Spanish Colonial Gallery

Rare Documents

Maps

Artworks

Artifacts

The story of Texas and the American West goes back thousands of years from the Indigenous Nations, French, Spanish, and Mexican influences. Almost 500 years ago, Cabeza de Vaca documented his travels from this area to Mexico in a book which we have on display. The gallery has a large galleon ship model, which was used employ the Spanish colonization strategy of “gold and souls,” transporting soldiers, missionaries and supplies back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean in the 16th century. Artifacts on display in this gallery are from some of the original inhabitants, and visitors, of Texas: such as the Indigenous Nations that comprised the “First Texans”, as well as the Catholic presence that set up missions and presidios to protect the local populations, French colonists, and the Spanish conquistador’s fluctuating interest in the area.

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La Relacion, Cabeza de Vaca

La Relacion y Comentarios del Gouernador Aluar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca, de lo acaescido en las dos jornadas que hizo a las Indias.

The saying “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover” holds true when looking at this artifact on display at The Bryan Museum. This plain artifact may be unassuming from the outside, but inside holds a magnificent story of exploration and the meeting of different worlds.

First published in 1542, La Relacion is the first book written about Texas. It is a brilliantly composed ethnographic history, which provides readers with a first-hand account of life in Texas in the 1500s. Cabeza de Vaca writes about the landscapes he and his fellow travelers pass through on their epic journey as well as the people they encounter and their customs. Special attention is paid to food sources as the wanderers were often hungry.

The copy on display in the museum dates to the second printing of the book in 1555. This version contained an expanded version of La Relacion, as well as Comentarios, which first appears in this publication, and is the history of Cabeza de Vaca’s governorship of the Rio de la Plata colony in present day Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay from 1540-1543. The book is bound in vellum and contains a title page with a large woodcut of the arms of Spain with the double-headed eagle partly hand-colored in contemporary red ink.

La Relacion y Comentarios is on display in the Spanish Colonial gallery as part of The Bryan Museum’s permanent collection. Make sure to view it the next time you are at the museum. You can also go inside the book with an English translation available through our museum shop.

Mother-of-Pearl Chest which Carried a Spanish Royal Grant for California Lands

Maker unknown, 18th century

This chest is covered with mother-of-pearl and its borders are tortoise shell. The inside of the chest features dark and light colored wood in diamond patterns. The lock plate and hinges appear to be silver. The lower portion of the lock plate, set around the lock mechanism, includes a section of the coat of arms for the Bourbon monarchs of Spain, first used by King Carlos III (reigned 1759 – 1788). On either side of the lock is a lion, representing the Spanish province of León.

Each piece of mother-of-pearl is from an individual section of shell, which was sawn roughly, ground smooth, and then sawn again to the shape needed. To create each could take as much as forty minutes. The tortoise shell used for the border was steamed and flattened. Called mueble enconchado (shell-encrusted furniture) inlaid with mother-of-pearl was a sumptuous and highly sought after luxury in Colonial Spanish America.

This chest once carried a Spanish royal grant for religious lands in California. The Jesuit religious order originally established a mission chain in Baja California (a present-day Mexican state). In 1767, King Carlos III of Spain decreed that the Jesuits should be forcibly expelled from Spanish territories in the New World. Carlos, known for centralizing and secularizing the Spanish Colonial government, felt that the Jesuit order was acting too autonomously for the Spanish Crown to control in its New World colonies. This decree finally arrived in Baja California on February 3, 1768. The religious lands there, including the missions, were turned over to the Franciscan order of monks. The Franciscans controlled the missions for a little over five years, establishing only one new mission in Baja California, before they were granted lands in Alta California (the present-day U.S. state) on which to establish a new chain of missions and presidios (fortified outposts). The lands in Baja California were then transferred to the Dominican order in 1772. It is uncertain which Franciscan.