The History of Texas - Essay Example

During the entire 17th century, conflicts continued between the Indians and the Spaniards, who then decided to adopt the encomienda system, which seemed to be less destructive to the Indians, but was exploitative (Ewers, 82).

Initially, the Spanish priests and explorers recorded thousands of ethnic groups who had dominated the region for approximately 300 years. The names of the ethnic groups changed frequently, and they ranged from 100 to 500 persons. In 1690, the population of Indians in Texas and North Eastern Mexico was estimated to lie between 86,100 and 999,000 people. 15,000 of the Indians used to live in the Rio Grande delta (Ewers, 82).

After the introduction of smallpox and slavery, the Coahuiltecans were decimated in the Monterrey region. Since the Spanish expansion was a remote one, the Coahuiltecans did not suffer significantly from the diseases that the Europeans introduced to them as well as the slave raids that they undertook in Northern Mexico. However, in 1718 after the mission that was carried out by the Franciscan Roman Catholic at San Antonio, the population of the Indians went down significantly because of the smallpox epidemics that began in 1739 (Ewers, 83). Before 1825, most of the Indian ethnic groups had gone down, and those that remained were rapt by the Hispanic population that was situated in Texas as well as Mexico (Ewers, 84). Therefore, it is evident that the introduction of epidemics to the Indians in Texas led to the elimination of the ethnic groups as well as their culture. Read More