Pedro Vial

Pedro Vial, or Pierre Vial (c. 1746 in Lyon, France – October 1814 in Santa Fe, New Mexico), was a French explorer and frontiersman who lived among the Comanche and Wichita Indians for many years. He later worked for the Spanish government as a peacemaker, guide, and interpreter. He blazed trails across the Great Plains to connect the Spanish and French settlements in Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, and Louisiana. He led three Spanish expeditions that attempted unsuccessfully to intercept and halt the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Vial comes to the notice of history in 1779 when he visited Natchitoches and New Orleans, Louisiana. He was described by Spanish authorities as a "gunsmith...who usually lives among the savage nations." At that time, he had already lived for several years with the Taovaya, a Wichita tribe in their twin villages on the Red River at Spanish Fort, Texas and in Jefferson County, Oklahoma. Vial spoke French, Wichita and halting Spanish. He communicated with the Comanche in Wichita which many of them spoke. The Spanish were suspicious about the activities of Vial, a Frenchman, and tried unsuccessfully to prevent him from living among the Indians.

In Autumn 1784, Vial came to San Antonio, the capital of Spanish Texas, with a delegation of two Frenchmen and four Wichita leaders to improve the strained relations between the Wichita and the Spanish. That being accomplished, the Spanish governor persuaded Vial to undertake a peace mission to the Comanche, who often raided Spanish settlements in Texas. Vial selected a 22-year-old Spaniard, Francisco Xavier Chaves (b. 1762—d. 1832) to accompany him. Cháves, born in New Mexico, had been captured by Comanche when he was eight years old and grew up among the Wichita and Comanche, speaking both languages. In 1784, Cháves had escaped from the Wichita and presented himself to Spanish authorities.

Vial and Cháves and two servants began their mission at Nacogdoches, Texas on July 23, 1785. They journeyed to the twin Taovaya villages on the Red River in company with two Taovaya leaders. The party arrived at the Taovaya villages (near present day Spanish Fort, Texas) on August 6. Vial's expedition to make peace with the Comanches found favor with the Taovaya and their close relatives, the Wichita, and they journeyed to meet the various bands of the Eastern Comanche (Cuchanees or Kotsoteka) on the Little Wichita River near present-day Wichita Falls, Texas. Vial persuaded several of the Comanche chiefs to accompany him to San Antonio for peace talks with the Governor. They arrived there on September 19 and concluded a peace agreement which lasted, with occasional lapses, for 35 years.

Building on the peace agreement with the Comanche, Vial volunteered to find a route from San Antonio to the Spanish settlements in New Mexico, there being no direct contact between the Spanish in Texas and New Mexico at this time. The governor ordered him also to castigate the Taovaya for a raid on the Spanish horse herd at San Antonio. Vial and a companion, Cristóbal de los Santos. set out from San Antonio on October 4, 1786 reached the twin villages of the Taovaya on December 28. After warning the Taovaya that their friendship with the Spanish was in danger, he continued on westward, following the Red River upstream, wintering among the Comanche near Wichita Falls, Texas and continuing on in spring through the Texas Panhandle, reaching Santa Fe, New Mexico on May 26, 1787, thus becoming the first European to cross the Great Plains from San Antonio to Santa Fe.

The Spanish in Santa Fe immediately sent a return expedition to San Antonio, but Vial remained in Santa Fe until June 24, 1788 when he undertook with several companions another crossing of the Great Plains, this time to Natchitoches, arriving on August 20. Once again, Vial benefited from Comanche guides. From Natchitoches, he traveled to San Antonio again, and then returned to Santa Fe, arriving on August 20, 1789 after a journey of more than 2,400 miles (4,000 km).

In 1792, Vial was ordered to cross the Great Plains again, this time to open communications between New Mexico and St. Louis, Missouri. He left Santa Fe, May 21, 1792, accompanied by two young men. East of the Pecos River, Vial encountered his former colleague, Francisco Xavier Chavés, who was en route to Santa Fe to visit his parents whom he had not seen since being captured by the Comanche 22 years earlier. Bygones being bygones, Chavés was now traveling with a group of Comanche.

Vial roughly followed the route of the later Santa Fe Trail in crossing the plains. Near the Arkansas River in Kansas, Vial encountered a party of Kaw Indians who took him and his companions captive, threatened to kill them, and took them to their village on the Kansas River. There, Vial was rescued by a French trader and continued his journey by boat down the Missouri River to St. Louis, arriving there on October 3, 1792. He remained in St. Louis until June 14, 1793 because of Osage raids which interrupted communications on the Missouri River. Vial returned to Santa Fe by roughly the same route, visiting the Pawnee en route and arriving in Santa Fe on November 15, 1793.