them with other acculturated tribes, would convert the hostile

Indians into loyal subjects of the crown. Spain was sensible to Indian survival.

What was intended was to reduce the Apache to the same situation as those of

other Indian groups, such as the TIascaltecas or the Pueblo Indians, Indians

who had become productive citizens of the system, once adapted to it. Because

of the lack of economic resources, the inadequate training of the Spanish army

and the use of an inappropriate strategy, the reduction policy using weapons did

not succeed, and the legislation of that time was, in most cases, a worthless

piece of paper.
 CHAPTER II

THE NEW WORLD: BACKGROUND

In 1492, the Old Worid encountered some strange beings; these could be

called "barbaric" Indians, either capable of being civilized and Christianized, or,

to the contrary, eliminated. According to Lewis Hanke, the process of

colonization gave a new direction to European curiosity, and with it, to the

creation of a great number of theories. One of the main problems that scholars

had to face was to explain the origin of the natives of the New Worid; they also

had to look for an answer to the questions about their rationality: were they a

group of barbarians or an intermediate species between human beings and

beasts? ^ Pope Alexander VI gave to the Spanish crown on May 6, 1493, the

"Donation Bull" for the new territories. According to the Bull, the natives of the

New Worid had no legal status. The Bull mentioned the capacity of those

strange beings to receive the Catholic faith, while a kind of human condition was

assigned to them. The Pope himself would divide the Indians into two

categories: those who were considered as cannibals and those who were not.

The so-called cannibals did not have the samerightsas the others. The

classification of "cannibals" was used during the colonization process as a way

of justifying the slavery to which the American Indians were subjected. During

^ Lewis Hanke, The first Social Experiments in America (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1964), 3.
the time we are dealing with, the eighteenth century, the term "cannibal" was

replaced by the term "barbarians," as people who could be civilized, or,

otherwise, eliminated.

Spain had developed a strong legal tradition which justified its political

and military behavior in the New Worid; this tradition had its origins in the period

of seven hundred years known as the Spanish Reconquista. There are many

similarities between the efforts involved in this Reconquista and those which

justified the conquest and colonization of the New Worid. Nevertheless, in spite

of those similarities, the realities imposed by the new region and its population

demanded a change in the legal system, a change adapted to the new

circumstances.^

As the domain of the Spanish crown spread out over new regions, many

conflicts developed with the so-called barbarians. The great shock of conquest

would imply a change in the traditional way of living for many human groups.

New social, political, cultural, and religious policies brought from Europe

replaced lifestyles that had lasted for centuries. This is to say, discovery was

followed by colonization and exploitation.^ According to the tradition of the

Spanish crown, conquest should be conducted following the principles of the

^ Christin E. Cleaton, "The Evolution of Spanish Policy in the New Worid

from Columbus to the Jeronymite Inquiries" (M. A. thesis. University of California,
1993).

^ Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois, La novedad Indiana (Madrid: Alhambra,

1987).

8
Catholic faith. The application of Christian values to the issues of the New

World, unlike the Anglo-Saxon colonization system, were consistently of great

consideration and importance in Spanish legislation.

Throughout the colonial era the Spanish government struggled to govern

its empire successfully. Nevertheless, "success" was a term whose definition

varied depending on circumstance. The priorities of the monarchy evolved

during the colonial period. For example, during the first two hundred years

commercial success was gauged by the maintenance of an absolute monopoly

on trade. Later, under the Bourbon dynasty, trade reforms meant that

commercial success was measured by growth in markets, not maintenance of

the exclusive commercial rights of the Crown.'* As time went passing by, the

conqueror had opened the way for the politician. The process of discovering

and colonization of the New World was not homogeneneous; every experience

would differ from the others, because of time, the geography, or the Indians

involved.^ Because of these great differences, it is presupposed that while some

groups struggled against the new culture with bloody battles, other groups,

without such hard resistance, accepted the new way of living that the Europeans

offered to them.

^ Christin E. Cleaton, The Evolution of Spanish Policy.

^ M. Lucena Salmoral, Historia de Iberoamerica. Tomo II H^ Moderna

(Madrid: Catedra,1990).
 Enlightenment and the American Indian

The eighteenth century was, from its beginning, the age of enlightenment,

a cultural movement where the supreme values were nature and reason. The

eighteenth century signaled the beginning of a new period, the modern era. For

John G. Galiardo, this period saw the culmination of a long process of

secularization which began in the middle ages. In the seventeenth century,

religion still had major authority. Natural law was interpreted as an expression of

divine law. By the eighteenth century, the old regime was dying, with a new light

appearing on the horizon: the light of reason. This was the century of science

and progress. A greater confidence in man and in his works emerged, the

growing appetite of curiosity formed a spirit: the spirit of enlightenment.

According to the Spanish scholar, Juan Batista, the four great principles that

enlightened men followed were reason, tolerance, progress and nature.® Every

reflective process should undergo these four concepts; consequently, military

strategy, as a reflective process, should be characterized by an exhaustive

analysis about the advantages and disadvantages of each decision.

Since America's discovery, the native population was considered as

anomalous. Many of the first descriptions of native Americans might be seen as

a distortion caused by the projection of a dream of Edenic innocence into the

fragmentary knowledge of the New Worid available at the time. In the Europe of

® Juan Batista, La estrategia espafiola durente el siglo de las luces

(Madrid: Mapfre, 1992), 36-39.

10
the eighteenth century, a new concept appeared: the noble savage, which was

postulated in ideological and philosophical discussions.^ This concept derived

from that of the savage man. The utilization of the term savage man meant the

identification of the New World natives with objects from nature; in other words,

they were dehumanized. Natives were conceived as an Inferior breed of

humanity, and this mode of relationship underiaid and justified the policies of war

and extermination. They could be used, consumed, transformed or destroyed, in

the way their conquerors or "owners" wanted. The idea of noble savage

appeared once the conflict between European and natives had been decided.

Usually, according to the interests of those who defined them, the differences

between both groups created a conflict and upon it a relationship was

established, a relationship based upon the enrichment and understanding of the

difference or one based upon the struggle that the distinction created.

Different approaches emerged from the different point of views about the

natives. From the missionary point of view, native conversions dominated; from

the military point of view, war and extermination. Finally, from the intellectual

perspective there were different opinions: the point over which many scholars

disagreed was the idea of the inferiority of American nature, especially its fauna,

including man, in comparison to the Old Worid. The result of this presumed

decadency was a condemnation of the whole continent to corruption. An

^ Fredl Chiapelli, ed.. First Images of America. The Impact of the New
World on the Old, 2 vols. (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1976), Vol 1,
121-139.

11
example is the words of Father Cornelius de Paw, who said that the American

natives were animals, or little more than that, "holding in abhorrence the laws of

society and the hindrances of education, living each for himself, without a

helping thought for his neighbor, in a state of indolence. Inertia, complete

dejection. The savage does not know that he must sacrifice a part of his

freedom to cultivate his spirit, and yet, without cultivation he is nothing.'* Shortly,

reactions appeared to the idea of the degeneration of the American Indian.

Scholars such as Pemety or Buffon wrote about the American immaturity and

qualified it as strong and beautiful. On the other hand, Robert Beveriy in his

History and Present State of Virginia saw the Indians as neither noble savages

nor sons of the devil, but human beings possessing some of the virtues and

vices common to mankind.

Enlightened Despotism was the dominant political form during the

enlightenment. "What in order to the doctrinal conceptions," Fernando Murillo

points out, "set the limits between the idea of the Prince as the image of the

State and the Prince as the head of a system subjected to the State."® In other

words, exercise of power must focus toward public interest. The New Worid

became a key resource for a distant metropolis. Such a rich resource awakened

^Antonello Gerbi. The Dispute of the New Worid. The History of a

Polemic, 1750-1900 Revised and enlarged edition translated by Jeremy Moyle
(London: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973).

® Cited by Juan Batista La estrategia espaf^ola en America durante el siglo

de las Luces (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992), 33-39.

12
the greed of other foreign nations. Their presence, especially England, exerted

great pressure on Spain, and the direct consequence was that a defensive

system had to be designed. From 1760 until 1790, a great strategic plan was

developed against England, which the Spanish scholar, Comellas, called the

"Great Atlantic Policy." It consisted in a mixture of a naval and terrestrial

plans.''°

With regard to enlightened Ideas, during the reign of Charies III (1759-

1788) this new approach reached its highest point. Charies HI was the

enlightened king "par excellence," and he perfectly personified the enlightened

attitude and mentality. His main objectives were to strengthen the power of the

absolutist State and its economic success, while at the same time, he increased

Spanish military power in the face of threats from foreign powers. The different

perception of the state and its potential changed the spirit of the monarchy and

its intentions. By the end of the eighteenth century, Gaspar Melchor de

Jovellanos defined happiness as the state of plentifulness and comfort which

every good govemment should provide its subjects. Political issues were

important only If they affected the prosperity of the nation and the welfare of the

^° Cited by Juan Batista, La estrategia espafiola en America durante el

siglo de las Luces (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992),33-39.

13
people. The Count of Floridablanca pointed out that in order to make a good

thing, four hundred bad things must be remade."

The framework born from the monarchical concept of political justification

by means of economic usefulness was the perfect environment for the indigenist

policy applied in the Spanish borderiands. There was little political control in

these territories, and for this reason, the king, seeking the welfare of his

subjects and economic development, while trying to prevent English expansion,

declared the elimination or reduction by means of armed force (reduccidn por

medio de las armas) of those who did not accept his enlightened policy. The

purpose of the enlightened monarchy was performance. The government

reinforced administrative homogeneity; historical differences were set apart, the

process should work in the same way everywhere. The enlightened reformers

created their own reality; they identified the issues to solve and then set down

the steps to follow in order to solve the problem. In short, efficiency was their

main objective, and they used every means that could help them to reach the

proposed target.

The Apache

Different native groups populated the southwestern region of the United

States when Spanish colonization occurred. One of the fiercest tribes was the

"Colin Maclachlan Spain's Empire in the New Worid. The Role of Ideas in
Institutional and Social Changes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988),
67-135.

14
Apaches, who were hardly civilized. Traditionally, they had always been very

cruel, even in prehistoric times.""^ Their victims before the European arrival were

the Pueblo Indians, and their last ones, in the nineteenth century, were United

States citizens. As an example of Apache cruelty is Adolf Bandelier's assertion

that just one Apache could put a whole village on guard. The Apaches,

according to this author, had robbery and murder as their only duties, these two

being the main activities of their lives.""^ Most of the documents related to the

Intemal Provinces named them "barbaric Indians." The region they populated

was called the Apacheria. The first time this native group was mentioned in

Spanish documents was In the Relacion de Pedro de Castafieda, who was a

chronicler in Francisco Vazquez de Coronado's expedition. The Spanish met

the Apaches in the east of Arizona, next to the Gila River. Depending on the

documents, the Apaches received different names, but it was Juan de Onate

who finally called them Apaches, two generations after Castaneda.'"'

The Apaches illustrate the policy that the Spanish govemment kept with

the barbaric or hostile Indians in the region known as Intemal Provinces. The

name Apache possibly comes from the Zuni word "Apachu," which means

^^ The Apache has been always considered as the bad one in the
American southwest, not only by the historiography, but also by the
cinematography industry.

^^ Cited by Frank Lockwood in The Apache Indians (Lincoln: University of

Nebraska Press, 1987), 6-7.

^"^ Lockwood, The Apache Indians, 7-10.

15
"enemy," or even the name that the Ute Indians gave them: "Awa'tehe." The

Apaches called themselves "Inde" or "Dine," the people. The Spaniards gave

the generic name of Apache to the Tontos, Chiricaguas, Gilefios, Mimbrefios,

Taracones, Mescaleros, Uaneros, Lipanes and Navajos. These names derived

from Spanish words which referred to some animal, agriculture product,

geographic characteristic, or the peculiarity of one specific group.

The Apaches t)elong to the southern branch of the Athapascan group,

whose language forms a great family, with speakers in Alaska, western Canada,

and the North-American southwest. Their language was uniform among the

different tribes which were set in the region extending from the Arkansas River

and the North of Mexico, and from central Texas to the center of Arizona.^^ At

the end of the eighteenth century, it was the most important native population in

Rio Grande Valley. With the exception of small Indian groups reduced to

missions along the Rio Grande and in the surroundings of San Antonio de

Bexar, they were almost the only native people between the Karankawas of the

gulf coast and the Pueblo in New Mexico. By this time, the Comanches were

pressing them from the North, in order to dominate the buffalo hunting set along

the upper Red River.

According to contemporary descriptions, the Apaches had dark skin, with

certain tone diversity, long hair, very expressive eyes and intelligent looks, and

^^ John Upton Terrel. Apache Chronicle (New York: Worid Publishing

Times Mirror, 1972).

16
they had no hair on their faces. Living in the open air made them tough, and

their agility and speed were only "comparable to those of the horses," which

astonished the Spanish people.^^ Their courage earned them Spanish

admiration. This people believed in a Supreme Creator called: "tasta'sitan'ne" or

Heaven's Chief, who created the worid and all its creatures only for his

amusement. The Apache did not adore this Supreme Being, but to an Evil Spirit,

because they thought that if this spirit were pleased, It would not hurt them.

Being essentially a nomadic tribe, the Apaches seemed unwilling to

change their traditional way of live. They had no predilection for agriculture,

although they sometimes grew a little com, pumpkins, beans and tobacco.

Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola, governor of Cohauila, said, "from April to October. . .

their main food was . . . mescal, pitaya, sates, mesquite, deer, pricky pears . .

. and, finally, buffalo meat."^^ According to F. Lockwood, the Apache economy

was mainly based on war.^®

The eariy documents did not differentiate among the subgroupings,

speaking only about the Apaches in general. At a cultural level, every Apache

group was similar to the others, with the peculiarities due to Spanish influence,

differing environments, or its association with neighboring tritjes. In the latter

16
Ibid.

^^Al B. Nelson, "Juan de Ugalde and the Rio Grande FnDntier, 1777-1790'
(Ph.D. Diss. University of California, 1936), 15.

^® Lockwood, The Apache Indians.

17
years of the eighteenth century, the documents begin to differentiate them,

referring to the western Apaches (Tontos, Chiricaguas, Gilerios, Mimbrefios and

Navajos), and the oriental (Lipanes, Natages and Mescaleros), having the Rio

Grande as a borderline between them.

18
 CHAPTER til

SPANISH BORDERLANDS

"Emptiness and indefinite" were characteristics of the borderiands.'' The

concept of a borderiand would be that of a region that no one had conquered or

colonized; as those two processes advanced, the borderland disappeared, while

a new region emerged which would be the new borderland. In other words, its

main characteristics were isolation and distance, and they would be the main

reasons that impelled men to populate that vast space and to turn distance and

isolation into proximity and communication. The history of the borderiands was

a violent one, with the dominators and the dominated.

Violence, primitivism, despoiling the land and even life, social

disorganization, impiety, great risks in business and lack of efficiency by the

authorities were some borderiand characteristics.^ The use of military force,

especially after 1772, to control the borderiands, became common, not only in

the Internal Provinces, but also in Rfo de la Plata and in New Granada. The

universalization offeree as a way to control an unstable area, where civilization

still had not flourished, indicated insecurity at the international level of the

Spanish empire in America. To understand this colonization policy in the

^ Hebe Clementi. La frontera en America I. Una clave interpretativa de la

historia americana (Buenos Aires: Leviatan, 1985), 17.

^ Sergio Villalobos La vida fronteriza en Chile (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992).

19
borderlands by means of arms, the preexisting policy that limited the use of

violence In these regions must be explained. The particularization of the laws of

Indies can be seen in the idea of allowing the monarch to exterminate or reduce

the hostile Indians. This extermination or reduction did not go against Christian

mercy; going back to the Bula de Donacidn of the Pope Alexander VI (1493), it

distinguished between cannibal Indians and those who were not cannibals, and

war against the former ones was perfectly legal. In the eighteenth century on

the northern frontier of New Spain, a similar case appeared, where the

theoreticians used terms such as barbaric Indians, hostile Indians and friendly or

neutral ones.

Spanish exploration in the southwest of North America started in 1519

with Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, who crafted a map of the Gulf of Mexico from

Florida to Yucatan. This expedition was followed by others (Cabeza de Vaca,

Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, Luis de Moscoso, etc.). Exploration gave way

to the conquest and finally to colonization. The commonly accepted cause for

the slowness in the colonizing process In the north of Mexico was the native

tribes' resistance to civilization, but, according to Luis Navarro Garcia, one of the

main causes was the lack of rich mineral deposits and, consequently, the

minimum profitability of such colonization.

The vast borderlands of the northern part of New Spain, had, above all, a

defensive interest for Spain. Spaniards followed Spaniards, after them f rench

tradesmen arrived and, finally, English and American adventurers appeared. In

20
the eighteenth century, the northem borderlands of New Spain included the

territory of Louisiana and the Intemal Provinces. The main strategic objective of

the latter was to contain the menace that the native tribes posed. Califomia and

Texas both played important roles in the westem and eastem borderiands; the

former, with regard to the route to Philippines as well as confronting the Russian

and North-American advances into the Northwest; the second, as a borderiand

with a French colony, until 1763 when Spain acquired Louisiana.^ Al B. Nelson

points out that Nuevo Santander was founded to prevent any British attempt at

exploring and colonizing the lower area of Rio Grande Valley and to pacify the

Indians. Nuevo Santander "lay astride the lower Rio Grande, extending from

Tampico on the South to the Nueces river, in what is now Texas."* Texas itself

was occupied to prevent French intrusions from Louisiana, though after the

cession of the French territories to Spain, this province kept only a skeleton

defense, whose purpose was the protection of the few settlers from Indians.

Later, the Marques de Rubi was sent to make an inspection of the region to

carry out these objectives. Rubi recommended different ways of reducing

defense costs in Texas. Finally, Califomia was colonized because of a Russian

advance along the Pacific coast.^

^ John F. Bannon The Spanish Borderiands FnDntier, 1513-1821

(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1974).

^ Nelson, "Juan de Ugalde and the Rio Grande Frontier, 1777-179Cr

^ Ibid.

21
 The decisions taken in Paris in 1763 changed to a great extent the

European nations' positions in North-America. Now, only the Mississippi river

separated the Spanish territories from the English. The problems of the

borderiands needed to be seen from a new point of view. As a consequence,

this region with few natural resources and a high cost In defense assumed a

great importance. Spain was obliged to restate its indigenist policy; the friendly

relationships with the tribes of the region had to be reinforced. The new

challenges led to administrative reorganization. First came, visits and reports

from different men including the Marques de Rubi. It was In 1776 when Teodoro

de Croix was named Commandant General of the newly-created Intemal

Provinces.

As eariy as 1712, the concept of Intemal Provinces appeared in some

documents used to name the provinces of New Spain's northem border. It was

in 1776 when the region was reorganized with the name of Intemal Provinces,

and it was set under the direct command of a Commandant General who

depended directly upon Madrid, with autonomy from the viceroy. In 1776, the

jurisdiction included the provinces of New Vizcaya, Coahuila, Texas, New

Mexico, Sinaloa, Sonora and the Califomias. The administrative organization of

the Intemal Provinces changed, because the Spanish authorities were seeking a

22
suitable system to control such an important strategic region. In 1776, because

of the new Bourbon policy, a new period for the region began.®

A profound reorganization of the defensive system was required. The

person in charge of the newly created Internal Provinces had to be a leader who

was an administrator and a soldier at the same time. Being a soldier was

considered the most important characteristic, but he should be able to

coordinate administrative activities, so that he could provide a support system

for the military forces of the region and so he could get from them the highest

retum. One of the principal characteristics of the Bourbon military reforms was

the use of military men in administrative positions; these soldiers had to be men

of action who obeyed orders without political considerations.

After the four years during which O'Connor was In command of the

Internal Provinces, 1772-1776, the vulnerability of this region became more and

more marked; because of this, the Consejo de Indias decided to follow the

recommendations that Jose de Galvez had made during his visit to the northern

frontier in 1765. In 1776, back in Spain after his labor as Visitor General of New

Spain, Jose de Galvez was named minister of the Indies and govemor of the

Council. Thanks to these appointments, he could control the whole Spanish

colonial policy. Now, he was in a position to carry out all the changes he had

suggested in a report of 1769.

® H. Bolton was the first historian in giving us the concept of Spanish

Borderiands.

23
 On August 22, 1776, by means of a decree which Galvez drafted, the

Internal Provinces were set apart from Viceroyalty of New Spain, becoming a

separate administrative unit under the direct command of a military governor or

Commandant General. This office combined civil, judicial and military powers

although his authority was not as strong as Galvez envisioned in his report; from

that time on, the Council of Indies declared that the commandant general would

depend directly on the viceroy of New Spain to get munitions and soldiers. In

the same way, the commandant general should inform the viceroy about his

every step taken in the region. Their commandant general had almost the same

powers as the viceroy; but from the beginning, it was understood that his

command was mainly military. Thus, the commandant general could concentrate

all his efforts in his fight against the Indian.

The first man who occupied this position was Brigadier General Teodoro

de Croix, who arrived in Mexico in December 1776. After spending some time in

the capital reading documents, Croix made a visit to the regions he had under

his command. The information he had acquired, both by reading reports and his

visit, led him to believe that some drastic decisions should be taken to

strengthen the control of the region. Therefore, the Provinces should be divided

into two parts, the eastern and the western divisions, each under its own

commander. But his recommendation was not carried out until December 3,

1787, when the Internal Provinces were divided into two parts by means of a

decree and instruction that were proclaimed by Viceroy Manuel Antonio Florez

24
It provided that the Comandancias would be divided into the "Four Sunset

Internal Provinces" (la de las cuatro provincias internas del poniente) under

Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola direct command and those of the "Four Sunrise

Provinces," (la de las cuatro provincias internas del oriente), under Juan de

Ugalde. The second grouping, under Ugalde's command would have a strictly

military sense. The commandant general had the responsibility for "war and

peace with the Indians. . .," he "will keep his soldiers In continuous military

operations against declared enemies; he will take special care of the defense

for the inhabited regions, preserving the peace with the friendly Indians, and

especially with those of the northern nations, which contribute to the destruction

of the Apache, because the latter are the ones who have ruined the Intemal

Provinces."^

Spanish Colonization System in the Borderiands

The Spaniards used three basic institutions to carry out the colonization

of the American southwest and the pacification of its tribes: the presidio, the

mission and civil settlements.® Theoretically, these institutions were the most

appropriate way to spread Spanish culture, religion and civilization. The

^ The Report has been translated to modem Spanish by Maria del Carmen
Velazquez in La frontera norte...,^89.

® The American Southwest extended from the Gulf of Mexico in the south
to the northern line of the Red River -New Mexico- Alta Califomia, or even to
Nootka Sound, at its furthest extension, and from the Pacific on the West to what
is now the site of Robeline, Louisiana.

25
missionaries and colonists should be protected by soldiers, who lived in

presidios next to the missions. The soldiers stayed there with their families. At

the end of this process, theoretically, the Spaniards would control the northem

frontier of the empire. The reality of the geographical zone and the tribes which

populated it, made this Utopian idea too difficult to carry out. Many

circumstances worked against it. Normally, the native tribes did not accept the

change of their traditional way of live, reacting violently against the Spanish

govemment, as represented by those three institutions. Some scholars, such as

Walter Prescott Webb, have said that the main cause of the Spanish

colonization failure on the northem frontier was the development of a colonial

system that was not adapted to that region.®

From the point of view of the Church, the objective of the missionaries

was to spread the faith. However, the missions were agencies of the state and,

at the same time, of the Church; and they were often financed by the state so

that they could further the objective of conquering the frontier. The value of the

missionaries as state agents was cleariy recognized and the royal administration

consciously exploited their services. Initially, the missionaries had been the best

diplomatic corps and the best explorers. They were often sent alone in search of

new lands or they were utilized as peace emissaries between hostile tribes, or

simply as chroniclers. In the same way, the missions were employed as a

® Walter Prescott Webb. The Great Plains (Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Press, 1981), 85-139.

26
means to defend the king's domains. The missionaries discouraged the

influences of the foreign countries among their neophytes. Almost every army

organized from San Antonio, Texas, during the eighteenth century against

Comanches and Apache Indians had a great number of Indians who came from

the missions, and they fought side by side with the Spaniards.

Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits carried out the missionary work in

the Northem frontier. According to Herbert Bolton, "the northeastern and Alta

California area fell to the Franciscans, the Northeast to the Jesuits, and when

they were expelled from all Spanish America in 1767, their missions were taken

by other orders. The Dominicans were in charge of the Lower Californla."^°

The native reductions were organized following the patterns of the

Spanish cities. Into communities with moderate levels of self-government, and

the Spaniards closely controlled them.^^ The success of the mission was often

due to the Indians' admission of their own weaknesses, which made them look

for protection among the Spaniards. As Instructors, and as an example to the

new converts, the new missions traditionally included three Indian families from

older missions. Normally, the Indians who were used to instruct the neophytes

^"Herbert E. Bolton'The Mission as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish

American Colonies," American Historical Review, vol XXIII, No 2 (1920), 42-61

^^ Ibid.

27
in the missions of the north were Indians from TIaxcala, in Mexico, whom Cortes

pacified and whom the Spanish trusted.""^

With respect to civil establishments, few places were founded in the

Northern borderlands, until the end of the Spanish colonial period. These rare

settings have been described as armed and isolated places.^^ Texas had San

Antonio, La Bahia and Nacogdoches. Only Tucson and Tubac appeared in

Arizona, New Mexico possessed a greater number of cities than both of the two

other regions, but even here, the hope of a quiet life without troubles was small,

due to the native raids, which often made the colonists think more about leaving

the region than staying. California had very few civil settlements because of its

difficult geographical accessibility.

Most of the establishments were set next to the presidios, where the

colonists sought protection from the native attacks. The colonists were

commonly a source of weakness, rather than a strength. They "usually were

^^ The TIascaltecas Indian, from TIaxcala, Mexico, were notable among the
Indians utilized as teachers and colonists in the northern missions. They became
the most trusted supporters of the Spaniards. For further information about the
role played by the Indians of TIaxcala in the Spanish Borderiands see Marc
Simmons "TIascalans in the Spanish Borderiands" in Spanish Borderiands
Sourcebooks. The Native American and Spanish Colonial experience in the
Greater Southwest, edited by David H. Snow (New York and London:Garian
Publishing, 1992),107-116

^^ Juan Marchena Femandez and Carmen Gomez La vida de guamicion

en las ciudades Americanas de la llustracidn (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa,
1992).

28
peasants who wanted to improve their situation."'''* Most of them did not go out

to fight against the enemies, but demanded to be protected by the Spanish

Government. To protect these settlers, Spain created the presidio.""^

Although it began as a military institution, the presidio changed into a

social, political, economic and even demographic influence in the region where it

was located. The presidios did not change a lot; they were built according to the

pattems learned from the Muslims during the Spanish reconquista.'^^ The

presidios were built on a rectangular (or quadrangular) plant with ten-foot high

walls, made with materials from the region-mainly sun-dried bricks, and they had

a perimeter of two hundred or eight hundred feet. In the diagonal corners two

round bastions were built over the wall, with windows.

^^ David Weber, ed. New Spain's far Northern Frontier, Essays on Spain in
the American West, 1540-1821 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1979), 69-70.

^^ For a more detail study about the history and evolution of the presidios
in the northern frontier see Max Moorhead, The Presidio. For a documentary
study about the Spanish institutional military history in the northem frontier from
1570 to 1765 see: Thomas H. Naylor and Carios W. Polzer The Presidio and
Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain Vol. I (Tucson: The University of
Arizona Press, 1986); Carios W. Polzer and Thomas E. Sheridan , eds. The
Presidio and Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain. The Califomias and
Sinaloa-Sonora, 1700-1765. Vol II Part one (Tucson: The University of Arizona
Press, 1997).

^® "In the concluding years of that campaign [Reconquista] the Spanish

forces established military posts near the major Muslim fortifications of Andalusia.
These were semi-permanent garrisons from which continuous attacks were
mounted against the weakening islamic kingdom of Granada." Naylor and Polzer,
The Presidio and Militia. . . vol. I, 17.

29
 The presidios in the New Worid were initially established to protect the

ways of the maritime trade and the isolated Christian communities of the

Caribbean islands. With the discovery of the rich silver mines in San Luis Potosi

and Zacatecas in the viceroyalty of New Spain, presidios protected the

commercial routes; however, in 1562, during the reign of Felipe II, the presidios

were also considered as the best means to protect the cities and the surrounding

regions.

The presidio was like an advance guard into Indian territory. The

interrelationships between natives and presidial soldiers were constant. As time

passed by, this institution became more and more important to the Spanish

frontier. The Spanish troops were incapable of fighting against the Indians on

the battlefield with any hope of success; they preferred to stay behind the walls

of the presidio. The presidio was considered more a defensive weapon than an

offensive one. It was the perfect refuge from the native attacks; but, as a point

from which to organize and carry out an offensive, it was useless. The Spanish

govemment tried to solve these problems by ordinances and reglamentos, but

had little success. Some of the most important problems were the morale and

the poor discipline of the troops, as both Nicolas Lafora and the Marques de

Rubi pointed out in their reports.

30
 Intemal Provinces During the First Half of the Eiahteenth Century

Most of the scholars of the Spanish borderiands have asserted that the

problems with the Apaches did not start until the end of the Seventeenth century.

However, Donald E. Worcester through a documentary study of the period,

shows us that those assertions were wrong; the Apache threat was as old as the

Spanish occupation of the North-American southwest.''^

Generally, from the sixteenth century until the second half of the

eighteenth century, a duel idea characterized the Spanish policy in this region:

to maintain pacific relationships with the native groups of that region and to carry

out occasional punitive expeditions. In this Initial period, the natives had the

benefit of the doubt; war was not declared against them until every other

altemative was rejected. Later, in the eighteenth century, peace treaties were

granted to them whenever they wanted. The Spaniards wanted to maintain

peaceful relationships with the Indians and every effort to obtain and keep them

were carried out. The most difficult issue was the different interpretations of the

mutual obligations that each group had under the peace treaties. For the

Spaniards, the purpose was to end hostilities in the area and impose a "Spanish

peace" that sought eventual Indian reduction in the missions, subject to the

Church and military authority, where they would become a dependent group.

^^ Donald E. Worcester "The Beginnings of the Apache Menace of the

Southwest" in Spanish Borderiands Sourcebooks. The native America and
Spanish Colonial Experience in the Greater Southwest. Vol. 10 Edited by David
H. Snow (New Yori< and London: Gariand Publishing, 1992), 23-36.

31
Such a submission was too distant from the nomadic Indian's nature, because

for those natives, complete freedom was the only status possible. They were not

concemed with permanent peace; they wished for short periods of peace in

which they could visit the cities and presidios, in order to get, by purchase,

arms, stores and ammunition. Under these circumstances, a lasting and real

peace between the Spaniards and the nomadic Indians was most difficult to get,

because every group had its own interests.^®

In the first half of the eighteenth century, a pacification policy was tried,

without any success, as illustrated by the San Saba mission destruction in 1758.

At the beginning of the century, the Apache occupied with their incursions the

northwest of Nueva Filipinas."*® However, the foundation of San Antonio in 1718

marked the beginning of the hostilities, because it offered a point of attack.

Frequent Apache raids made life in this settlement extremely dangerous.

Bearing in mind this fact, the Marques de Aguayo tried to make friends

with the Apaches during his expedition of 1721-22, but he did not succeed.^ On

March 24, 1724, Govemor Almazan sent a report to the viceroy where he

^® Edward H. Splcer, Cycles of Conquest. The Impact of Spain, Mexico and

the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960 (Tucson: University
of Arizona Press, 1962).

^® It is better known as the Province of Texas

^Aguayo to Almazan. Archive General de Indias, Audlencia de

Guadalajara, (heinafter, A.G.I., Guadalajara), legajo 117

32
commented on the pacification policy.^^ The reasoning behind the attempts of

pacification were the Spanish belief that they could use an alliance with the

Apache to control a wider region and to avoid a possible native rebellion. The

viceroy sent his answer to Almazan on April 25, in the same year, ordering him

to ally with the natives. Almazan replied that he would do as much as possible

although he was not confident, because the Apaches became worse and worse

each day. According to the Viceroy, messengers should be sent to them,

offering peace, friendship and alliances.^^

Between 1724 and 1728, Brigadier Pedro de Rivera y Villalon made a

general visit to the Northern frontier, recommending, among other things, the

reduction of the troops in San Antonio presidio, as he was influenced by the

relative calm of that time.^ This suggestion occasioned great protests by

missionaries and colonists from Bexar, who feared a new Apache attack on San

Antonio when they leamed of the presidio troop reduction. The 1729

regulations, based mainly on Rivera's recommendations, forbade the

commanders or govemors to wage war on friendly or neutral Indians, and it

advised them against carrying out campaigns against hostile Indians by means

of friendly natives and "encouraging them to make peace with enemy Indians

2^ Ibid.

22 Ibid.

2^Reglamento de Pedro de Rivera, A. G.l. Guadalajara, legajo 144.

33
who wanted to do it."^'* Finally, the regulations provided for the establishment of

a presidio line according to the Indian and the French, Russian and English real

or imaginary threats.

However, the Apaches attacked again in 1731 and there were so many

problems that the following year Governor Bustillo y Zeballos organized a new

campaign against them. The Apache were defeated at the San Saba River and

a peace treaty was signed. The intention of violating the treaty's terms by the

Apaches was soon evident, because San Antonio suffered many attacks and

unprecedented massacres.^^

From the Mexican viceroyalty, measures for San Antonio's defense were

carried out. Jose de Urrutia, an officer with great experience in fighting Indians,

was named captain of Bexar, and some preparations were initiated to teach the

natives a lesson. However, this lesson was not as strong as it was initially

hoped and the Apache attacks lasted until 1739. Some campaigns were

organized between 1740 and 1747, but as they had only one objective, to get

slaves and only served to increase animosity against the Spaniards.^®

2"* A direct consequence of the visit conducted by Rivera is the exploration

realized by Joseph de Berroteran. The journal of Berroteran's expedition is at the
A. G.I., Guadalajara, legajo 513. In his journal Berroteran provides much useful
information about the different Indian tribes that he found.

25 Edward H. Spicer, Cycles of Conquest.

2® William Edward Dunn. "Apache Relations in Texas, 1717-1750,"

Southwestern Historical Quarteriy, XIV (1911), 198-274.

34
 In 1743, Father Benito Fernandez de Santa Ana, president of the San

Antonio missions, sent a messenger to the viceroy informing him about the

Comanche pressure on the Apaches and the implications of this fact for Apache

pacification. Santa Ana also thought that a new presidio should be built, and he

added that a new and rich mining zone would be opened with this mission and

presidio. In 1745, he renewed his requests to the viceroy, foreseeing with great

optimism that not only the Apaches could be converted, but also the

Comanches.2^

In 1749, a great number of Comanche Indians, seeking the rich buffalo

hunting zones, moved again into the upper Colorado River area, in Apache

country. In the west were the Tejas Indians, who were also Apache enemies. At

the same time that the Comanches allied with the Tejas, the Apaches began to

ask for peace and they gave the Spanish proof of their friendship, asking for a

mission which would be founded in the Apacheria itself What weapons could

not do was done by fear of the cruel Comanches. Obviously, the Apache

thought that having friends to their back was better than being surrounded by

enemies. On August 16, 1749, the first negotiations for a new peace treaty,

which was signed a few days later, were opened in San Antonio de Bexar.

During the sixteen ensuing years, the Apache were a perfect example of

2^ Ibid.

35
friendship. Eluding the Comanches, they moved to the South, inside the

territory between San Antonio de Bexar and the Rio Grande.2®

The documents surrounding the San Saba foundation in 1757 give an

optimistic view of the Apaches.2® They were considered perfectly adaptable to

the Christian and European ways of life, which is to say, to "civilization." The

Apaches hoped to convince the missionaries that they wanted to live in villages

under their protection. For the first time, Spaniards and Apaches seemed to

want peace. Fearful of the Comanche attacks, they seem to accept Christianity

as a way to obtain the protection of the Spanish anny. After the Comanche and

other tribes at the North of San Saba mission attacked successfully, the good

relationship ended, because they realized that the Spanish protection was only

relative.^ The old friendship became colder and colder.

In spite of San Saba's failure and the renewed distrust in the Apaches,

the Spaniards continued their efforts to maintain peace. The Apaches, on the

other hand, made a minimum effort to keep the Spanish Interested. In 1759,

Lipan groups helped Colonel Diego Ortiz Parrilla in his punitive campaign

against the northem trit)es. Between 1760 and 1767, they would continue

asking for a mission as a protection against the Comanches. San Lorenzo de la

2® Edward H. Spicer, Cycles of Conquest.

2® Some of the documents abot the foundation and massacre of San Saba
are located at A.G.I., Guadalajara, legajos 194-197.

^AG.I., Guadalajara, legajo 197.

36
Santa Cruz (1762) and Nuestra Seriora de la Candelaria (1762) were founded

but both failed due to the lack of support.^^ A decisive factor in the San Saba

attack was the use of muskets that the attacking Indians had acquired from the

French. According to the documents of that time, this fact would give certain

relevance to the relationships and influences that the foreign nations were

exerting on the hostile native tribes. After all, it seems obvious that not only

English and Spanish, but also French people were projecting their European

disputes into American lands.^

Spanish Borderlands and the Bourbon Militarv Reforms

During the second half of the eighteenth century, Spanish policy would

drastically change. This change, known as the Bourbon reforms, was in part

directed toward the borderiands. The British capture of Havana in 1762 showed

that valuable possessions could fall in enemy hands; as a consequence, during

the govemment of Charies III ambitious and expensive steps were taken to

protect his possessions.^ Juan Marchena Femandez has analyzed the

extraordinary importance that from the sixteenth century the military institution

had in the American worid; for him, the same factors, which affected the colonial

^^ Moorhead, 7^e Apache Frontier, 1-18.

^ A.G.I., Guadalajara, legajo 197.

^ For further information, see the works of Juan Marchena Femandez

and Camnen Gomez.

37
order affected to the military institution.^ To preserve the empire and to ensure

the economical and fiscal advantages that the colonies offered to the metropolis,

they required an improvement in their military defense. Throughout the

eighteenth century projects to sustain a defensive system to guarantee effective

dominion over the empire were carried out.

The expansion on the colonial army implied that a great number of

peninsular officers and soldiers would be moved to the New Worid.^

Essentially, the colonial armed forces consisted of three main components: the

army, deployed in fixed garrisons; the reinforcement units, battalions and

regiments from the peninsula sent to the colonial army; and finally, the militia,

where the male population between the ages of fifteen and forty five served. In

the Internal Provinces of the north of New Spain, according to the information

provided by Juan Marchena, between 1740 and 1810, the garrison of the

presidios consisted of fixed Infantry, light cavalry companies and the Catalonian

light infantry.^

The peace of Paris in 1763 ended the hostility period between Spain and

Great Britain Charies III faced major challenges. After a short period of British

occupation, Havana and Manila were returned to Spain, and France ceded

^ Juan Marchena Fernandez. Ejercito y milicias en el mundo colonial

amencano (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992).

^Carmen Gomez, El sistema defensive americano (Madrid: Mapfre,

1992).

^ Ibid.

38
Louisiana to Spain; but loss of Florida underiined the vulnerability of the

Spanish empire in America. Out of fear of British forces, the Spanish crown took

the decision to reorganize American defenses. This new situation made Spain

take new and drastic measurements in the northern frontier of New Spain. The

diplomatic and military objectives of the eighteenth century had as their main

purpose to weaken and reduce the English power in the New World. The

English settlements to the east of the Mississippi river posed a great danger to

the Spanish possessions. The British "compelled by their characteristic daring,

try to reach the domains" of the Spanish crown with the intention of inciting the

natives against the Spaniards. It was noticed by the Spanish that after 1763 the

English began to replace the French in the arms trade with the Indians of the

plains.^^

^^Luis Navarro Garcia "La gobernacion y Comandancia General de las

Provincias Internas del norte de Nueva Espafia," Revista del Institute de Historia
del Derecho 14 (1963), 118-151.

39
 CHAPTER IV

THE REALIZATION OF THE BOURBON ENLIGHTENED

MENTALITY IN THE SPANISH BORDERLANDS,

1765-1786

The preceding pages, have analyzed the great value that the Spanish

borderlands had to the Spanish crown. Through the years, many colonization

attempts were conducted, but the Apaches systematically stopped them. In

1763, the cession of the French Louisiana to Spain forced changes in the

Spanish defensive strategy. France was no longer the big enemy; a victorious

England on the other side of the Mississippi River was now playing this role.

The strategic policy for this region had to be carefully analyzed. On the

Spanish side of the Mississippi River nothing was peaceful; on the contrary, the

Indians attacked the Spanish institutions with total impunity. Spain thus faced a

dual menace in the same territory: the English and the Apaches. An additional

problem was the possibility of an alliance between these two enemies of Spain;

the danger was remote, but it had to be kept in mind lest it become real. Trying

to solve these problems, Charies III sent several officers to the New World.

Their mission was to analyze the territory and to establish a new and more

appropriate strategic policy.

The three most remarkable personalities between 1764 and 1765 were

Juan de Villalba, Jose de Galvez and the Marques de Rubi. Each had important

40
functions: Juan de Villalba reorganized the army; Jose de Galvez was the visitor

general (visitador general) who reorganized New Spain's administration and

finances; finally, Cayetano Maria Pignatelli Rubi Corbera y San Climent, better

known as the Marques de Rubf, inspected the northern borderland of New Spain

and planed a defensive strategy for the volatile territory. The Spanish

government wanted Rubi's findings to help Galvez implement the great reforms

ordered by the king, but their missions were independent and both were driven

in a separate way.

The Marques de Rubi arrived, with Juan de Villalba's expedition to

America with the mission of organizing Mexico's defenses; he had to reform the

viceregal army.^ In 1765, Viceroy Teodoro de Croix ordered the Marques de

Rubi to inspect New Spain's northem borderiands.2 In the diary that Rubi kept

during his visit, between March 12, 1766, and February 17, 1768, criticisms

appeared about the danger that the Apaches posed to the Spanish settlements.

He called them pirates who were continuously stealing and deceiving the

Spanish with false friendly promises.

^ On Villalba and his commission, see Lyie N. McAlister, "The

Reorganization of the Army of New Spain, 1763-1766," Hispanic American
Historical Review, XXXIII, 1-32.

2 For a day by day account of the Rubi survey, see Nicolas Lafora, The
Frontier of New Spain: Nicolas Lafera's Description, 1766-1768, Lawrence
Kinnaird (trans, and ed.) (Berkeley: The Quivira Society, 1958), 43-217.

41
 Rubi concluded his mission with the Tacubaya Dictamen, on April 10,

1768.^ This document reflected the ideas contained in his diary plus those of

other members of the expedition, such as, Nicolas Lafora and Castillo y Teran.

Rubi critized the preceding pacification policy; for him its defects were the

biggest reason of the depopulation of the different areas. It was said that the

main culprit for the borderiine situation was the "shameful indulgence" with

which the Spanish Government "had treated" the Apaches "in their frequent

attempts and insults."

In the sixteenth article of the Dictamen a new Spanish indigenist policy

was established: "total extermination of the Lipan Apaches or, at least, their

complete reduction." The Marques de Rubi believed that the Comanches and

other northern tribes attacked the Spaniards only because of their alliance with

the Lipan Apaches. The Apaches were again considered as the most savage

and dangerous Indian group, and they were called "professional thieves." An

example of this assertion is the advice given by the fathers of San Lorenzo and

San Bernardo missions to the Marques de Rubi, where they assert that before

converting the Apaches, the Spaniards should defeat them."*

Rubi affirmed that the other tribes hated the Apaches because they ate

horse and mule meat and because of their reputation as thieves. This hatred of

^ Several copies were made of the Dictamen (A.G.I., Guadalajara 511 y

273 and Mexico, 2422 y 2477, also cited by Luis Navarro Garcia Jose de
Galvez. 139-140.

'^A.G.I., Guadalajara, legajo 511.

42
the Apaches extended to the Spaniards and to their settlements due to the

protection that the Apaches found against the northern tribes in the Spanish

presidios. Those Spanish settlements suffered the continuous attacks of the

northem nations, the Comanches, Izcamis, Taouacanes, Taguayas, etc.,

because of the "deceptive friendship and fake desire" to enter into a Christian

life that the Apache showed the Spaniards. The northern tribes attack under

the pretext of coming to the presidios, "looking for their enemies, the Lipanes."

Rubi asserted that an alliance with the northem tribes was possible, and

he thought that these tribes would help to exterminate the Apache, or at least,

they would reduce the Apache's numbers. Rubi, was a man of his times. He

had an enlightened mind, that sought for the best solutions to concrete

problems; thus, he defended a war of extermination which would enable him to

dismember the Apache tribe and remove the captured Indians to Mexico.

This new Indian policy would be maintained during the following twenty-

one years, in spite of contrary opinions such as those of Colonel Diego Ortiz

Parrilla (Captain of the Santa Rosa and San Saba presidios), who saw the

alliance with the Comanches as total and complete madness. Against this

negative opinion, Rubi established In the seventeenth article of his Dictamen

that the Comanches and their northern allies attacked San Saba because they

considered the presidio an ally of the Lipan Apaches.^ To avoid the danger of a

5 Jack Jackson and William C. Foster, Imaginary Kingdom. Texas as seen

by the Rivera and Rubi Military Expeditions, 1727 and 1767 (Austin: Texas State
Historical Association, 1995), 91-157.

43
Comanche decision to attack other Spanish settlements, it was better to become

their allies. Rubf feared that European nations instigated the Comanches to

attack the Spanish territories.

A new line of presidios was established in the north, each of them "about

100 miles apart, stretching from coast to coast roughly along the 30^ parallel.

Only two settlements were to remain exposed above this line: Santa Fe and San

Antonio, both retaining their presidios. The latter, even by his own engineers'

calculations, was below this demarcation."® According to S. P. Webb, Rubi

asserted that Spain had tried to hold an imaginary borderland, covering a land

too wide. Rubf proposed to establish a new defensive borderiand, building a

line of fifteen presidios across the area he called the "real borderiand."

Everything in the North of this line should be given, he said, to "Nature and to

the Indians."^ This new arrangement left the tx)rderline "in a better position for

new plans of later conquests and for spreading the Gospel."®

Nicolas Lafora, an army engineer who came from the metropolis, was the

companion of the Marques de Rubf in his visit of the intemal presidios, and he

was part of the group that wanted to establish a new Bourbon defensive policy.

He asserted in the conclusion to his Relacidn that "the continuous deaths,

robberies and destruction caused by Apache enemies were not due to the small

® Dictamen de Tacubaya, art. 29.

^ Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, 129.

® Dictamen de Tacubaya, art. 29.

44
number of fortifications, but to the extreme ignorance and ineptitude of the

captains that there had been from the beginning." The kind of war made against

the Indians was not able to produce positive effects and "their culpable

negligence" had established what he called an inviolable rule, that is, to be quiet

and safe inside the fortifications, permitting the Indians to come and go. In order

to avoid being accused of thinking only of themselves, when the presidial

soldiers were informed about any robbery, they went out searching for Indians

"sure that they probably could not reach them," because of the great amount for

preparations they had to do first.® Lafora validates the assertion about the value

given to the presidios as defensive weapons, but not as offensive ones.

Lafora complained about the troops' lack of military training and he said

that if they had any, it was inadequate. They attacked without any method or

order, and they ran away too easily. During the confusion, the soldiers were

victims of arrows shot with great ability by the Indians. On the other hand, the

soldiers did not know rifle skills, because the officers, who were more ignorant

and less experienced than they, were not able to teach them anything. The

solution Lafora offered to these difficult problems was to send good officers to

the presidios, because they could teach the men subordination to the officers.

They could teach them to fight with order and silence, to use weapons, to fight

on horse and foot using their swords, and to use advanced strategy.

® Relacidn del viaje de Nicolas Lafora Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid Ms.

5963.

45
 Simultaneously with the Marques de Rubf, Jose de Galvez, acting as

visitor general, with orders to reorganize the administrative and economic

machinery of New Spain, carried out a visit to this same region. Among his

actions were the expulsion of the Jesuits, the occupation of California, and the

reorganization of the Northern Provinces. The Indian policy in Galvez's visit was

similar to that expressed in Rubi's Dictamen. Juan Manuel de Vicenza, who

accompained Galvez on this expedition, wrote that the policy to follow with the

Apaches was "to bring them to certain obedience," or, on other hand, effect

"their conquest and extermination." In 1769, Galvez ratified what Vicenza had

written; when some hostile Indians rebelled, he gave them forty days to

surrender. Galvez asserted by decree that if the Indians persisted in their

rebellion, or if they displayed any hostility inside Spanish territory, the day of

their "total ruin and the exemplary punishment that many of their sacrilegious

crimes deserve, will come," because he "would fight with no mercy whatever

against them." Galvez went on to say that In case the enemy did not surrender

within that period of time, he would not listen to their requests, nor leave the

region until all these enemies were exterminated.^°

Galvez recommended administrative changes because these provinces

were too far from the Mexico City and from the vigilance of the viceroy of New

Spain. The military reorganization advocated in Rubi's Dictamen, was

^° Report Jose de Galvez, May 8,1769 Ptaya de la Ensenada de Santa

Barbara. Biblioteca Nacional Ms. 4494, fol. 411-548 The letter of Manuel de
Vicenza is on the same manuscrit, fol. 410.

46
necessary, but it was only a partial solution to the problem. What the frontier

needed, along with these military reforms, was a new administrative system that

could respond more quickly to the development in the borderiands. Galvez

offered as a solution the placement of these provinces under the command of a

military figure whose headquarters was near at hand, so that he could promptly

provide a suitable solution.''^ His proposal did not find very much support in

Mexico. Having in mind that the administrative hierarchy went from the king to

the viceroy and from them to the governors, the creation of a figure with the

same attributes as the viceroy and having the same military functions, could not

be easily accepted by the viceroy. In 1772, some of Galvez's recommendations,

based on Rubi's ideas, were carried out.

Based on Marques de Rubf and Jose de Galvez's ideas, we have the

"Reglamento e instrucciones para los presidios que han de former una Ifnea de

frontera de la Nueva Esparia," which was approved by the king on September

10th, 1772, and which was promulgated in New Spain by Viceroy Bucareli.^2

With the Reglamento, Bucareli pretended to improve the terrible situation in

^^ Report of Teodoro de Croix and Jose de Galvez to Carios III. Mexico,

22 de junio de 1771 transl. By Maria del Carmen Velazquez La Frontera...

^2The Reglamento of Presidios of 1772 has been edited and translated to

English by Sidney B. Brickerhoff, and Odie B. Faulk. Lancers for the King: A
study of the Frontier Military System of Northern New Spain (Phoenix: Arizona
Historical Foundation, 1965).

47
which the frontier was embroiled.^^ In its introduction, the king asserted that the

goal for the internal presidios was to defend the lives and the properties of

those who lived in the frontier territories, in the face of the hostile Indians

attacks, by pacific or violent means. The king decided to alter the actual setting

of the presidios due to their bad location and to the nature of the Indian attacks,

and he also created the commander inspector position.

The first part of the Reglamento addressed military organization

problems: equipment, storage, salaries, and officers' and soldiers' duties, and it

created the position of Commander of the Intemal Provinces. The instructions

included in the second part were a summary of Rubi's suggestions. The

Reglamento was a very important instrument in Spanish Indian policy, because

before 1772 there was no plan which encompassed the systematic settlement of

the presidios, nor was there a general borderiand strategic plan of the frontier.

The tenth part of the Reglamento was dedicated to the treatment that

should be given not only to enemy Indians, but also to the indifferent; in other

words, it suggests a new strategy toward the Indian tribes. The first article

provided that "a strong and continuous war" against the enemy Indians be

^^ Moorhead states that the Crown "decided to waterdown the bitter

medicine that Rubf had prescribed" for the Apaches, saying that the
Regulations of 1772 instituted the "most bmtal policy ever sanctioned by the
king of Spain, but it fell short of Rubf's demands." The Apache Frontier, 17,117.
These statements are not grounded in fact, as the Regulations followed Rubf's
Indian policy suggestions very closely but merely went into greater detail on how
such affairs were to be conducted. In a later work {The Presidio, 60-61)
Moorhead softened this evaluation considerably.

48
declared and that "they must be reduced, as much as possible, into their own

settlements and lands." On the strength of what has just been said, a certain

margin for Christian charity is left, because "with the prisoners of war all ill-

treatment is forbidden" and the "capital punishment will be applied to those who

killed them in cold blood." The king ordered helped them "with a daily ration of

supplies like that which the auxiliary Indians are given"; the king also ordered

the same treatment for women and children, also attempting their conversion

and education.

Regarding the question of peace, the Indians were asked to give signs

that the peace would be true and to offer certain guararrtees about their wish to

submit to the dominion of Charies III. To instil a certain feeling of humanity in

the treatment that the Indians gave to their captives, the exchange of prisoners

would be tried. The commander inspector was ordered to provide humane

conditions for captives and to free some prisoners "to show the good treatment

given to surrendered people." The distribution of captured Indians among the

participants In the campaign was specifically forbidden. The sixth article

provided for the treatment to be given to the neutral Indian nations: "a better

treatment and correspondence will be given to them, forgiving them some

misdeeds or slight excesses, trying to educate them with good example and

persuasion to admit the missionaries and to be reduced."

The Nuevo Reglamento presupposed that the only way to control I more

effectively the borderland was to construct a defensive line formed by presidios

49
with an interval of forty leagues between them, extending from the Gulf of

Mexico to the California Gulf One captain, one lieutenant, one chaplain, one

second lieutenant, one sergeant, two soldiers and forty men were assigned to

every fortification; Indian scouts were also assigned to each presidio. Although

strict discipline was to be imposed, however, a basic point was not bome in

mind: the effectiveness and competence of the soldiers in the presidio was

more important than the presidios' spatial distribution. "It was the fighting

capacity of each private, corporal, sergeant, and officer that was to mean the

difference between victory and defeat in engagements with hostile Indians, not

the exact site of a particular fort."^''

In 1772, the same year in which the Nuevo Reglamento was ratified,

Antonio Bonilla, an administrative officer in Mexico, wrote the "Breve

Compendium de la Historia de Texas," where he gave his opinions about the

province of Texas.""^ These reflexions were ordered by the Baron de Ripperda,

governor of Texas, and presented by him to the Viceroy Bucareli, so that a War

and Treasury Council could decide about the most appropriate measures for the

provincial government.

^^ The Reglamento is translated by Brinckeriioff, Sidney B. and Odie

Faulk Lancers for the King ( Phoenix: Arizona Historical Foundation, 1965).

^5 Elizabeth H. West"Bonilla's Brief Compendium of the History of Texas,

1772. An annotated Translation," in Southwestern Historical Quarteriy 8 (1904)
3-78. A brief sketch of Bonilla is in Alfred Barnaby Thomas, "Antonio de Bonilla
and Spanish Plans for the Defense of New Spain, 1772-78," in George P.
Hammond (ed.) New Spain and the Anglo-American West, 189-190.

50
 Bonilla, in his Compendio, shared the opinions of his contemporaries

about the Apache nation. Bonilla said about the Marques de Rubf that "from

this proposal alone one may judge the strength, intelligence, circumspection,

and insight with which His Excellency the Marques de Rubf framed all these

which are embraced in his very judicious plan." For Bonilla and Rubf, there was

no other way to carry out the pacification of the Internal Provinces than a war to

exterminate the Apache nation. In this Compendium, the author gives a totally

negative view about the Apaches in History of the province of Texas. He

declared that the Apache Indians were inhuman, cruel, savage and arrogant,

and one of their most remarkable characteristics was their perfidy and the use of

tricks to steal. Bonilla did not describe any possible good qualities of this

indigenous group; on the contrary, by pointing out only their negative qualities,

he made necessary and justified the extermination policy which the Spanish

Government established as a matter of policy in the Reglament of 1772. The

Governor of Texas, Ripperda, created a real and justifiable reason to make the

viceroy apply the extermination policy of the hostile tribes. They had shown

through the History of the province that they were nothing but a group of

barbarians in spite of attempts to civilize them. The merciless extermination of

those barbaric Indians who could not be controlled was declared. With this

document, Bonilla ratified the Marques de Rubf's Indian policy; if peace could

51
not be assured in the Internal Provinces, with the extermination of this native

group, peace would be guaranteed.""^

In this same year (1772), letters written by Viceroy Antonio de Bucarelli

to Governor Ripperda showed the irascible reaction, even irrational, before the

Indian problem in northern New Spain. The viceroy assumed that "the barbarian

Indians who carry guns challenging the government" were a direct

consequence of the lack of punishment in the application of the law.^^ The

person who had to apply the new legislation, which appeared in Bonilla's history

and in the Reglamento of 1772, was the viceroy Fray Antonio Maria de Bucareli

y Ursua, who delegated his responsibility to Hugo O'Connor, a frontier veteran.

O'Connor was an important man when the new policy was implemented and he

understood perfectly the problems of the Spaniards when they tried to defend

the borderlands. O'Connor was born in Dublin. In 1743, he was banished after

his part in the failed Irish rebellion against England. O'Connor was made

responsible for the whole frontier, and he was ordered to defend Nueva Vizcaya,

with total freedom to recommend the most suitable ways of fighting the Indians.

Colonel Hugo O'Connor, as Inspector Commander, received certain authority

over the Internal Provinces which were: Nueva Vizcaya, Sonora, Sinaloa,

Califomia, Nuevo Mexico, Texas, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Nuevo

^® Elizabeth H. West "Bonilla's Brief Compendium of the History of Texas,

1772. An annotated Translation," in Southwestern Historical Quateriy 8 (1904),
61.

^'^Bucareli to Ripperda, A.G.I., Guadalajara, legajo 302.

52
Santander.""^ O'Connor sent several reports to his superiors stating the need for

a solution to the problem. Finally, Bucareli summoned a War Council in the

spring of 1772, where various measures were decided upon. This same year,

the Reglamento of Presidios appeared. O'Connor was named Commander

Inspector, with the duty to carry out the new policy.

Hugo O'Connor's duty was to organize every military operation in the

Northem frontier, from California to Texas, the main goal being the

establishment of the line of presidios envisioned in the 1772 Reglamento;

concurrently, he would conduct some general campaigns against the Apaches.^®

When he assumed the Internal Provinces position, he summoned a military

council in April, 1772, where he established his strategy; this consisted of the

increment of patrols, the reorganization of the forts, and the reform of the old

supply system, and he personally would lead a series of campaigns against the

hostile Indians. Between 1773 and 1776, O'Connor carried out three general

campaigns against the Apache tribes. First, in 1773, he attacked the Mescalero

Apaches, who used to hide in the Bolson de Mapimi, south of Rio Grande.2° His

^Vigness, David M. "Don Hugo O'Conor and New Spain's Northeastern

Frontier, 1764-1776," Journal of the West, 6, nol (1967): 27-40.
19
Ibid.

2° Located directly below the Big Bend region of Texas, the Bolson
represented a great longitudinal depression bordered and broken by a series of
mountain ranges. This arid land, six hundred miles long and two hundred and
fifty miles wide, was once an ancient sea. The climate was very dry. Despite the
aridity, however, the Bolson de Mapimi was a favorite haunt of the Lipan and the
Mescalero Apache which served as a plunder trail into the heart of the Intemal

53
other two campaigns, in 1775 and 1776, were directed against the Apaches who

were settled North of the Rfo Grande. And although he won several actions, the

overall result was not very successful and in 1776 he was replaced by Teodoro

de Croix. In general terms, his mandate did not mean a drastic change In the

situation nor a real application of the new elimination policy

The main challenge O'Connor had to face was adapting the military

strategy based on the location of the new presidio line envisioned by the New

Reglamento. The presidios were located at the very north of the defense line,

far from the settlements which they should defend. Theoretically, they were

designed to eliminate any hostile movement before it reached the civil

settlements. This strategy was based on what the Spaniards had leamed in

European campaigns, but as the northem frontier was a totally different region,

with an enemy who carried out guerrilla warfare, it was useless. The only thing

the Apaches had to do, (and they did), was to slip between two presidios and

attack the unprotected settlements.

In May, 1777, O'Connor explained in a report directed to his successor,

Teodoro de Croix, how he could defend the northem provinces; this report was

based on the great experience that O'Connor had accumulated about borderland

issues. He started analyzing the terrible situation In which he found the Intemal

Provinces in 1771, and how, thanks to several measures (which he explained In

full detail) this situation had improved. He congratulated himself, above all, for

Provinces. Park, "Spanish Indian Policy," 328.

54
the creation of the flying companies {compafiias volantes) that stopped the

Indians attacks. Teodoro de Croix was instructed, often in a patemalistic way,

about the steps he should take to continue victorious offensive against the

Apaches.2^ As an experienced military man, O'Connor was teaching the novice,

Teodoro de Croix, about borderland issues: the differences between the Apache

groups, the places where they hid, the way they lived, the kind of warfare they

practiced, and how they could be attacked in a more effective way.

An Important factor was the British intention to influence and to control

Spanish territory. When he considered the Indian problem, O'Connor

emphasized, as part of his defensive policy, the prohibition of trade with the

English. This trade was too dangerous, because it was the way the Indians

could get firearms. This was what made O'Connor consider the province of

Texas as the most important, because it was the primary bastion Spain had

before England. In O'Connor's final report to Croix, according to Donald Cutter,

one can find the first seed to create a new administrative system in the Internal

Provinces.

Teodoro de Croix was of Flemish origin. He got into the Spanish army

when he was seventeen. In 1766 he was already a veteran of European wars,

and he arrived in New Spain with his uncle, the Marques de Croix, the new

viceroy of New Spain. Teodoro de Croix served four years in New Spain and in

2^ Cutter Donald C. (editor and translator) The Defenses of Northern New

Spain. Hugo O'Conor's Report to Teodoro de Croix, July 22, 1777, (Dallas:
Southern Methodist University Press, 1994).

55
1770 he returned to Spain, where he stayed until he was named commandant

general of the Internal Provinces on May 16, 1776. The person who made this

appointment was Jose de Galvez, the former visitor general of New Spain, who,

after Baylio Frey Julian de Arriaga's death in January, 1776, became Minister of

Indies. Galvez was in the right position to carry out the suggestions he had

made in 1769.

After arriving in Mexico, at the end of 1776, Croix spent the first eight

months studying different reports about the Intemal Provinces. Croix

immediately realized that deficiences in the line of presidios was one of the main

reasons of their ruin. He believed that a greater number of troops were

necessary to defend the vast region. According to Croix, the presidios were too

separated from each other, badly settled, and with difficult access, they lacked

wood and water and it was very difficult to supply them. Instead of being

positioned on a straight line, they were settled in a zigzag pattern, which

incremented the territory they had to defend. They were far from the cities and

the settlements they had to protect. But the main problem was the peaceful

coexistence with the Indians, because these presidios were settled in a territory

which the Indians considered as their own, territory in which they moved with

total freedom. In the twenty-sixth article of his appointment, it was established

that in order to stop and teach a lesson to the enemy Indians, Croix should make

56
regular attacks against them.22 The campaigns against the Apaches that Croix

had to organize, due do the magnitude of the plan and to the total war policy

which was required, were a new and important departure. Teodoro de Croix

considered that his main task was to solve the native problem in the Northern

frontier; he lead a personal inspection to the Internal Provinces which started in

August, 1777. In this inspection, he conducted several meetings in Monclova,

San Antonio and Chiguagua. The main matter debated was if the Spaniards

should not ally with the northern Indians, including the Comanches, and if they

should declare war on the Apaches, or, on the contrary, if they should join with

the Apaches against the Comanches. In the three Councils, the same sixteen

questions were considered and they came to the same conclusions.

Commandant-General Croix requested the principal officers of Coahuila

to convene in a council of war at Monclova. Meeting from December 9 through

December 11, the council had as its goal the formulation of a uniform Indian

policy. The men chosen to attend were the officers of highest rank, longest

experience, and greatest knowledge then in that province: Colonel Jacobo

Ugarte y Loyola, Colonel Juan de Ugalde, Lieutenant-Colonel Vincente

Rodriguez, Adjutant-Inspector Antonio Bonilla, and the Presidial Captains Rafael

Martinez Pacheco, Francisco Martfnez, Juan Antonio Serrano, Manuel de

Cerezedo and Diego de Borica. Rounding out this impressive list were Captain

22 Nombramiento de Gobernador y Comandante General en favor del

Caballero D. Teodoro de Croix. Transcription by Marfa del Carmen Velazquez.
La frontera Norte. . .,131-139.

57
Domingo Diaz of the first flying (cavalry) company, Alferez Manuel Merino, as

secretary of the council, and Croix himself as presiding officer. After reminding

the participants of the gravity of the proceedings and cautioning them that the

decisions of the council were to be kept secret under penalty of summary

dismissal from office, Croix opened the discussions by proposing sixteen points

upon which the council was to concentrate; each point had to be analyzed

individually, "the officers giving their informed judgment beginning with the

lowest rank and the seniors having the last word."2^ The concurrence of a

majority of the voters was necessary In order to reach a decision. At the close of

the conference all records and papers were to be "sealed and deposited in the

secret archives of the secretary of the headquarters. The records were not to be

opened except for the purpose of issuing necessary orders, unless the councils

should desire to reopen the matter in the future."2'* The responses of the frontier

veterans to Croix's sixteen points of discussion were important insights into the

prevalent conditions at that time throughout the entire Intemal Provinces.The list

of questions is very important, because it show us the most urgent and pressing

points to be resolved :

23 John, Elizabeth A. H. Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worids. The

Confrontation of Indians, Spanish and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795
(Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 501-502.

2^ Nelson, M. B. Juan de Ugalde, AA.

58
"1. How long has the Nation of Apache Indians been known

on these frontiers, and since when have they waged war

against us?

2. What progress have we made against them, especially in

the last five years?2^

3. What is the number of warriors, by the use of good

judgment in the various branches of tribes of the Apache

Nation, which up to the present time , we know as the Upper

Lipan Apache, Mescaleros, Natages or LIpiyanes, Faraones,

Navajos, and Gileaos, and what friendship and relationship

exist among these various Indian tribes?

4. What type of arms do they use, where do they live, what

are their food resources, and how do they wage war against

us, and in what provinces or places?

5. What declared enemies do the Apache have among the

heathen nations who are located along the frontiers of their

lands, rancherias, or villages?

6. What is the value of peace pacts with the Lipans in this

province? Within what limits are they observed, what useful

purposes have been served by them, and what evil effects

25 It had been five years since the adoption of Rubf's Report

59
may be produced by the maintenance of these peace pacts,

or by the declaration of war?

7. What inference, favorable or unfavorable, may be drawn

from the delivery of five Mescalero Indians by the Lipan

Chief, Poca Ropa, in the last campaign, to the military post

under the charge of Lieutenant- Colonel Vicente Rodriguez,

retired, and the recent delivery of two rancherias of the same

nation by the Indian Xavierillo, to Captain Francisco

Martinez?

8.Concerning the Comanches, Taguayases, Tejas,

Tagucanes, Bidais, Orcoquizas, Atacapaz, and other Indians

whom we know as the Nations of the North, each one of the

voters in the council will say what he has heard and leamed

and what has come to his attention, explaining the reports

and opinions in accordance with the first six points

enumerated.

9. Which of these nations are nomadic, and which ones live

in definite settlements, sow grain for harvests, etc.?

10. What benefits may be secured from waging war against

the said nations, allying ourselves with the Lipans, and what

benefits from following the opposite course?

60
11. If the number of troops who actually garrison our

frontiers is sufficient to begin hostile operations, should

these be against the Lipans and the other divisions of the

Apache, or against the Indians of the North?

12. If an increase in the number of troops is deemed

necessary, how much would be necessary against the

Apache Nation, and how much against the Indian Nations of

the North?

13. If these operations are carried on against the Apacheria,

especially of the east, the voters in the council will explain

whether or not it will be feasible to undertake a general

campaign, or some general or specific actions, and in what

manner, to what ends, in what seasons, and in what places

or districts, supposing ourselves to be allied with the Indians

of the North.

14. And if against these latter, the same should be

explained, with special attention directed to the lands which

they inhabit, to our lands which they seek to invade, and to

the security and the happy results which would come as a

result of such operations.

15.What means should be employed as more conducive to

guarantee the honesty and sincerity of the alliance of the

61
 Lipans against the Nations of the North, and that of the latter

against the Lipans?

16.Finally, in order that in the interim the necessary plans

may be taken for the general good of all the provinces, each

one of the voters in the council should give his opinion

concerning the plans which he would consider useful for the

defense of this province, and also for the neighboring

provinces of Nuevo Leon and Colonia de Santander,

including the towns of Saltillo and Parras, belonging to the

Province of Nueva Vizcaya, taking into consideration the

exact strength of the troops of the four presidios of La Bahia,

Aguaverde, Monclova, Rio Grande, and the half- company of

the flying (cavalry) squadron, and of the combined

operations which the troops may be able to carry out in the

immediate vicinity of Vizcaya."2®

On December 11, 1777, the war council of Monclova was terminated.

The members, led by Ugalde, signed Secretary Manuel Merino's account of the

proceedings and most returned to their homes Croix and Martfnez traveled on to

2® The present is a summary of Comandante-General Croix's opening

remarks at the Monclova war council on December 9, 1777. Included in Gary
Bertram Starnes, Juan de Ugalde (1729-1816) and the Provincias Internas de
Coahuila and Texas, 33-36.

62
San Antonio to convene a second council of war which would concern Spanish

relations with the Comanches and other Texas tribes.

Croix, Bonilla, Pacheco, and Diaz then journeyed to the Presidio of San

Antonio de Bexar, where the second Council was held. The San Antonio council

of war, which opened on January 5, 1778, was not the first Spanish encounter

with the problems relating to the Indians of the North. Spanish officials had, in

fact, commissioned Athanaze de Mezieres to negotiate alliances with the

eastern Texas tribes some fifteen years before. But upon the Intrusion of the

Comanches from the north a new factor had been added to the problem of

formulating a uniform Indian policy in Texas. Since the Monclova council of war

had already decided that Spain should ally itself with the Comanches against the

Apache, the main task of the San Antonio council was to decide how such an

alliance could be accomplished. Bringing out aditional information, eleven

nations of the north were listed, with an estimated force of 7500 warriors. Of

these, more than 500 were Comanches. The result of the council's subsequent

discussion was that De Mezieres and Texas Govemor Juan Maria Vicencio de

Ripperda would utilize their experiences with the Texas tribes to convince the

Comanches of the advantages of an alliance with the Spaniards against their

common enemy. Comanche warriors could then be employed in the general

campaign against the Apache that had been decided upon in Monclova.2^

2^ Nelson Juan de Ugalde..., 48.

63
 A third council of war was held at Chihuahua during the months of June

and July, 1778. Still searching for the most efficient formula for attaining peace

on the frontier, Croix again directed a discussion of the Indian problem. The

council reviewed the decisions of the two preceding councils and agreed that a

large-scale campaign should be carried out against the Lipan, that the

Mescaleros should be encouraged to attack the Lipan, that an alliance should be

made with the Comanche, and that an additional 1800 soldiers should be

stationed along the frontier. In other words, Croix's plan was now fully

developed.

These councilmen, in addition, recommended that changes be made in

certain areas pending the fulfillment of the suggestions presented by the

Monclova and San Antonio councils. Conceming Texas, for example, they

advised that a ban be placed on supplying arms to the Lipans. The council

recommended, however, that the military operations of neighboring provinces

should be coordinated and that councils similar In purpose to the three war

councils should be held in each province. Finally, the council asked that the

proceedings of the three war councils be sent to the king with the

recommendation that if the request for troops could not be met, his Majesty

might permit the presidios of El Principe, Norte, San Carios, San Sab^, San

Antonio de la Bahia, Santa Rosa, and Monclova to be retumed to their former

sites In order to defend the Spanish frontier settlements more effectively.

64
 By the end of July the councils had met and presented their

recommendations to Croix. Now it was left to the comandante-general to devise

the necessary means to implement the policies that he and the other frontier

leaders had decided upon. In the latter part of 1778, he began the constmction

of new settlements in Nueva Vizcaya and the relocation of presidios to sites

nearer the settlements they were supposed to protect. And by March, 1779, his

complex policy of alliance, war, and peace began to yield success. By various

methods, he had managed to increase the number of frontier troops by 580 men.

In Texas, the tribes that comprised the Nations of the North had dissolved their

alliance with the Comanches and made peace with the Spanish authorities. The

Chafalotes, Natages, and Mescaleros also asked for peace in Nueva Vizcaya.

Govemor Anza had subdued the Sen In Sonora. And in Coahuila, the plan to

separate the Lipan and Mescalero Apaches had progressed as a result of losses

inflicted upon them by the Indians of the North.

Unaware of the international problems, Croix was dedicated to create the

necessary infrastructure to carry out the decisions taken in the three War

Councils. But, during the decade of the 1770s, the relationships between Spain

and England were anything but friendly; this rivalry affected the Intemal

Provinces. By 1775, Spain was preparing to attack the British while they were

preoccupied with the rebellion that was taking place in their American colonies.

However, the lack of support from the French, who were waiting for a more

suitable moment, made the Spanish attempt worthless. Spain rethought its

65
foreing policy and did not consider suitable to carry out a direct offensive against

England.

Two possibilities could become real if Spain declared war on England:

first, an independent nation could, in the near future, threaten the Spanish

possessions; secondly, a successful rebellion in the English colonies could

mean a precedent and an example to be followed by the Spanish colonial

possessions. The rivalries between both countries were too strong to be

influenced in the short term by future possibilities. So, from June 1776, Charles

111 decided to help, indirectly the Americans in their struggle against England,

giving them money, arms and ammunition. By 1778, France declared war on

England. After several failed Spanish attempts to mediate between England and

France, Spain, on June, 23, 1779, also declared war on England, but this

decision was not influenced by the doubtful sympathy the Spanish government

felt to the new American republic.2®

In the Internal Provinces , in 1779, Croix received a royal order with the

surprising news. It had been sent on February 20, and informed him about the

probability of war against England; every offensive operation against the

2® See Arthur Preston Whitaker. The Spanish-American Frontier 1783-

1795. The Westward Movement and the Spanish retreat in the Mississippi Valley
(Massachusset: Peter Smith, 1962) for further information about the relations
between Spain and the new United States of America. An examination of the
contribution of Texas to the winning of America Independence in Robert H.
Thonhoff "Texas and the American Revolution," Southwestern Historical
Quarteriy 98 (1995), 511 -51.

66
Apaches was cut off. Spain needed to take to Europe all its war resources.2®

The extermination policy which started in 1768 with Rubi's Dictamen, was

temporally interrupted by this royal order.

Minister of Indies Jose de Galvez wrote a dispatch in which the reasons

to suspend the extermination policy were explained; the king preferred to carry

out fewer conquests by pacific means than to make them more spectacular and

numerous with the use of the force. After all, what had been obtained with the

campaigns which were carried out in the Internal Provinces? Experience had

proven that a successful campaign following the European style was impossible,

because of the characteristics of the territory and an enemy who used guerrilla

warfare tactics.

Croix was ordered to abandon the plans for a big-scale campaign and to

concentrate on taking defensive measurements. Peace offers were made to the

Indians to secure their friendship; by offering gifts the Spaniards tried to adapt

the Indians to the Spanish way of living. They were given food, clothes and

firearms. The King wanted the Apaches to become a sedentary tribe which

would depend on their Spanish friends. Meanwhile, Croix was authorized to

organize periodically punishment campaigns to persuade the hostile natives that

keeping peace with the Spanish was the best solution.^

2^ See Moorhead's discussion of the royal order of February 20, 1779, in

Apache Frontier, 120-123.

^ The preceding is the contents of the dispatch from Jose de Galvez to

Teodoro de Croix, El Pardo, February 20, 1779, cited in Moorhead, Apache

67
 More subtlely, the Spanish government recommended dividing the

Apache tribes themselves and pitting them against each other. The government

especially urged Croix to cultivate the Mescaleros and turn them against the

Lipanes, their rival kinsmen. "By following this advice Croix managed to tum the

tide in the Apache war. All that was lacking for the achievement of total victory,

he reported, was the arrival of the additional troops he had requested."^^

Instead of reinforcements, however, he received an order from the king requiring

him to curb his offensive operations Spain was about to go to war with England.

The royal order of February 20, 1779, was something more than a

stopgap measure imposing stringent economies on the domestic scene in order

to prosecute an expensive war abroad. It was also a reassertion and an

enlargement of traditional royal policy; a policy that would treat the hostile

Indians as human beings. In short, the royal order of 1779, ostensibly born of

economic and strategic necessities, was consistent with traditional royal

attitudes and would be basic to subsequent Crown policy. As the minister of the

Indies expressed it, the King would prefer lesser conquests by gentle means to

more formidable ones with bloodshed; he would rather be remembered as a

humanitarian than as a conqueror."^

Frontier, 120-123.

^' Ibid.

32 Jose de Galvez to Teodoro de Croix, El Pardo, February 20, 1779,

cited in Moorhead.

68
 The Spanish entry into a new war against England did not allow the

diversion of troops and resources to the Intemal Provinces. Appealing to

humane feelings, the Crown eschewed the subjection and extermination of

hostile Apaches. Because of the continuous state of disobedience In which the

Apaches were In 1765, the Crown attempted a cruel method to resolve this

problem, cruel policy that departed from the humane guidelines, based on

Christian mercy, that had always characterized the Spanish crown in its

treatment of the natives. The reduction policy through a total war was finished.

The Apaches would be allowed to reach an agreement with their sovereign,

Charles III. Friendly persuasion was required in the borderiands; the king

retumed to the policy of signing peace treaties, ending the bloodshed that these

campaigns produced.

Following Moorhead's argument, it is easy to see that Croix:

"... was to concentrate on protecting the towns,

ranches, and other settlements. He was authorized to

launch punitive expeditions. However, it was hoped that

these would dishearten the hostiles and persuade them

either to withdraw from the frontier or seek peace and

friendship. Croix was to redouble his vigilance to see that

they were not treated as slaves, as they had commonly

been up to that time, for the king wished them to be cared

for as children. The final step in their pacification would be

69
 their conversion to Christianity by the peaceful persuasion

of the clergy, and Croix was to assit in these efforts. Such

was the reasoning for the royal order of 1779."^^

According to Moorhead, the royal order of 1779 was a perfect example of

the monarch's benevolence, but then, why was it not applied when just one year

later the first of Juan Ugalde's campaigns was undertaken? The answer to this

question lies in the royal order itself The king allowed punitive expeditions

whenever these seemed a suitable and efficient system to persuade the

barbarians to desist from their attacks, seeking peace. General offensives were

forbidden, but not specific ones. The king accepted the reality that he lacked

enough money and that it was not the best moment to attack; Croix's plan,

although valid, was not profitable, due to the high costs it entailed. Accordingly,

Charles III provided a solution that emerged from his enlightened and pragmatic

mind. He became a merciful king, who was worried about the survival of his

rebel subjects, not wanting to exterminate them. He gave them the opportunity

to come back under his dominion, representing the figure of the benevolent

father who tried to win back his prodigal son. However, at the same time, he

allowed military campaigns in which he tried to destroy these rek)els. The king

was not yet entirely the benevolent father, but the just monarch who punished

those who dared to challenge his commands.

^ Moorhead, Apache Frontier, 120-123.

70
 The King was interested in controlling the Internal Provinces and ending

with the problem that the Apaches posed. If they agreed to be subjected to the

system established in the royal decree of February 20, 1779, there would be no

problem; they would be educated and adapted to the Spanish cultural system.

On the other hand, if these natives did not want to be faithful vassals, they

would be destroyed, that destruction being an example to the other Apache

groups. The best proof of this was the request for new troops that Croix made to

the king under the pretext of reinforcing this new pacification policy. Due to the

beginning of the war against England that same year, those troops never arrived

to the Internal Provinces.

During these years, a new military figure appeared, Juan de Ugalde. He

was from Cadiz and he was at the top of his military career. He arrived from

Peru, concretely from Cuzco, where he had contributed to the subjection of the

native rebellion lead by the Indian Tupac Amaru. Ugalde was a potential

solution to the Apache problems in the Internal Provinces. He had been named

Colonel and Knight of the Order of Santiago not long before occupying his

charge as Governor of Coahuila. Ugalde's appointment as govemor of Coahuila

was a part of the reorganization plan of the recently created Internal Provinces.

On December 1, 1777, Ugalde reached the frontier to occupy his position. He

was a veteran, an experienced qualified soldier and a loyal man. An example of

military efficiency, he arrived at Coahuila to replace Colonel Jacobo de Ugarte y

Loyola, by now a veteran of the frontier. Ugarte had declared himself

71
incapable of solving the problems that the Apaches were causing in the Internal

Provinces, saying that they should be captured and sent oversees. Max

Moorhead himself, Ugarte's biographer, tells us that the campaigns Ugalde

carried out in the northern borderiands made those of Ugarte's seem like simple

military exercises. Indeed, the first time that it was possible to speak about a

real attempt to apply the extermination policy was when Juan de Ugalde

appeared. The best explanation for the strength with which Ugalde faced the

Apache problem was that with his powers as govemor of the Province of

Coahuila, he had received a special authorization to stop the Lipan Apache

nation and turn them against the Apaches Mescaleros. So, helped by his own

experience, Ugalde believed that every enemy became peaceful if he feared his

enemy's power.

The first of Juan de Ugalde's campaigns began on May 3 and lasted until

June 12, 1779. During these forty-one days, Juan de Ugalde attacked and

defeated the Apaches. In this action, he took nine prisoners and he freed one

captive. The region in which his first campaign was focused and where he made

the three following ones was the Bolson de Mapimi. During his four campaigns

as Coahuila Governor, he led his troops in nine of the ten wars against the

Mescalero Apaches during his administration. Equally, nineteen enemies were

killed and seventy-seven were captured. Eight people who had been considered

prisoners of the Apaches were liberated. Eleven v/7/as or rancherias were

destroyed and 744 horses and mules were captured. On the Spanish side, only

72
three lives were lost and twenty-three men were injured.^^ These events verify

the fact that the term "extermination" is not a synonym at all of the actual

meaning of "genocide."

In 1778, Teodoro de Croix received a royal order of May 3, in which he

was required to provide the names of three men who were qualified to replace

Ugalde in case he was dismissed. Croix answered that the men would be the

Governor of Texas, Colonel Domingo Cat>ello, or the Commander of

Natchitoches, Lieutenant Colonel Athanase de Mezieres. Nevertheless, Croix

recognized Ugalde's experience in trie campaigns which were being developed,

and he defended Ugalde by saying that there was a lack of men with his

experience. He asserted that Ugalde could be the most useful to his country by

remaining govemor of Coahuila. Croix said that keeping the officers in their

positions was essential, because the Internal Provinces pacification plan's

success depended on those men's campaign successes. So, Croix gave a

negative report about Ugalde's possible dismissal.^^

However, Charies III authorized Croix to replace Ugalde if he did not

seem appropriate to carry out the benevolent orders the King had given. So,

Ugalde's dismissal in the midst of his fourth campaign against the Apaches,

^ Gary Bertram Starnes. Juan de Ugalde. For further information about

Juan de Ugalde see AL B.Nelson Juan de Ugalde and the. . .

^ Starnes, Juan de Ugalde, 60.

73
1783, was not unexpected. ^ This campaign was a total success, but Teodoro

de Croix did not know anything about that when he signed the dismissal. Ugalde

did not accept his dismissal and he fought to regain his position. Administrative

changes occurred in the Intemal Provinces when a new viceroy of New Spain

was appointed, the Count of Galvez, and, in 1786 he issued his Instructions to

govem the reglon.^^ Galvez became Ugalde's great protector, although his

death in 1786 made his influence over Ugalde's career imperceptible.

Juan de Ugalde, in the different campaigns of his command, not only as

govemor of the province of Coahuila, but also as military commander of the

recently divided Intemal Provinces, would be a very controversial man. Military

man more than anything else, he was the perfect figure required to solve the

Intemal Provinces problems. During his four campaigns against the Mescalero

Apaches, his superiors sometimes praised his efficiency and sometimes

considered his actions as personal insults, which led him to be dismissed as

Govemor of Coahuila in 1783. There are very Interesting letters written by

Teodoro de Croix to Jose de Galvez where Croix speaks about the

Insubordination of Ugalde and the tone of Ugalde's reports. The conflict

3® Teodoro de Croix to Juan de Ugalde, Arispe, January 9, 1783. AG.!.,

Guadalajara, 302.
37
Ibid

74
between these two man, Ugalde and Croix, ended with the dismissal of the

former. 3®

Ugalde was soon reinstated and came back to a new position,

commander of arms, in the Intemal Provinces. The same monarch who

abolished the extermination policy reinstated the only person who really made a

reality of that policy. This reveals the true intention of the monarch: to sustain

the reduction policy with arms. The royal order in 1779 became a diplomatic

ploy, as was seen, which was used by the monarch to keep his role as merciful

and Christian monarch. Practically, the monarch was only an enlightened mind

which sought the desired end without considering the means he had to use.

Equally, when Ugalde was placed under Count Galvez direct orders, Ugalde's

military powers were curtailed, because he had to carry out Galvez's commands

without any discussion.

What really expressed Ugalde's thoughts about his mission as a military

man who must be carry out the orders of the crown In Indian territory, was a

document which was sent to Jose de Galvez in 1782.^® This plan explained the

way the rancherias could be attacked and the equipment the soldiers had to

carry. Ugalde wrote that he followed the guidelines of the Reglamento of 1772,

and he also said that too many benefits were conceded to the Apache Indians

who had enough incentives to make peace. Ugalde tried to apply the same

3®A.G.I., Guadalajara, legajo 268.

^ Ibid.

75
policy which was applied in the Italian Piamonte: the extermination of all the

captives. He wanted to treat the Indians as war enemies not as barbaric

Indians. Realizing that his words were too strong, Ugalde said that he was a

military man, and that the only important thing for him was the success of his

mission. Ugalde never followed the royal order of 1779. He said in a very

explicit way that the only policy he would follow would be the one contained in

the Reglamento of presidios of 1772. Equally, he understood that his superior

had to apply certain Christian mercy, although he did not agree with it, and he

used his arguments to defend a stronger policy than that which was being

applied. Intentionally he cited the first and second articles of title ten from the

Reglamento as the best way to continue with the extemiination of the Apaches,

and he seemed to forget the later royal order of February 20, 1779.^^ Viewing

"^ Sidney B. Brickerhoff, and Odie B. Faulk. Lancers for the King, Title
ten of the Reglamento of Presidios of 1772 is dedicated to the treatement of
Enemy or Indiferent Indians.
In art. Number 1 is declared that "As the object of war should be peace,
and as my main goal is the welfare and convcersion of the gentile Indians and
the tranquility of the frontier area, the commandant-inspector, the captains, and
the presidial troops will always keep in mind that the most effective measures for
attaining these useful and pious ends are vigor and activity in war and good faith
and gentle treatment of those who surrender or are taken prisoner. Therefore
the first attention of all should be directed to waging active and incessant war
against the Indians who are declared enemies, where possible attacking them in
their own villages and lands; but with the prisoners that are taken in war, I
prohibit all bad treatment and impose the penalty of death upon those who kill
them in cold blood; they shall be sent to the vicinity of Mexico City where my
viceroy may dispose of them as seems convenient. I order that prisoners be
assisted with the same daily rations as are given Indian auxiliaries; and the
women and children that are apprehended will be treated equally and assisted,
in order to procure their conversion and instruction."
Art. Number 2 declared that "but having been shown by experience that

76
Ugalde, a modern sense of morality must be forgotten, because he only tried to

carry out what in his time an experienced military man considered as most

suitable. He was a product of his times and its mentality. He also had a great

experience in his campaigns in Italy, Portugal and Peru and the northern frontier

of New Spain. So he believed that an eighteenth-century military man would not

be condemned if he killed his enemies after catching them.

With these military campaigns the Spanish government tried to continue

on the premises established in the Monclova, Chiguagua and San Antonio

councils. In 1785, Pedro Vial and Francisco Xavier Chavez were sent as the

first "diplomats" from Texas to the Comanche nation. The purpose of this

mission was to establish a permanent peace with the Comanche Indians.

Through the diary of this expedition, the different steps in the negotiating

process can be analyzed. As Elizabeth A. H. John says in the translation she

gentleness and good treatment with individual prisoners are useful, with the
entire nation they are pernicious, as is conceding peace or treaties which are not
certain or secure. Especially is this true with the Apaches, who under different
names ravage the frontiers. When their forces are inferior or they are
overwhelmed by our victories, they profess a desire for peace; aftenvards, they
abuse our clemency at the first opportunity, interpreting as weakness the kind
treatment they were given. I prohibit the commandant-inspector and the
captains of presidios from granting them peace; In case they ask for it with
assurances and with indications that their request is genuine and that they will
submit to my authority, the captain will concede them only a truce, or suspension
of fighting (with hostages), for the number of days necessary to seek
confirmation from the commandant-inspector; and he is not to extend it any
longer than the time necessary for obtaining the approval of my viceroy and for
formalizing the terms and conditions, demanding always during the aforesaid
truce the total cessation of hostilities and, if possible, the restitution of Spanish
and friendly Indian prisoners.

77
makes of this diary, peace with the Comanches was a priority matter in that time,

and this can be seen in the rapidity with which expedition diary copies and

various documents from Texas and New Mexico about peace efforts were sent

from Chiguagua to Spain where Charies III would be greatly pleased by the

successful results of the peace negotiations.'*^

In June, 1785, Bernardo de Galvez, Count of Galvez, was named as

successor to his father as viceroy of New Spain. Focusing in the Internal

Provinces, the Indian policy of the Count of Galvez as expressed in his

Instruction of 1786, will be analyzed. In this document, he explained in full detail

the policy that should be carried out by the new commandant general, Jacobo

Ugarte y Loyola.'*2

Galvez was an experienced man in the borderlands, and, as he himself

stated, he used this knowledge to write his Instructions. In the twentieth article,

he declared that "war should be made in every province (without any

intermission) and in every time to the Apaches, searching them in their

rancherias because it was the only way to punish them and to get the

pacification in these regions. It was established that when some Apacheria

congregation asks for peace, this should be guaranteed."

''^An English translation of the diary of Pedro Vial y Francisco Xavier

Chavez by Elizabeth A. H. John "Inside the Comancheria, 1785 : the Diary of
Pedro Vial y Francisco Xavier Chaves," Southwestern Historical Quarteriy 98
(1994), 27-56.

^^2 Bernardo de Galvez. Instructions for Governing the Internal Provinces

of New Spain, 1786 ( Berkeley: The Quivira Society, 1951).

78
 Galvez pointed out in the twenty-fifth article that "as the preceding policy

hadn't been successful enough, the same bloody claims and hostilities, close

ruin and complete desolation could still be heard." To sustain the policy of total

war was something senseless to Galvez, because it had not brought any

permanent results, and "not even the greatest army of veteran troops" could

pacify "the Intemal lands." In the twenty-ninth article, he established that "the

victories over the enemies consisted on making them destroy one another." To

Galvez, a bad peace was much more profitable than a good war. With the

precedent of the Tlaxcaltecan help in conquering Mexico-Tenochtitlan, he

embraced the idea of making allies with Indian tribes, because they could be

quite useful in the destruction of the 'treacherous Apaches." Galvez continued

analyzing the Apache lacks. He said that their wishes had to be satisfied,

because they would be easier to subject if they depended on the trade with the

Spaniards.

The Instructions cleariy established that a new policy would be

established toward hostile Indians. Galvez kept the guidelines of Monclova,

San Antonio and Chiguagua meetings; equally, the royal order of 1779,

contributed some points to this Instruction, which would be a sort of update

summary of the Reglamento de Presidios of 1772, with all the later legislation

conceming the policy of total war. Galvez's plan had two parts. In the first, the

tribes were forced to settle next to the presidios, and in the second, Indian

79
attacks were harshly punished. Although these ideas had precedents, Galvez's

idea was to join alt the old methods into a practical one.

The most remarkable fact In the 1786 policy was the end of extermination.

From this year on, that word could not be found in the documents. Galvez gave

specific instructions to his three officials in the Internal Provinces to carry out his

policy. Ugalde was especially trained. Galvez made both commanders assume

the responsibility for honoring signed peaces and for avoiding military

campaigns which could endanger the treaties. War had given way to peace.

After this brief but detailed analysis of the Indian policy applied in the

Internal Provinces during twenty-one years, it is noteworthy that the main idea

behind it was to establish political stability in the region. The great menace

posed by the British presence to the east lead to certain solutions which would

have been unacceptable for the Spanish crown in other contexts. Throughout

the years there were more and more attempts to reduce the Apaches, but these

attempts did not achieve the planned result. Only during very specific moments,

and with men such as O'Connor, Croix or Ugalde, were some successes

achieved. In 1779, when Spain declared war on England, the "extermination"

policy was suspended, although it was not at all forgotten, because the reduction

of the hostiles was always in the king's mind. After the war against England,

several definite campaigns against the Apaches were earned out, but in spite of

the successes the instability in the situation of the region remained the same.

In 1786, when Galvez wrote his Instruction he considered the previous reduction

80
policy as something finished, saying that a bad peace is better than a good war.

If the reality of political instability remained the same, what caused the end of

this reduction policy? The answer is quite simple. Just as the English presence

was the main factor behind establishing greater control in the region, its

disappearance from the east when the English lost the War of American

Independence made the rivalry and competition in the colonial worid vanish.

The commercial and military menace which the English presence implied

disappeared, and with it, the crown's interest in continuing with a policy that cost

money and which did not offer the results the crown had hope for.

81
 CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

In spite of the order suspending the "extermination" policy given by

Charles III in 1779, the Spaniards pursued it for twenty-one years. In 1765, the

Marques de Rubf arrived In America. Rubf was appointed to conduct an

expedition in the northern frontier of New Spain. He ended his expedition

with the Tacubaya Report, April 10, 1768. There was established the new

Spanish Indian policy: "total war against hostile Indians." Later on, the

Reglamento de Presidios was written. It divided Indians into two different

groups: those who would be hostiles and those who would be friends. For

the first ones, it declared an extermination policy; and for the second ones,

the Spaniards had to pursue their friendship. Finally, on August, the 26th,

1786, the Conde de Galvez sent new Instructions to the commandant general of

the Internal Provinces. Galvez ordered him to pacify the Apaches by treaties

signed between Spain and the Comanche nation, or, in other words, to follow the

points made in the Monclova Council in 1777.

Juan de Ugalde was an important figure on the military scene of the

Internal Provinces, although the king ordered him to end with the new policy,

giving as the main reason Christian mercy. This military man, educated on

European battlefields, the veteran of many wars, was not Interested in taking

prisoners, only in his mission's success, which was the total extermination,

82
without prisioners, just the enemy's death. Ugalde complained in many of his

letters about the benevolence that the viceroy, as the monarch's representative,

was supposed to exercise, because Ugalde saw the benevolence as weakness.

When analyzing military men, such as Hugo O'Connor, Teodoro de Croix

or Juan de Ugalde, who strictly applied the extermination policy, is necessary to

bear in mind that it was a consequence of their times. The territory where they

developed the campaigns against the Indians was, from their viewpoint, Spanish

land, the Indians were subjected to the Spanish king and because of this, they

should obey Charies III. These men as military officers had to defend the new

policy which protected the northern borderlands from the English enemy. They

had double duty, to control the region by using punitive campaigns, and,

through the success of these campaigns, to establish stability in the borderlands.

This stability would allow better control of the region, and later on, it would

prevent the English raids in a territory that was part of the Spanish empire.

The final objective behind all this legislation was not really extermination,

as has already been explained, but reduction of the hostile Indians who could

be compared, at a legislative level, with the most dangerous European

delinquents of that period. This reduction was impelled by the English menace

from the other side of the Mississippi River. With this policy the Spanish crown

wanted to deny, inside the Apacheria, the security of presidios and missions to

the Apaches, making them feel defenseless before their terrible enemies, the

Comanches and their northern allies, who simultaneously, would become

83
Spanish allies. The Apaches would have to settle in Mexican territory, looking

for protection and from there, they would be sent to other missions, far away

from the borderlands, from where they could not return back to their lives of

robbery and plunder, and, overall, where their enemies could not reach them.

So, the dual problem would be resolved: on one hand, the Apache issue, and on

the other hand, the controll of the region by an alliance with the northern tribes .

The importance given to the reduction policy in the Spanish legislation is

visible in the plan devised by Ugalde. Analyzing the treatment given to the

captives, the way in which their human nature was kept in mind is noteworthy.

For example, Rubf, in the thirtieth article of his Dictamen, pointed that they

should not be distributed among the campaign participants, because this would

make them be treated as slaves and even be sold "an abuse against their

condition of human beings and against their rights."

Contrary to the well-known Spanish Black Legend, to which Ugalde's

plan could give new substance, the intention of the Spanish crown was never to

conduct a systematic genocide with the Apache people but to convert them into

loyal and productive subjects of the government through the legislation that

created the reduction policy of merciless war with the hostile Indians.^ Ugalde's

^ Elizabeth A. H. John follows Mooriiead's analysis, saying that Rubi's

Apache plan was "harshly expedient" and giving him little credit for the humane
elements in the 1772 Regulations. Storms Brewed in Other Men's World's,, 440-
442. David LJ. Weber introduces an incredible assertion by saying that Rubf's
concern with taking the Apache Women captive was so the Apache could not
reproduce themselves. The Spanish Frontier in North America 220, 440. We
must point out that in Rubf's Dictamen he did not define prisoners of war by

84
plan would have been the perfect example of the extermination policy, if a

Apache extermination, or in this case a systematic genocide, had been

intended, but this was not the issue. The Spanish crown never intended to

apply the plan. Created by a veteran military man trained in the borderiands, it

intended to solve a problem that had existed for many years. Ugalde himself

considered his plan as unacceptable according to the Christian principles of the

Spanish government.

Later on, Ugalde realized several campaigns against the Mescalero

Apaches, in 1787 and 1790. These campaigns were a big success, although

the new mood in these campaigns was pacification instead of exterminatlon.2 In

the decade of the nineties the Apaches were not so dangerous, although some

attacks were carried out. The policy established by Galvez in his Instruction, in

1786, reduced, step by step, the frontier problem to a routine. Frontier cities

grew with the new colonists' arrival; peace and prosperity seemed to have finally

arrived. During these years some documents, such as the one written by the

Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Cordero, Noticias relativas a la nacidn Apache

considered them as a hostile natives. On the other hand, a lieutenant of the

Corps of Royal Engineers, Jose Marfa Cortes, in 1792 gave the Apache and

gender and, as well, he provided honorable treatment of warriors captured, as

well as woman and children (art. 30).

2 On the latter officer's career of Juan de Ugalde, see Gary B. Starnes,

Juan de Ugalde and the Provincias Internas.... Yet writers like Moorhead have
given Commandant General Jacobo Ugarte de Loyola the laurels for the Apache
peace that resulted from Ugalde's tough stance.

85
Spanish worid vision in his Informe sobre las provincias del Norte de la Nueva

Espafia.^ Cortes analyzes Apache culture, saying that settling them in missions

was as impossible as exterminating them. Despite to this point of view, the

Spanish signed peace treaties with the Apache in 1790 and in 1793.

These twenty-one years did not mean a change in the situation of the

Internal Provinces. At certain times, the situation got better, but due to the lack

of funds and to the lack of interest after England disappeared, the reduction

policy waned. The fear of English influence among the hostile tribes was not a

factor that concemed the Spanish monarch in 1786. So, this reduction policy

was not something isolated, but a process that took place inside rational and

enlightened minds. Those minds searched for the best way to succed, and they

spared no effort to realize the plan. Ugalde and his predecessor, O'Connor,

showed that a successful offensive battle could be sustained inside the

Apacheria. The main problems were the lack of coordination of the Indian policy

at the different administrative levels of the Internal Provinces, or the changes

that certain officers made, thinking that a benevolent policy could be more

favorable to achieve Spanish interest and less expensive. Even the Crown, as

shown, participated in these contradictory opinions. Moorhead rightly asserted,

that the conflict of pacific means versus the bellicose is a clear example of the

^ The Report was translated into English by Elizabeth A. H. John Views

from the Apache Frontier: report on the Northern Provinces of New Spain by
Jose Cortes (Nomnan, Ok: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989).

86
contradictory instructions which were given, and it was a problem that remained

unsolved.^

^ Moorhead The Apache Frontier, 119-123, 270-289.

87
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