A peace policy that utilized trade and gifts to promote friendship and
authorized military force only to punish specific acts of aggression was
inaugurated and remained in effect, with varying degrees of success,
for the remainder of Spanish rule in Texas. The first success of the new
Spanish policy came in 1762, when Fray José Calahorra y Saenz
negotiated a treaty with the Comanches, who agreed not to make war on
missionized Apaches. Continued Apache aggression made it impossible for
the Comanches to keep their promise, and ultimately led Spanish
officials to advocate a Spanish-Comanche alliance aimed at exterminating
the Apaches. That policy was officially implemented in 1772, and with
the help of Athanase de Mézières,
a French trader serving as Spanish diplomat, a second treaty was signed
with the Comanches. The Comanche chief Povea signed the treaty in 1772
at San Antonio, thereby committing his band to peace with the Spaniards.
Other bands, however, continued to raid Spanish settlements. Comanche
attacks escalated in the early 1780s, and Spanish officials feared the
province of Texas would be lost. To avoid that possibility, the governor
of Texas, Domingo Cabello y Robles, was instructed to negotiate peace with the warring Comanches. He dispatched Pedro Vial
and Francisco Xavier de Chaves to Comanchería with gifts and proposals
for peace. The mission was successful, and the emissaries returned to
San Antonio with three principal Comanche chiefs who were authorized by
their people to make peace with the Spanish. The result was the
Spanish-Comanche Treaty of 1785, a document that Comanches honored, with
only minor violations, until the end of the century. As Spanish power
waned in the early years of the nineteenth century, officials were
unable to supply promised gifts and trade goods, and Comanche aggression
once again became commonplace. Comanches raided Spanish settlements for
horses to trade to Anglo-American traders entering Texas from the
United States. Those Americans furnished the Comanches with trade goods,
including arms and ammunition, and provided a thriving market for
Comanche horses.
