The story of Red Feather is delightfully recounted by Miss Adina de Zavala, of San Antonio, Texas, in her “Origin of the Red Bird.” Red Feather taught his people the gentle arts of husbandry—the cultivation of Indian corn, beans, peas, melons and pumpkins; taught the women to make preserves of the fruit of the persimmon tree, and to store the fruits of the soil and the chase in their homes for winter. Great was the mourning when Chief Red Feather died; while his subjects reverently laid his body to rest on the chief mound in Nacogdoches, his spirit soared upward on the crimson wings of the first red bird, and hovered in the majestic trees above the mounds, as if guarding his people from danger.
Less than fifty years after Columbus sighted America, Hernando De Soto, in the winter of 1541-42, penetrated as far west as Nacogdoches, where he spent the winter, sending out scouting parties further west in search for the seven cities of the Cibolo. He remained in Nacogdoches because he found here a well-settled, hospitable Indian town, with an agricultural population, having well-built homes, provided with comfortable furnishings.
Nearly eighty years after De Soto’s visit, on the borderline between tradition and history, came the ministration of Mother Maria de Jesus de Agreda, “the angel in blue,” teaching the Tejas tribes the Christian religion, in 1620. So great was the influence of this saintly woman that in 1690 the chief of the Tejas told Massanet that they wished to do as she had done, and even wanted to be buried in blue garments.
The first definite description of Nacogdoches and its aboriginal population is in the account of LaSalle’s visit here in 1685. On this visit Robert Sieur de LaSalle became desperately ill and remained in Nacogdoches for a month, recuperating from disease. Here the Frenchman received such hospitable treatment at the hands of the natives that four of his men deserted and remained here when LaSalle started back to Fort St. Louis.
LaSalle found numerous evidences of prior contact with both French and Spanish here. Perhaps the Indian traditions pointed to the presence here of DeSoto and Coronado, and the traditional appearances of Mother Maria de Agreda, already referred to.
DeLeon and his followers, in 1691-1692, made the first serious attempts to educate the Tejas Indians in European ways by taking several of the young members of the tribes back to the College of Zacatecas in Mexico. Among these were two children of the chief of the Hainai Indians, living near what is now known as the Goodman Crossing on the Angelina river, about eighteen miles southwest of Nacogdoches. The young man, who afterwards became head chief of the Hasinai Confederation, the Spaniards named Bernadino, which name was also given to his father, the chief; the young woman they named Angelina, and the river was named for her. She also acted as interpreter between the Indians and the Spanish explorers, including the followers of Captain Ramon in 1716, and those of the Marquis de Aguayo in 1721.
First White Settlement
The first permanent European settlement in the town of Nacogdoches was made in June, 1716, when Fray Antonio Margil de Jesus founded the Mission Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe de Nacogdoches on what is now North street, overlooking the valley of the Banito, “little bath.” The Spaniards named the town Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Nacogdoches.
In the struggle between the French and Spanish for mastery of Eastern Texas (called the Province of the New Philippines), the Mission Guadalupe had an eventful history. Deserted at times but never permanently abandoned, it finally decayed and its very site was utterly forgotten, though the information concerning its location has been preserved in the ancient Spanish parchments of our Nacogdoches archives.
When the Spanish settlers began making their homes in the old Indian town, they found several mounds within the limits of the town, relics of the centuries of Indian occupation before the coming of the white man. Three of the larger of these mounds were located on what became the Nacogdoches University campus, now the high school campus. The importance of these mounds was not recognized by those who founded the university, and they were razed in an effort to level the ground of the campus. Only one now remains, on Mound street, so named because of these monuments to the antiquity of the town. A large oak tree, whose age has been estimated at about two hundred years, grows from the summit of this remaining mound.