East Texas' Early History - Everything has a beginning and most are very small. Texas began in its far eastern region, now called East Texas and like a tiny acorn it has grown symbolically into the great oak tree called Texas. It began nowhere else but there. Spain claimed it and at first, called it their "terra incognito" or unknown land. After exploring it, they soon named it their "new Philippines." Today, it is called Spain's far northeastern borderland. They knew almost nothing about it until the Frenchman La Salle planted a tiny fort and colony near the Gulf Coast below present Victoria. This act set Spain in motion. Several military expeditions, on land and sea over several years, went looking for these Frenchmen. They were located in 1689, but the fort was already destroyed by sickness, murder and by the Karankawa Indians.
The first attempt to settle East Texas was made in 1690, when a tiny eight-man mission was built and manned by five soldiers and three priests - they called it Mission Tejas. They soon built a second one that they called Maria. At this time, many head of livestock were driven up from Mexico and turned loose for the use of these first two missions. They were located west of the Neches River in East Texas. Both soon failed. But, a much bolder thrust was carried out twenty-three years later (1716 - 1717) when six missions with civilians, soldiers and priests, were strung from the east side of the Neches River, not far from the original Tejas mission, to the Rio Hondo a few miles west of Natchitoches, Louisiana -- this was part of Spanish Texas then. Families and many more soldiers came with this second entrada. Soon the area called "Los Adaes" with its furthest mission and fort would also become the first capital of Texas -- not Washington-on-the-Brazos or even Houston. On two more occasions, more thousands of head of livestock were driven overland from Mexico, distributed among these six missions and turned loose in the great virgin forest of East Texas, to multiply until they were counted in the millions -- they were everywhere.
These missions, civilians and soldiers, plus the thousands of head of livestock were the true beginning of Texas. It began nowhere but in East Texas and our great livestock industry including ranches, cowboys and trail drives began nowhere else but in East Texas -- not in South or Southeast Texas. It can truly be said, this was the tiny acorn from which Texas has grown -- it all started in East Texas.
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