Where Men Were Spanked

The Whipping Oak

There is a public gathering spot called Central Park in the middle of the town square across the street from the county courthouse in Seguin, Texas. On the northern edge of Central Park stands a group of live oak trees. One of these large oaks was used by early courts for the punishment of those found guilty of breaking the law, harsh punishment by use of whip. Runaway slaves, thieves, and wife-beaters were among those who received such punishment.

On the side of one oak, a 3-inch iron ring still usable today, is embedded in the tree about five feet from the ground. It was to this ring that the prisoners were tied for their lashing. The number of lashes was always prescribed by the court. One court in 1846 gave the following sentence: "...as many licks as (a certain settler) had given his wife.” Sometimes the sheriff wielded the whip and sometimes the court hired someone at 10 cents per lash.

Being sentenced to receive lashes was the most feared punishment by lawbreakers. Lawmen and many citizens deemed it more effective than sitting in jail for a few days. For wife beaters, judges thought sentencing the convicted man to jail for a while would just end up being much harder on the poor wife when the man got out. They must have had a point as it was noted there were far fewer men who committed crimes again after a lashing at the post then those who had just sat in jail as punishment. 

The punishment was public and, thinking it would be a good deterrent by putting the fear of the whip in their minds, everyone was encouraged to attend. Often, the lashing would be scheduled at lunchtime so spectators who wanted to see it could get off work and have a picnic during the beating. 

The local Texas Mercury newspaper printed a description of one lashing - 

"The shackled accused was stripped of his clothing in front of all who wished to witness the prisoner receive his licks. As his bound arms were raised, the sheriff fastened his wrists to the iron ring implanted in the tree roughly five feet above the ground. The murmuring of the crowd was suddenly silenced as the sheriff began to raise his four-foot rawhide whip to proceed with the punishment. The lashing of the whip could be heard hitting the bare body of the convicted from blocks away. With every whack, whack, whack a painful moan was heard from the accused as he cringed in agony. The crowd which had grown in large numbers flinched with every blow and a slight gasp would follow. The ten strokes were delivered so slowly it took ten minutes to complete. Though no skin was broken, large raised red markings were visible."  

It also reported one of the spectators that day said, "The sheriff did a real nice job of it. In my opinion though, the sheriff did not hit him as hard as my own pa used to hit me."

When I visited "The Whipping Oak," it was a beautiful, sunny day, a perfect afternoon to enjoy a picnic in Sequin's peaceful, shady Central Park. Of course, there wasn't a crowd of onlookers straining to see a man being lashed with a whip, no rawhide whistling through the air, and no painful moans could be heard. I leaned up against that oak tree with the iron ring embedded in the trunk and for a moment I closed my eyes. I know it was just my imagination, at least I'm pretty sure it was, but while leaning against the rough bark, I swear I heard the subtle, but anguished cries of an abusive husband vowing to never strike his innocent wife again. 

Miracle of the Lady in Blue

One of the most fascinating stories of early Texas is of the missionary efforts of a Spanish nun who worked in Texas from 1620 to 1631. She instructed various Indian tribes in the Catholic Faith and told them how to find the Franciscan Mission in New Mexico to ask for priests to come to baptize their people. Her name was Mother Mary of Jesus of Agreda, a nun who never left her Convent in Spain.  

For six years, beginning in 1623, small delegations of Jumanos Indians had come at the same time each year to Isleta, a Pueblo mission near present day Albuquerque, to speak to Fr. Juan de Salas, a much respected missionary who had established the church there in 1613. Each year, the Indians requested a mission be established in their lands and spoke about a woman who had sent them. They were the first to report the visits of the “Lady in Blue.” But the story was disregarded as impossible. Also, to travel from Isleta into the middle of Texas was a long and very dangerous trek – over 300 miles through the hostile lands of the Apache. At that time, the missionaries lacked both the priests and the necessary soldiers to make the trip and establish a new outpost, so the mission was delayed.

Then, in the summer of 1629, a larger delegation of 50 Indians arrived at Isleta requesting priests to return with them and baptize their people.  That year, a messenger was sent to Superior Friar Alonso de Benavides about the strange story of a lady who was supposedly teaching the Catholic faith to the Indians. 

Friar Benavides, who had recently arrived to be in charge of all mission work and who had heard the story of the miracle back in Spain, was very interested to know more. He decided to question the Indian party and ask how they had come to have knowledge of the Faith. In his Memorial to Pope Urban VIII, he reported the results of his inquiry: “We called the Jumanos to the monastery and asked them their reason for coming every year to ask for baptism with such insistence. Seeing a portrait of Mother Luisa (another Spanish Franciscan sister in Spain) in the monastery, they said, ‘A woman in similar clothing wanders among us there, always preaching, but her face is not old like this, but young and beautiful.’

“Asked why they had not told us this before, they answered, ‘Because you did not ask and we thought she was here also.’” The Indians called the woman the “Lady in Blue” because of the blue mantle she wore. She would appear among them, the Jumanos representatives said, and instruct them about the true God and His holy law. The party, which included 12 chiefs, included representatives of other tribes, allies of the Jumanos. In Fr. Benavides’s 1630 Memorial, he notes that they told him “a woman used to preach to each one of them in his own tongue.” It was this woman who had insisted they should ask the missionaries to be baptized and told them how to find them. At times, they said, the 'Lady in Blue' was hidden from them, and they did not know where she went or how to find her. 

Fr. Benavides quickly put together the needed men and materials for a visit to the area requested by the Indians. After traveling several hundred miles east through the dangerous Apache territory, the weary expedition was met by twelve Indians from the Jumanos tribe. They had been sent to greet them and protect them on the last few days journey, they said, by the 'Lady in Blue' who had told them of their location. As the friars drew near the tribe, they saw in amazement a procession of men, women and children coming to meet them. At its head were Indians carrying two crosses decorated with garlands of flowers. With great respect the Indians kissed the crucifixes the Franciscans wore around their necks. 

Fr. Benavides wrote in his report that they learned from the Indians the same nun had instructed them as to how they should come out in procession to receive them, and she had helped them to decorate the crosses. Many of the Indians immediately began to demand to be baptized. The missionaries found the Indians were already instructed in the Faith and eager to learn more. Their astonishment increased as messengers arrived from neighboring Indian tribes who pleaded for the priests to come to them also. They said the same lady in blue had catechized them and told them to seek out the missionaries for baptism. 

The next year, in his Memorial of 1630, a report on the state of the missions and colony, Frier Benavides made a precise account of the Indians who had been instructed by the “Lady in Blue.” His Memorial of 1634, written after he had returned to Spain and personally met and visited with Mother Mary of Agreda in late 1631, also describes that meeting and his favorable impression of the nun. She informed him that beginning at the age of 25, she could, in a trance-like state, travel over the oceans to the New World and while there, instruct the native peoples in the Catholic faith. She said that even though she spoke Spanish, the Indians understood her, and she understood them when they replied in their native dialect. On her first two visits, she reported, the natives were afraid of her and shot her with arrows. She felt the pain of the arrows entering her body, but when she awoke from her trance, she was fine and her body had no wounds. On her next visit, she said she admonished them to stop shooting arrows into her and to listen to her words of salvation. They did and she went on to visit and preach to them hundreds of times over nearly eleven years. She reported she then lost the ability to be in two places at once and her visits to the New World stopped.

Over 50 years later in 1687, Franciscan Damian Massanet had established Mission San Francisco de los Tejas, the first mission in East Texas. In his report, he tells of an incident that took place on his expedition while they were distributing clothing to a group of Indians. Their chief asked for a piece of "blue baize" for a shroud to bury his mother in when she died. Fr. Massanet wrote, “I told him that cloth would be better, and he said that he did not want any other color than blue. I asked then what mystery was attached to the color blue, and the governor said that they were very fond of blue, particularly for burial clothes, because in times past a very beautiful woman visited them there, who descended from the heights, and that this woman was dressed in blue and that they wished to be like her."  Massanet asked how long ago this happened and the chief said it was before his time, but that his mother, who was very old, had seen her, as had the other very old people. 

In 1689, Spanish explorer Alonso de Leon made his fourth expedition into Texas, arriving in the area between the current day towns of Paint Rock and Concho. In his hand-written report giving a detailed record of the expedition, he said some of the Indians encountered were already partly instructed in the Catholic Faith because of the visits to their forefathers of a "Lady in Blue." He wrote, “They perform many Christian rites, and the Indian chief asked for missionaries to instruct them, saying that many years ago a woman went inland to instruct them, but that she had not been there for a long time.” 

Finally, in 1699, Captain Mateo Mange traveled with Jesuit priests Eusebio Francisco Kino and Adamo Gil on another expedition into the same area. Captain Mateo reported that while talking with some very old Indians, the explorers asked them if they had ever heard their elders speak about a Spanish captain passing through their region with horses and soldiers. They were trying to find information about earlier expeditions.  The Indians told them that they could remember hearing of such a group from the old people who were already dead. Without prompting, they said that when they were children a beautiful white woman, dressed in white, brown and blue, with a cloth covering her head, had come to their land. They reported, “She had spoken, shouted and harangued them … and showed them a cross." They said some of the Indian warriors were afraid and shot her with arrows, leaving her for dead on two occasions. Reviving, she disappeared into the air. They did not know where her house and dwelling was. After a few days, she returned again and then many times after to preach to them.

Mother Mary of Agreda, "The Lady in Blue," continued her Godly ways, assuming the role of Abbess, the highest ranking nun in her convent, a position she held for the rest of her life. She never left Spain and there were no more reports of her bi-locating to teach the Indians in America. She passed peacefully from this life in 1665. 

Inspired by their love and respect for the Lady in Blue, a story has been passed down by the Jumanos Indians. According to the tale, after the Franciscans came to baptize the people, the Lady in Blue told the Indians that her visits were at an end. When she left them that last time, the hillside where she had appeared was blanketed with beautiful blue flowers, a memory of her presence among them. That flower came to be known as the Bluebonnet. Today, it is the state flower of Texas.