Diego Ortiz Parrilla ( 1715 - November 1775) was an 18th-century Spanish military officer, governor, explorer, and cartographer.
Early life Diego Ortiz Parrilla was born in Villa de Lúcar, Almería, Spain to a family of distinguished nobility. His exact date of birth is unknown, though he was likely born in 1715.
Military career Early service In 1734, Diego Ortiz Parrilla began his military service as an alférez in a dragoon regiment stationed in Almanza. There are conflicting accounts of his early years in the service, and it has been suggested that Parrilla either began his career fighting "the Moors" or was immediately sent off to serve in Cuba. Parrilla served in Cuba until 1746 when his superior officer, Don Juan Francisco de Güemes, was appointed Viceroy of New Spain and brought key military officers (including Parrilla) with him to Mexico City. Parrilla served as a dragoon captain at the presidio in Veracruz, and in January 1747 led a Spanish military action to suppress a Native revolt in Puebla de los Angeles. In June 1747, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
Governor of Sinaloa and Sonora Parrilla was appointed as the interim Governor and Captain-General of Nuevo Reyno de Andalucía (later called "Sinaloa and Sonora") on 27 March 1749, and swore his oath of office before the Royal Audiencia of Guadalajara on 12 September. He was also put in charge of Presidio del Pitic, which had recently been moved from its original site (present-day Hermosillo) to what would later become San Miguel de Horcasitas. As part of his new assignment, Parrilla was instructed to destroy the Seri people and their allies: the Carrizos, the Salineros, and the Tiburones. Parrilla imprisoned 252 Native people of all ages and sexes in order to forcibly relocate them and weaken the resistance movement. Assisted by Luis Oacpicagigua, he then captured Tiburón Island and forced its inhabitants from their homeland. Following his successful invasion, Parrilla became the first European to map the island. Although he succeeded in securing their territory, Parrilla failed to wipe out the Native people he had been ordered to destroy; nonetheless, he was promoted to colonel in February 1751.
The Pima Revolt resulted in the deaths of over 100 people over the course of three months in 1751-52. As governor, Parrilla settled a dispute between the militia organized by Luis Oacpicagigua and the Jesuit missionaries who had been targeted in the uprising, pardoning the Native people involved and inspiring a deep resentment among the missionaries of New Spain.
Red River Campaign San Sabá Mission
Diego Ortiz Parrilla was replaced as Governor of Sinaloa and Sonora in 1752 and reassigned to his old posting as a dragoon captain at Veracruz. In 1756, Parrilla received notice that his father had died. Being his father's eldest son, Parrilla was granted permission to return to Spain for one year in order to claim his estate. However, his return trip was put on hold when he was appointed commandant of San Sabá de la Santa Cruz, a proposed mission for converting Plains Apache people to Catholicism. Parrilla was given orders to take command of the San Xavier Presidio where the commandant, Felipe de Rábago y Terán, had recently been removed for misconduct. He was then to move the fort to the banks of the San Sabá River. Parrilla made it clear that he did not believe the Apache people were open to conversion, and became personally involved in a feud between two rival factions within the missionary group led by the frays Mariano de los Dolores y Viana and Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, who disagreed about where the mission should be established. Parrilla had visited the site preferred by Dolores and found it very agreeable, but Terreros was president of the mission and his cousin, Pedro Romero de Terreros, was its benefactor; the latter accused Parrilla of wasting time and money by furthering the feud rather than ending it.
Despite his doubts over the viability of the mission and the likelihood of converting any Native people, Parrilla eventually followed through with his orders and arrived at the San Sabá River on 17 April 1757. After exploring the valley, Parrilla established a new fort to protect the missionaries at a site one mile west of present-day Menard, Texas, becoming the first commander of the Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas. Parrilla oversaw geological surveys which searched for mineral deposits and studied ores from the Las Almagres Mine, which would later become well known after it was lost and eventually sought out by treasure hunters such as American frontiersman James Bowie. A log stockade was also built at the fort. The missionaries, distrustful of Parrilla for his handling of the Pima Revolt and the feud months earlier, established their mission to the northeast of the fort.
Over the course of the next eleven months, Parrilla began to fear that a raid on San Sabá was inevitable, and asked the missionaries to relocate to the site of the presidio for protection, but they declined. A 2,000-strong Comanche army attacked the San Sabá de la Santa Cruz mission on 16 March 1758, killing eight or ten people including two missionaries: mission president Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, and Joseph de Santiesteban. The mission site was burned down. The remaining settlers fled to the fort, where Parrilla and his soldiers defended against the raiders as they attempted to besiege it for several days. In December, a Comanche-led militia armed with muskets attacked and killed a group of Apache men near the presidio, killing 21 of them. Another attack occurred in March 1759 when the same raiders responsible for the massacre one year earlier again struck at San Sabá, killing the 19 men guarding the presidio's herd and stealing 750 horses.
Following the initial siege, Parrilla buried the victims of the massacre and searched the destroyed mission for salvageable materials, noting that, among other things, the mission's effigy of Saint Francis of Assisi had fallen from its pedestal, causing the head to break off from the rest of the bust. Writing to the military leadership in Mexico City, he suggested that missionary work at San Sabá be abandoned so he could lead a campaign against the "Norteños", or "northern tribes". As he did so, Parrilla refused requests from his troops to relocate the presidio to a more secure location. Jacinto de Barrios y Jáuregui, the Governor of Texas, supported the plan. Communication between the fort and Mexico City was difficult due to the long distances and the indecisiveness of authorities in the capital, but Parrilla eventually received formal approval for his operation and began planning his movements on 3 January 1759 at the San Antonio de Béxar Presidio. Although the raids against San Sabá had been led by the Comanche, the decision was made not to seek reprisals against them as their territory was too far away. Instead, he focused on targeting the Tawakoni, Tonkawa, and Wichita nations. Parrilla turned down offers from French officials to negotiate a peace between New Spain and the Indigenous nations opposing the colony.
Parrilla left San Antonio in mid-August with a force composed of 139 Spanish regulars and 241 militiamen; as well as 134 Apache and 30 Tlaxcaltecan troops who resided at the San Sabá Mission. Two priests accompanied the army. The soldiers had been drawn from every presidio in Texas as well as some in northern Mexico. The army was equipped with 1,500 horses, hundreds of mules, two cannons, and four months' worth of provisions largely made up of beans, corn, dry beef, and flour.
As they advanced further north, hunters with the army would venture out in search of bison to kill for food, and scouts repeatedly delayed their advances by confusing the tracks of the hunters for the Native people they were pursuing. On 1 September, they made camp in the ruins of the San Sabá Mission, and remained there until 7 September. The campaign's first engagement with Native forces occurred on 1 October, 150 leagues northeast of San Sabá at the Clear Fork of the Brazos River. The Spanish launched a surprise attack on a Tonkawa village, killing 55 people (including five women and five children) and taking 149 more as prisoners; two Apache soldiers were wounded, and two horses were killed. While looting the village, Parrilla's army was able to recover 100 of the horses stolen from the San Luis Presidio San Luis in March.
Battle of the Twin Villages
The most severe fighting in the campaign occurred on 7 October 1759 at the Battle of the Twin Villages, where Parrilla and his men were ambushed near two Taovaya villages, located on either side of the Red River on the site of modern-day Spanish Fort and southern Jefferson County. The army was attacked by 60-70 warriors who charged them from the woods and then retreated. Parrilla ordered his men to pursue their attackers, leading them into the woods and onto a sandbank.
The sandbank was adjacent to the village the Native soldiers had fortified with breastworks, as well as a stockade made of split logs. The stockade encircled half of the village with the other half protected by the river, and a moat protected the wall from any mounted attacks. A large corral had been established within the fortress walls, protecting the civilians inside. According to Parrilla, the defending force was flying a French flag over their fort and was armed with French muskets. Estimations place the number of people defending the fort at 500-6,000. Large fields of beans, maize, pumpkins, and watermelons located upriver from the village supplied them with food.
As they began to sink into the sand, the Spanish withdrew out of musket range to assess the situation. The road away from the site was being defended by men on horseback, also armed with muskets. At some point during the battle, Parrilla was shot in the arm. Their position offered a serious disadvantage to the Europeans, whose horses were sinking knee-deep into the sand. In his report on the battle, Parrilla would describe their enemy as having "the advantage in arms and determination".
Surrounded by gunfire from two angles and with no avenue for retreat, Parrilla organized his troops with Spanish soldiers in the middle and his Native auxiliaries protecting against flanking manoeuvres. The Europeans armed their cannons and fired eleven times at the stockade, but did no damage to it. The mounted fighters would strike at the flanks and the main body of the army repeatedly before pulling back to swap out their firearms for ones that had been reloaded by support units out of range of the Europeans' guns. Gradually, the Spanish were encircled. At least 19 Spanish soldiers deserted, as did most or all of their Native allies. Around nightfall, Parrilla called off the offensive after four hours of fighting failed to overwhelm the Natives and resulted in the deaths of 19 Spanish soldiers and 14 non-fatal casualties, as well as 19 desertions. Under the cover of darkness, he ordered his men to retreat, leaving behind the two cannons and the army's provisions. In his report to military authorities after the battle, Parrilla declared it a success, alleging that he had inflicted at least 100 casualties on their troops and had killed the Taovaya chief, but these details were not verified. The Spanish made camp a short distance from the village, and the next day moved further along the river to a location with better pastures. A full day was spent tending to the wounded.
Retreat Parrilla and his army were left without the weapons or supplies necessary to continue their invasion, so they retreated to San Sabá, finally arriving at the presidio on 25 October after 17 days. Conflicting accounts of the retreat either state that the army was pursued the entire way, or that they were not followed at all and reports to the contrary were invented by Parrilla's political enemies.