Indigenous Landscapes and Spanish Missions: New Perspectives from Archaeology and Ethnohistory

4. Missions Untenable: Experiences of the Hasinai Caddo and the Spanish in East Texas

57 4 Missions Untenable Experiences of the Hasinai Caddo and the Spanish in East Texas Paul Shawn Marceaux and Mariah F. Wade The establishment of Spanish colonial missions among the Hasinai Caddo of East Texas in the late seventeenth century marked a political and religious commitment to the territory east of Coahuila (for a discussion of Coahuila and the Texas-Mexico border, see chapter 6, this volume). While the religious orders were generally proactive in their attempts to Christianize Native populations, the Crown was mostly reactive. This mutual commitment emphasized, therefore, the geopolitical importance of the Hasinai territory in light of the continued French activities in the region and Spanish need to stem French influence. Archival sources amply demonstrate the strategic relevance of the region and the Hasinai ambivalence to French and Spanish political and economic partnerships. Several factors rendered those missions unsustainable. Ultimately, Hasinai strategic policy, or reluctance, to comply with Spanish demands to change their traditional settlement patterns created conditions of Christianization and control that neither the missionaries nor the military were willing to overcome. As part of ongoing research related to historic Caddo archaeology, we have examined information from sites in the upper Neches and Angelina River valleys of East Texas. This is an area known to be the home of the Hasinai Caddo and their ancestors. Our focus is the initial period of contact between the Caddo and European explorers and the resulting sustained interaction between these Native American groups and colonial settlers, including Spanish missionizing activities. We use information obtained from archival records during European expeditions and colonization efforts, as well as analyses of distinctive ceramic assemblages and European trade goods recovered from 58 Power, Politics, and Belief known historic Caddo sites and Spanish missions in the area, to discuss the experiences of the Hasinai. The Hasinai Caddo of East Texas Historic accounts established that the southern Caddo were organized into three loosely allied groups, the Hasinai, Natchitoches, and Kadohadacho (figure 4.1). These alliances were likely kin based, yet each had their own identity and governed itself independently. The focus of the following study is the Hasinai groups, who according to Fray Francisco Casañas in 1691 consisted of nine principal tribes (Cachae, Nabadacho, Nabiti, Nacachau, Nacono, Nasayaha, Nazadachotzi, Necha, and Nechavi) living within an area approximately 150 kilometers long. Together, the Hasinai groups had a population of approximately 2,400–2,800 people in the 1690s (Marceaux and Perttula 2010). Numerous sources document the history and the sociopolitical organiFigure 4.1. Historic Caddo groups at the time of European contact. Missions Untenable 59 zation of these allied groups (Bolton 1908, 1987; Carter 1995; Griffith 1954; Newkumet and Meredith 1988; Swanton 1942; Wyckoff and Baugh 1980). The nature of these alliances, sometimes referred to as confederacies, changed through time, but it is clear from the archival record that the groups maintained distinct affiliations during the contact period (Perttula 1992; Story 1978; Wyckoff and Baugh 1980). The formation of the Hasinai Caddo alliance occurred before the permanent presence of Europeans in East Texas, but researchers are unsure of exactly when or why it formed. Researchers do know that sustained contact led to destabilization and depopulation and that by the mid-eighteenth century Caddo society likely relied on individual kin groups more than on the confederacies (Gregory 1973). Caddo farmsteads were self-supportive but often connected to the more familiar mound complexes, which later in the Historic period fell into disuse (Perttula 1992). A map from the Terán de los Ríos expedition (1691–1692) on the Red River illustrates a temple mound with an associated structure still in use and the location of the caddi’s house. The map also shows elevated granaries , outdoor arbors, cultivated plots, and the individual compounds with circular structures shaped like large beehives with thatched roofs and likely wattle-and-daub lower walls (Hatcher 1932). The Caddo practiced a subsistence economy centered on the basic activities of farming, hunting, food collecting, and fishing. They were successful horticulturalists , planting and cultivating fields of corn, the primary crop in historic times, as well as beans, squash, and endemic cultigens. Horticulture and the production of maize were major components of the subsistence economy, but the Caddo made use of a diversified food production system (Wyckoff and Baugh 1980). Initial Contact The first documented contact between the Caddo groups of East Texas and the Europeans took place in 1542 with the...