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El Camino Real de los Tejas was the northeastern segment of a network of royal roads radiating from Mexico City. Terrain, weather, and relations with local tribes influenced travel, so many routes developed over time.

As European nations struggled for trade routes and territory in the Americas, they established military forts - called presidios in Spanish - to protect their claims from both other European nations and unfriendly indigenous groups.

The early trade routes established by the Caddo later supported European settlement as well as economic and political growth in Texas and Louisiana for over 300 years. When Europeans first arrived in Caddo territory, they found well-traversed trails connecting native cultural settlements. The Spanish built missions and posts along the main thoroughfares, which collectively became known as El Camino Real de los Tejas or the Royal Road to the Tejas.

Lacking major mountain ranges, Texas’ geography is shaped by its rivers. Rivers helped travelers determine distance, and they demarcated boundaries between Indigenous groups and, later, European and American settlers. Rivers were essential to Texans’ lives and livelihoods; they provided water for people and animals, irrigation for crops, and transportation between the coast and inland regions.

Like Spanish Texas in general, San Antonio began as a response to encroaching French forces. Spaniards used three distinct institutions to populate New Spain’s northern frontier and preserve it from foreign influence: presidios, missions, and civilian settlements. The various branches of El Camino Real de los Tejas carried goods, people, and information that helped missions achieve this goal.

Historians often cite the importation of large horse herds as one of the Spanish empire's biggest impacts on the Americas. Ironically, these very herds helped transform Comanches into Spain's most formidable rival.

Humans have moved across Texas for many years. Before Europeans arrived, Indigenous peoples established the trails that would become El Camino Real de los Tejas. Later, Europeans and Americans also entered Texas, leaving behind unique traces of their own migrations.

Traversed by horse, wagon, and foot for most of its history, El Camino Real de los Tejas changed forever with the introduction of the automobile in the early twentieth century. Many parts of the camino were paved and incorporated into state transportation networks. Thankfully, this shift to a modern highway system hasn’t erased the camino’s history, and the current highway system makes it possible to drive the historic trail from southwestern Texas into Louisiana.

Long before Europeans came to explore Texas, the people now known as Caddo had a well-developed trail system across their territory in East Texas. Major east-west and north-south trails led to and from important mound centers and established communities where significant social, political, and religious rituals and traditions, along with daily domestic activities, occurred.

The Caddo originated in the lower Mississippi Valley and spread west along the river systems. Sometime between 700 and 800 they settled the area between the Arkansas River and the middle reaches of the Red, Sabine, Angelina, and Neches rivers and adopted agriculture. They grew corn and pumpkins as primary crops which, later combined with beans and squash, stimulated population growth.

The early trade routes established by the Caddo later supported European settlement as well as economic and political growth in Texas and Louisiana for over 300 years. When Europeans first arrived in Caddo territory, they found well-traversed trails connecting native cultural settlements. The Spanish built missions and posts along the main thoroughfares, which collectively became known as El Camino Real de los Tejas or the Royal Road to the Tejas.

This timeline describes the European influence and interaction with the Caddo people, from the mid-1500's to the mid-1800's. Beginning in the early 1820s, increased Anglo migration into Caddo territory (“land grabs”) impacted the sacred Caddo landscape significantly. Read more about the impacts of the Anglo influence on the Caddo Nation over time.

Located where the southeastern woodlands meet the western prairies, the Caddo produced bountiful crops and were well placed to participate in exchange networks. Key trails fanning out as far afield as Florida; Casas Grandes, Arizona; Cahokia, Illinois; and the Rio Grande pueblos of New Mexico crossed Caddo country, linking the Caddo to distant Indian worlds and positioning them at a crossroads of trade.

The Caddo people trace their descent through the maternal line. They recognized and ranked clans, with marriage typically occurring between members of different clans. Religious and political authority in historic Caddo communities rested in a hierarchy of key positions shared between the various affiliated communities.

Over the course of more than 500 years, the Caddo developed powerful political chiefdoms, organized complex ranked societies, erected ceremonial centers and temple mounds, and participated in long-distance exchange networks. At their height, around 1300, they may have numbered more than 200,000 people.