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The Hidden History of Texas

The Hidden History of Texas

De: Hank Wilson
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 Here is were you will find The Hidden History Of Texas podcast. The episodes cover Texas history from the earliest days of Indigenous peoples to Spanish exploration, control by Mexico, the Anglo’s take over, Texas becomes part of the U.S., the confederates move in, and back to the U.S. The audio files are accurate and try to tell the story as best as they can from all sides of the issues. The hidden history of Texas is a history replete with heroes and villains of all sorts. There were good and bad people throughout Texas history, just as there were throughout world history.© 2020-2023 ARCTexas Ciencias Sociales Educación Mundial
Episodios
  • The Spanish Build Presidios to Protect the Missions and Harass the French

    The Spanish Build Presidios to Protect the Missions and Harass the French
    Jun 21 2025
    Welcome to the Hidden History of Texas I’m Hank Wilson, and I’m talking about the presidios (or forts) the Spanish established alongside the missions. I’ll also talk about how the French became involved with Texas and their influence on the Spanish expansion of both missions and presidios. Before I go further, please if you don’t mind subscribing to the podcast, it’d be greatly appreciated. Once the Spanish decided to expand their territory northward from its base in central Mexico, they knew that in order to be successful, they needed to send more than just missionaries, and so they created the missions. They also understood that they needed to send soldiers to protect the missions and they needed civilians to build towns. The combination of presidio, the mission, and the civil settlement became the major foundation the Spanish used for colonization. Martín Enríquez, who was the fourth viceroy of New Spain (1568–80), is generally given credit with being the first to build presidios in the Southwest. He ordered the construction along the main road from Mexico City northward to Zacatecas of casas fuertes (which is translated to "fortified houses"). Over time the name was changed to presidio (from Latin praesidium, "garrisoned place"). The pattern of the early presidios was learned from the Moors and by the early eighteenth century, when Spaniards settled Texas, the patterns had not changed much.
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    10 m
  • The Spanish Build Missions

    The Spanish Build Missions
    Jun 15 2025
    The Spanish Build Missions In this episode I want to talk about the missions that the Spanish established when they colonized Texas. I’ll talk about the reasons for the missions, how many were established, and some of the good and the bad that took place in and around the missions. Spanish explorers operated under the philosophy of the three G’s, God, Gold, and Glory, the Spanish missions in Texas are a direct result of that philosophy. How did that come about? When Spain began to colonize the Americas, it was a Roman Catholic nation. That meant that while there was a King and a Queen (Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile) , they in fact owed their power to Rome and the Catholic Church. They had received Papal Dispensation for Marriage: Ferdinand and Isabella were second cousins, and under canon law, their marriage required a papal dispensation (special permission). They obtained this from Pope Sixtus IV. Once they were in power they established what we know as the Spanish Inquisition. It was founded in 1478 with the aim of suppressing heresy within Spain and its territories. While initially focusing on individuals suspected of practicing non-Catholic beliefs, the Inquisition later targeted forced converts from Judaism and Islam (conversos and Moriscos) who were suspected of secretly practicing their former faiths. They were granted this power to establish the Inquisition in Castile, when Pope Sixtus IV published a bull granting them the exclusive authority to name inquisitors, although the papacy retained the right to formally appoint the royal nominees. As defenders of the Catholic Church, they believed that whenever they encountered new peoples, and that goal was to convert the natives to Catholicism. Missions played a major role in that effort. Once the Spanish had established settlements in Mexico they turned their vision north, in search of fabled cities of gold and between 1632 and 1793, in order to establish a foothold in their northern most territory, they sent expeditions which all had at least one Spanish friar as a member. These teams traveled north from Mexico into present-day Texas, where they built dozens of missions and presidios. A presidio is a military fort and usually was built in very near proximity or at the same location as the mission in order to provide security to the friars and those who lived and worked at the mission. In all, 26 missions were established and maintained in Texas with various results. According to the Spanish belief system at the time their goals were somewhat noble. Establish Christian enclaves with communal property, labor, worship, political life, and social relations all under the guidance and supervision of the missionaries. The missionaries and Spanish authorities sought to make life within the mission communities resemble that of any Spanish villages and echo Spanish culture. To do so, the priests not only taught the Indians religion but also life skills, they felt the native peoples lacked. They introduced European livestock, fruits, vegetables, and industry into the Texas area. The introduced a very structured format for day-to-day living including a highly organized routine of prayer, work, training, meals, and relaxation. Now of course in order to round out the training the missionaries also made certain to celebrate religious holidays and they held other types of celebrations. As I mentioned, the Spanish plan was for the natives to become productive Spanish citizens and to meet that goal they were taught several vocational skills, such as blacksmithing, masonry, carpentry, weaving, and more. Unfortunately the results didn’t meet the expectations, for several reasons. The day-to-day life in the missions wasn’t anything the Native Peoples had ever experienced. The priests supervised all activities in the mission; however, when we look at their methods from our current social beliefs,
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    10 m
  • Episode 68– Looking for Gold and Glory

    Episode 68– Looking for Gold and Glory
    May 28 2025
    The Hidden History of Texas Looking for Gold and Glory – Before I get too far into it today, how about subscribing to the podcast. Tell your friends that you’ve found the coolest place on the net to learn about Texas history. Well maybe not the coolest, but a pretty cool place, thanks I’d appreciate it. As I’ve discussed in the past, the Spanish presence in the Americas was pretty much an accident. Until Columbus bumped into the islands of Guanahani (Watling Island in the Bahamas) which Columbus named "San Salvador", Cuba, and Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). They had no idea anything or anyone was between them and Asia, remember they were looking for a shortcut route to India. Even then it wasn’t until 1519 when Alonso Álvarez de Pineda mapped the Gulf Coast for the first time that they began to realize they had stumbled upon something far different than what they originally thought. So, what intrigued the Spanish so much about this new continent they encountered? I’ve talked about how in 1528 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, explored the Gulf Coast and his exploration fell apart. He got shipwrecked and he and some of his crew wandered across present-day Texas and northern Mexico. During their journeys and capture they heard stories from the people about cities or places that were “wealthy”. Now we don’t know exactly what the indigenous people meant by wealth or how they described the various locations, but de Vaca’s later telling of those encounters sparked an interest in what the Spanish called or were labeled the "Seven Cities of Gold" or “the Seven Cities of Cibola” But why? Why would these stories matter to the Spanish? In the early 8th century Muslims had conquered what is now Spain and Portugal. The story goes that in 714 seven Catholic bishops and their faithful followers fled across the Atlantic to a land known as Antilia, the name of which, incidentally, was the source of the name Antilles, which was initially applied to the West Indian islands of the Caribbean. The story was that when they fled, they took with them vast amounts of wealth, especially in gold and silver and each of the bishops had established a city. The story, or fable, was that those 7 cities were to be found in this ‘new’ country. However, the Antillean islands failed to produce large quantities of gold and silver, but by 1539 the lands that Cabeza de Vaca and his companions reported on were thought to contain an El Dorado (or The Gold) known as Cíbola. In that year, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza dispatched Fray Marcos de Niza and the African Estevanico to search the area. This exploration cost the life of Estevanico at Háwikuh, the southernmost of the Zuñi pueblos in western New Mexico. On his return to New Spain (today’s Mexico), Fray Marcos reported that he had seen golden cities, the smallest of which was larger than Mexico City. Today we know that the good frier exaggerated what he saw, why I have no idea, but he definitely didn’t see any golden cities and certainly not one larger than Mexico City would have been at that time. In 1539, Mexico City, then known as Tenochtitlan, was a large and populous city. Estimates for its population ranged from 200,000 to 400,000, so as I said, the good frier was a, as we say, a teller of tall tales. However, in 1540 a follow-up expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado captured Háwikuh and learned the true nature of it as well as other nearby pueblos. In the following year, disappointed over the failure to find the Seven Cities of Cíbola Coronado launched a futile search for Quivira-(another legendary wealthy city) an undertaking that crossed the Panhandle. His toute took him from Arizona to New Mexico into Texas up to Oklahoma, and finally Kansas. It was there that he did find Quivira, it was situated in what is now central Kansas, now nobody is really certain of its exact location, and most think it was near present-day Lyons or Salina. What did he find?
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    7 m
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