El Camino Real de los Tejas

Established in the late 1600s by connecting well-worn Native American trails, El Camino Real de los Tejas became a major overland route from Mexico City to Natchitoches. By 1717, it had witnessed at least five major Spanish expeditions from Mexico to Los Adaes, which became the provincial capital of Texas in 1729 near present-day Robeline, Louisiana. The trail linked Native American communities, the pueblos, missions, and forts of Spanish Texas to the French settlement of Natchitoches and later to what became Louisiana and Texas. On this international frontier, the French fort at Natchitoches and the Spanish fort at Los Adaes, about twelve miles apart, were built to protect each country's interests. Although Spanish authorities ordered their people not to fraternize with the French, Spanish friars traveled to Natchitoches to say Mass for French Catholics, French soldiers courted and married girls from Los Adaes, and illicit trade developed between the two outposts. Los Adaes, at the terminus of El Camino Real or King's Road, served as the capital of the Spanish province of Tejas for more than forty years. After Louisiana was transferred to Spain in 1762 at the end of the Seven Years War, Los Adaes was closed, but Natchitoches remained an important center supplying goods for the Indian trade and serving local indigo and tobacco farmers and planters. In 1769, Spanish governor appointed the Parisian-born former military officer Athanase de Mezieres lieutenant governor for the Natchitoches district and tasked him with bringing peace to the frontier, where Native Americans had been raiding the Spanish in Texas. Because he had good relations with the tribes, he held a series of councils and signed treaties with a number of them. In the treaty with the Taovayas, one stipulation declared that the war hatchet would be buried in sight of the whole village and that whoever used it again would die, and the hatchet was then buried.

Natchitoches, Louisiana · United States