36 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES 
set out for Mexico and in 1528 was shipwrecked on the coast some- 
where between Matagorda and Galveston. The five survivors were 
held captive by the Indians, but De Vaca and a negro, Estevan, 
finally escaped, and after several years of wandering, probably across 
south-central Texas and the Edwards Plateau, crossed the Rio 
Grande into Mexico somewhere between Presidio and El Paso, and 
finally reached San Miguel de Culiacan (me-gale’ day coo-leea-can’) 
in 1536. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado crossed Texas in 1541 on 
his expedition to Quivira, and Antonio de Espejo explored a part of 
the Pecos Valley in about 1582. He was followed by Gaspar Castafio 
de Sosa in 1590. The oldest settlement is Ysleta (ees-lay’ta), near 
El Paso, which began as a settlement of Tiguex Indians established 
there by Gov. Antonio Otermin, whom they had accompanied from 
Isleta, N. Mex., whence he fled during the Pueblo uprising of 1680. 
The first white settlement in the State was a short-lived French 
colony set up by René Robert La Salle in 1685 near Matagorda Bay, 
which he mistook for the mouth of the Mississippi. The first mis- 
sions were established in 1690 and 1716-17 in eastern Texas, in the 
general neighborhood of Nacogdoches, among the Tejas Indians, but 
they were built of perishable materials and in time were completely 
obliterated. Alonzo de Leén and Padre Damian Massanet, who 
founded the missions in 1690, came from Coahuila, Mexico, into 
central Texas and discovered and named the Nueces (nway’sace), 
Hondo (own’do), Leon (lay-own’), Guadalupe (gwa-da-loo’ pay), and 
other rivers. They brought a party of 88 soldiers and friars, 12 
muleteers, 13 servants, 720 horses and mules, 82 pack loads of pro- 
visions, and 3 pack loads of presents for the Indians. 
San Antonio, the capital city during nearly the whole era of Spanish 
and Mexican rule, was started by the Spanish Government as a presi- 
dio in 1718, primarily as a bulwark against the French. The missions 
near by were begun soon thereafter, some of them having been trans- 
ferred from other localities. Difficulties with the Indians finally led 
to the abandonment of all settlements except San Antonio, Goliad, 
and Nacogdoches. In 1817 the Anglo-Americans joined the Mexican 
revolutionists and with a force of only 800 men defeated the Spanish 
Army of 2,500 near San Antonio, a victory which led to Mexico’s 
revolt from Spain in 1821. This part of Texas became a department of 
the State of Coahuila (co-a-wee’la) and Tejas (tay’has), of the 
Republic of Mexico. The name Tejas was derived from a confedera- 
tion of friendly Indian tribes which occupied part of the eastern 
section of the State. Texas is the old Spanish spelling of Tejas, but 
pronunciation has been anglicized. After Mexico won its inde- 
_ pendence many colonists from the United States were admitted under 
the leadership o: ‘‘empresarios,”’ of whom the most famous and most 
_ successful was Stephen F. Austin. Owing largely to this fact, Texas 
