In this meticulously researched book, Francis Galán recovers the lost history of Los Adaes, the first capital of Texas (now within the state of Louisiana's boundaries), whose name alludes to the area's Caddoan-speaking Indigenous inhabitants. In 1721, the marqués de Aguayo established the Presidio de Nuestra Señora del Pilar de los Adaes to protect the Spanish missions in East Texas and dissuade French encroachment from nearby Louisiana. The book's seven chapters examine various political, social, and economic processes that marked the existence of this frontier outpost, which became the provincial capital in 1729. Drawing on an impressive array of archival documents from 15 repositories in the United States, Mexico, and Spain, Galán chronicles the history of Los Adaes through the stories of a select cast of its inhabitants and situates local developments within regional and continental contexts, always in conversation with the existing literature.
Galán argues that Franciscan friars in...
