Replies

Of historic, and relevant current history ~ in Texas. The Spanish tried numerous times to settle along the Texas coastal zone. They brought in every sort of livestock, made fences as appropriate, surveyed vast tracts of land and carved it up (1,000 arpents was pretty standard for a subdivision in those days), and, in general approached that vacant landscape pretty much the way Americans would do it ~ not any different really.

And hurricanes came regularly and blew down their buildings and barns, destroyed their grist mills (absolutely necessary for European types of civilization), knocked down the fences, let loose the cattle, turned loose the hogs, allowed the chickens and guinea hens to fly hither and yon, and it was just one thing after the other.

Currently historians get real excited in Texas every time somebody funds a foundation for a house or other building that can be dated BEFORE 1760.

Now while all that was going on the Comanche Indians managed to tame the horse, developed advance riding techniques, delved into trade and, lo and behold, began wearing Spanish style clothing, and turned to firearms as the thing to do!

Before that the Comanche lived up there in Montana ~ but as soon as they got the first horses they began relocating.

Someday somebody has to do a serious DNA study on these guys ~ they've got a lot more Spanish ancestry than they ever let on. And they certainly had serious cultural contact with Spaniards or people like them long before they moved to Texas.

I suspect there was a Great American Drought going on in the Central and Western Plains that lasted up to 80 years before 1760 ~ so that'd take it back to 1680 ~ and by then the Spaniards had actually figured out the entire Western coastline all the way to Little Diomede ~ and the 54 degree 40 minute entrance from the Pacific to the inside passage. Yet, they simply could not make any settlements stick in the PACNW to Texas in all that period - with the exception of the complex in New Mexico

That's a more serious drought than the one we currently have underway, but it ain't over!

Back in the early 1900s the high plains of New Mexico were well settled. Small towns were everywhere and every 180 acres had a house on it. People even lived through the droughts of the 1930s.

The drought of the 1950s did them in. We left in 1952 and within a few years most of the towns disappeared or became ghost towns. The small landowners sold out to the larger ranches so there is no where near the number of people there as before.