SÁENZ DE SAN ANTONIO, MATÍAS (?-1754). Fray Matías Sáenz de San Antonio was a member of the Holy Gospel Province of Mexico City before 1707. He entered the missionary College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas^qv shortly after it was founded in 1707 and was one of the Zacatecan missionaries who went to Texas with the Ramón expedition^qv in 1716. After serving two years at Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches Mission, he was sent by Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús^qv to Mexico City in 1718. Reporting to the viceroy on the difficult plight of the Texas missions, he warned that the settlements were in danger of being lost to the French, who had established posts on the Mississippi and Red rivers. Before he could return to Texas, he was elected guardián of the college on February 1, 1719, and took office the following summer. In 1724 Sáenz went to Rome as a representative of both his own college and the College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro.^qv After reporting to the Vatican on the state of the Texas missions, he went to Spain and remained there about five years. In May 1729 he appeared before the Council of the Indies to ask for twelve additional missionaries on behalf of Fray Miguel Sevillano de Paredes,^qv guardián of Santa Cruz de Querétaro. In November 1730 he arrived at Veracruz with the twelve priests and a lay brother. Back at Guadalupe de Zacatecas, Sáenz served as the prefect of the missions of both colleges for seven years. Sometime after 1744 he joined the College of San Fernando de México. He died there on April 10, 1754.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Benedict Leutenegger and Marion A. Habig, The Zacatecan Missionaries in Texas, 1716-1834 (Austin: Texas Historical Survey Committee, 1973). Robert S. Weddle, San Juan Bautista: Gateway to Spanish Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968).

Robert S. Weddle