Domingo Terán de los Ríos

Domingo Terán de los Ríos

Domingo Terán de los Ríos served as the first governor of Spanish Texas from 1691 to 1692.

Previous service

Terán served the Spanish crown in Peru for two decades. He came to Mexico in 1681, and was governor of the province of Sonora y Sinaloa for approximately five years. There he successfully developed a mining industry and pacified the Native Americans in that area.

Tejas

Terán was appointed governor on January 23, 1691, by Viceroy Gaspar de Sandoval Silva y Mendoza, Conde de Gálvez. His role as governor was to set up seven missions among the Tejas Indians; to seek and remove any foreigners that may have settled in Spanish territory; and to catalog the land, the natural resources, and the peoples of the area.

Terán and his company departed on their trek on May 16, 1691, from Monclova, crossed the Rio Grande on May 28, and had reached the Red River by December of that year. On his journey northward, Terán met up with Gregorio de Salinas Varona at the site of the evacuated Fort Saint Louis with new orders to explore the Tejas settlements in eastern Tejas.

When Terán was travelling southward, he encountered Juan Enríquez Barroto at Matagorda Bay on March 5, 1692, who relayed orders from the viceroy to explore the lower Mississippi River area. Terán followed orders, but was prevented from completing them by bad weather. He and his company returned to Veracruz on April 15. Terán's expedition failed to establish any missions among the Tejas.

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