Captain Domingo Ramon
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Captain Domingo Ramon (d. 1723) was the son of Captain Diego Ramon (d. 1724), the commandant of the Presidio San Juan Bautista (Presidio del Rio Grande). In 1715, the Spanish authorities appointed Domingo Ramon to establish a presidio and four missions in Tejas (present day East Texas). The subsequent entrada, called the Ramon-Espinosa expedition, was the second attempt by Spain to form a permanent settlement in the province of Tejas. Spanish authorities intended the presidio to prevent the expansion of illicit French trade into the Texas frontier. When Ramon reached the Neches River in 1716, he established the first site of the Presidio Nuestra Senora de los Dolores de los Tejas and four missions within two weeks of arrival. He then established two more missions after initial settlement. The native inhabitants of the region, the Hasinai Caddo (Tejas) nation, tolerated the presence of the presidio and cooperated with Spanish authorities to repel the French. Ramon's tenure at Presidio Dolores came to an end when its easternmost mission, San Miguel, was attacked in 1719 by French Lt. Philippe Blondel, commandant of Fort Saint Jean Baptiste. Despite the minor nature of the attack, members of the presidio and its six missions abandoned East Texas for the safety of San Antonio de Bexar. Ramon never returned to Presidio Dolores. He continued his career at the Presidio Nuestra Senora de Loreto located on La Bahia del Espiritu Santo (Matagorda Bay). The Ramon-Espinosa expedition facilitated the establishment of El Camino Real de los Tejas, arguably the most important route for travel in Texas during the Spanish colonial period. (2015)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1716 Captain Domingo Ramon led Spain's second attempt to plant a permanent settlement in East Texas, establishing a presidio and a cluster of missions near the Neches River in just weeks. The Hasinai Caddo tolerated and cooperated with the newcomers, who aimed to block illicit French trade pressing in from Louisiana. A minor French raid in 1719 scattered the fragile settlements, but the Ramon-Espinosa expedition had already helped open El Camino Real de los Tejas.
Why it matters
The route Ramon's expedition helped establish became colonial Texas's most important road, linking missions, presidios, and settlements for a century.
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Related people
- · Domingo Ramon
- · Diego Ramon
- · Philippe Blondel
Related events
- · Ramon-Espinosa expedition (1716)
- · Establishment of El Camino Real de los Tejas
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
San Patricio Rancho
Douglass, TX
By the late 1790s traders William Barr and Samuel Davenport had settled on the site of the old Presidio Dolores and renamed their grant for Saint Patrick. Holding a Spanish monopoly to trade with the region's Native peoples, they built a network of ranches and river crossings along El Camino Real that supplied soldiers, sheltered travelers, and exchanged goods for furs and livestock. Caddo communities lived within these grants, and the crossing here on the Angelina River was a required stop between Nacogdoches and San Antonio.
Louis Juchereau de St. Denis
Douglass, TX
A French-Canadian trader and diplomat, Louis Juchereau de St. Denis moved with rare ease among the Spanish, French, and Caddo worlds of the early 18th-century borderlands. Sent from Louisiana after a Spanish priest sought French help, he crossed into Spanish Texas, won over authorities in Mexico City, and guided the 1716 expedition that planted missions and a presidio in East Texas. From his base at Natchitoches he supplied the missions and traded—often illicitly—with the Caddo, becoming both indispensable and, to Spanish eyes, dangerous.
Pine Springs Campground
Weches, TX
Long before Europeans arrived, the Tejas Indians favored this spring-fed grove for its game and fresh water, and the site kept drawing travelers for centuries afterward. Sitting beside El Camino Real — the King's Highway that linked Spanish missions and presidios across the province — it hosted explorers, missionaries, traders, and later the wagon trains of 19th-century pioneers who circled up in the trees to rest. Hunting parties would camp here for weeks at a stretch well into the settlement era.
Governor Martin de Alarcon in East Texas
Nacogdoches, TX
Martin de Alarcon became governor of Spanish Texas in 1716 with a mandate to plant a secure presidio along the San Antonio River to supply the frontier missions. In 1718 his expedition founded the villa of San Fernando de Bexar—today's San Antonio—along with the mission San Antonio de Valero, later famous as the Alamo. Though missionaries resented his crackdown on French trade, his settlement and the turmoil that followed a 1719 French raid laid the foundations for one of Texas's great cities.