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Apaches bury the hatchet
On this day in 1749, four Apache chiefs, accompanied by numerous
followers, buried a hatchet along with other weapons in a peace ceremony
in San Antonio. The ceremony signified the Apaches' acceptance of
Christian conversion in exchange for Spanish protection from Comanche
raids, which had decimated the Apache population. Five years later Giraldo
de Terreros established San Lorenzo, the first formal mission for the
Texas Apaches, in the jurisdiction of San Juan Bautista in Mexico. When
the Apaches revolted and abandoned the mission less than a year later, the
missionaries argued in favor of a new mission closer to Apache territory.
Construction of the ill-fated mission of Santa Cruz de San Sabá, in the
heart of Apachería, began in April 1757; on March 16 of the following
year, a party of 2,000 Comanche and allied Indians killed eight of the
inhabitants and burned the mission buildings.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- APACHE INDIANS
- TERREROS, ALONSO GIRALDO DE
- SANTA CRUZ DE SAN SABA MISSION
- SPANISH MISSIONS
- SPANISH TEXAS
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Pioneer Methodist missionary enters Texas (1837)
- John Selman kills John Wesley Hardin (1895)
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