Very early Texas History

 

Giant Bison, weighing near 4,000 lbs, were common around Lubbock until about 15,000 years ago.

      Texas History starts whenever the historian wants it to start.  Some have placed the beginnings of Texas at the time man first crossed the land bridge at the Bering Strait and began to filter down between the glaciers into North America and naturally settle in the garden spot of this continent, around present-day Lubbock, Texas.

     Newer evidence suggests that this migration happened, but may not have populated Texas.  The first humans on Texas soil may have come from Europe or Africa, by sailing across a narrow part of the Atlantic, landing in South America and working their way north.  Then again, they may have floated over from Polynesia and landed in Chile.  Perhaps all of the above contributed to the settlement of early Texas.  Because of advances in the study of DNA, all these theories have some merit and are being investigated.

     No matter how they got here, there is solid evidence that humans lived near Lubbock over 12,000 years ago.  At the Lubbock Lakes Archeological Site, one excavated cliff wall shows proof of continual habitation  from before that time.  This site is the only place in North America showing such evidence.  Indications are that early Texans hunted Wooly Mammoths and Giant Bison in this area, butchered their kill here, and dried and preserved the meat.  A variety of artifacts, flint spear points, arrowheads, and cutting tools show that these Indians were nomads.  Some lived near here and others came from afar or perhaps traded with distant peoples.

     Instead of getting into an argument about who came first from where, fast forward 12,000 years to 1211 A.D.  The Moors from North Africa conquered most of the south half of the Iberian Peninsula and the Pope in Rome was worried they would take the rest of Spain, and then Europe, which would put him out of a job.  He was so worried that he ordered the Christian Kings of the area to quit squabbling among themselves and join together in a Crusade against the Muslims.  Most everyone joined.  It is no surprise that the French didn’t like the rules and took their 30,000 knights and went home.

     Pope Innocent III ordered this Crusade.  Thinking this might be the first example of an oxymoron in modern history, I read all I could about him.  He was not the first oxymoron—at least two examples preceded him—Innocent I and II.

     King Alphonso VIII of Castile,  Jimenez De Rado, the Archbishop of Toledo,  Sancho VII of Navarre,  and Pedro II of Aragon followed Innocent III’s orders, pooled their armies, and set out with some 50,000 soldiers to fight the Saracens.  The Muslim horde, estimated to be over 125,000 men, was camped in a secure valley near Las Navas, protected on all sides by impassable mountains.  They rested peacefully, knowing they controlled the high ground at the only known pass into the valley.



     A local shepherd, Martin Alhaja, (or Halaja) told the soldiers of a secret pass into the valley which he had marked with a cow’s skull.   The troops found the pass, staged a forced march through the night, and surrounded the surprised Muslims on the morning of July 16, 1212.  The ensuing Battle of Los Navas de Tolosa was a slaughter.

Sancho VII making short work of the Caliph's guards.

     The caliph in charge of the Muslims, Muhammad al-Nasir, camped in a splendid tent on a rise near the center of his army.  His tent consisted of “three-ply crimson velvet flecked with gold; strings of pearls descending from its purple fringes.”  Rows of chain radiated from the center of his camp, and tied in place 3,000 camels.  Inside the ring of camels, 10,000 black slaves were chained together in a circle, their steel tipped lances facing outward at an angle, with the bases buried in the ground.  According to reports by the Christians, the caliph stood inside this protection, “wearing the green dress and turban of his ancestral line,” holding a scimitar in one hand and a Koran in the other.  He read passages from the Koran which promised all the delights of paradise to any young man who perished in religious battle and the torments of hell to any coward who should desert his ranks.

     The Spanish attacked eagerly.  Sancho VII drove his war horses through the lines of camels and made short work of the chained, immobile slave guards.  Muhammad al-Nasir fled on a mare and “did not rest until he had reached Jaen,” where he spent long hours writing elaborate excuses as to why he lost the battle.  The Spanish soldiers roamed the mountains for the next few days, slaughtering Muslim stragglers.  Causality estimates are perhaps exaggerated, but approximately 100,000 Muslims are claimed to have perished, while the Spanish only lost some 2,000 men.

     Written accounts of the battle are available from both sides and are interesting in their contradictions.  Moorish reports tend to stress the unavoidable series of unfortunate circumstances which befell the competent commanders, while most of the Spanish reports come from various letters to the Pope and uniformly cite the hand of God and the influence of the Pope in the victory.  Self-serving statements praising the authors are scattered through all the documents, no matter which side they represent.

     The caliph’s elaborate tent was sent to Innocent III as a gift from Alphonse VIII, in case the Pope needed a folding three-bedroom, two-bath place to sleep.  Perhaps in deference to the Pope, no mention was made of the dispensation of the harem. The poor shepherd, Martin Alhaja, was appointed a nobleman, and gifted appropriate lands and a coat of arms.  He was bestowed the title Cabeza de Vaca—the head of the cow.

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, probably in 1540 or so.  He must have been very wise, because he sure wasn't pretty.

       The heirs of Cabeza de Vaca prospered, and almost three hundred years later, in 1490, Francisco de Vara and Teresa Cabeza de Vaca had a son named Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca.  Two years later, in 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella's armies finally drove the last Moors out of Granada and across the Mediterranean into North Africa.  That same year, Isabella backed an unknown Italian, Christopher Columbus, on a quest to find a short cut to India.  Spain was on a roll.