Welcome to Lepon Apocalypse. Episode 9, Unshared Sovereignty. I'm Brandon Seal.

Lipan Apache Captain Chiquito knew why the rent was late. It didn't make it any more excusable, though.

The Spanish governors of Texas understood that their, quote, principal responsibility, end quote, which was their own words to each other,

was the payment of the annual rents owed to Texas Indians, most notably the Lipanez and the Comanches.

And especially since American merchants had showed up in Louisiana after the Louisiana purchase.

Within a decade of the opening of a U.S. trading factory in Nacadish, official trade

topped $90,000 a year from the U.S., dwarfing the $4,000 in annual gifts that Spanish authorities

distributed, which made it all the more inexcusable and risky for a Spanish governor to miss

a rent payment. In some ways, though, Captain Chiquito might be able to Spanish governor to miss a rent payment.

In some ways, though, Captain Chiquito might have known more about the forces conspiring to undermine Spanish rule in Texas than the governor or even the viceroy did. Because by 1810, the Lippanes

had developed a multi-generational relationship with Tejanos in Texas, and in particular

with the Menchaca family, dating back to 1693. In that year, they had started his enemies, when a young

Spanish soldier named Jose de Urruthia went native and helped organize the Tejas in East Texas

to fight against the Apaches.

His son, Torribio, succeeded him as presidial commander at San Antonio and started off his career slaving and provoking the Lipanes into terrible acts of violence,

but then played a critical role in burying the hatchet in 1749.

His nephew-in-law, Luis Antonio Manchaca, would succeed Torribio and become a, quote-unquote, bosom

friend of the Lipanes during the years of Spanish Lipan alliance, and it would then be Luis

Antonio's son who was allowed to witness the solar eclipse ceremony in Peacax on Days camp in 1788

in a previous episode,

so that by the time that Luis Antonio's nephew, Miguel Menchaca, entered the scene,

the Lipan-Manchaca bond ran deep, and that bond ran right through Captain Chiquito,

...