Domingo Cabello is hugged by a Comanche chief (DRAWING BY JACK JACKSON)
COMANCHE PEACEMAKER
Because Texas was located on a distant frontier that included Indians who did not wish to share the land with Spaniards, its governors were always military men. They carried the rank of lieutenant colonel or full colonel in the Spanish army. This high rank meant that colonial governors had started their military careers outside of Texas. For the most part, they were born in Spain and entered the army as teenage cadets.
Being governor of Texas was a difficult job that carried many responsibilities. San Antonio in the late 1700s was also not a very attractive place to live, especially for army officers who had lived in Spain or more settled parts of the Spanish empire in America. This chapter looks at Domingo Cabello, who was governor for eight years in the 1770s and 1780s. Those years were important ones for Texas.
During that time, Cabello spent much of his time handling problems that Spain had with Native Americans in Texas. His main worries were the Karankawas and Comanches. Often he could not deal with these Indians as he might have wished, because Spain was at war with Great Britain during the American Revolution (1776–1783). His king ordered him to overlook problems with Native Americans, because Texas needed to support the more important war in Europe and America. This meant providing Texas beef for Spanish troops who were fighting the English along the lower Mississippi River. It also meant trying to keep peace with Native Americans by ignoring their attacks on Spaniards.
As you read about Domingo Cabello, keep in mind that he did not like being governor of Texas or living at San Antonio. But did this mean that he would not do a good job for his king and country?
When the Spanish crown appointed Domingo Cabello as governor of Texas, he was fifty-three years of age. He began life in the Spanish city of León around the year 1725 and entered the army as a teenager in 1741. Over the next thirty-seven years, don Domingo earned the ranks of first lieutenant, major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel. Most of his fighting as a soldier came on the island of Cuba, where he suffered a leg wound. Later, the British captured Cabello and made him a prisoner of war for about a year.
Before coming to Texas as its governor in 1778, don Domingo had served as governor of Nicaragua for a period of twelve years. There he dealt with problems the Spanish had with Indians in Central America. Caribs and Mosquitos particularly angered Cabello. These Indians raided the villages of peaceful Native Americans, burned their houses, and sold them as slaves to English woodcutters on the coast of Honduras. As a result of his experiences, don Domingo came to distrust all Indians, even those who lived peacefully in missions. Like most military men, Cabello saw force as the only way to bring Native Americans under Christian and Spanish control.
Cabello liked being governor of Nicaragua and did not want to leave there to take up his duties at San Antonio. He was a good soldier, however, and followed the orders of his king. When he arrived in Texas, the new governor described himself as “robust” (strong and healthy).
Domingo Cabello began his eight-year term of office in October 1778. His first serious problem had to do with Karankawa Indians. Less than a year before, the governor of Louisiana had sent a Spanish ship along the Gulf Coast toward Texas. The ship’s captain, Luis Antonio Andry, carried instructions to explore the coast and make a map of it as far west as Matagorda Bay.
On board El Señor de la Yedra were a dozen crew members and Andry’s son, who was only twelve years of age. This must have seemed like high adventure to the young cadet! One of the adults on board had lived in Texas and served there as a soldier. Another was a young Maya Indian named Tomás.
The ship had little trouble reaching Matagorda Bay, and the mapping had gone smoothly. Unfortunately, the men had eaten most of the provisions on the Yedra. A hunting party of five led by the former Texas soldier went ashore in hopes of killing fresh game. These men were hardly out of sight before they were set upon by Karankawas and killed.
As time passed, Captain Andry became worried about the missing sailors and there was even less food on board. Hoping the men would respond, he fired off a small cannon and raised a flag. Instead, two Karankawa Indians named Joseph María and Mateo appeared on shore. Both Indians spoke some Spanish, because they had lived for a time at a nearby mission. They asked to be brought aboard the vessel, and Andry sent a small boat to pick them up.
The Indians asked Andry to send three men back to shore with them and promised to return with fresh meat. The captain agreed. When the Spaniards disappeared from view, the Karankawas set upon them and murdered them, too. This left Andry with a crew of only five, including his young son.
In a short while, Joseph María and Mateo again appeared on shore and asked to be brought aboard the vessel. This time they brought freshly killed deer meat, and they informed Andry that his three men had stayed ashore to feast on a recent game kill. As the starved captain and his skeleton crew sat down to eat, they did not notice other Karankawa warriors as they slipped aboard the vessel. On signal, the Indians seized the sailors’ guns and murdered them with their own weapons, sparing only the young Maya Indian. Joseph María claimed him as a slave.
Later, a friendly priest was able to gain the freedom of the Maya. Tomás traveled to San Antonio, where he described the murder of the ship’s crew to Governor Cabello. The young Indian also added grisly details about the death of Captain Andry and his son, as well as the destruction of the Spanish vessel. The Karankawas killed the captain with daggers, followed by his cadet son as he clung to his father’s body. They then stripped the ship of its guns, threw the dead Spaniards in the bay, and burned the vessel.
Armed with Spanish guns, the Karankawas began a bloody rampage along the lower Río Grande. To increase their numbers, they encouraged the Indians at Mission Rosario to take flight and join them. One of the mission residents was the elderly mother of Joseph María and Mateo. When the poor woman could not keep up with the other Indians from Rosario, Joseph María stabbed his mother with a spear and left her to die along a trail!
When Governor Cabello learned of these awful events, he asked permission to make all-out war on the Karankawas. Those Indians had become so bold that they left the coast and even raided near the very outskirts of San Antonio. But don Domingo was told that he could not wage war on the Karankawas. For one thing, he did not have the military strength to do so, and for another, the war with the English was more important. Joseph María and Mateo could not be punished.
Cabello had learned just how weak Texas was when he was in his early days as governor. On January 20, 1779, a party of four hundred friendly but fully armed Indians came to San Antonio. Don Domingo had only two soldiers at the Béxar presidio, and both were sick. All of the others were on assignments: ten were out scouting; twenty were accompanying the former governor out of Texas; another twenty guarded a new settlement of Spaniards near San Antonio; and twenty-four guarded more than a thousand horses at a distant pasture.
To deal with the Indians, Cabello relied on his long military experience. He boldly told the Indians that they were welcome at Béxar but could not bring their weapons into the town. His bluff worked. The Indians filed into San Antonio’s town square “without a bow or arrow, a gun or rifle, a tomahawk, or scalping knife.” Don Domingo then gave them food, candy, and cigarettes, and they left with no one hurt.
The whole experience, however, left the new governor shaken. He wrote that the idea of a “friendly Indian” was a joke, and that even Indians at San Antonio’s five missions could not be trusted. He said that Indians would only behave themselves if they were given gifts or feared punishment for their misdeeds. Once again, Cabello had great difficulty accepting the idea that Spaniards could trust Native Americans. He urged that Texas be given enough soldiers and guns to make the Indians accept Spanish rule and the Christian religion. His views of Indians were the same as those of most other military men of that time.
As Spain’s involvement in war with the English increased, Domingo Cabello found it impossible to build up the military strength of Texas. Instead, problems with Indians actually got worse. Native Americans recognized that their attacks on Spanish ranchers and other civilians went unpunished, and they became even bolder.
Worse, from Cabello’s point of view, the governor of New Mexico formed an alliance with Ute Indians and Jicarilla Apaches. In 1779, don Domingo’s first year on the job as governor of Texas, the Comanches suffered a huge defeat in New Mexico. As it turned out, this was bad news for Cabello and Texas. These powerful Plains Indians then turned their attacks on the Spanish in Texas, because it was a weaker province than New Mexico.
In August 1780, one year later, Cabello reported that Texas was overrun with Comanches. The Indians had stolen so many horses and mules from the Béxar presidio that he could not carry out military campaigns against them. His superiors in Mexico recognized that their settlements in Texas were in serious trouble but could offer no help. They informed don Domingo that he must overlook attacks by Indians and not try to punish them. Instead, the Comanches and other Indians were to be shown the benefits of peace by giving them gifts. For a military man like Cabello who believed punishment to be the best solution to all problems with Indians, this was hard to accept. Don Domingo kept as many soldiers armed and ready to fight Indians as he could put in the field.
Throughout 1781, Comanche raids on Spanish settlements in Texas increased almost day by day, and week by week. On one occasion, Cabello learned that Comanches had been spotted on the Medina River near San Antonio. He rounded up his soldiers and sent them to attack the Indian camp, believed to contain about eighty people. A furious fight lasting for several hours followed. At the end of it, eighteen Comanche warriors and their chief lay dead. The chief must have been a important one, because he wore a headdress made of horns and a shirt with Spanish scalps attached to it. In the Comanche camp, Spanish soldiers found clothing and jewelry belonging to settlers in the Béxar area—clear evidence that these Comanches were raiders.
Comanches were known to get even for raids on their camps, and Spaniards at San Antonio feared attacks against them. Signs of Comanches were apparent, such as smoke signals in the distance and tracks of their ponies, but there were no raids on Béxar itself. It fact, almost a year went by with no actual sightings of Comanches. It seems that these Indians suffered terribly from huge outbreaks of smallpox that killed hundreds of men, women and children in 1782. They could no longer brag, as they had to Athanase de Mézières, that their numbers were greater than the stars.
Smallpox was especially deadly to Native Americans because they had no immunity (natural defenses) against the disease. On the other hand, smallpox was not nearly as deadly to Europeans. It was a disease with a long history in Europe, and people such as Spaniards had much less need to worry about dying from it. Over the centuries, parents and grandparents had survived smallpox and passed on some immunity to the next generation. It was also at this time that some of the first experiments in vaccinating humans were taking place in Europe.
For whatever reason, the Comanches remained quiet throughout 1782. Peaceful relations with them ended in the spring of the following year. Governor Cabello learned that a large Comanche camp had been sighted on the Guadalupe River. Once again, don Domingo rounded up soldiers and marched to the Guadalupe. In this case, Comanche scouts spotted the Spanish, and so the Indians fled their ranchería (encampment), leaving behind the frames of forty tepees. Fearing revenge, Cabello ordered an alert for San Antonio. Just as before, there were signs of Comanches but no attacks by these plainsmen.
Another fifteen months passed. Then in the summer of 1784, violence again broke out between Spaniards and Indians. While chasing Wichita Indian raiders, a company of presidio soldiers came upon forty mounted and armed Comanches on the Guadalupe River. When the smoke of an eight-hour battle cleared, ten Comanche warriors lay dead, and an equal number had been captured. As before, Governor Cabello warned settlers at San Antonio to be especially careful. But just as before, there were no attacks by Comanches.
While all of these incidents were taking place, Domingo Cabello had tried to make peace with the Comanches by sending agents among them. Although this was not what he preferred to do as a military man, he had been ordered by his superiors in Mexico to try this approach. In the long run it worked, although it took five years to pull it off.
As early as 1780, Cabello sent agents who were skilled in Indian languages into Comanche lands. These efforts, however, had little success until the late summer of 1784. From that time onward, events moved quickly toward peace with the Comanches. Don Domingo’s agents understood Comanche languages and customs much better than at first. Spain was also no longer at war with England, thanks to the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the war for independence of the United States.
The first of Cabello’s agents to score success among the Comanches was Juan Bautista Bousquet, a trader from Louisiana. Bousquet visited Wichita Indians and carried the message that Spaniards wanted peace with them. His words were believed by Wichita and Taovaya chiefs, and four of them traveled with Bousquet to San Antonio, where they met with Cabello. Don Domingo gave small gifts to all the Indian leaders, and a medal to the most important of the Taovaya chiefs, a man named Guersec.
Traveling with Bousquet were three non-Indians who had successfully traded among the Norteños. The most important of the trio was French-born Pedro Vial. Vial spoke only a little broken Spanish and knew little about the Comanches, but he would soon be a vital key for Cabello as Texas’s Comanche Peacemaker.
Don Domingo gave Vial many gifts for Comanche chiefs and sent him back to the north. With the governor’s new agent went a companion named Francisco Xavier Chávez and the medal chief, Guersec. Guersec guided Vial and Chávez to a huge Comanche ranchería. This camp had a large meeting tent of tanned buffalo hides and more than two hundred warriors. But these numbers of Comanches were small when compared to what the Spaniards would face within a week.
The Comanches told Vial and Chávez to remain at their camp until they could bring two of their high chiefs to meet them. During that time, the two white men crammed their heads full of information about the Comanches. They learned more of the Comanche language and culture and how to give gifts that matched the importance of an Indian leader.
At the end of a week, two high Comanche chiefs came to the big buffalo-hide tent. Vial called them “Capitán de Camisa de Hierro” (Captain Iron Shirt) and “Capitán de Cabeza Rapada” (Captain Shaved Head). The Indian leaders were so named because one wore a chain mail upper garment, which he claimed to have taken from a dead Apache chief. The second had no hair on one side of his head and very long hair on the other side.
Vial approached the high Comanche chiefs and about a dozen “little captains” who traveled with them. The French-born agent drew on what he had recently learned about Comanche customs. He gave each of the chiefs gifts of tobacco, knives, vermilion (red dye), and other items that were in keeping with their rank. All were impressed that a white person could know so much about them. Vial’s cram course on Comanche culture had armed him with knowledge that was extremely useful.
The Comanches then led Vial and Chávez to a nearby gathering of their people, where the agents stood at the center of hundreds of Native Americans who formed rings around them as far as their eyes could see. Vial began talking, and all listened. Although he spoke in the Taovaya language, which he knew much better than Comanche, the Indians understood him perfectly. Comanches and Taovayas had long been allies and learned how to speak each other’s languages.
Vial reminded his audience that he and Chávez were not strangers to them. Years ago, the Comanches had captured Chávez but later sold him to the Taovayas. When his Indian owner died, Chávez became a free man. At that time he had traveled to San Antonio to be with his own people. Vial, on the other hand, had visited Comanche rancherías for many years as a trader.
Vial reminded the Comanches that he and Chávez were good and honest people who had always treated them fairly. While living among Indians, the two traders had first learned of Capitán Grande, or Big Captain (Cabello), who lived at San Antonio. It was said that the Big Captain was a fair man. When the two white men were in San Antonio, they met with Cabello and learned that he had collected a lot of presents to give to the chiefs of friendly Indians. However, there were no gifts for Comanches. Instead, the Capitán Grande had brought together many soldiers, guns, and powder in order to make war without end on the Comanches.
Vial was a gifted actor and good speaker. He said that when he and Chávez learned that the Comanches were not to receive any gifts, tears came to their eyes. They remembered how kind the Comanches had been to them. Clearly, if Cabello only knew Comanches better, he would come to see them as fine Indians who deserved presents, not war. Vial also reminded the Comanches that on many occasions he had seen them so poor that they did not “have a knife to cut meat, a pot with which to cook in, nor a grain of powder with which to kill deer or buffalo.”
Vial said that he and Chávez had begged the Capitán Grande to include Comanches and Taovayas in his gift giving. At first, Cabello had angrily said no. He reminded the traders of the many times that Comanche warriors had killed unarmed Spaniards who were merely trying to find food on the plains. Indians who would do such an awful thing were “without a good heart.” Certainly, they did not deserve gifts.
Vial and Chávez did not give up easily. They had argued and argued for their Indian friends, and slowly Governor Cabello began to change his mind. The traders urged him to think of Comanches as “good people, very generous, and very friendly to their friends.” At last, the Big Captain asked, “Is this certain?” Both men quickly replied that their words about Comanches were “extremely true.”
Cabello had then told Vial and Chávez to carry this message to the Comanches and their Indian allies: “If they want to be my friends, and friends of the Spaniards, I will promise not to kill them, and to stop sending my soldiers, those who make war on them.” If they would come to San Antonio to meet with him, he “would forget the many deaths which they had caused among his people, as they must forget those which my people did to them.” But Cabello also said something that really appealed to the Comanches. He would have nothing to do with the Lipan Apaches. He did not wish to make friends with these Indians; rather, he wished “to make continual war against them.” This was good news to Comanches, because they hated Lipans more than Spaniards. They had fought Apaches for more than eighty years.
Cabello’s final message to the Comanches was this: If they wished peace, they must send two or three of their chiefs back to San Antonio with Vial and Chávez. After Vial reported all of this, the two white men returned to their tent. The Comanche chiefs must have time to discuss the offer and decide what to do.
Throughout the rest of the day and into the night, the Comanches talked and talked. They were so loud and so excited that they kept the two Spaniards awake all night. The Indians looked for certain omens (signs) that would tell them if the white men spoke the truth about Cabello. There had been no wind, no cloud had cast a shadow across the sun, and the smoke from their pipes had not twisted. All were favorable omens.
On the following morning, the high chiefs gave their answer to the Spaniards: “[We will] forget the deaths of our fathers, sons, and brothers caused by the Spaniards … and from now on the war with our brothers the Spaniards is finished, we will not kill, nor make any raids or rob. And there will be three little captains from our nation [the Comanches] named to go with you to hear what the Capit[á]n Grande says about… peace.”
In October 1785 the three little captains arrived in San Antonio to talk with the Big Captain. The Comanche chiefs got down from their horses, approached Cabello, and hugged him one at a time. To a hard-nosed military man like Cabello, being embraced by Indians whom he had hated and made war on was an absolutely astonishing experience. He said so in a letter to his superiors in Mexico.
On this occasion, Spaniards and Comanches signed a remarkable treaty. With only a few exceptions, this agreement lasted throughout the final years of Spanish Texas. Both sides would no longer make war on each other. The Comanches agreed not to let foreigners, such as the English or Americans, into their rancherías. Each year, Spaniards would give goods to Comanches in exchange for their animal hides. Friends and enemies of one side were to be friends and enemies of the other. Neither side could ally with the Lipan Apaches. Instead, these Indians would be the enemies of both parties. Finally, Spaniards would give gifts each year to Comanche chiefs, as long as they kept the peace.
The October 1785 treaty with the Comanches was an amazing agreement. Comanches received such items as medals, flags, daggers, knives, razors, scissors, iron kettles, mirrors, combs, glass beads, bells, tobacco, hats, shoes, long coats, and stockings. People in late Spanish Texas remarked that it was strange to see Comanche chiefs dressed in frock coats and hats.
As the years passed, Comanches and Spaniards generally kept the peace. Annual gifts to the Indians came to include guns, bullets, and powder. Of the things desired by Indians, Spanish guns were considered the most important of all. As one Spaniard remarked, to an Indian there was no jewel more valuable than a musket.
The treaty with the Comanches came late in the governorship of Domingo Cabello. He considered it to be the most remarkable thing he had accomplished in Texas. But that success did not make up for don Domingo’s dislike of San Antonio. From day one, he complained that Texas was far different from life in Nicaragua and Cuba, and he was probably right.
While serving at the Béxar presidio, Cabello tried his best to get a better position elsewhere, and he never stopped complaining. In 1779, his first year on the job at San Antonio, he wrote to his superior in Mexico about life at San Antonio. He described his house as a “pigsty,” meaning it was better suited for hogs than human beings. He whined that a cook who had served him for years in Nicaragua refused to come to Texas, because it was such an awful place. Since he had no cook, all he had to eat was tortillas and dried beef.
Athanase de Mézières, who is discussed in Chapter 11, once visited Governor Cabello in San Antonio. Governor Cabello complained because he could not find a decent place for his guest to stay. Worse, don Athanase traveled with several Indians in his company, and don Domingo said he had to kill and butcher one cow each day just to feed the Indians. This was bad enough, but the governor’s house did not even have large pots to boil the meat. Cabello had to rent the cookware.
Cabello’s letters from Béxar are filled with complaints and protests. For example, the town had dozens and dozens of dogs that ran loose in the streets. At night these animals barked and howled, which caused the governor to lose sleep. To cut down on the noise, he ordered his soldiers to shoot strays and passed laws requiring dog owners to keep their pets under control.
Many people assume that bandadas (gangs) of young people are something new in cities and towns of America. In Texas in the late 1700s, Cabello wrote about teenage boys who went about “giving cries and disturbing the tranquility [peacefulness] at all hours of the day and night.” To stop their mischief and noise, don Domingo ordered the parents of these boys to keep their children off the streets or pay fines.
On other occasions, Cabello described adults who were just as bad in their behavior as their children, if not worse. Men and women went to noisy dances called fandangos. Don Domingo thought fandangos and songs with bad words created a climate in San Antonio that gave rise to misbehavior and sins. More serious, men got drunk and used foul language toward each other. For example, calling someone a perro mocoso (snot-nosed dog) was certain to cause trouble and possibly bloodletting. When people were injured or killed in fights, these cases wound up before Cabello, who also served as a judge in San Antonio.
Cabello himself often drew criticism for his actions and comments. He refused to go to church on Sunday, thereby setting a bad example for the people of San Antonio. Cabello especially upset the religious leaders of Béxar by claiming that God did not control things on earth. When asked what he meant, don Domingo said that if God determined what happened and what did not, why did he allow a good man like himself to suffer accidents? In this case, he referred to his falling off a horse and breaking an arm. In all, Cabello hated life at San Antonio, and many in the town did not feel any better about him.
Of all Cabello’s troubles at San Antonio, none was more serious than his battles with ranchers over cattle and horses. As mentioned earlier, don Domingo had no choice but to supply Texas beef to Louisiana, where Spanish soldiers were at war with the English over control of the lower Mississippi River valley. Texas had lots of cattle that belonged to ranchers and even to some of the missions. There were also half-wild cattle and horses that ran loose in the country, and these animals had never been branded.
When Cabello began his term as governor of Texas, Teodoro de Croix, his superior in Mexico, ordered ranchers to brand all their animals within four months. Livestock not branded after 120 days would become the property of the king. It was don Domingo’s job to enforce those orders, and in doing so he stirred up a hornet’s nest of hatred among Texas ranchers.
Usually, people in Spanish Texas and Spanish Louisiana could not carry on direct trade with each other. The king did not permit this, because he wanted all trade in America controlled through Spain. This economic system was called mercantilism, and it was common in all Spanish colonies in America. However, when Spain entered the war against England in 1779, it was necessary to bend the rules: Bernardo de Gálvez, the governor of Louisiana, would be allowed to buy cattle in Texas.
Gálvez first sent an agent from Louisiana to buy fifteen hundred to two thousand head of Texas cattle. Domingo Cabello also received orders to supply the animals and help drive them through the piney woods of East Texas into Louisiana.
The most famous cattle drives in Texas history were those that came after the Civil War in the United States. In the late 1800s, longhorns were driven north into Kansas and Missouri. But the first real cattle drives started in the 1720s. Then, in the 1770s and 1780s, cowboys trailed beeves from Texas to Louisiana. It was these cattle drives that got don Domingo in so much trouble.
Texas ranchers claimed that Governor Cabello was guilty of dishonesty. In order to meet the needs of Bernardo de Gálvez, don Domingo ordered his soldiers to round up thousands of cattle. These animals, according to private ranchers, often bore their brands. Nevertheless, Cabello claimed that the cattle belonged to the king. They were sold in Louisiana and the money was set aside for shipment to Mexico.
The ranchers claimed that Cabello kept bad accounts of the number of cattle being driven into Louisiana. Ranchers insisted that don Domingo reported fewer animals than actually left Texas. The difference between cattle recorded and cattle sold was never reported by Cabello. His enemies declared that this money went into the pocket of their corrupt governor, Domingo Cabello.
Texas ranchers insisted that they lost 10,901 cattle that carried their brands. The value of those animals was 27,254 pesos. Other dishonest actions by their governor, such as undercounting the number of unbranded cattle, brought the total to 32,254 pesos. Since Cabello only reported sales amounting to 13,096 pesos, he owed Texas ranchers and the king more than 19,000 pesos. Cabello denied any wrongdoing, however, and insisted that he was innocent.
Matters with Texas ranchers worsened over the eight years that Domingo Cabello served as governor. When don Domingo learned that dogs belonging to Texas stockmen were wandering into town at night, he ordered his soldiers to shoot them. Most ranchers loved their dogs, which helped them work cattle on the range, and they hated Cabello. They began calling don Domingo a mataperros (killer of dogs). In their eyes, this was about as low as a man could sink.
When Cabello finally left Texas to take up a new post in Cuba, where his military career had begun, he did not leave behind his troubles with ranchers. They brought lawsuit after lawsuit against him for years to come. Always, Texas ranchers insisted that don Domingo owed them thousands of pesos for stolen cattle and the cost of the lawsuits themselves.
The Spanish crown looked into charges against Cabello, and it studied the case for eleven long years. In 1797 the king’s fiscal (lawyer) decided that the charges against the former Texas governor could not be proved. The fiscal declared don Domingo cleared of all guilt. Finally, while still living in Cuba, Cabello left behind his Texas troubles for good.
We do not know the circumstances of Domingo Cabello’s death. Perhaps he returned to Spain to die there, as many Spanish officials who served in America did. We do know that those Spanish officials who studied his record as governor of Texas thought well of him. He was praised by Teodoro de Croix, his superior in Mexico, and Athanase de Mézières, as well as by high officials in Spain.
Cabello himself always regarded his role as Comanche Peacemaker as most important. It is interesting that a man who had such a dim view of Indians, who believed even Indians living in missions could not be trusted, came to value the words and promises of Comanches. Peace with these Indians saved lives, and gift giving in the long run was far cheaper than the cost of fighting Indian wars. We think Domingo Cabello deserves credit for his good sense. His life shows that a man who hated Indians, hated Texas, and hated life at San Antonio could rise above his dislikes and still do a good job during his eight years as governor of Texas.
Materials used in preparing this chapter are described below. You can find more information about these sources in the Bibliography at the end of the book.
Valuable information on the loss of Spanish lives and the Yedra at Matagorda Bay is contained in Robert S. Weddle’s Changing Tides: Twilight and Dawn in the Spanish Sea, 1763–1803. For a scholarly book on the Comanches, see Thomas W. Kavanagh’s Comanche Political History: An Ethnohistorical Perspective, 1706–1875. A more complete biographical sketch of Cabello may be found in Donald E. Chipman and Harriett Denise Joseph’s Notable Men and Women of Spanish Texas.
Quotes in this chapter are from the following sources: Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519–1936; Elizabeth A. H. John, editor, and Adán Benavides, translator, “Inside the Comancheria: The Diary of Pedro Vial and Francisco Xavier Chaves,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 98 (July 1994): 40; Thomas W. Kavanagh, Comanche Political History: An Ethnohistorical Perspective, 1706–1875; and Odie B. Faulk, “Texas during the Administration of Governor Domingo Cabello y Robles, 1778–1786” (master’s thesis, Texas Technological College, 1960).