Vol. X. OCTOBER, 1906. No. 2.
The publication committee and the editors disclaim responsibility for views expressed by contributors to The Quarterly.
This sketch of the founding of Mission Nuestra Señora del Rosario for the Karankawan Indian tribes of the Texas coast country was written as a by-product, so-to-speak, of a more extended task. It aims merely to set forth the general conditions in northern New Spain that led to a renewed attempt, after one failure, to subdue these tribes, and to a plan to colonize their territory and that along the coast to the southwest; to tell the story of the struggles, delays, and difficulties that attended the foundation of the mission that was established as one of the agencies in their reduction; and to convey an idea of the kind and degree of success that attended the first few years of its existence. If the historical importance of the founding of this mission were measured by the magnitude of the establishment or its success as a spiritual undertaking, it would, indeed, be small. But such is not the case, for the project of a Karankawan mission was an index of plans affecting an entire geographical region, and the story of its foundation reveals the motives underlying these plans and the conditions attending their execution. It is but fair to state that the circumstances of the preparation of the sketch have made necessarily brief the treatment of these broader considerations, and have determined its emphasis upon the Spanish relations with the coast tribes and the inner history of the mission.
When at the close of the seventeeth century the French and the Spaniards first attempted to occupy the Gulf coast in the neighborhood of Matagorda Bay, that region was the home of a group of native tribes now called Karankawan from their best known division. The principal tribes of this group, using the most common Spanish forms of the names, were the Cujanes, Carancaguases, Guapites (or Coapites), Cocos, and Copanes. They were closely interrelated, and all apparently spoke dialects of the same language, which was different from that of their neighbors farther inland. 2 Though the Carancaguas tribe has finally given its name to the group, it was not always the one best known to the Europeans or regarded by them as the leading one, for in the middle of the 18th century four of the tribes, at least, including the Carancaguas, were frequently considered collectively under the name Cujanes. 3
As these Indians did not occupy fixed localities, and as they mingled freely with each other, it is difficult to assign definite territorial limits to the different tribes; and yet in a general way the characteristic habitat of each can be designated with some certainty. The Carancaguases dwelt most commonly on the narrow fringe of islands extending along the coast to the east and the west of Matagorda Bay; the Cocos on the mainland east of Matagorda Bay about the lower Colorado River; the Cujanes and Guapites on either side of the bay, particularly to the west of it; and the Copanes west of the mouth of the San Antonio River about Copano Bay, to which the tribe has given its name.
Numerically the group was not large. A French writer of the seventeeth century estimates the “Quélancouchis”, probably meaning the whole Karankawan group, at four hundred fighting men, and the Spaniards, upon the basis of a closer acquaintance, in 1751 put the number, excluding the Cocos, at five hundred fighting men. 4
These tribes represented perhaps the lowest grade of native society in all Texas. Their tribal organization was loose, and their habits were extremely crude. With respect to clothing, they ordinarily went about in a state of nature. Being almost or entirely without agriculture, they lived largely on fish, eggs of sea-fowls, and sylvan roots and fruits, although they hunted buffalo and other game to some extent in the interior. They led a roving life, and therefore built only temporary habitations, consisting usually of poles covered or partly covered with reeds or skins. The Carancaguases, in particular, as has been said, dwelt on the islands; but during the hunting season and the cold winter months they migrated to the mainland. For these migrations they used canoes, which they managed with skill. Physically, the men were large and powerful, and they were correspondingly warlike. They were frequently at war with the interior tribes, and from their first contact with the whites they were regarded as particularly dangerous. Although their only weapons were the bow and the spear, 5 their island asylum and their skill with canoes made them unassailable in retreat, while horses, early secured from the Spaniards, increased their offensive strength. From very early times they were regarded as cannibals, and their religious superstitions were commensurate with their barbarity. Such Indians as these could hardly be called inviting material for the missionary.
Although the Karankawan tribes were among the very earliest of the Texas natives to come to the notice of the Spaniards, and were visited by them again during the first attempts at actual occupation of the country, efforts to control them were for some time delayed. The Caoques, or Capoques, met by Cabeza de Vaca on the Texas coast (1528-1534) are thought to have been identical with the Cocos of later times. 6 After this adventurer, their next white visitors were the French. La Salle's unfortunate colony (1685-9) on the Lavaca River had some of these tribes for neighbors, and was destroyed by them. It was among the Caocosi, the Cocos, very probably, that De León in 1690 rescued some captive survivors of this French colony. 7 Again, in 1721, the hostility of apparently the same tribes caused La Harpe to abandon his project of occupying the Bay of St. Bernard for France, and thus put an end to French attempts to control this coast. 8
Up to this time the Spaniards had seen but little of the Karankawan Indians since the first entradas from Mexico more than a quarter of a century before, and had made no attempt to subdue them. But in 1722 the Marqués de Aguayo established on the very site of La Salle's fort the presidio of Nuestra Señora de Loreto, more commonly called Bahía, and founded near by for the Cujanes, Guapites, and Carancaguases the mission of Espíritu Santo de Zuñiga. The presidio was left in charge of Captain Domingo Ramón, perhaps the same Ramón who had founded the second group of East Texas missions in 1716. Father Peña, 9 a member of Aguayo's expedition, recorded at the time in his diary that “it was seen that they [these three tribes] were very docile and would enter readily upon the work of cultivating the earth and their own souls, the more because they live in greater misery than the other tribes, since they subsist altogether upon fish and go entirely without clothing.” 10 By this utterance Peña proved himself either ignorant or defiant of history, a bad sociologist, and a worse prophet.
In a short time forty or more families of Cujanes, Carancaguases, and Guapites established their ranchería near the presidio, and others may have entered the mission; but scarcely had they done so before trouble began. In the fall of 1723 a personal quarrel arose between them and the soldiers. An attempt to punish an offending Indian resulted in a fight, the death of Captain Ramón, and the flight of the natives. 11 In a few weeks the Indians returned to make reprisals upon the lives and the goods of the soldiery—a practice which they kept up more or less continuously for the next twenty-five years. 12 Whether or not the garrison was to blame for the origin of the ill feeling, as it was claimed they were, can not be stated, but at any rate they showed little skill in dealing with this warlike people. 13
Discouraged by the hostility between the Indians and the soldiery, the missionary at Espíritu Santo removed his mission some ten leagues northwestward to the Guadalupe River, and labored among the Jaranames and the Tamiques, 14 non-coast tribes, of a different language, hostile to, and having a somewhat higher civilization than the Karankawans. 15 Shortly afterward the presidio was removed to the same site by Captain Ramón's successor. 16 The new location is apparently marked by modern Mission Valley, west of the Guadalupe and near the northwestern line of Victoria county. 17
Though the presidio and the mission had retreated from their midst, the Karankawan tribes remained hostile, and after Rivera's inspection, in 1727, there was little prospect of subduing them. Rivera's reports between 1728 and 1738 show that he regarded the Cujanes, Cocos, Guapites, Carancaguases, and Copanes all incapable of being reduced to mission life, 18 and that it was for this reason, mainly, that he considered projects for removing the presidio and the mission of Bahía now to the San Marcos, now to the San Antonio, and now to the Medina. A missionary at San Antonio wrote in 1751 that “the Cujanes were for some thirty years considered irreducible, and (according to various reports to be found in the Secretaría de Govierno), because irreducible, they were the principal obstacle to the presidio of la Bahía.” A little earlier he had written, “In truth, since the year 1733, when I came to this province, I have never heard that one of these Indians has attached himself to that mission (Espíritu Santo).” 19
Thus, with the exception of a few families of Cujanes and a few of Cocos who had found their way into the San Antonio missions, by 1750 no progress had been made toward converting or even subduing these Karankawan tribes. But now conditions in the provinces and the plans of the government led to a renewed and more successful attempt.
For some time the missionary field in Texas had tended rather to contract than to expand : but toward the middle of the eighteenth century a new wave of missionary activity made itself felt not only in this province, but in the whole coast country north of Pánuco. It was in a way a response to increased Indian troubles on the north Mexican frontier and to increasingly bold intrusions of the French among the northeastern tribes; and, although we must not underrate the zeal that still burned in the breast of the Franciscan friar, it is but truth to say that the dominant force behind this new missionary movement was mainly political—the desire to subdue unoccupied territory, protect the settlements, and to keep a controlling hand upon the frontier tribes to prevent them and their country from falling to a rival power. In Texas this activity showed itself in the plans for the coast country about to be described, and in the foundation of a number of new missions elsewhere for tribes hitherto neglected but now demanding attention. Among these missions were the three founded (about 1747) on San Xavier River 20 northeast of Austin, for tribes mainly of the Tonkawan group; Nuestra Señora de la Luz, (about 1756), on the lower Trinity River, for the Vidais and Orcoquizas; the mission at San Saba (1757) for the Lipan Apaches; San Lorenzo and Candelaria 21 (1762), south of San Saba, likewise for the Apaches; and possibly others. During this period, also, plans were considered, though unrealized, for missionizing the Towakana tribes of the Brazos, and the Yscanes farther to the northeast. 22 It has been customary to suppose that these missions were all failures, compared even with the standard of success attained by the earlier ones; but until the facts of their history are better known judgment may well be suspended. Certain it is that, the more we know about the régime of the Spaniards in these northern provinces, the more we discover that they had and did here, and the more charitable we become in judging their ultimate failure.
The founding of mission Rosario, as well as those enumerated above, was also part of this revived missionary movement, but more specifically, part of a plan to colonize and missionize the whole gulf coast country from Pánuco to the San Antonio River. This region had been the longest neglected stretch of coast country round the entire Gulf of Mexico. It had become a retreat for Indians who troubled the interior provinces of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, and the southern portion of it was suspected of having valuable mines. The government at Mexico decided, therefore, to subdue it by conquest, colonization, and missions. The person appointed to undertake this work was José de Escandón, one of the ablest men in Mexican history, who, some time before, had been made Count of Sierra Gorda for his notable pacification of that region. His appointment to the new commission dated from September 3, 1746. The territory assigned for him to subdue and colonize was called Colonia del Nuevo Santander, and extended from Pánuco to the San Antonio River. 23
Had the colonization of all New Spain been left to the care of men with Escandón's views and ability, the results of Spain's efforts would doubtless have been much greater than they actually proved to be. He was a firm believer in the superiority of civil pueblos over military garrisons or even missions as a means of subduing natives and securing new territory; and an essential feature of his plan for Nuevo Santander was to have the settlements of Mexican colonists sufficiently numerous and prosperous to make possible within a few years the withdrawal of the garrisons. 24
In 1746 and 1747 Escandón personally inspected the country to and along the Rio Grande, while under his instructions Captain Joaquín de Orobio y Basterra, commander at Bahía, in Texas, examined the region from the Guadalupe to the Rio Grande. Their reports contain the first detailed information that we have concerning the natives and the topography of many parts of this extended area. As an illustration, it may be noted that hitherto it was supposed that the Nueces River emptied into the Rio Grande. In consequence of these inspections Escandón recommended moving the mission and presidio from Bahía to a site on the lower San Antonio called Santa Dorotea (near modern Goliad), and projected the foundation of fourteen Spanish villas in the territory under his charge. One of these was to be villa de Vedoya, composed of fifty families, and situated at the mouth of the Nueces near the site of modern Corpus Christi. Adjacent to the town was to be the mission of Nuestra Señora de el Soto, to minister to the Zuncal, Pajasequeis (or Carrizos) Apatines, Napuapes, Pantapareis, and other tribes of the vicinity. Another of the fourteen towns was to be villa de Balmaceda, established with twenty-five families at Santa Dorotea. 25 The successful establishment of this villa would, he believed, make possible the suppression of the presidio of Bahía in three or four years, and thus remove the chief ground for hostility on the part of the coast Indians. 26
The plans for the southern half of the territory met with a large measure of permanent success. It was at this time that Laredo, Camargo, Reynosa, and several other settlements were founded along and south of the Rio Grande. That the outcome in the northern half was different was not the fault of Escandón. In accordance with his plan, the presidio of Bahía and the mission of Espíritu Santo were in 1749 moved some ten leagues southwest to Santa Dorotea; but the families sent to settle on the Nueces, fearing harm from the Indians, backed out, and were allowed to return and found instead the present town of Soto la Marina; while the plan to establish villa de Balmaceda failed because at the fiscal's instance Escandon was refused the requisite funds. Had the government supported Escandón in this and his subsequent efforts to plant colonies between the San Antonio and the Rio Grande, there seems no good reason why the Spanish hold might not have been made as secure in this region as it was beyond the Rio Grande. 27 But this it failed to do.
Nevertheless, the removal of Bahía to Santa Dorotea was followed by an effort to revive missionary work among the Karankawan tribes which resulted in the successful establishment of mission Rosario.
On April 14, 1750, the viceroy exhorted the missionaries at the new site to do all in their power to reduce, congregate, and convert the Cujanes, Carancaguases, and Guapites. They were to be treated with the utmost kindness, given presents, and promised, on behalf of the government, that if they would settle in a pueblo they would be given new missions, protected, and supplied with all necessaries. 28 Similar instructions were written to Captain Manuel Ramírez de la Piszina, the new commander of the presidio of Bahía.
If we may trust the reports of the missionaries and the captain, they went zealously to work among these three tribes in response to the viceroy's order. But little or nothing seems to have been accomplished until their rivals, the Querétaran friars at San Antonio, entered the same field. 29
At this time the Querétaran missions at San Antonio were short of neophytes, partly because of an epidemic that had made ravages among the mission Indians. 30 On the other hand these missions were just now under the direction of Father Fr. Juan Mariano de los Dolores, one of the leaders of the missionary revival which we have mentioned. For these reasons, and since the Karankawans had long been without mission influence, the Querétarans entertained the plan of gathering them, especially the Cujanes, 31 into their particular fold. Whether the idea originated with Father Santa Ana, former president of the San Antonio missions, but now in Mexico, or with Father Dolores, his successor now on the ground, does not appear; but it is through Santa Ana that we first learn of the project, while it was the latter who put it into execution. Early in 1750, in a private communication to Altamira, the auditor general of the viceregal government, Santa Ana made known the plan, intimating that he feared objections from the Zacatecan friars at Espíritu Santo, on the ground that the Karankawan tribes had once been assigned to that mission. 32 He doubtless knew, too, that the Zacatecans had recently been ordered to renew efforts on the coast. Altamira approved the project, saying that so long as these Indians remained in the forest they belonged only to the Devil, and that any one who wished was free to try his hand at winning them to the Lord. 33
The actual work from San Antonio was undertaken by Father Dolores with the aid of Fray Diego Martin Garcia. Before entering the field he first asked the consent of the principal missionary at Espíritu Santo, Fray Juan Joseph Gonzales. 34 Gonzales replied that such a procedure would be satisfactory to him, and that he would waive whatever right his mission possessed to these Indians. 35
The way was made easier for Dolores by the presence of the few Cujanes and Cocos previously mentioned as being at one of his missions. 36 Knowing by experience, as he said, “that presents were the most effective texts with which to open the conversion of savages,” he began the revival by sending to the Cujanes, early in 1751, a Coco mission Indian bearing gifts, 37 and a promise that a missionary would be sent to them. 38
In spite of the assurance that had been given to Dolores by Gonzales, this move of the former led very speedily to a politely worded but none the less spirited dispute between the two. In the competition that attended the dispute Espíritu Santo had decidedly the advantage of geographical position. The Cujanes were pleased with the evidence of good will—or better, perhaps, with the prospect of more gifts—and, without awaiting the arrival of the promised minister, fifty-four adults 39 set out for San Antonio to confer with Dolores. When on April 8 they reached the neighborhood of Santa Dorotea, or New Bahía, they were seen by some mission Indians. These warned Captain Piszina that hostile Cujanes were near by killing mission cattle. A squadron of soldiers and Indians was accordingly sent out, and the Cujanes, after a slight show of fight, were taken to the presidio, and here they remained, notwithstanding their previous intention to go to San Antonio. 40 Gonzales and Piszina claimed that the Cujanes were told that they might continue their journey, that no force was used to keep them at Bahía, and that it was only with misgivings and after deliberation that their request to be allowed to remain at the mission was granted. 41 But Dolores believed that if not force, then persuasion, had been used to rob him of the fruits of his efforts.
With a forbearance that might be called commendable, however, he held his peace, and made another attempt, which likewise resulted more to the advantage of the rival mission than of his own. Some of the Cujanes had returned from Bahía to their country and gathered ninety-five more Indians “of the Cujan, Copanes, Guapites, and Talancagues tribes.” On their way they stopped at Bahía, left their women and children, and went back to gather a larger number of their people, with the intention, Dolores understood, of going on with them to San Antonio. He thereupon sent a number of mules laden with such supplies as might be needed by the Indians on their way. 42 Shortly afterward a Coco arrived reporting that one hundred and five families were already collected near Old Bahía and that more were gathering, but that, unless horses were sent at once to transport them, they would be diverted to Bahía, just as the first band had been, there to remain. Dolores now lost no time in despatching Fray Diego Martin with horses and a Coco guide to assist in bringing in the Cujanes and their friends. 43
In a note written soon after this, Gonzales claimed that these Indians desired to remain at Bahía. 44 Thereupon Dolores entered a vigorous protest. He reminded Gonzales that he had once waived his right to the coast Indians, but was now enticing them to Espíritu Santo; that but for him (Dolores) the Cujanes and the rest would still be in the woods and at war with the Spaniards, as they had always been; that if after many years the Espíritu Santo mission had failed to subdue the Jaranames, whom they still claimed the right to monopolize, they could hardly expect to succeed with the additional task of subduing the Cujanes. Disclaiming a wish to quarrel, he requested Gonzales to find out for certain, by whatever means he chose, whether these Indians preferred to be at Bahía or at San Antonio, and promised to abide by the result, with these conditions, that in case they wished to come to San Antonio they must not be hindered, and that if they remained at Bahía he would send in a bill for the supplies he had given them. 45
Dolores was now called to the missions at San Xavier, and when he got back he found new cause for displeasure with the authorities at Bahía. In his absence Fray Diego Martin had returned with twenty-four Indians of the four tribes and the rather flimsy report that he might have brought five hundred had it not been for their fear that they would be prevented by the soldiers and missionaries at Bahía from going to San Antonio. Meanwhile none of the families who had stopped at Bahía had appeared in San Antonio; consequently, again conceding the point backed by the better argument of possession, Dolores advised the twenty-four to go to their friends at Bahía. But, by no means giving up his claim, he appealed both to the discretorio of his college and to Santa Ana for authority to bring the Cujanes to his missions. 46
Santa Ana took up the matter vigorously with the viceroy, with Andreu, the fiscal, and with Altamira, the auditor. He wrote letters, furnished documents, and sought personal interviews in defense of the rights of his college. He argued that until Dolores had pacified them the Karankawan Indians had always been hostile; that the Querétarans friars had been robbed of the fruits of their efforts by the Zacatecans, who had done nothing except to spoil a good work well begun; that by thirty years of idleness the latter had forfeited all the rights they ever had to the Karankawan field; and that nothing could be expected of them in the future. 47 In view of these considerations, he earnestly recommended that the work of converting these tribes might be entrusted to the Querétarans. 48
On the other hand, appeal was made to law 32, title 15, book I, of the Recopilacion de Indias, which provided that when one religious order had begun the conversion of a tribe it should not be disturbed by another. And thus the dispute went on until the end of 1752, when it was closed in effect by the fiscal's compromise decision that under the peculiar circumstances joint work among the tribes in question would be lawful and equitable, and by the viceroy's exhortation of all parties to coöperate in the work of saving Karankawan souls for the glory of `both majesties.' 49
Meanwhile, the possession of the Cujanes and the others had proved a very temporary advantage to the Espíritu Santo mission, and even during that short time these “first fruits and hostages of all that Gentile race” had added little to the mission's glory. While the Indians were there the missionaries succeeded in baptizing fifteen in articulo mortis; the rest deserted within a few weeks, so that at the end of 1751 none appear to have remained. To make matters worse, relations between the tribes and the Spaniards again became strained through the unexplained killing of five Cujanes by their hosts. 50
Altamira had at first favored Santa Ana's proposal to take the Cujanes to San Antonio. But when conflicting reports and news of the desertion of the Indians reached him he lost his patience and delivered himself of a generous amount of ill-natured truth about mission history, at the same time showing his hearty sympathy with Escandón's policy of settlement as a complement to the mission and as a substitute for the garrison. “All the foregoing,” he said, “but illustrates how, in this as in all like affairs of places at such long and unpeopled distances, come inopportune and irregular letters, proposals, representations, and petitions, that only leave the questions unintelligible. Thus in his report the captain [Piszina] begins by saying `In obedience to Your Excellency's superior order,' without saying what order, or without specifying what he considers necessary for the conversion of the Indians in question. This conversion he assumes as assured simply because a few of them have submitted, when he can not be ignorant of their notorious inconstancy. And Rev. Padre Santa Anna, who had experienced this inconstancy, on Dec. 20 plead the cause of these same Cujanes, only to report forty days after (on Jan. 31, of this year) that the occasion had passed because all of the Indians had deserted. This is what happens daily on those and all the other unsettled frontiers.
“The same will be true two hundred years hence unless there be established there settlements of Spaniards and civilized people to protect, restrain, and make respectable the barbarous Indians who may be newly congregated, assuring them before their eyes a living example of civilized life, application to labor, and to the faith. Without this they will always remain in the bonds of their native brutality, inherited for many centuries, as happens in the missions of the Rio Grande, of [East] Texas, and all the rest where there are no Spanish settlements, for the Indians there, after having been congregated fifty years or more, return to the woods at will.” 51
Notwithstanding the unflattering outcome of the enterprise thus far, the missionaries and the captain at Bahía, roused into activity by their rivals, continued their efforts to cultivate friendship with their traditional enemies, and, although conversions were few, they were otherwise comparatively successful. 52 During the next two years they spent considerable sums from their own pockets for presents and supplies, and Piszina made the occasion an excuse for asking the government for more soldiers, more money, and more missionaries. Writing in Dec., 1751, he said that the recent friendly attitude of the coast Indians, though favorable to missionary work, also increased the expenses and made more workers necessary, for the four tribes included under the name Coxanes would comprise five hundred warriors besides their families. Moreover, their conversion would make more soldiers necessary, since they were really more dangerous at peace than at war; for besides being treacherous themselves, the unfriendly Indians on the coast would visit their relatives at the mission and thus learn the weakness of the garrison. While, therefore, more missionaries and more supplies would be necessary before these tribes could be converted, their reduction would require an increase of soldiers to guard the Spaniards against the treachery of the neophytes and against their friends still upon the coast. Within two years Piszina made three such appeals to the viceroy. 53
By the end of this time the local authorities conceived the idea of founding a separate mission especially for the Cujanes and their friends, as a substitute for trying to reduce them at mission Espíritu Santo with Indians of another race. To effect this plan the best informed person, and probably the father of the project, Fray Juan de Dios Camberos, missionary at Espíritu Santo went to Zacatecas, and was sent thence by the college to Mexico. 54 His appointment was dated Feb. 26, 1754, and was signed by Fray Gaspár Joseph de Solís, guardian of the college, and later known in Texas by his tour of inspection among the missions. 55
In his communications to the viceroy of April 29, May 6, 7, and 30, Camberos set forth the situation and his plan. The Cujanes and their kindred, he said, were eagerly asking for a mission; so eager, indeed, that six of the chiefs of the Cujanes, Carancaguases, and Guapites were clamoring to be allowed to come to see the viceroy himself in reference to the matter. But it was inadvisable to put them into mission Espíritu Santo together with the Jaranames and Tamiques already there, for they were tribes of different languages, of different habits, and unfriendly. But to send them to San Antonio was equally impracticable, for they did not wish to leave the neighborhood of Bahía del Espíritu Santo, their native country. Even if the Indians were willing to be transplanted, experience had shown that this was bad policy, for the Pamaques and other tribes, removed to San Antonio from their native soil on the Nueces, had speedily become almost extinguished. This very consideration had caused General Escandón to order Captain Piszina not to allow the Indians of his district to be taken from their country. Moreover, if the mission were near the home of the Indians, fugitive neophytes could be easily recovered, whereas, if they were taken to San Antonio, the soldiers and missionaries would have to spend most of their time pursuing them.
Camberos advised, therefore, the establishment of a separate mission. But to save the expense of equipping a new one he recommended removing mission Nuestra Señora de los Ais from near the Sabine to the neighborhood of Bahía, and re-establishing it for the Cujanes. His arguments in favor of his plan are an interesting commentary, coming as they do from a zealous Zacatecan, upon the comparative failure of the East Texas missions. The three Zacatecan foundations in East Texas, San Miguel de los Adaes, Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Ais, and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches had been existing for more than thirty years, and yet, according to him, notwithstanding the untiring efforts of the missionaries to reduce the Indians to mission life, it was notorious that they had succeeded in little more than the baptizing of a few children and fewer adults upon the deathbed; and there was no hope that these tribes could ever be reduced to pueblos and induced to give up their tribal life. Under these circumstances four missionaries instead of five would suffice on that frontier. Since the Ais Indians consisted of only some forty families—perhaps two hundred persons—living within about fourteen leagues of mission Nacogdoches, 56 their mission could be suppressed, one missionary going to Nacogdoches to reside and from there ministering to the Ais, the other going to Bahía with the mission equipment, to work among the Karankawan tribes in question. 57
At first Andreu, the fiscal, disapproved the plan on the ground that with the padre so far away, travel so difficult, and the Ais Indians so indifferent, they would lose not only the wholesome example of the missionary in their daily life, but even the slight religious benefits which they now received. 58 But Camberos suggested that the minister might incorporate the Ais with their kindred, the Little Ais (Aixittos), 59 living two leagues from the Nacogdoches mission. He concluded by reminding the fiscal that it was after all a question of relative service. On the one hand, here were scarce forty families of Ais, who for thirty years had shown themselves irreducible; on the other hand, there were five hundred or more families of Cujanes, Guapites, and Carancaguases, “as ready to be instructed in the mysteries of our faith as the Ayx are repugnant to living in Christian society”; for two years they had been and still were firm in their anxious desire to be reduced to a pueblo and instructed. Was it not a matter of duty to save the willing many rather than to struggle hopelessly with the unwilling few? 60
These arguments convinced the fiscal and the auditor, whereupon the viceroy, on June 17 and June 21, issued to the governor and the college the necessary decrees for effecting the transfer. The order to the college provided “that the mission of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Ais, situated in the province of los Texas, should be totally abandoned; that of the two ministers there, one should remain at mission Nacogdoches, it being the nearest at hand, in order that he might assist with the waters of holy baptism all the children and adults who might wish this benefit; and that the other should go to found the new mission of the Guapittes, Cujanes, and Carancaguases in the territory of la Bahía del Espíritu Santo, for which purpose all the ornaments, furniture, and other goods of the mission of los Aix should be given to this minister and transferred to the new mission.” 61
But now a protest was heard from East Texas. Upon receiving the viceroy's order to extinguish the Ais mission, Father Vallejo, president of the Zacatecan establishments on the eastern frontier, and a veteran of thirty years' service, first sought the opinion of the governor. His opinion was hostile to the change. 62 Vallejo, with this backing, wrote to the guardian of his college that the Ais mission was by no means useless, and that until he should get further instructions he would defer the execution of the order. True, he said, the Ais Indians had not yet adopted mission life, in spite of the efforts of the fathers; yet they were being baptized in articulo mortis—the records showed 158 such baptisms in 36 years—; the padre was useful as physician and nurse among them; and the friendly relations with the Indians, who assisted willingly in the domestic and agricultural duties about the mission, offered still a hope that they would settle down to pueblo life. Indeed, when Father Cyprian had been missionary he had had them congregated for a space of four years, and Father García had likewise kept them content about the mission till, because of a recent scarcity of mission supplies, one of the chiefs had persuaded them to return to their rancherías. But if the missionary were to retire to Nacogdoches, the distance and the difficulties of travel were so great that the Indians would be without aid, and would likely abandon their country, just as the Nazones had done when the missionaries had deserted them (1729). The good father could not close his argument without appealing to the fear of the French, tactics which had stood many a special pleader in good stead within the last half century. So he added that, aside from the importance of the Ais mission to the Indians, it was necessary as a half-way station between Nacogdoches and Adaes to give succor in case of hostile invasion. He maintained therefore that the mission should be continued at all hazards, even if with only one minister. 63
This letter put an end to the effort to suppress the Ais mission, and set in motion a new plan. The discretorio, whence the idea of extinguishing los Ais had come, reported to the viceroy and sustained Vallejo's objections, and suggested, instead, a new mission for the Cujanes, maintaining, perhaps with truth, but with little regard for its former argument based on economy, that to equip a new mission would be little more expensive than to transfer the old one. 64 So the matter again went to the fiscal, and he, on March 6, 1755, without other discussion than a review of the question, embraced the new plan, and recommended that the Ais mission be allowed to remain and that a new one be established for the coast tribes. 65 On March 22 the auditor approved the project, and on April 7, the viceroy issued the corresponding decree. 66
But matters at Bahía had not waited for the viceroy to change his mind. Some time before this steps had already been taken, in consequence of the previous order—that looking to the transfer of the old establishment to a new site—toward the actual foundation of the mission for the Cujanes and their friends.
The government was slower to supply means than to sanction projects, and the funds with which to begin the work were raised by private gifts to the college or advanced by Piszina and the missionaries at Bahía, while part of the mission furniture was borrowed from mission Espíritu Santo. 67 Camberos was sent to supervise the foundation, 68 which was begun in November, 1754. Piszina spared nine soldiers to act as a guard, to assist with their hands, and to direct the Indians, some of whom were induced to help in the building and in preparing the field. On Jan. 15 Piszina thus wrote of the mission site and of progress in the work: “The place assigned for the congregation of these Indians, Excellent Sir, is four leagues from this presidio. 69 It has all the advantages known to be useful and necessary for the foundation of a large settlement, and, in my estimation, the country is the best yet discovered in these parts. It has spacious plains, and very fine meadows skirted by the River San Antonio, which appears to offer facilities for a canal to irrigate the crops. In the short time of two months since the building of the material part of the mission was begun, a decent [wooden] church for divine worship has been finished. It is better made than that of this presidio and the mission of Espíritu Santo. There have been completed also the dwellings for the minister and the other necessary houses and offices, all surrounded by a field large enough to plant ten fanegas of maize.” 70 Two years later it was reported that irrigation facilities were about to be completed; that a dam of lime and stone forty varas long and four varas high had been built across an arroyo carrying enough water to fill it in four months, and that all that was lacking was the canal, which would soon be finished. 71 But this work seems not to have been completed. Within a few years—how soon does not appear—a strong wooden stockade was built around the mission. 72
The name by which Camberos called the mission in his reports was “Nuestra Señora del Rosario de los Cojanes.” 73 Contemporary government documents sometimes call it by this name, and sometimes simply “Nuestra Señora del Rosario”; while Solís, official inspector for the college, in his diary of 1768 calls it “Misiokn del Santissimo Rosario,” and “Mision del Rosario.” 74 The last is the more usual and popular form of the name. The addition of “de los Cojanes” indicates in part the prominence of the Cujan tribe in the mission, and also the prevalent usage of their name as a generic term for the Karankawan tribes. The location of Rosario was given by Piszina as four leagues from the presidio of Bahía 75—in which direction he does not say, but it was clearly up stream. As will be seen, Piszina's estimate of the distance from Bahía was too great, unless the location of Rosario was subsequently changed. We learn from Solís's diary of 1768 that mission Espíritu Santo was “in sight of the Royal Presidio [apparently almost on the site of modern Goliad], with nothing between them but the river, which is crossed by a canoe”; 76 and in 1793 Revilla Gigedo reported mission Rosario as two leagues nearer than Espíritu Santo to Béxar. 77 I am informed by Mr. J. H. Passmore, of Goliad, that the ruins today identified as those of Espíritu Santo are across the river from Goliad, and that four miles west of these, one-half a mile south of the San Antonio River, are the ruins identified, correctly, no doubt, as those of mission Rosario. 78
Lack of funds for current expenses and to properly establish agriculture and grazing greatly handicapped the missionaries and Captain Piszina, while, on the other hand, the Indians did not prove as eager to embrace the blessings of Christianity as the uninitiated might have been led to expect from the former reports of their anxiety to do so. They came to the mission from time to time, and helped more or less with the work, but when provisions gave out they were perforce allowed, or even advised, to return to the coast. 79
The number who frequented the mission and availed themselves of these periodical supplies must have been considerable, for within less than a year of the founding of the mission, Piszina reported that one thousand pesos in private funds had been spent for maize, meat, cotton cloth, tobacco, etc.; a year later he said that the number of Indians at mission Espíritu Santo—a number large enough to consume five or six bulls a week—was smaller than the number at Rosario, 80 and that in all six thousand pesos had been spent in supporting the latter.
But conversions were slow, and the total harvest after four years' work was twenty-one souls baptized in articulo mortis—twelve adults and nine children. In May, 1758, only one of the Indians living at the mission was baptized. Camberos claimed that this small showing of baptisms was partly due to his conservatism. “If I had been over-ready in baptizing Indians,” he said, “at the end of these four years you would have found this coast nearly covered with the holy baptism; but experience has taught me that baptisms performed hastily make of Indians Christians who are so only in name, and who live in the woods undistinguishable from the infidel.” 81
The Indians were hard to manage, gave the soldiers much difficulty, 82 and sustained their old reputation for being inconstant, unfaithful, and dissatisfied. The example of San Xavier, where a padre had recently been murdered, was fresh in the minds of the missionaries, and even when the Indians at Rosario were best disposed it was feared that they might revolt and harm their benefactors. The Cujanes in particular were feared, for, besides being the most numerous, they were regarded as especially bold and unmanageable. 83 This fear, together with danger from the Apaches, was ground for some of the numerous appeals made for an increase of soldiers at the presidio, and for the building of the stockade.
As soon as Piszina had finished the mission buildings he had renewed his former request for ten additional soldiers, 84 and had asked the government to assist the new mission with the usual one year's supplies, in addition to the ornaments and furniture. Thereafter his appeal was frequently repeated, 85 and was seconded by the college by Camberos, and by Governor Barrios y Jauregui. 86 But for three years the government only discussed, procrastinated, and called for reports, until finally in a junta de guerra y hacienda held Apr. 17, 1758, the various items asked for were granted. 87
With this belated aid the mission became more prosperous—as prosperous, indeed, as could be expected under the circumstances. In 1768 it was able to report a total of two hundred baptisms, which, so far as mere numbers go, was relatively as good a showing as had been made by its neighbor among tribes somewhat more docile, and nearly as good as that made by San José, the finest mission in all New Spain. At this time there must have been from one hundred to two hundred Indians, at least, living intermittently in the mission. But residence or baptism did not of necessity signify any great change in the savage nature of the Indians. They were hard to control, and were with difficulty kept at the mission, made to work, and induced to give up their crude ways. If corporal punishment was used, which was sometimes the case, 88 the neophytes ran away; and if they complained of harsh treatment by the padres, they were likely to find willing listeners among the soldiers.
It is not the purpose of this paper to follow out the history of the mission after its foundation. But it may vivify the reader's impression, and help him to secure a more correct idea of a frontier mission of the less substantial sort and of the conditions surrounding it to reproduce here some parts of the diary account of Rosario made in 1768 by Father Solís, the official inspector of the Texas missions for his college. I therefore quote the following:
“[Feb.] 26. I passed through an opening called the Guardian, then through others, and arrived at Mission del Santissimo Rosario, where I was received by the minister with much attention. The Indians who had remained at the mission—for many were fugitive in the woods and on the shore—came out in gala array as an embassy to meet me on the way. . . . The captain of la Bahía remained and posted a picket of soldiers to keep guard by day and by night. This mission is extremely well kept in all respects. It secures good water from Rio San Antonio de Vejar. The country is pleasant and luxurious. . . . The climate is very bad and unhealthful, hot, and humid, with southerly winds. Everything, including one's clothing, becomes damp, even within the houses, as if it were put in water. Even the inner walls wreak with water as if it were raining.
“28. I went to dine at the royal presidio of La Bahía del Espíritu Santo, at the invitation of the captain. I was accompanied by Fathers Ganuza 89 and Lopez, and Brothers Francisco Sedano and Antonio Casas. . . . The captain received us with great respect and ceremony, welcoming us with a volley by the company and four cannon shots, . . . serving us a very free, rich, and abundant table, and comporting himself in everything with the magnificence and opulence of a prince. . .
“29. I said the mass of the inspection (visita) and inspected the church, sacristy, and the entire mission. . . .
“[March] 3. . . . At night there returned thirty-three families of the Indians of this mission who had wandered, fugitives. I received them with suavity and affection. . . .
“4. . . . The opinion which I have formed of this mission of Nuestra Señora del Rosario is as follows: As to material wealth it is in good condition. It has two droves of burros, about forty gentle horses, thirty gentle mules, twelve of them with harness, five thousand cattle, two hundred milch cows, and seven hundred sheep and goats. The buildings and the dwellings, both for the ministers and for the soldiers and the Indians, are good and sufficient. The stockade of thick and stron stakes which protects the mission from its enemies is very well made. The church is very decent. It is substantially built of wood, plastered inside with mud, and whitewashed with lime; and its roof of good beams and shingles (taxamanil) looks like a dome (parece arteson). Its decoration is very bright and clean. It has sacred vessels, a bench for ornaments and utensils, a pulpit with confessional, altars, and all the things pertaining to the divine cult. Everything is properly arranged and kept in its place. There is a baptismal font, with a silver concha and silver cruets for the holy oils. The mission has fields of crops, which depend upon the rainfall, for water can not be got from the river, since it has very high and steep banks, nor from any where else since there is no other place to get it.
“This mission was founded in 1754. Its minister, who, as I have already said, is Fr. Joseph Escovar, labors hard for its welfare, growth, and improvement. He treats the Indians with much love, charity, and gentleness, employing methods soft, bland, and alluring. He makes them work, teaches them to pray, tries to teach them the catechism and to instruct them in the rudiments of our Holy Faith and in good manners. He aids and succors them as best he may in all their needs, corporal and spiritual, giving them food to eat and clothing to wear. In the afternoon before evening prayers, with a stroke of the bell, he assembles them, big and little, in the cemetery, has them say the prayers and the Christian doctrine, explains and tries to teach them the mysteries of our Holy Faith, exhorting them to keep the commandments of God and of Our Holy Mother Church, and setting forth what is necessary for salvation. On Saturdays he collects them and has them repeat the rosary with its mysteries, and the alavado cantado. On Sundays and holidays before mass, he has them repeat the prayers and the doctrine and afterward preaches to them, explaining the doctrine and whatever else they ought to understand. If he orders punishment given to those who need it, it is with due moderation, and not exceeding the limits of charity and paternal correction; looking only to the punishment of wrong and excess, it does not lean toward cruelty or tyranny. 90
“The Indians with which this mission was founded are the Coxanes, Guapites, Carancaguases, and Coopanes, but of this last nation there are at present only a few, for most of them are in the woods or on the banks of some of the many rivers in these parts; or with another (otra) nation, their friends and confederates, on the shore of the sea, which is some thirteen or fourteen leagues distant to the east of the mission. They are all barbarous, idle, and lazy; and although they were so greedy and gluttonous that they eat meat almost raw, parboiled, or half roasted and dripping with blood, yet, rather than stay in the mission where the padre provides them everything needed to eat and wear, they prefer to suffer hunger, nakedness, and other necessities, in order to be at liberty and idle in the woods or on the beach, giving themselves up to all kinds of vice, especially lust, theft, and dancing.” 91
Such were the difficulties usually attending the labors of the frontier missionaries, exaggerated somewhat in this instance, no doubt, by the exceptional crudeness of the tribes they were trying to subdue. And such were the meager first fruits of Escandón's well considered plan to occupy the coast country this side of the Rio Grande. In after years the wooden church of the mission was replaced by one of stone, and the mission experienced varying degrees of prosperity. Escandón's project of establishing a Spanish pueblo near by was also realized, and other weak settlements were founded toward the Rio Grande. But these are matters outside the scope of this paper.
1. SAN FELIPE.
(1) Seat of Austin's Colony.
On his way home from the City of Mexico, after having secured a final confirmation of the colonization grant made to his father, Stephen F. Austin called on Governor Don Luciano García at Bexar and informed him of his success. The governor thereupon gave the name of San Felipe de Austin to the town which was to be laid off for the capital of the new colony (July 26, 1823). 92 Baron de Bastrop, commissioner on the part of the government, accompanied Austin from Bexar to survey lands and in union with Austin to issue titles to the settlers. The settlement was found in such disorganized condition, owing to the long absence of Austin, that Bastrop thought it advisable to postpone his work until the next year, when he revisited the colony. San Felipe was founded in 1824, and thenceforth figured as the capital of Austin's colony. 93
Located most charmingly on a high prairie bluff on the west bank of the Brazos river, at the head of navigation, it was nevertheless in the very heart of the wilderness and could lay claim to none of the advantages, comforts, or other amenities of civilization associated today with the name of even the smallest village. For many years there was no post office, no school, no church, and the stores, shops and taverns were small and their supplies scanty. What gave importance to the place was the fact that here the public business of the colony was transacted—the laws promulgated, justice administered, land titles issued, and the public safety maintained.
(2) Seat of the Convention of 1832.
The disturbances that occurred in Texas during the summer of 1832 made it desirable that a convention of the delegates of all Texas be called. The alcaldes of the municipality of Austin, on August 22, 1832, “therefore recommended, that the people of each Town, Precinct, and Civil District in Texas, elect Five Delegates, to meet at the Town of San Felipe de Austin, on the 1st Monday in October next.” The suggestion was adopted and the delegates to the first convention of all Texas assembled in San Felipe, and not at Bexar, which was San Felipe's senior by almost a century, or at Goliad or Nacogdoches, both very much older.
(3) Seat of the Central Committee, and the Convention of 1833.
The convention of 1832 before adjourning had made provision for a central and sub-committees. The location of the central committee is not fixed, but from the personnel of that body it is clear that no other place than San Felipe was intended. The central committee was empowered “to call a Convention of Delegates from all Texas, at such time and place as they think proper.” In January, 1833, this committee called a new convention to meet at San Felipe on April 1. This convention met at the time and place indicated, and one of its acts was to continue the central committee. A state constitution, too, was drafted, but it did not fix the location of the seat of government.
(4) Seat of the Department of Brazos.
It is shown above how San Felipe received its name, how the place was laid out, and how this site received the popular approval by making it the place of assembly for the conventions of October, 1832, and April, 1833. Decree No. 270, of the congress of Coahuila and Texas, dated Monclova, March 18, 1834, finally set the seal of official approval upon the location by designating San Felipe as the capital of the department of Brazos, created by this decree. The chief of the new department was appointed July 8, but, perhaps, a month or two elapsed before he qualified.
(5) Seat of the General Council.
From April, 1833, until the appointment of the political chief of the department of Brazos, about the middle of 1834, the central committee at San Felipe appears to have had little to do. This appointment promised to make its services entirely superfluous. However, with the growing importance of the events that were paving the way for a rupture with Mexico, and in view of the inability of the political chief of the department of Brazos to inaugurate any satisfactory policy, the need of a unifying directory of the affairs of all Texas became so great that the old central committee finally shouldered the responsibility of this office and, after a hasty reorganization, under the title of general council, it controlled affairs from the middle of September, 1835, until the meeting of its successor the consultation. The strength of the general council rested on the high character of its membership; its efficiency, on the fact that it represented all Texas. Its headquarters were at San Felipe.
(6) Seat of the Consultation.
The need for a general consultation of all Texas had been felt since the middle of June, 1835; various efforts were made to bring it about; but for want of unanimity nothing was accomplished until the middle of August. By the end of July the plans of Santa Anna with regard to Texas were sufficiently well known to unite the people of Texas at least to the extent of being willing to hold a general consultation. A call for the election of delegates was issued from Velasco, August 20th. This plan received the hearty approval of S. F. Austin, when he arrived home from Mexico; and, while he was chairman of the central committee at San Felipe, this committee united in the call referred to above. There was a diversity of opinion, however, touching the place where the consultation should assemble. The people of Columbia, without assigning any reasons, appointed Washington; the people of San Felipe designated San Felipe, and submitted, in a circular addressed to the committee of safety of the various municipalities, the following reasons in support of their selection:
Some diversity of opinion has existed as to the place where the proposed consultation should meet. This place and Washington have been proposed. The meeting of yesterday have preferred this place for the reason that there is a printing press here. The most important public records are here, and the principal political authority of the department resides here. This question will of course be decided by the wishes of the majority, for which reason it is important that you [the committees of safety] will communicate to this Committee what are the wishes of the people of that section on this point. 94
The question of the place of meeting of the consultation was thus referred for determination to the local committees of safety, a step that bears the evidence of fairness and of a willingness to make all concessions, consistent with the general good, for the sake of harmony. This circular was issued from San Felipe on September 13th; the consultation was to assemble on October 15th. Want of promptness on the part of the local committees, however, made it impossible for the central committee to fix beforehand the place of meeting of the consultation. So the question of place virtually resolved itself to this—At what place would a majority of the delegates to the consultation assemble?
The battle of Gonzales, October 2, 1835, interfered with both the election and the assembling of the delegates to the consultation. Many who had been, or who subsequently were chosen delegates had hastened to the defence of their country; and when the time for the meeting of this body approached, they were loath to quit the army for the council chamber. They, therefore, on October 10th, held a meeting in camp at Gonzales and adopted the following resolutions:
Resolved, That the chairman of this meeting [S. F. Austin] be instructed to address the members of the Consultation, requesting all who can, to repair to the camp of the volunteers, armed and equipped for battle, and when so assembled, if a war is necessary, to aid in fighting the battles of the country; but, if their services can be spared from the field, to determine on holding the Consultation at such time and place as a majority of the members may agree upon.
Resolved, That, if any portion of the members of the Convention meet at the time and place appointed, and find it impracticable to repair to the camp, as invited in the foregoing resolution, that they be requested, if they amount to a quorum, to adjourn from day to day, and suspend all action until the 1st of November. 95
Austin's letter of next day, transmitting the above resolutions, is addressed “To the members of the General Consultation who may meet on the 15th Instant,” but no place is indicated where they are expected to meet. 96 It was unquestionably sent to San Felipe. 97 Was it also sent to Washington?
A small number of delegates gathered at Washington about the time fixed for the meeting of the consultation, and the following letter was written by those from Mina on their way thither:
At Coke's Octr 17th 1835 To the members of The “Genl consultation” &c. At San Felipe—
The delegates from the Municipality of Mina have positive instructions from their constituents to meet in “consultation,” at Washington on Brazos—we expect to be at that place this evening, where we shall remain until we hear further from San Felipe and from Mina— They are persuaded that the citizens of Mina will never approve of holding the “consultation” at San Felipe for many reasons—but more especially as Washington was first named &recommended as the place of meeting— The people of Columbia took the lead &I presume will expect to meet there— The citizens of Washington, we are informed, have made very ample preparations, at a large expense, for accommodating the delegates— The confidence, which has produced such results—in our minds, should be respected—
We shall expect to hear soon from you—that we may determine whether to remain, or to return to our homes—
Very respectfully &c. D. C. Barrett B. Manlove P. S. The other delegates from Mina now in the colonial army have been notified of their election &place of Meeting 98
The following document, which unfortunately bears no date, will exhibit what was done by the delegates that assembled at Washington:
We the undersigned delegates elected to the General Consultation of all Texas to be holden in the Town of Washington on the 15th day of October 1835. met according to appointment.
Having received the resolutions adopted by the members elect of the General Consultation, the officers of the Army, and People of Gonzales at their meeting held at Gonzales on the 11th Inst. recommending an adjournment of the said Consultation to some future and convenient time. We concur therein; and recommend that the said Consultation be adjourned until the first day of November next.
We further recommend that the said General Consultation be holden in the Town of Washington as first proposed by the meeting of the Citizens of Columbia and generally approved by the several meetings of the Citizens of Texas.
Jesse Grimes E. M. Millican Asa Mitchell E. Collard
We the Undersigned members of the Genl consultation were not present at the above meeting but concur with those who were there in agreeing to hold the same at Washington on the first of Nov next
A. G. Perry A. E. C. Johnson J. L. Hood J. G. W. Pierson 99
A larger number of delegates, but not a sufficient number to form a quorum, assembled at San Felipe on October 16th. On the following day they adopted the resolutions below and adjourned:
Resolved, That the members present adjourn until the first day of next month, or as soon as a quorum can meet at this place, so as to afford an opportunity to those who may desire it to join the army in the defense of their country.
Resolved, That those who cannot join the army may remain here, with the permission to unite with the Council of Texas, 100 . . .
From October 17th till the first of November the question of place of meeting remained in statu quo. 'Tis true that a number of the delegates availed themselves of the permission contained in the second resolution above, and joined the general council. 101 On October 19th the general council thus strengthened took the following action:
On Motion of Mr. Perry for the determined place of the meeting of the Genl Consultation on the first of November 1835 of all Texas as follows
Resolved by the Genl Council of Texas that the Genl Consultation be held at Washington on the first of Nov, 1835—first proposed by the Committee of Columbia.
Adopted with one Dissenting voice— 102
This gratuitous piece of assumption on the part of the general council, however, appears to have been entirely ignored by all. Those delegates who had assembled at Washington about the middle of October again assembled there on the first of November; those who had met at San Felipe again assembled at San Felipe; the decision of place lay with the delegates in the army. These, at the suggestion of the commander-in-chief and with the approbation of the troops, returned in time to be present at the opening on the first, at San Felipe “the place appointed for the Consultation.” 103
In spite of this practical decision of the matter, the question was placed before the consultation on November 3d by one of the delegates from Mina, as is shown by the following extract from the minutes for that day:
The House met persuant to adjournment—and on Motion of R. N. Williamson that the convention adjourn fourthwith from this place to meet at the Town of Washington The Motion being put to the House
Votes in favor of the adjournment 1
” against ” 40
Resolved unanimously that an express be sent fourth with to Washington requesting the members at that place to repair immediately to this. 104
The arrival of the members, who had met at Washington, at San Felipe on November 5th marks the termination of dissent upon the question of the place of meeting of the consultation; and no further action was taken during the deliberations of this body. However, when it adjourned, it was to meet at Washington on March 1, 1836. 105
(7) Seat of the Provisional Government.
The consultation was succeeded by the governor and general council in the management of the affairs of Texas. This body was left free to “hold their sessions at such times and places as in their opinion will give the most energy and effect to the objects of the people, and to the performance of the duties assigned them.” 106 Those who were dissatisfied with the location of the seat of government at San Felipe early made preparations to select some other place. R. R. Royall, in a letter to J. W. Fannin, dated November 15, 1835, writes from San Felipe that, “Where the council will hold its sessions is yet undetermined. I believe it will be in Washington or Matagorda, probably at the latter.” 107 And Governor Henry Smith took occasion to call the attention of the council to this subject in his first official communication to that body as follows:
It will also become your duty to select some place as the seat of government, at which to hold your regular sittings during the continuance of the present form of government. In doing this you will throw aside all local partialities and prejudices, and fix on that point possessing most advantages, and the best calculated to forward our views by giving promptness and energy to our united actions. I therefore deem it unnecessary to make further suggestions on that subject, and will only add, that a Council Hall, together with other offices for the different departments of government, is indispensable. 108
The committee on the affairs of state and judiciary, to whom this paragraph of the governor's message was referred, reported on November 17:
Your committee is concerned to see the want of unanimity in this body, upon the proper location of a place where to establish the sittings and offices of the “Provisional Government.” Several places have been mentioned as suited to this object, and your committee being unprepared to determine the matter, will briefly submit the representations made to them by different persons.
By some it is contended that the location should be in Washington on the Brazos; this place is said to be situated in a thickly populated country, and most central to the inhabited parts of Texas. It is known that the town is of very recent origin, 109 having few if any suitable buildings or rooms for public business, and no printing establishment. Convenience and retirement are necessary for public officers, in the dispatch of business of the character in which we are now engaged. These objects cannot be expected at present in Washington, hereafter this place will no doubt be fixed upon as the seat of Government.
The inconveniencies and discomforts of our present location are too sensibly felt by every member of the Provisional Government to require any remarks; an excellent and well conducted Press is the only present inducement for continuing in San Felipe:—Matagorda and Velasco, destitute of the latter advantage, possess no superiority of convenience for business over San Felipe, and although strongly recommended by some, will scarcely produce any difference of opinion in this body.
Brazoria, with the advantages of a good and well conducted Press, is represented as having a suitable Council-Hall, well adapted rooms, and other conveniences for the dispatch of public business. Its location upon the navigable waters of the Brazos, affords almost hourly communication with the coast, and the distance from the army will make but about a day's difference in travel more than to San Felipe, and about the same to Washington; but the badness of the roads at this season of the year, is said to be a serious disadvantage, if not an insuperable objection.
With these statements your committee submits to the wisdom of the Council to determine the place of its sittings, and the location of the Provisional Government.
Concluding with urging the necessity of prompt decision. 110
The Council gave its immediate attention to this subject:
Mr. Houston moved that the Council adjourn, when it leaves this place, to the town of Washington.
The question being taken on the above, and the Ayes and Noes were demanded, the vote stood thus:
Ayes—Messrs. Wharton, Grimes, Barrett, Perry, Parker, Houston, Parmer and Padilla—8.
Noes—Messrs. Clements, Millard, Hanks, Harris, Wilson and West—6: so the question was decided in the affirmative.
Mr. Houston moved that the Council adjourn to meet at Washington on the 23rd inst., but withdrew his motion, at the suggestion of Mr. Barrett, who offered the following, which was adopted:
Resolved, that an express be immediately sent to Washington to inform the citizens of the removal of the Provisional Government to that place, and requesting them to be in readiness to receive its officers; and also that the fact of its removal be communicated to the army, and to all parts of Texas. 111
Governor Smith stopped the move to Washington with his executive veto, for the reasons that
There is no printing press at Washington, which I deem essential to our business; the public printing has not been yet completed as contracted for, which should be superintended by your body, nor has there been any Legislative action known to me, prescribing or defining the duties of our agents to be sent abroad; their commissions with authority to hypothecate the public lands and pledge the faith of the country, to answer our present emergencies, have not been made out. Commissions granting letters of Marque and Reprisal, have been earnestly solicited, both by our own citizens and foreigners, and as yet, have not been acted on. These are things I deem of the most urgent and vital importance, and should receive prompt attention.
Furthermore, I am not apprized that your body has made the necessary arrangements for our comfortable location at Washington. It appears to me probable that more might be lost than gained by the move; be that as it may, the move as contemplated and incorporated in the 6th decree I deem premature, and calculated to produce delay and great injury, as such, I feel bound to object to it. I would beg leave to suggest to your honorable body that, notwithstanding our situations here may be uncomfortable, and none can be more so than my own, still a sense of public duty urges me to earnestly solicit your body to submit themselves to all inconveniences for the present, until the grand and important business of necessity can be accomplished, and they will find me willing to co-operate with them in the selection of any point which they may deem best calculated to promote our own convenience, and advance the public good. 112
An effort was made to pass this measure over the governor's veto, but it failed by a vote of 4 to 8. 113 In consequence the seat of government remained at San Felipe until about the 22nd of February, 1836.
San Felipe had been the seat of all the important councils of Anglo-American Texas since the founding of Austin's colony. However, with the passing of the provisional government and the advance of the Mexican hordes, its material glory passed away, and it was sacrificed in the defense of the country. No town in Texas counted among its citizenship abler champions of civil liberty, no town had done more to promote the cause of independence; yet independence was proclaimed at Washington. San Felipe was the home of Austin, the Father of Texas, and Travis, the defender of Texan liberty, but neither of them is buried there.
2. WASHINGTON.
(1) Seat of the Convention of March, 1836.
Washington is located near the Brazos where this river is crossed by the San Antonio road. It was laid out as a town in the spring of 1835; it was erected into a municipality in July of the same year; and by the spring of 1836 it contained, perhaps, fifty houses. 114 Washington was proposed in August, 1835, as the place of meeting for the consultation; a portion of the delegates assembled there about the middle of October and again on the first of November; the general council voted that the consultation should meet there, and the consultation adjourned to reassemble at that point; however, as the consultation never reassembled, this act passed for naught, as did all the preceding acts enumerated above. The provisional government, after failing to agree upon a removal of its sessions to that place, fixed Washington as the place of meeting for the convention which it called to meet in March, 1836. 115 But the course pursued by Henry Smith, after he was deposed by the general council, made it desirable for the provisional government to transfer its offices to some other point. The near approach of the time for the meeting of the convention, induced the general council to choose Washingtin. The following resolution was adopted to this end on February 16, 1836;
Resolved, That the Council adjourn to meet at the town of Washington on the twenty-second day of this month, and that the acting Governor and other officers connected with the Provisional Government be notified of the fact and requested to remove their offices to that place. 116
The general council accordingly assembled at Washington on February 22, but failed to obtain a quorum; the other officers of the provisional government, with perhaps one or two exceptions, had also removed by March 1, 1836.
The convention assembled at Washington and organized on March 1, 1836. For various reasons the convention considered it expedient to terminate the provisional government at once. Before it could organize a government under the constitution, the extreme emergency of the case and the critical situation of Texas made the establishment of a government ad interim necessary.
(2) Temporary Seat of the Government ad interim.
The constitution adopted by the convention did not designate any place as the seat of government; the only reference to the subject in that document being Section 3 of the General Provisions:
The presidents and heads of departments shall keep their offices at the seat of government, unless removed by the permission of congress, or unless in case of emergency in time of war, the public interest may require their removal.
The inauguration of the new government is best described in the words of President Burnet:
On the evening of the 16th March, a messenger arrived from the west, bearing the melancholy intelligence that the Alamo had fallen, and all within it been massacred. The Convention assembled forthwith, and with some few symptoms of undue excitement, proceeded to the institution of an executive government for the embryo republic. David G. Burnet was elected President; Lorenzo de Zavala, a distinguished Mexican, was elected Vice-President; Col. Samuel P. Carson, formerly of North-Carolina, Secretary of State; Bailey Hardiman, Secretary of the Treasury; Col. Thomas J. Rusk, Secretary of War; Robert Potter, Secretary of the Navy; and David Thomas, Attorney-General.
The inauguration of the new government was completed about two o'clock in the morning of 17th March, the Convention having been in session all night. Mr. Burnet delivered a pertinent address of some length, and on the ensuing day issued a proclamation from which we extract the following: “The government will remove to Harrisburg; but that removal is not the result of any apprehension that the enemy is near us. It was resolved upon as a measure conducive to the common good, before any such report was in circulation, and it has not been expedited by such report. . . . Let us acquit ourselves like men; gird up the loins of our minds, and by one united, prompt, and energetic exertion, turn back this impotent invader; and planting our standard on the bank of the Rio Grande, dictate to him the terms of mutual recognition.” Both these documents were published at San Felipe, in fugitive handbills, a very few of which are now extant.
The same express that gave intelligence of the fall of the Alamo, told, also, that Gen. Houston and his little army were in rapid retreat from Gonzales. This was calculated and did contribute to the general excitement. As soon as the ceremonies of the installation were finished, the Convention adjourned sine die; to meet no more. The next day the little town of Washington was evacuated, not only by the members, whose services were no longer required, but by every family, excepting one, Mr. Lott's, who kept the hotel. The entire population west of the Brazos was also broken up and fugitive, and panic seemed to rule the day. The President and the Secretaries of War and Navy, remained at Washington three days longer, occupied in such matters as required immediate attention, when they also, in the afternoon, repaired calmly to the residence of the late Col. Groce, on the route to Harrisburg. 117
3. HARRISBURG.
The considerations that led to the selection of Harrisburg as th