Essays

Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado

The greatest frontiersman of all time – Don Pedro Vial
February 7, 2007

Have you ever heard of Pierre (Pedro) Vial? In 1786 the commandant-general of the Interior Provinces of Northern New Spain, Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola instructed Domingo Cabello, the Governor of Texas to mount an expedition from San Antonio, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Cabello knew just the man. Vial, a French gunsmith and Indian trader, had been living along the Red River since 1779. Vial had recently brokered a peace between the Spanish settlers and the Comanches so the trip would have the dual purpose of monitoring the status of the peace as well as exploration for a possible trading route between the two frontier outposts of Northern New Spain.

Don Pedro Vial kept a diary. Vial made three cross-country trips (two were roundtrips) in the years 1786-1793 (two between Santa Se and San Antonio and one between Santa Fe and St. Louis.) Historians would not know of the diary if it had not been for the work of Abrahma Nasatir, a professor at San Diego State College. Nasatir visited governmental archives in Mexico, Spain, the U.S. Library of Congress, libraries in France and the above-mentioned countries many times over three decades (1920-1950.) He laboriously studied several million folios of ancient documents and copied over 200,000 pages of material (that he translated) relating to French and Spanish activities west of the Mississippi River. In 1958 he told historian Noel Loomis, "I can give you some material on the greatest frontiersman of all time." In 1967 the University of Oklahoma Press published Loomis’ “Pedro Vial and the roads to Santa Fe.”

For a number of years H. Bailey Carroll, the first director and editor of the Handbook of Texas, worked on Vial’s itineraries of his trips between Santa Fe and San Antonio. Using Vial’s diaries, Carroll traveled the routes on horseback and several car trips, as did fellow historian Herbert E. Bolton. The results of Carroll’s and Bolton’s efforts were never published. Vial’s diaries (in French) are somewhat sketchy and focused on reporting on the direction traveled, the landscape, and whom he met. On the first trip, in 1786, he took one companion and one packhorse of provisions.

The New Spain government paid Vial six reales (75 cents) a day for his troubles. Vial spoke several Indian languages, the French and Spanish languages and was superbly adept at sign language. During his first trip he became extremely ill as he arrived at the Wichita Indian village known as El Quiscat on the Brazos River near present day Waco. After conducting some feather-ruffling diplomacy he became delirious and was nursed in the lodge of the chief. After regaining his health almost two months later he journeyed to another Wichita village near present day Wichita Falls guided by a Wichita Indian and a Spaniard who were returning from a horse-stealing expedition to the area around San Antonio.

Again he acted as a diplomat, warning the Wichitas about the threat to all from the Apaches (Lipan and Nataganes or Mescalero) who at that time controlled much of the Edwards Plateau and Trans-Pecos Texas. He urged the Wichitas to continue to treaty with the Spanish so they could continue to have access to metal implements and weapons. He stayed at that village for two weeks and left with a group of Comanches heading almost due west. Five days later he arrived at a large Comanche village near present day Vernon along the Pease River. There, during a ten day stay, he told the Comanches that the Spanish hoped to establish a trading route through their homeland. Ecueracapa (meaning shirt of chain-metal), the Comanche chief, had succeeded Cuerno Verde who had been defeated and killed by New Mexico Governor Juan Bautista Anza. Ecueracapa, whose sons were being educated at Santa Fe, had signed a treaty with Anza.
Zoquine, the chief of another band of Comanches, agreed to guide him to Santa Fe.

They traveled in a northwesterly direction. His illness kept recurring, so travel was slow, with many stops of several days. They continued west along the Canadian River, visiting more Comanche villages along the way. After seven and a half months of travel he finally reached Santa Fe. After Vial drew a map, Governor Anza immediately sent Jose Mares to go back to San Antonio, but to find a more direct route. Mares arrived in San Antonio ten weeks later, accompanied by eighty-one Comanches. After remaining in San Antonio two months Mares returned to Santa Fe, taking another four months.
Upon Mares’ return to Santa Fe, Anza instructed Vial to go to Natchitoches, then San Antonio, and then back to Santa Fe. Vial’s diary of the return to Santa Fe has not been found, but that of another participant, Francisco Xavier Fragoso, has been preserved. During this journey Vial and the others crossed the Llano Estacado. Again they meet Ecueracapa, possibly near present day Post, who detailed a Comanche trading party headed to the pueblos of Pecos and Taos to guide them. From the map accompanying the text, it appears that they traveled up Canon de Rescate and up Runningwater Draw, over to Blackwater Draw and finally reaching the Pecos at present day Ft. Sumner. (Without access to the work of Bolton and Carroll, I do not know if the map is correctly drawn.)

These series of incredible journeys should have opened up the proposed trade route. The citizens of Northern New Spain viewed the journey as too dangerous. Only Don Pedro Vial and a handful of others well versed in Indian customs and language were suited for the task. Without a strong mercantile class in either location, the only entity that could afford to set the wheels of trade in motion was the government. The government, however, was much more concerned with funding defensive patrols to keep Americans from entering the region. Horsetrading filibusterers like the later and more famous Philip Nolan were already making sorties into northern Texas. The intrepid journeys of Pierre Vial and Jose Mares were forgotten.