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Spanish Texas was one of the interior provinces of New Spain from 1690 until 1821. Although Spain...

Spanish Texas was one of the interior provinces of New Spain from 1690 until 1821. Although Spain nominally claimed ownership of the territory, which comprised part of modern-day Texas, including the land north of the Medina and Nueces Rivers, the Spanish did not attempt to colonize the area until after discovering evidence of the failed French colony of Fort Saint Louis in 1689. In 1690, Alonso De León escorted several Catholic missionaries to East Texas, where they established the first mission in Texas. When native tribes resisted the Spanish presence, the missionaries returned to Mexico, abandoning Texas for the next two decades. The Spanish returned to East Texas in 1716, establishing several missions and a presidio to maintain a buffer between Spanish Territory and the French territory of Louisiana. Two years later, the first civilian settlement in Texas, San Antonio, was established as a way station between the missions and the nearest existing Spanish settlement. The new town quickly became a target for raids by the Lipan Apache. The raids continued periodically for almost three decades, until in 1749 the Spanish and the Apache made peace. The peace treaty angered the