Urritgua left Prudincio de Orbito as temporary governor, arrested Lugo, sent a message back to the Viceroy clearing Sandavol of all charges and requesting that the prisoner be restored to his position. In the same year San Antonious Bazaterra was sent as Governor of Los Adais and all of the Texas Region. Bazaterra was a merchant from Saltillo in Mexico, and he used his new position to transport his personal merchandise to the Adais frontier. He demanded that the Spanish cease trading with the French.
In April, 1738, he detained and arrested Jean Lagross, a French trader en-route to the Upper Caddos on the big bend of the Red River. According to the Arroyo Hondo agreement between Sandavol and St. Denis, the French traders were to be allowed to pass through the Spanish held Adais land during the wet season. Jean Lagross had a passport to that effect, but Bazaterra refused to recognize the passport and had Lagross’ merchandise burned in front of witnesses.
Word of his action soon reached St. Denis and messages were sent to Los Adais, to San Antonio and to Mexico City, by means of Indian carriers. Bazaterra was accused of trouble making and charged with making advances toward Lagross’ wife, who, although an Indian, had been legally wed to Lagross at La Mission Senora de Guadelupe at Nacogdoches. Therefore she was a French woman and had been recognized as such by the French at Natchitoches and by the Spanish at Los Adais since her wedding. St. Denis also reminded the Spanish officials that due to the fact that Lagross had taken an Ais maiden for his wife, in the eyes of the Caddo Federation of Indians, Lagross was a Caddo according to the Indian’s viewpoint, therefore, this injustice could lead to serious trouble if the Frenchman were not compensated for his loss. Much to the disappointment of Bazaterra, he was ordered to pay Lagross for his merchandise out of his own pocket. “Such”, remarked St. Denis, “is the power of the pen”.
Bazaterra, however, in spite of his difficulties, piled up the equivalent of forty thousand dollars during his nearly four-year tenure as Governor on the Adais frontier. It must be said on his behalf that he was an excellent tradesman. St. Denis admitted that he was glad to see him leave.
In 1741 Thomas Phillip Winthuisin replaced Bazaterra as Governor of Los Adais. The new governor was a civilian and lacking in the knowledge of the military. This in itself presented a dangerous situation on the Adais frontier. The inhabitants requested that a man of the military be sent to Los Adais.
And in 1742 the talk of the year was how two ex-French soldiers, Lavespere and Brossilier, maintained travasser (a kind of flat boat) service from New Orleans to Natchitoches, bringing additional medical supplies to Dr. Bonnafons. These two men had rigged their boat with pulleys which enabled them to pull the boat through the shallow places in the river at low-water stage.
VIII
THE THREE CABINS
Jose Guiterez, a mestizo (a person of mixed Indian and Spanish blood) was returning from Natchitoches after having visited the store of Dr. Bonnafons. As he descended the trail down the side of Grand Montania he allowed his horse to pick its way. At the foot of this high hill a small creek flowed called the Arroyo Hondo and at the bank of the small creek he must rest his animal for a while before continuing on to his home near the Presidio de Los Adais. The spring of the year 1742 had been a very trying and wet year, the Arroyo Hondo would be wider now because of so much rainfall. He always felt good when he reached this small rivulet, considered the half-way distance from Los Adais to Natchitoches, for in his mind he felt he was more than half-way home.
As Guiterez rested he thought of his horse, a beautiful stallion. He often wondered if the Indian who had traded the mare, which was with foal at the time and later delivered this colt, envied him now because of the trade. Certainly many of the French officers at Natchitoches and Los Adais had tried to buy the animal, but Jose would always refuse to consider even talking of a trade or sale. Not only because he was such a fine animal, he loved the horse, El Trumpitero, named so because of the shrill whinnies the horse voiced when a female of his species was in his vicinity. And Jose had reaped generous profits in stud fees. The horse had made quite a name for himself and for his owner, Jose Guiterez.
The year before the young Spaniard had been sent to the Presidio de San Antonio de Bexar to deliver a message from the Governor, Winthusin, to the alvarez of San Antonio de Bexar asking his opinion about paying the French trader, Jean Lagross, for goods that had been confiscated by the former Governor of Los Adais, Bazaterra, after he had granted a passport to the Frenchman to travel through the Spanish territory when going to trade with the Caddos on upper Red River.