1796 Spanish Colonial Rancho of Bernardo D'Ortolan

Following the Treaty of Paris in 1763, East Texas Spanish missions and presidio los adaes were closed and the inhabitants moved to San Antonio, but a group of settlers returned to the Nacogdoches area. Over the next few decades, the area thrived. Don Bernardo D’ortolan (1750-1821), a French native, rose quickly to the rank of captain within the Spanish militia, worked as an Indian interpreter for the Spanish, and was a member of the De Mezieres expedition to Bexar in 1778-1779.

D’ortolan was transferred to the Nacogdoches area in 1796 after a conflict with French loyalists during the Natchitoches revolt of 1795. He lived as a farmer on this land along El Camino Real de Los Tejas, dubbed “Rancho San Bernardo del Loco.” D’ortolan lived with his two sons and nine slaves, including Marie Juana and her six children.

His relationship with Marie Juana appears complex, as he saw to it that several of her children were baptized. In 1808, Marie Juana petitioned the governor of texas to allow her to buy the freedom of her oldest son, and, though D’ortolan protested, her petition was granted. Despite D’ortolan’s occasional cruelty toward slaves, he granted in his will that his slave, Raphael, be emancipated following D’ortolan’s death.

Rapahel was left in charge of the rancho when D’ortolan was forced to leave Nacogdoches in 1813 due to his involvement with the Gutierrez-Magee revolt. D’ortolan’s son, Raymond, inherited the rancho, and it remained in the family until the 1840s. This site of D’ortolan’s home bears a witness to the turbulent, multi-cultural world of the pre-republic period in East Texas.