General Alonso de Le?n?s Expedition Diaries into Texas (1686-1690): A Linguistic Analysis of the Spanish Manuscripts with Semi-paleographic Transcriptions and English Translations

摘要

From 1686 to 1690, General Alonso de Le?n led five military expeditions from NorthernNew Spain into modern-day Texas in search of French intruders who had breached Spanishsovereignty and settled on lands claimed by the Spanish Crown. His first two exploratoryjourneys were unsuccessful, but on the third expedition, he discovered a Frenchman livingamong Coahuiltec Indians across the R?o Grande. In 1689, the fourth expedition finally led to thediscovery of La Salle?s ill-fated colony and fort on the Texas Coast and to the repatriation of twoof the French survivors. On his fifth and final expedition, De Le?n established the first Spanishmission among the Hasinai Indians of East Texas and rescued several French children who hadbeen abducted by the Karankawa.Through archival research, I have identified sixteen manuscript copies of De Le?n?smeticulously kept expedition diaries. These documents form a distinct corpus and hold majorimportance for early Texas scholarship. Several of these manuscripts, but not all, have beenknown to historians and have been addressed in the literature. However, never before have allsixteen manuscripts been studied as an interconnected body of work and submitted to philological treatment. In this interdisciplinary study, I transcribe, translate, and analyze thediaries from two different perspectives: linguistic and historical.The linguistic analysis examines the most salient phonological, morphosyntactic, andlexical phenomena attested in the documents. This synchronic study provides a snapshot of theSpanish language as it was used in Northern Mexico and Texas at the end of the 17th century. Anin-depth examination discovers both conservative traits and linguistic innovations andcontributes to the history of American Spanish. The historical analysis reveals that frequentmisreadings, misinterpretations, and mistranslations of the Spanish source documents have led tosubstantial factual errors which have misinformed historical interpretation for more than acentury. Thus, I have produced new, faithful, annotated English translations based on themanuscript archetypes to address historical misconceptions and present a more accurateinterpretation of the historical events as they actually occurred.