INDIANS DEFEAT SPANISH

Historically, Brownsville takes pride in the distinction that the battles beginning the Mexican-American War and the battle ending the Civil War were fought in the city's vicinity. Is it possible that the first recorded conflict on United States soil between Europeans and Indians took place in the Brownsville area?

In 1519 Spanish Captain Alonso Alvares de Pineda dropped anchor at the mouth of the Rio de las Palmas, now known as the Rio Grande by most experts. Pineda commanded 270 men in four ships. He spent a month exploring inland and reported that 40 rancherias occupied both sides of the riverbanks.

These natives were the Coahuiltecans, primitive hunters and gatherers. Martin Salinas, in his book Indians of the Rio Grande Delta, estimated the population between 10,000 and 15,000.

Pineda reported that the inhabitants were hospitable. He likewise whetted his countrymen's greed for riches with descriptions of gold ornaments adorning these people. Pineda departed south and lost his life in the Panuco area, but his surviving crew members returned to Jamaica and delivered this information to Francisco de Garay, the island's governor and underwriter of the undertaking.

The stories of gold proved irresistible and the following year Garay outfitted another expedition under the command of Diego de Camargo.

"Camargo took 150 men, seven horsemen, and, in the likely event the Indians resisted giving up their gold necklaces, he brought an ample supply of artillery," pens Brian Robertson in Wild Horse Desert, a historical account of the Rio Grande Valley. "Camargo's group also included brick masons who carried materials to build a fort to protect the new colony."

Camargo and his conquistadores advanced 30 miles up the river when the goodwill between the Spaniards and Indians came to an abrupt end.

Salinas relates the following showdown: "A large number of Indians joined together and threatened Camargo, who decided to attack. While on the way to burn one of the Indian camps, Camargo's little army was broken up by the Indians. The soldiers tried to escape, some by land, others by water. The Spanish boats were driven from the river by a large number of Indian canoes. The Indians killed at least 18 Spaniards and all seven of their horses. The Spanish sailed southward toward Veracruz."

Though Camargo reached his destination, many of his men died of starvation during the arduous sojourn and Camargo himself perished shortly after his arrival. This confrontation and the Spanish losses may not rival the Little Big Horn in romantic lore, but the Indians inflicted such a disastrous defeat upon the Spanish that the setback would retard Europeans' progress into this region until Jose de Escandon established Reynosa, Camargo, Mier, Revilla (Guerrero) and Laredo in the late 1740s and early 1750s.

The Coahuiltecans of the Rio Grande Valley had challenged the best soldiers in the world and had crushed them. It would be more than 220 years before the Spanish would conquer the area. The time has come for the Valley's native peoples to receive credit for their remarkable achievement and commemorate this battle as the first of its kind between Europeans and Indians on U.S. land.