Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1770 San Joaquin

"It's such a rotten place, Texas, it has been cut off from the civilized world for too long." In late June 1677, the governor of New Spain who had been complained about by Somo and others before was under the jurisdiction of Texas. The General, Fernandez Joaquin came down from a boat and said to himself.

The sailors feebly began to unload some supplies, mainly common food such as wheat, corn, bacon, cheese, etc. At the same time, there were also a lot of goods enjoyed by the upper classes such as sugar, tobacco, coffee, and tequila, and of course not less Weapons and ammunition, rain gear tents and other materials necessary for survival in the wild.

Clearly, these people were there to explore or colonize, not to transport supplies to a settlement.It is actually not difficult to draw such a conclusion, because looking around, there is a barren landscape nearby, with rivers, forests, lakes, and grasslands, but there are no villages, no farmland, and no human habitation. disappointment.

Of course, such barren scenes abound in Texas.Because both the Comanche and the Apache are Indians with a relatively low level of civilization. They are more than fierce, but that's all. They don't even have as much experience in construction as the Pueblo people.

Although the Spaniards have not yet established a fixed colonial institution in the vast expanse of Texas, they still understand these aborigines. After all, the close exchanges between expeditions, trade teams, missionaries and aborigines for so many years are not in vain. Yes, the archives of the Mexican Procuratorate District contain many valuable information that people in other countries do not know. These are accumulated by countless Spanish colonists and explorers in the past 200 years with countless efforts and costs, including The complex, friend or foe relationship they established with Indians everywhere.

Yes, the relationship between the Spaniards and the Indians is complicated, and it may be okay in normal times, everyone can live in peace, and the Indians are also used to the rule of the Spaniards.However, in the case of greedy colonial officials, the Indians will become irritable and restless, because the exploitation they suffer is deeper. I can tell.

However, in a three-level administrative region such as the Texas General District (New Spain Governor's District-Mexico Prosecutor's Court District-Texas General District), the relationship between the Spaniards and the local Indians is still good. .They have no irresolvable deep hatred with the local Apaches and Comanches, and they can even influence them through missionary, trade and other means, control them secretly, and trick them into being loyal to the Spanish royal family (and this is what the Spaniards openly declared that Dirk Sass is the main reason for their territory), overall pretty good.

Of course, an important reason for the maintenance of the above-mentioned relationship is probably that the Apaches and Comanches gained benefits in their contacts with the Spaniards, or at least they did not suffer too much, and the presence of missionaries as a glue , the relationship between the two parties is naturally passable.It's just that this time the Spaniards came directly to Texas to establish a colony. To put it bluntly, they directly robbed the Comanche of territory. I don't know how the relationship between the two parties will get along in the future. It doesn't seem impossible to turn their faces. things.

"Let's set up a temporary camp first. We'll look around in a few days and finally choose a good location for this outpost town." The somewhat tired General Joaquin waved his hand, signaling his subordinates to go to work, while he himself sat down. On a powder keg, he took some documents out of his pocket and read them.

This is the seaside area near the city of Corpus Christi in later generations of the United States, and the mouth of the Nueces River. In the front, there is a large and calm bay to shield the wind and waves and moor ships. After that, there is a river leading to the inland area. The climate is mild, the water source is abundant, and the nearby land is fertile. There are herds of bison, and a little modification is a good colony.

As the general of Texas appointed by Governor Juan Francisco Trivino (the current Governor of New Spain), Fernandez Joaquin, a small nobleman from the countryside of Toledo, has been a little restless recently and began to feel Great pressure from above.There is no other reason. The main reason is that in the past year, several expeditions active in the east of the Sierra Madre reported to the Mexican prosecutor that a group of colonists from outside began to live near the long Texas coastline. , and seemed to have lived for a long time, which made them quickly vigilant.

At the beginning of this year, some missionaries wrote back, bluntly saying that the colonists who settled somewhere on the coast of Texas were a group of pirates, extremely cruel and cunning, and had destroyed "at least three places" The reason for the missionary tribe established by the Minnesota monks was only some property disputes such as land and cattle.

This news even alarmed Trivino, the Governor of New Spain who was also stationed in Mexico City, because recently he had received complaints from many coastal towns in the Mexican Procuratorate District, saying that there were a large number of elusive pirates coveting their property, and many They went ashore to plunder, looting property, livestock, food, and even women. For a time, the soldiers of the Spanish colonial army, who hadn't heard about the war for a long time, were fighting in two groups, exhausted.

After analysis, Governor Trivino believed that the pirates who attacked the nearby coast were probably some of the pirates who had been in Tortuga Island before, and they were joined by the Windward Fleet and the Caribbean Squadron of the East Coasters in their old lair. After taking it away, the pirates scattered all over the place.Some went to the Bahamas, some went to Jamaica (the British really sheltered pirates...), some went off the coast of Florida, but now it seems that at least a large part of them also made it to Texas and hid , Waiting for an opportunity to attack sea transport ships and even coastal towns.

That's pretty cool!

Knowing that pirates had come to Texas, the governor of Trivino immediately panicked. He immediately convened the president of the Mexican prosecutor's court, judges, prosecutors, generals of various divisions, parish bishops and important officials. The town officials discussed the matter and planned to concentrate on dealing with this matter first.

Joaquin, as the official with the largest area of ​​jurisdiction in the Mexican prosecutor's court, naturally also participated in this meeting.All he remembers is that Governor Trivino asked him to move his office "forward," "to the east of the Sierra Madre," "to the real Texas," and to find "the damn pirates. where" to completely eliminate hidden dangers.

General Joaquin argued a few words at that time, thinking that finding people is not his job, and should be done by the Windward Fleet.But this incident brought him nothing but the anger of Governor Trivino. He was ordered to pack his bags within a month, and then took his men to Texas to establish a state for King Carlos there. To establish a real rule——the meaning of this sentence is actually very clear, it is to let Joaquin, the Texas general, go there as quickly as possible to establish a colonial town in order to make himself worthy of the name, after all, a whole day Isn't it funny that an official who stays in Mexico City dawdling is called "General Texas"?

Fernandez Joaquin could not resist the Governor's order, so he immediately summoned the subordinate officials who had followed him in Mexico City for several years to eat and drink, and explained things to these dejected guys.Then I went to the treasury to get a batch of supplies and [-] pesos in cash, recruited a hundred military personnel, boarded the boat provided by the governor, and sailed across the ocean to the mouth of the Nueces River, intending to establish a The first real colonial town to belong to the Kingdom of Spain, rather than facilities such as military outposts, trading posts, etc.

To be honest, Joaquin has no confidence in whether he can gain a firm foothold here, because the combat effectiveness of the hundreds of so-called military servicemen he recruited in Mexico City is quite suspicious. Once there is a real conflict with those fierce Indians, he will It is doubtful how long these people can last.But he has no better way now, he can only choose to trust these people, and pray that the monks of the Saint Dominic Society will be strong enough to pour enough ecstasy soup on those Comanche people, so that they can't get up with the Spaniards. The idea of ​​fighting, then his life will be much easier.

The documents he is looking at now are the reports written by some monks about the local customs and indigenous life. Excluding the large sections of content praising the Lord, Joaquin believes that the remaining parts are still extremely valuable and can be given to himself in the future. help at work.

While he was reading the documents, the unloading of the goods was quickly completed.It seems that the two-masted Galen ship did not intend to stay longer in this area where pirate attacks are frequent. Their captain sent someone ashore to say hello, and "generously" left two small bronze cannons to General Joaquin , and then raised the sails, slowly set sail and left, leaving a group of people on the shore speechless and demoralizing at the same time.

Fernandez Joaquin saw that this was not possible, so he encouraged these people to speak out, emphasizing that the battle between the Windward Fleet and the French had reached the final stage, and the victory was sure, Hispaniola Island was within easy reach. Immediately end these troubles at hand, and turn to support the efforts of these wilderness pioneers in San Joaquin Town-yes, that's right, this somewhat misnamed Texas general has already landed this piece of land where they landed. The place is marked as "San Joaquin Town" on the map, and it is shameless enough to blatantly put gold on his face (as a pioneer, he has this power).

Of course, what Joaquin said was just saying that.As a senior official of the Mexican Prosecution Court District, he clearly knows that the Windward Fleet is now almost in full force, split into two, and one part surrounds and blockades Hispaniola Island to prevent the French army on the island from gaining sufficient The other part went to the Windward Islands and the Leeward Islands, looking for and intercepting ships between the French colonies and the mainland, and attacking the French sea power.

Therefore, Joaquin understands that the current Windward Fleet has almost no possibility of vacating ships to protect and support their development in Texas.There is no doubt about this, you can see how busy this group is when you see that they don't even have time to monitor the scattered pirates (it also shows from the side how weak the strength of the Windward Fleet is).Even to a certain extent, Joaquin didn't want the Windward Fleet to draw out a ship to protect them, because that was meaningless, and the pirates were not afraid of this kind of armed ship transformed from an old-fashioned merchant ship. They are often two or three together, and they can easily tease this single non-professional warship to death, which can only weaken the already extremely weak sea power of the Spaniards in the Caribbean Sea in vain.

"I hope the war with the French will end quickly, at least the war in the Caribbean will end quickly. As for what happens to Franz Comté and Lorraine, that's none of my business!" Carefully stuff the letter at hand into the After putting in the bag, Fernandez Joaquin sighed softly and muttered: "This damn war has been going on for several years, and now the entire Caribbean Sea is restless. The Fleet had to change its itinerary, sailing directly from Vera Cruz to the port of Cadiz (it was supposed to meet in Havana), because they lacked the protection of the Windward Fleet. And in Florida, New Granada, Panama, etc. In this country, the situation of piracy is becoming more and more serious. There are many rumors that towns have been looted, and the navy of the people on the east coast is also half-hearted. The Caribbean Shipping Company is inextricably linked with pirates, which is really bad. Glorious The Kingdom of Castile really can no longer be caught in these endless wars that are wasting our power. We should have learned from past failures and avoided wars, but obviously we didn't. The Caribbean is now Sliding towards an increasingly dangerous abyss..."

In other words, General Joaquin really has reason to complain.Many years ago, the Caribbean Sea was once the exclusive interest of the Kingdom of Spain, and Santo Domingo, their first trial court district in the New World, was built on the island of Hispaniola.However, frequent wars and the extravagance of the royal family plunged the Kingdom of Spain into an extremely serious financial crisis, and gradually began to be unable to invest and maintain a powerful navy. Therefore, pirates and businessmen from various countries came in droves, and began to erode the Spaniards in the Caribbean. Benefit.

The Spaniards initially claimed sovereignty over the entire Caribbean Sea, and all the islands were the territory of the Kingdom of Spain. Later, they had to spit out some islands, such as Jamaica Island occupied by the British and half of the French occupied island. Hispaniola Island, Tobago Island occupied by the Dutch, etc., but so far only the British Jamaica Island and Trinidad Island brought by the East Coasters have been officially recognized by the signing of the treaty. Although other islands In fact, a lot of it was occupied by other countries or even pirates, and Spain was unable to regain it (or could not maintain it for a long time after it was recovered), but it never admitted defeat and never recognized other countries' sovereignty claims.

General Joaquin pessimistically believes that if the Kingdom of Spain continues to sink into these wars that have emptied its national strength, then there will be more and more islands officially recognized by other countries in the future, especially the one located in The pagan countries on the east coast of the southern New World have the greatest ambitions and are the most worthy of vigilance. Their colonial company is not a good bird, which has greatly affected the inherent order of the Caribbean Sea.

General Joaquin even vaguely hoped that the governor in the south would be a little tougher than the governor of Peru, and resolutely fight back against the shameless occupation of the territory of the Kingdom of Spain by the people on the east coast, especially their erosion of the Pampa Plain.

(End of this chapter)