Illustrations by Roy Henderson, Charlotte Baker Montgomery, and
Dr. George L. Crocket.
This booklet is an enlarged and revised reprint of two earlier
booklets, one prepared by Mr. Blake and the Reverend George L. Crocket
in 1936 as a part of the Celebration of the Texas Centennial. The
second booklet was published in 1939 by the Nacogdoches Historical
Society and dedicated to the memory of Dr. Crocket, who, among the
other labors of a singularly useful and beneficient life, was an
untiring student of the history and traditions of East Texas. Since he
was one of the earliest workers in the field, much material which
would otherwise have been lost was preserved by Dr. Crocket’s industry
and enthusiasm. The demand for information concerning Historic
Nacogdoches has been so great that the supply has been exhausted. Many
copies have been furnished historians, school children, historical
societies and people generally interested in the rich, historical
background of this area. This third edition was financed by the
Nacogdoches Chamber of Commerce and will be supplied free upon
request.
Published by
Nacogdoches Historical Society
and the
Nacogdoches Chamber of Commerce
_Nacogdoches Speaks_
BY KARLE WILSON BAKER
(By permission of the Southwest Press)
I was The Gateway. Here they came, and passed,
The homespun centaurs with their arms of steel
And taut heart-strings: wild wills, who thought to deal
Bare-handed with jade Fortune, tracked at last
Out of her silken lairs into the vast
Of a man’s world. They passed, but still I feel
The dint of hoof, the print of booted heel,
Like prick of spurs—the shadows that they cast.
I do not vaunt their valors, or their crimes:
I tell my secrets only to some lover,
Some taster of spilled wine and scattered musk.
But I have not forgotten; and, sometimes,
The things that I remember arise, and hover,
A sharper perfume in some April dusk.
[Illustration: Travellers and Inn]
[Illustration: Indian on Horse]
_Nacogdoches The Indian Town_
For the beginnings of Nacogdoches we must go back to the shadowy times
when heroic figures march with majestic tread across the stage of
tradition, obscured by the mists of centuries. Having no written
language with which to record the glories of their race, the Tejas
Indians recounted the tales of their beginnings around their home fires,
thus passing them down from father to son through the long centuries
before the coming of the Europeans.
Thus it is recounted that in the days of long ago an old Caddo chief
lived on the bank of the Sabine, the river of the cypress trees. To him
twin sons were born: Natchitoches, swarthy of features with straight
black hair and flashing black eyes; and Nacogdoches, fair of complexion
with blue eyes and yellow hair. As the old man neared the end of his
days, before being ushered into the happy hunting-grounds, he called his
two sons into his presence to receive his final blessings. He commanded
that immediately following his death, Natchitoches should gather his
wife and children together, turn his face towards the rising sun, and
after three days’ march should build his home and rear his tribe; while
Nacogdoches was instructed to travel a like distance toward the setting
sun, where he should rear his children and children’s children. Thus the
twin tribes of Nacogdoches and Natchitoches were founded 100 miles
apart, and thus Nacogdoches was the father of the Tejas, the white
Indians of Eastern Texas.
The two tribes were a sufficient distance apart to prevent friction over
their hunting-grounds, and thus through the succeeding centuries they
were ever on friendly terms, the one with the other. This friendly
communication and barter between the tribes was such that they beat out
a broad highway between them and through their confines, which became El
Camino Real, extending from Natchez, on the Father of Waters, to the
Trinity river on the west, through Natchitoches, Louisiana, and
Nacogdoches, Texas.
During the succeeding centuries the Tejas lived on the Redlands,
building comfortable homes around the ceremonial mounds which they had
erected, where they left their wives and children while they pursued the
bison, the deer and the black bear. Then another figure of heroic mold
emerges from the mists of the past, when Red Feather rules his people.
The story of Red Feather is delightfully recounted by Miss Adina de
Zavala, of San Antonio, Texas, in her “Origin of the Red Bird.” Red
Feather taught his people the gentle arts of husbandry—the cultivation
of Indian corn, beans, peas, melons and pumpkins; taught the women to
make preserves of the fruit of the persimmon tree, and to store the
fruits of the soil and the chase in their homes for winter. Great was
the mourning when Chief Red Feather died; while his subjects reverently
laid his body to rest on the chief mound in Nacogdoches, his spirit
soared upward on the crimson wings of the first red bird, and hovered in
the majestic trees above the mounds, as if guarding his people from
danger.
Less than fifty years after Columbus sighted America, Hernando De Soto,
in the winter of 1541-42, penetrated as far west as Nacogdoches, where
he spent the winter, sending out scouting parties further west in search
for the seven cities of the Cibolo. He remained in Nacogdoches because
he found here a well-settled, hospitable Indian town, with an
agricultural population, having well-built homes, provided with
comfortable furnishings.
Nearly eighty years after De Soto’s visit, on the borderline between
tradition and history, came the ministration of Mother Maria de Jesus de
Agreda, “the angel in blue,” teaching the Tejas tribes the Christian
religion, in 1620. So great was the influence of this saintly woman that
in 1690 the chief of the Tejas told Massanet that they wished to do as
she had done, and even wanted to be buried in blue garments.
The first definite description of Nacogdoches and its aboriginal
population is in the account of LaSalle’s visit here in 1685. On this
visit Robert Sieur de LaSalle became desperately ill and remained in
Nacogdoches for a month, recuperating from disease. Here the Frenchman
received such hospitable treatment at the hands of the natives that four
of his men deserted and remained here when LaSalle started back to Fort
St. Louis.
LaSalle found numerous evidences of prior contact with both French and
Spanish here. Perhaps the Indian traditions pointed to the presence here
of DeSoto and Coronado, and the traditional appearances of Mother Maria
de Agreda, already referred to.
DeLeon and his followers, in 1691-1692, made the first serious attempts
to educate the Tejas Indians in European ways by taking several of the
young members of the tribes back to the College of Zacatecas in Mexico.
Among these were two children of the chief of the Hainai Indians, living
near what is now known as the Goodman Crossing on the Angelina river,
about eighteen miles southwest of Nacogdoches. The young man, who
afterwards became head chief of the Hasinai Confederation, the Spaniards
named Bernadino, which name was also given to his father, the chief; the
young woman they named Angelina, and the river was named for her. She
also acted as interpreter between the Indians and the Spanish explorers,
including the followers of Captain Ramon in 1716, and those of the
Marquis de Aguayo in 1721.