The First Spaniard | Presidios, Missions and Villas For
Biographies (Individuals in Bold), Search Handbook of Texas
Online Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. Earliest Spaniard and
European in the Future DeWitt Colony 1528-1534. The story told
in 1936 by historian Carlos Castañeda in Our Catholic Heritage
in Texas 1519-1936. Missions, Presidios and Villas on the
Eastern Frontera of New Spain. At the close of the 17th century,
Texas and the Sabine River on its eastern border was the
northeast frontier of the vast Spanish empire in America. It
served as a buffer zone against the westward expansion of
archrival France from Louisiana whose King's agent Robert
Cavelier Sieur de La Salle had failed to secure the attempted
bridgehead called Ft. St. Louis at the mouth of Garcitas Creek
on current Lavaca Bay in 1684. In 1689 a Spanish expedition led
by Alonso De León with Father Damián Massanet to determine
status of French penetrations into New Spain found the ruins of
Ft. St. Louis which had been destroyed by Karankawa atta