XVI
INDIANS VJEM AND STRONG While the Indians remained masters in La Florida and yielded in California they varied from weakness to strength in Texas and the South-.'•esto Apaches and Comanches, mounted on the horses introduced by the Spaniards, be-. \me mounted terrors that held sway until comparatively recent years* But Spain was • afely entrenched in Mexico and she steadily pressed her conquests northward from Mexican bases. They were settling in New Mexico by 1598...,.in the El Paso Valley -oy 1659,0. .in southern Arizona by 1692..... in East Texas by 1690 and South Texas by ■J715, Spain’s progress was steady after those years.
XVII
A BOCK OF ANCIENT HISTORY The Old Spanish Trail reflects the oldest history in . _yj United States, With its associated eamino reals in this southern borderland country a book of history is opened to the traveler of an era of heroic works that --ere old when the American Revolution was being fought. It spans the continent thru •.he most varied, unusual and interesting scenes of any continental highway. The Santa Fe'Trail from St, Louis to Santa Fe'dates from the 1820s. The Old Oregon Trail from St. Louis to the Northwest is an epic of the covered wagon period of the 1850s. Both are impressed upon present-day consciousness because their dynamic pioneering events are of the Anglo-American Era and relatively recent. One must look back into the dim past for the tragedy, drama, courage and accomplishments of those people that sent Columbus off into the Sea of Darkness to fall, perhaps, over tho edge of the world, and who followed him so soon after in unconquerable numbers to develop continents greater than the whole world they had hitherto known.
XVIII
CRUSADERS OLD AND MODERN Conquistadoros, adventurers, explorers, administrators, and the benign padres braved hardships and perils and blazed the trails in pioneer centuries past. Crusaders of the present day reared mighty bridges and built ribbons of pavement that the continent in this southern borderland country might be spanned. Modern-day explorers now travel the Old Spanish Trail in comfort and a new civilization is rearing its works and culture amid the works and culture of Old Spain and Old France,
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A condensed history of the Spanish Occupation in the southern United States will be found in "The Spanish Borderlands" (1921) by Herbert S. Bolton (Textbook Sdition-Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn.). The Bibliographical Note in this book is an excellent guide to further reading or research.
EARRAL AYRES, President Old Spanish Trail, Gunter Hotel, San Antonio, Texas. Nov.1952
'i 2nd, Ed, April, 1933)