American History on El Camino Real de los Tejas

Many roads claim to take you on a ride through history. But El Camino Real de los Tejas does that quite literally.

El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail, also called the Old San Antonio Road, covers roughly 2,500 miles from Laredo, TX, to Natchitoches, LA. Its origins stretch back to the late 17th and early 18th centuries, when it served as a royal road (or camino real) in Spanish Texas.

The road’s name, like that of the state of Texas, stems from the Caddo Native Americans. The Spanish called them the “Tejas” after a Caddo word meaning “friend” or “ally.”

Unlike most roads RoadRUNNER features, it’s difficult to define a single route that El Camino Real takes. Even a brief glance at official maps reveals that El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail consists of a sprawling collection of roads, paths, and trails—some of which no longer exist.

The jumbled character of the trail is not a coincidence but a result of very real historical patterns or migration and colonization. Due to French encroachment on the territory, Spaniards attempted to push into southeastern Texas and western Louisiana in several waves.

Not all attempts were successful. The Spanish abandoned the first missions built in east Texas in the 1690s after the Caddo strongly suggested they go back or face a quick and unpleasant end.

In 1716, a larger-scale colonization began, and the Spaniards stretched El Camino Real to Louisiana. There, they founded the fort of Los Adaes as the capital of Spanish Texas, just 12 miles west from the French outpost of Natchitoches.

However, life at the Spanish frontier wasn’t easy. El Camino Real’s immense length and dangerous conditions practically cut off the eastern regions from the colonial Spanish heartland. In fact, with poor land and weather, Los Adaes survived mostly through illegal trade with its western French enemies.