Essays

Moseying: Living La Vida Llanero

West Texas as a Crossroads
October 29, 2003

The other day, I ran down to Horsehead Crossing, between Girvin and Imperial just off of FM11. After walking along the Pecos River for an hour or so, I ate a picnic. Then I stretched out on a tarp I keep behind the seat of the truck and dozed off for a while. I had a strange dream -- first I dreamed of cowboys crossing the river, and then their cattle turned into tractor-trailers hauling freight. My subconscious was telling me that the old Emigrant Trail and Goodnight-Loving cattle trail that crossed at that very spot has a great deal in common with La Entrada al Pacifico. Both are "highways of change."

The oil business has dominated the southern Llano Estacado for 70 years, overriding the original economic definition established by the ranching industry. Folks that hit it big in oil often buy a ranch, so ranching remained part of our regional self-image. Almost all of the major oil companies, however, have left the region. We are on the downslope of petroleum extraction. The towns of west Texas have been "drying up and blowing away." Almost every town has fewer people than ten years ago, and some are almost ghost towns. When Rankin lost its only grocery store in 2003, for example, the impact of the decline of the petroleum industry became irrefutable. The industry will continue to play a role for at least another forty years, but there is a growing effort to diversify the economic infrastructure of the region.

We are in the process of creating ourselves again. From politicians in Austin, to local corporate executives and to local political entities, there is a concerted and united effort to explore new possibilities. One of the ways that might reverse such declining fortunes is the development of La Entrada al Pacifico. To create this major new freighting route will establish the Midland-Odessa area as a gateway for Mexican and Asian goods being dispersed to the central and eastern United States.

West Texas has been a nexus for economic change before. This is symbolized by the importance of one location -- Horsehead Crossing. While preparing for a talk on west Texas history, I had recently been researching the available information on Jumano Indians, and had learned that their leader, Sabeata, was met by two different expeditions in the Horsehead Crossing area. I was struck by Sabeata's ubiquitous presence in Spanish reports that form the basis of our knowledge of Jumanos.

As a consummate politician, Sabeata signed treaties with the Spanish in San Antonio, Santa Fe, the El Paso area, and in Parral, Mexico, where he was baptized. He manipulated the Spanish so they would help the Jumano deal with the encroaching Apaches. In 1683 he had claimed that he saw a giant burning cross on the hills above the Ojinaga/Presidio region of the Rio Grande, and actually built several churches in that area, and then invited Spanish priests to come preach, knowing that soldiers would come along to protect them.

After the Pueblo Revolt in northern New Mexico in 1680 sent Spanish colonists back to Mexico, the Pueblo Indians killed and traded the horses left behind, as part of an attempt to destroy all the "evils" of the Spanish. In 1684 Captain Mendoza reported the Jumanos had a big herd of horses at the Great Rock, fifteen miles downstream from Horsehead Crossing. By comparison, the Concho River Jumanos of the 1640s did not have horses when the reports of the blue nun were investigated. Sabeata had evidently recognized the value of horses as a trade commodity in 1680 after the Pueblo Revolt. Another Spanish document reports of his trading horses to Hasanii (Caddo) Indians in east-central Texas in the 1680s.

Citing linguistic evidence, some archaeologists now believe that some Jumanos began traveling north by 1700, traveling as far north as the Black Hills of South Dakota. There, history begins recording the presence of Kiowa Indians by 1800. By 1840 they joined the Comanches in Oklahoma and Texas during the final decades of the "horse Indian." The Black Hills Kiowas were known as great horse traders. Some researchers believe the Jumanos became Kiowas, using as evidence the similarities between the Tanoan language of the Jumanos and the Kiowa language. This makes me wonder if Sabeata led his group of Jumanos northward, teaching the Indians that he met how to care for and how to utilize horses in war and hunting. He was not seen in Texas, Mexico or New Mexico after 1692. So, maybe, just maybe, the genesis of the widespread Indian utilization of the horse rests on Sabeata's shoulders. In that case, the Horsehead Crossing area was where Sabeata conceived a trading scheme that would create a major evolution in plains Indian history and culture.

Horsehead Crossing served as a gateway for the spread of Anglo-American culture from 1845 until 1881 (when the Texas and Pacific Railroad nullified its importance). It was the preferred southern route for the emigrants headed to California. In 1849 and 1850 wagon train after wagon train headed down the trail, passing through Castle Gap, on to Horsehead Crossing and eventually to the goldfields. In 1851 Henry Skillman began hauling mail along the route, and from 1857 to 1861 the Butterfield Overland Mail (the major trans-continental commercial route) passed over the crossing. The U.S. Army built a string of forts along the trail to combat both the Apache and Comanche. In 1867 the crossing became a major landmark on the Goodnight-Loving trail, and over the next twenty years 20-50 herds of cattle each year swam the river. As many as a hundred freight and immigrant wagon trains utilized the trail each year as well. Texas cowboy economics and culture spread throughout the "old" west after passing over Horsehead Crossing.

With such a historical record of our home region serving as a conduit of change, it is not too big of a leap to conceptualize the potential role that we west Texans might have in the future as a result of La Entrada al Pacifico. Not only can we serve as a waypoint and gateway in the transportation of goods, we might end up serving as a conduit for cultural change as well. As we develop closer relationships with establishing free trade with Mexico I foresee a continuation of the organically developing democratic multiculturalism of the borderlands.

Sante Fe epitomizes the present-day flowering of cross-cultural interchange -- it has become a major destination of sophisticated travelers far and near. I have met countless numbers of people from the Llano Estacado who love to go shopping and to visit the many museums in northern New Mexico. More and more local residents are utilizing the "Santa Fe style" of home decoration. The gestalt of the southwest is the blending of Hispanic and Anglo cultures, and this blending will play a part in the revitalization of our region.