Exploring & Colonizing

Click the thumbnail images for a larger view.

Exploring

Gilbert, in northern Rains County, is an archeological site, where, 250 years ago, a deer-hunting and hide-processing camp produced thousands of deer hides that were probably sent to Europe. The Gilbert site yields a wealth of European trade goods, particularly guns and other metal items, and must have played a key role in the hide-gun-horse trade of the mid-eighteenth century. French traders had created a network of Native Americans who provided hides in exchange for guns and other European trade goods. The Spanish, who controlled this region, forbade gun trade with native peoples, so French guns were prized as weapons and because they could be traded for horses (Southern Plains groups such as Comanche had large herds of horses, but few guns, while groups in East Texas had French guns, but few horses.)

The Gilbert site isn't much to look at. One can see 20 low mounds or "middens" --trash deposits -- about 30 feet across, along a sandy ridge overlooking Lake Fork Creek. Recovered bones were those of white-tailed deer, and since only a small portion of the total site has been excavated, the total number of deer butchered at the site could be in the thousands. Numerous arrow points and gunflints indicate many hunting weapons, and metal knives and end scrapers, a stone tool for hide dressing, indicate the full range of hunting, butchering, and preparation for a major deer-hide production. Historical records suggest that hides were the major product exported from Texas to European markets during the middle-eighteenth century. The scope of the Gilbert enterprise is indicated by the incredible number and variety of trade goods, items which are assumed to have been received in payment for the hides.

The site includes European-supplied trade goods such as firearms, gunflints, lead bullets and shot (in ball form), axes and hatchets. There are also knives, brass kettles, brass and iron projectile points, horse gear, hawk bells, buttons, a finger ring, different sizes of copper wire bracelet stock and hundreds of varieties of glass trade beads. Firearms were light, hunting-type French flintlock smoothbores (as compared to the larger and heavier military "muskets"). Since so many gun parts had been cut or broken into pieces, Native Americans may have been experimenting with metal for a variety of purposes. Remnants of some discarded French-type brass kettles had been broken and cut up to create tinkler cones (ornaments attached to clothing). The surplus of European goods hints that French traders themselves may have been present at the site, maybe even lived there at times as they did at many Caddo villages of the period, but details of the trading are not known.

The Gilbert site does not represent a village occupied year-round. There is no clear evidence of substantial houses -- not a single posthole was found, nor were significant daub fragments that would indicate mud-plastered wattle and daub houses with thatched roofs characteristic of Caddo and Wichita villages. Few hearth/fire pits, a single bell-shaped storage pit, and the absence of human burials suggests that the Gilbert site was a warm-season encampment used for harvesting deer hides for export. Although not a permanent village, the quantity and variety of materials, substantial middens, and artifacts linked with both male hunters and female hideworkers, suggests the Gilbert site was a temporary home for weeks, or even months, for a sizeable group of men, women, and their children.

Colonizing

Six miles down the road from Caddo Mounds is Mission Tejas, where the Spanish established a mission in 1690 marking the beginning of the European culture in Texas."

Goliad State Park contains a replica of Spanish-Colonial Mission Nuestra Senora del Espiritu Santo de Zuniga, originally established in 1722 near Matagorda Bay, moved to its present site in 1749, and the first large cattle ranch in Texas, supplying its own needs and those of Spanish colonial settlements as far away as Louisiana. The Presidio La Bahía fort complex across the river, was built in 1749 to protect the Mission and the frontier. These two sites exemplify the roles of the Catholic Church and the Spanish military in settling the New World. The Presidio played a major role in the Texas Revolution when Colonel Fannin and his men were held there prior to being executed at Santa Anna’s order.

Take a virtual field trip of Goliad State Park.

San Felipe State Historic Site in Stephen F. Austin State Park is the site of the township of San Felipe, the seat of government of the Anglo-American colonies in Texas. It was here Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas," brought the first 297 families to colonize Texas under a contract with the Mexican Government. (replica of his first cabin at right) From 1824 to 1836, San Felipe de Austin was the social, economic, and political center, as well as the capital of the American colonies in Texas. The conventions of 1832 and 1833 and the Consultation of 1835 were held here, which eventually led to the Texas Declaration of Independence. Due to these historic events, the community has been called the "Cradle of Texas Liberty." San Felipe was the birthplace of Texas' first Anglo newspaper (The Texas Gazette, founded in 1829), the original postal system of Texas, and the Texas Rangers.