Strategic Alliances 1750-1820: Marriage and inheritance patterns among the first Spanish colonial settlers along the Rio Grande in Texas

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Gender in Historical Archaeology (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Six Nuevo Santander settlements were established along the Rio Grande in Texas and Tamaulipas. Laredo and Dolores were on the northern bank, while Revilla, Mier, Camargo, and Reynosa lined the river’s southern bank. Each municipality’s territory included 1767 land grants to settlers that straddled the Rio Grande. These ranchos were some of the first of their kind in Texas not associated with missions and presidios. Instead, entire families and their livestock had moved north. The marriage and inheritance patterns among the Spanish colonial settlers in Mier and Camargo were examined for motivations and strategies. Most marriages among families who were granted large tracts of land (porciones) involved a spouse from another landowning family, and often the porciones involved were adjacent to or across the river from each other. On another level, patterns of intense intermarrying were evident when multiple siblings in one family married into the same other family.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Gender in Historical Archaeology (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology