HOW THE BRAZOS RIVER GOT ITS NAME

By J. Frank Dobie

The Spanish word brazo means arm. The word, like its English equivalent, has a wide pictorial use; thus the Spanish speak of un brazo (an arm) of the sea, and as applied to streams the word may mean fork or branch. The complete name of the great Texas river as given by the Spanish was Los Brazos de Dios—The Arms of God. The name is remarkable, and in attempting to explain its origin legend has been no less remarkable. Old histories have contributed to the legend. At last, the history of the naming of the stream is clear; yet the name itself has something of mystery that will always provoke speculation.

The version of the Brazos legend to be quoted presently from Mollie E. Moore Davis’ Under the Man-Fig goes back at least a century to Austin’s colonists, who, in all likelihood, derived it from the Spanish. It is probably the source of all the other versions and seems to be by far the best known. Incidentally, it appears in a book replete with folk-lore—one of the half dozen best Texas novels. The scene of Under the Man-Fig is Columbia, on the Brazos River, in Brazoria County. Now, among the oldest inhabitants of Columbia is Mr. J. P. Underwood, whose mother was one of the “first three hundred” of Austin’s colonists. Acting upon a request, Mrs. V. M. Taylor of Angleton secured from Mr. Underwood his version of how the Brazos got its name. Mrs. Taylor writes:

“Hostile Indians were pursuing a body of Indians under the care of the Catholics who were trying to reach the Tockanhono, ‘mighty water of the Tejas.’ They reached it in time to gain the opposite shore, but the hostiles trying to follow were swept away by a mighty current. The joy of the padre and company was expressed by their calling the Tockanhono (Indian name) ‘Los Brazos de Dios’—The Arms of God. Mr. Underwood gave me the account as above, saying that it is the true version of the origin of Los Brazos as he heard it from old settlers of Austin’s colonies.”

It is to be observed that in its lower reaches the Brazos does not come down with a sudden sweep like a mountain canyon, a fact that would still further indicate a borrowing from some upland stream, such as the San Saba or higher Colorado.

I

The Miraculous Escape

“The name of the river is Los Brazos de Dios, which is to say, The Arms of God.

“The bed of it is very deep; and the color of the water—when it creeps sluggishly along between its banks, so shallow in places that the blue heron may wade it without wetting his knees—is the color of tarnished brass. But when it comes roaring down from the far-away Redlands, a solid foam-crested wall, leaping upward a foot a minute, and spreading death and destruction into the outlying lowlands, then it is as red as spilled blood.

“On its banks, more than a century and a half ago, a handful of barefoot Franciscan friars, who had prayed and fought their way across the country from Mexico, founded the Presidio of St. Jago, and corralled within the boundary walls a flock of Yndios reducidos.

“There were the stately church, cloistered and towered and rose-windowed—a curious flower of architecture abloom in the savage wilderness—and the blockhouse with its narrow loopholes, and the hut into which the Indian women were thrust at night under lock and key.

“The mighty forest and open prairies around teemed with Yndios bravos, who hated the burly, cassocked, fighting monks, and their own Christianized tribesmen.

“These came, in number like the leaves of the live oak, to hurl themselves against the Presidio. And, after many days of hard fighting, the single friar who remained alive turned his eyes away from the demolished church, and, under cover of smoke from the burning blockhouse, led the remnant of Yndios reducidos (who because they had learned to pray had not forgotten how to fight) out of the enclosure by a little postern-gate, and down the steep bank to the yellow thread of the river below.

“Midway of the stream—thridding the ankle-deep water—they were, before the red devils above discovered their flight. The demoniac yell from a thousand throats pushed them like a battering ram up the opposite bank, whence, looking back, they saw the bed of the River Tockonhono swarming with their foes. Then the Yndios reducidos opened their lips and began to chant the death-song of the Nainis; and the friar, lifting his hand, commended their souls and his own to the God who gives and who takes away.

“But, lo, a miracle!

“Even as the waves of the Red Sea—opened by the rod of Moses for the passage of his people—closed upon Pharaoh and his host, so, with the hoarse roar of a wild beast springing upon his prey, the foam-crested wall of water fell upon the Yndios bravos, and not a warrior of them all came forth from the river bed but as a bruised and beaten corpse.

“So the friar, falling on his knees, gave thanks. And the river, which was the Tockonhono, became from that day Los Brazos de Dios, which is to say, The Arms of God.

“Such is the legend of the river.”

II

How Perishing Seamen Named the River

The following account comes from Mrs. A. F. Shannon of Velasco, who was reared near the mouth of the Brazos. Velasco, be it remembered, was, in ancient days, a port of many ships—the rival of Galveston. Whether or not this legend is indigenous to the mouth of the Brazos cannot be asserted; however, it is but natural that in such a place the legend should be connected with the sea.

Now this is Mrs. Shannon’s version: “My uncle said that he always heard the story like this. A ship out in the Gulf was without water, and the crew were parched with thirst. Suddenly, one of them saw a muddy current reaching far out into the clear blue of the salt water. The ship followed the current to a wide river, which was on a great rise and so threw its muddy waters far out to sea. It must have been a Spanish ship. The crew drank the saving fresh water, and in gratitude named the unknown stream Los Brazos de Dios—the Arms of God.”

III

The Great Drouth and the Waters at Waco

The third legend is connected with the famous “Bowie,” or Los Almagres, Mine on the San Saba. Like many other legends, it came to me from West Burton of Austin. He got it from an old man named White, now living out in the Big Bend country, but formerly of Mason or thereabouts. According to Burton, White got the account, written on a parchment, from a grateful old Mexican whom he had befriended in a spell of sickness. The Mexican claimed to have secured the parchment from his grandfather, the date it bore being over one hundred and fifty years old. When the aged Mexican took sick on Mr. White’s place in Mason County, he was traveling through the country with a crude Mexican cart and two burros, looking for two dugouts somewhere between the old San Saba Mission or mines and the site of the Waco Indian village, which was located at about the present site of Waco. As the parchment reads, thirty-six (or it may be forty-six, Burton says) jack loads of silver bullion were buried in these two dugouts.

It was a time of terrible drouth. The drouth had lasted two years and the little colony of Spaniards at San Saba had gone on mining with their captive Indians and their peons until the Indians had deserted, the peons had died, and there was absolutely no water left in the river or springs. Each month the band of Spaniards hoped that the next new moon would bring rain, but no rain came, and they knew that in the nearly always dry region towards Mexico, the drouth must be even worse. So, instead of going south towards San Antonio as they would normally have gone, the Spaniards set out eastward toward the village of the Waco Indians. They had often heard of a great river flowing by the Wacos’ camp, and there they hoped to find water. They left not a soul or a hoof behind, but packed on the burros their little store of provisions and what bullion they had accumulated, well knowing that they could not return until the drouth was broken.

At Las Chanas (the Llano), they found a dry bed; the Colorado was as dry as the top of a rock. Arrived at the Lampasas Springs, they found a little water, a great deal of mud, and dead buffaloes covering the ground. They pulled some of the dead buffaloes out of the bog, got a little stinking water, and slowly moved on. But the burros were poor from want of grass and starved from want of water. To carry the heavy bullion much farther was impossible. The provisions had to be taken at any price. So two small dugouts were made in the side of a hill, the bullion was buried therein, and after the captain of the band had called on all to witness the marks of the place, the cavalcade moved on.

The trail on eastward was marked by dead beasts and dead men, but at last, depleted in numbers and wasted in fortune, the travelers arrived at the village of the Wacos. There they found a great river flowing clear and fresh, and when they had drunk and had seen their beasts drink, they knelt down to give God thanks, and the padre with them blessed the stream and called it Los Brazos de Dios—the Arms of God.

The Spanish built a kind of rude fort and waited. The drouth kept on for three more years. Los Brazos still flowed clear and sweet, and memories of the rich mines and the rich bullion left behind began to grow dim. But at last the drouth broke and the grass and weeds sprang from the earth with a great rush. The grass grew so quickly that a powerful and fierce tribe of Indians was down upon the Spaniards before they could leave. Their little settlement was annihilated. Only one man lived to get back to Mexico, and that years later when he was old and feeble; he was so broken that he had no desire ever again to come into the region of the terrible drouth. But a while before he died he wrote out on a piece of parchment the history of that search across the desert for water, the directions, as well as he could give them, to the buried bullion, and this account of the settlement and disaster on the river called Los Brazos de Dios. The hidden dugouts with their wealth have never been found, and history has forgot to record that tragic episode of the first Spanish settlement on the Brazos.

IV

A Miraculous Swim

The meager details of this legend were supplied by Mr. Charles B. Qualia, Instructor in Spanish at the University of Texas. He says in explanation: “I heard or read the story when I was a child—where or under what circumstances, I know not.”

A Franciscan, so the legend goes, was running for his life from some terrible pursuer. He came to the river, which was so swollen and turbulent that no human being could hope to swim across it. The waters were swirling around tree tops on the banks, and in the middle of the stream great drift trunks were sweeping by. Nevertheless, he plunged in and was miraculously enabled to reach the other side. After he had looked at his helpless pursuer standing far away on the opposite bank and after he had gazed steadily at the waters he had escaped, he kneeled, and, thanking God, said that his deliverance was by “los brazos de Dios.” After that time the phrase came to be applied to the river.

V

Arms Avenging and Saving

“About thirty miles from the mouth of the San Saba, there was once a Spanish mission and fort, the destruction of which is thus recorded in Mexican tradition:

“Prosperity reigned at the post, which carried on an extensive trade with the Comanche Indians, and a large revenue was derived from certain silver mines in the vicinity. The mines occupied about one hundred laborers; the post was protected by an equal number of soldiers, and there were some women, who manufactured articles for the Indian trade. At a time when all the soldiers, save about a dozen, were absent on an expedition, the Comanches appeared, under pretense of traffic, and were admitted to the fort in great numbers. At a signal from the chief, the Indians drew weapons concealed under their buffalo robes, and massacred the small guard and the women. The laborers in the mines fled, and were butchered in detail. The priest alone escaped, and by a miracle. The holy man having fled to the Colorado River, the waters divided, permitted him to pass through, and closed upon the pursuing Indians, consigning them to a common grave. After great suffering, the priest reached the Spanish mission of San Juan, at that period the only settlement on the San Antonio River. The absent soldiers, returning in a few days to the fort, where lay the mingled bodies of their companions, found the banks of the Colorado covered with dead Indians, and as they could discern no marks of violence upon them, they pronounced it a retributive miracle, and named the river Brazos de Dios, or ‘the Arm [sic] of God.’ In the ignorance of after times, it received the name of Colorado, which previously distinguished the red and muddy stream now known as the Brazos. The preceding tradition is devoutly believed by the old Mexicans about San Antonio.”