Facundo Melgares, called to see the governor…
May 1806 CE
May 30, 1806, is tasked with detaining Thomas Jefferson's explorers of the region, Lewis and Clark (which Pedro Vial before him had twice failed to do); resisting American settlement at the Red river; exploring New Mexico to the Missouri River; and negotiating a treaty with the Pawnee in which they will prevent the Anglo-American egress.
Melgares was born in 1775 in Caravaca, Murcia, Spain, to an aristocrat family.
A member of the family was a judge of the Audiencia of New Spain.
Melgares had received a good education and military training and reached the position of lieutenant.
Melgares had begun his military career with the assistance of his father-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel Albert Maynez, a future governor of New Mexico and assistant to the commanding general of the Western Provinces, based in Chihuahua, Chihuahua.
Stationed near the northern border of the Spanish territory, he had remained at that post for approximately ten years.
In 1803, Melgares had enlisted at the Presidio of San Fernando de Carrizal, south of El Paso del Norte, and had taken part in battles against the Apaches, who raid the settlements along the Rio Grande.
Melgares had been tasked with suppressing the Pawnee, who had attacked a Spanish scouting party.
He arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a force of sixty well-equipped soldiers.
The Louisiana purchase had not made a well defined boundary of the Spanish - US border (and the border of Arkansas will not be made certain until 1819).