THE  SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL  QUARTERLY

Vol. XVII ¹ APRIL, 1914 No. 4

The publication committee and the editors disclaim responsibility for views expressed by contributors to The Quarterly.

THE FOUNDING OF THE MISSIONS ON THE SAN  GABRIEL RIVER, 1745-1749

HERBERT E. BOLTON

It is not generally known that the San Gabriel River in central Texas was once the seat of Franciscan missionary activity. Yet such is the case, and slender remains of the mission establishments are still to be seen in the valley of that stream. If one will drive nine miles northwest from Rockdale to the Kolb Settlement, and then turn westward up the river for about a mile, he will come to what has long been known in the neighborhood as “Ditch Valley Farm,” a name, the present writer has discovered and established beyond doubt, which comes from the fact that through the farm once ran an “acequia,” or irrigating ditch, constructed in the year 1750 to serve three Spanish missions which had recently been established there. In the river near by are still to be seen at low water the remains of what has long been known as the old “Rock Dam,” whose origin, it is now clear, was the same as that of the ditch.

The remains of the “acequia” as well as of the dam are still to be seen in dim outline. Crossing the main highway near the western end of the farm is a shallow ditch leading toward the river. North of the road it is quite distinct, being some eight feet wide at the top and two or three feet deep in the middle. The land on this side of the road is uncultivated, and in the bed of the ditch are growing hackberry trees nearly a foot in diameter. About one hundred feet from the road the ditch terminates in a natural arroyo or gully, which leads eastward into the river about two hundred yards away. South of the road the ditch leads into cultivated fields, where it is soon lost; but forty rods to the southeast, where it crosses an unplowed lane, it is again distinct, and eight rods farther away it can still be faintly traced across another lane.

In the bed of the river two hundred yards below the mouth of the arroyo the remains of the old “Rock Dam” are pointed out. They now consist of only a heap of large stones, stretching across the stream. A man fishing up the river at low water would certainly notice the stones, though he might not suspect that they are the remains of a dam. But the inhabitants of the neighborhood claim to remember when both ditch and dam were quite distinct—a claim fully supported by the long and commonly used names, “Rock Dam” and “Ditch Valley Farm.” In the fields the “acequia” has been filled in by the plow; while most of the stones of the dam, I am told, have been hauled away and used for building purposes. Besides the ditch and the dam, tradition tells of the remains of old buildings of pre-American origin, once standing on Kolb's Hill, below Ditch Valley Farm. Tradition ascribes the ditch, the dam, and the old buildings to the Spaniards, and neighborhood belief in the tradition is evidenced by perennial digging about the locality of the dam for pots of Spanish gold. But few or none have guessed, what is now established beyond question, that these archaeological remains are the vestiges of what were known in their day as the San Xavier missions.

I. THE DAWN OF HISTORY IN CENTRAL TEXAS

1. The obscurity of the history hitherto.—The story of these missions is a little known chapter in the history of the labors of the Franciscan Fathers among the Indians northeast of the Rio Grande. Writing a few years ago on “Some Obscure Points in the Mission Period” of the history of Texas, Dr. W. F. McCaleb said, with essential truth, “Though little is known of most of the eastern [Texas] missions, still less is known of some others. Indeed, as to the three missions on the San Xavier River, no historian, so far as the writer's information goes, save Bancroft, has even mentioned their names.” ² And Bancroft, he might have added, devotes to them only a little more than a page. Besides Bancroft, Dr. McCaleb should have excepted Shea, who devotes a few short paragraphs to the subject. ³ Had the assertion been intended to include books printed in a foreign language it would have excepted, also, Arrivicita's Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica, ⁴ a very rare work, which contains a fairly good, though in many respects unsatisfactory, account of the missions, in whose founding and administration the author took part. Arricivita's worst defect is his utter disregard for chronology and geography. There is, in addition, the still rarer treatise, for it is as yet unprinted, by Father Morfi, which devotes a considerable amount of space to the San Xavier missions. This history and that of Arricivita are the chief basis of the brief and obscure paragraphs of Bancroft and Shea. ⁵

Since Dr. McCaleb wrote the words quoted, no advance has been made in published works, excepting a minor contribution by the present writer. ⁶ At the time when that was published, only Bancroft had even dared guess the identity of the San Xavier River, on which the missions were established. He conjectured that it might have been a branch of either the Colorado or the Brazos, a guess giving considerable latitude, since these streams are from fifty to seventy-five miles apart in their middle courses. ⁷ Other features of the history of the missions have been equally or more obscure. Indeed, even the date of their establishment has not hitherto been correctly recorded.

And yet the reason for this obscurity is not that the missions were relatively unimportant, for they were more far-reaching in design, longer in duration, and more successful in operation than the San Sabá mission, for example, of which much more is popularly known. Nor has the reason been the non-existence of data for making the episode fairly plain, for these are abundant. It has been, rather, the inaccessibility of the data, and the fact that considerable material remains of the San Sabá mission have been preserved, whereas those of the San Xavier River have been completely lost to view. Recently, however, a large quantity of documentary sources for the history of the missions on the San Gabriel has been gathered from the archives of Mexico, ⁸ and the site of the missions and some of their remains have been identified. It is now possible, therefore, to construct with some degree of fulness, on the basis of the newly acquired material and a study of the site, the story of the precarious career of these shortlived but not unimportant missions.

2. The genesis of missionary activity in Texas.—One fact which appears from a study of missionary activities in Texas in the light of the distribution and organization of the native tribes, is that mission development was not haphazard, but bore pretty definite relations to the tribal grouping. The opinion sometimes expressed that the Spaniards set out from the first arbitrarily to establish a “chain of missions” in Texas, is in the main unfounded. Mission distribution was conditioned, as we would expect upon reflection, by native organization, and the practicability of such a plan would depend largely upon the distribution of the native tribes.

The first group of Indians in Texas to receive serious attention from the missionaries were the Hasinai, or Asinai, of the Neches-Angelina country, among whom missionary activity was begun in 1690, and renewed and extended in 1716. About 1700, with the establishment of three missions on the lower Rio Grande, below the present Eagle Pass, work was begun among the large group of Coahuiltecan, or Pakwan tribes, who lived between the Rio Grande and the San Antonio. This enterprise led logically to the founding of missions at San Antonio, for the same group of tribes (1718-1731). Next, in 1722, a mission was established near Matagorda Bay for the Karankawan tribes of the coast, but it was moved inland in 1726 to the Xaranames and the Tamiques. At the same time that missionary work was begun among the Karankawa, attention was directed for a time to the Hierbipiame, of the Brazos country, but without avail, as will appear shortly. After 1731, when the Querétaran missions were transferred from eastern Texas to San Antonio, there was no expansion into new missionary fields for over a decade and a half, although the old field gradually widened as a result of the efforts to supply with neophytes the missions already founded. By this time fifteen missions had been established in Texas.

The next seventeen years, between 1745 and 1762, that is, down to the time when Texas lost much of its political importance because of the acquisition of Louisiana by Spain, was another period of extensive missionary expansion within the present limits of Texas. During that period three missions were established on the San Xavier River, among the Tonkawan tribes; one was founded on the lower Trinity River among the Orcoquiza, one on the lower San Antonio for the Karankawa, and three, on the San Sabá and the Nueces Rivers for the Eastern Apache. At the same time, attempts were made among the Wichita tribes of the upper Brazos and the Red Rivers.

In all this missionary work, activity was much influenced by the movements or the supposed movements of the French of Louisiana, who were constantly regarded as dangerous rivals among the Texas tribes.

3. Early knowledge of the San Xavier River.—The San Xavier River of Spanish days, it is now clear enough, was the San Gabriel of today, which joins Little River—the old San Andrés, or the first of the Brazos de Dios—some twenty-five miles before that stream disembogues into the main Brazos. The way in which the Spanish name became converted by a series of misspellings into the present form, with the resulting loss of the stream's identity in modern geography, is in itself an interesting bit of history, but cannot be indicated here. The San Xavier River early became known to the Spaniards as one of the streams of central Texas endowed with more than usually attractive surroundings. It was visited and given its name by the Ramón-Saint Denis expedition on June 1, 1716. ⁹ By the same party Brushy Creek, the principal tributary of the San Gabriel, was twice crossed and was given the name of Arroyo de las Benditas Animas ¹⁰ (Creek of the Blessed Souls), which it bore in somewhat shortened form almost continuously throughout Spanish days.

From 1716 forward the San Xavier River was frequently visited and mentioned. The expedition led by the Marquis of Aguayo in 1721 passed the Colorado near the mouth of Onion Creek and followed a northward course that took the party across Arroyo de las Animas, the San Xavier River, Little River near Belton, and thence to the Brazos about at Waco. ¹¹ In 1730, when the Querétaran missions were removed from eastern Texas to San Antonio, the Zacatecan missionaries asked permission to remove their establishments to the San Xavier, ¹² a fact which indicates some acquaintance with the stream. In 1732 Bustillo y Zevallos, governor of Texas, made a campaign against the Apache that took him to and beyond the San Xavier. ¹³ In 1744, during the perennial quarrel between the Canary Island settlers and the other inhabitants of San Antonio, it was suggested that one of the parties should move to the San Xavier, ¹⁴ but the proposal was not acted upon. Two years later it was asserted that the region of the San Xavier was well known to the inhabitants of San Antonio as a buffalo-hunting ground, ¹⁵ and anyone who has beheld the superb prairies between the Colorado and the middle San Gabriel can readily believe the assertion.

It is thus seen that in 1745, when the project of missions for the tribes of central Texas was broached, the merits of the San Xavier river and its surrounding country were not by any means unknown. Its natural advantages were many; its principal draw-back was its proximity to the Lipan country, beyond the rugged hills on the west.

4. First contact with the tribes of central Texas.—But what interested the missionary fathers in any region more than its fertility and beauty, of which they were extremely good judges, was its natives. In this connection, it may be remarked that without the writings of the Catholic missionaries our ethnological knowledge of many portions of America would be almost a blank. This would be true of central Texas in the eighteenth century. In the course of the passage of the Spaniards to and from eastern Texas and of missionary excursions from San Antonio, several tribes became known on either side of the Camino Real, in the region between the Colorado and the Trinity. Conspicuous among them were the four bands which played the chief part in the inception of the San Xavier missions, namely, the group called Ranchería Grande (Big Camp or Big Village), ¹⁶ the Mayeyes, the Deadoses, and the Yojuanes.

Ranchería Grande was a most extraordinary aggregation. At its basis the principal tribe was the Hierbipiame, or Ervipiame, ¹⁷ for whom a mission had been founded in 1698 between the Sabinas and the Rio Grande, about forty leagues northwest of Monclova. ¹⁸ It will be interesting to note in passing that the name given to this first, as well as to the second and third missions founded for the Hierbipiame, was San Xavier. To just what territory the Hierbipiame were indigenous does not appear. In the formation of Ranchería Grande there had been added to this tribe (1) the remains of numerous broken-down bands from near and even beyond the Rio Grande who had fled eastward and joined the Hierbipiame for defence against the Apache and to escape punishment for injuries done the Spaniards of the interior, and (2) many apostate Indians from the missions at San Antonio and on the Rio Grande. Because of the prominence of the Hierbipiame in that group, it was sometimes called “Ranchería Grande de los Hierbipiames.” ¹⁹

Ranchería Grande was mentioned as early as 1707, when Diego Ramón, commander at San Juan Bautista, set out to punish it for disturbances at the missions on the Rio Grande. ²⁰ It was then said to be near the Colorado River, at that day called the San Marcos. Again, in 1714 Ramón secured from it apostates who had fled from the San Juan Bautista mission. ²¹ In 1716 the Ramón expedition passed through it north of Little River and two or three leagues west of the Brazos, apparently near modern Cameron. ²² According to Ramón it then contained more than two thousand souls. ²³ In 1721 a chief of the Ranchería Grande, called Juan Rodríguez, was found by the Marquis de Aguayo at San Antonio, with a band of his people, asking for a mission. The Marquis took him as a guide as far as the Trinity River, where he found the major portion of his people mingling with the Bidais and Agdocas (Deadoses). Aguayo ordered the people of Ranchería Grande to retire across the Brazos, “where they were accustomed to live,” promising to establish a mission for them near San Antonio on his return thither. True to his promise, in 1722 he founded for Juan Rodríguez and his band the mission of San Xavier de Náxera, on the outskirts of San Antonio, where the mission of Concepción now stands. ²⁴ It endured, with little success, till 1726, when it was merged with that of San Antonio de Valero. ²⁵

Though reduced in numerical strength by the drain made by the mission, Ranchería Grande continued to give much trouble to the missionaries, since it afforded a refuge for apostates from San Antonio, who must have tended to replenish its population. The missionaries complained that it was a veritable “Rochelle,” and they earnestly requested that it should be either destroyed or Christianized. Its pernicious influence was thus described in 1729 by Fray Miguel de Paredes:

Not only do they impede new conversions, but they also destroy the reductions already established. . . . At present, Most Excellent Sir, since these Indians of the missions know that they have an open door, asylum, and protection in the Ranchería Grande, their flights have reached such an extreme that if their disorders are reprimanded or punished the least little bit, whether by the chiefs or by the missionaries, or if there should be any extraordinary labor—and many times without other cause than to seek their liberty—they flee to the said ranchería. ²⁶

It has been seen that down to Aguayo's time this troublesome aggregation of Indians were “accustomed to live” west of the Brazos, near the Cross Timbers (Monte Grande). But pressure from the Apaches soon drove them to spend much of their time eastward of the Brazos. In testimony of this fact, Bustillo y Zavallos, who had been governor of Texas from 1732 to 1734, wrote in 1746 that “of Ranchería Grande there remained in my time only the name, for their abode being the Monte Grande, they had already, because of their diminutive forces, retired to live in the distance, between the Yojuanes and Acdozas,” ²⁷ that is, between the Trinity and the Brazos. This seems to have been their principal haunt in 1745, when our story begins.

The habitat and movements of the Mayeyes were much the same as those of Ranchería Grande, in so far as those of either are known. In 1687 Joutel, La Salle's companion, heard of the Meghy as a tribe living north of the Colorado somewhere near the place where the Spaniards later actually came into contact with the Mayeyes, ²⁸ and it seems not improbable from the similarity of the names and locations that the two tribes were identical. In 1727 Rivera encountered the Mayeyes at a spring called Puentezitas, fifteen leagues west of the junction of the two arms of the Brazos, that is, of the Little River with the main Brazos, and thirty-five leagues after crossing the Colorado. The place must have been somewhere near the San Gabriel River. ²⁹ According to Bustillo y Zevallos, who was evidently speaking of them as he had known them in his day, the Mayeyes customarily came down from the Brazos de Dios to the Nabasota (Navasota), and ranged from there to the Trinity. As he had seen them several times, he probably spoke with authority. ³⁰ A critical document now in the archive of the College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas, written anonymously about 1748 by someone who had had wide experience in Texas, evidently a Zacatecan friar, says that the country of the Mayeyes was on the east of the Brazos, eighty leagues from San Antonio and twenty from the “place of San Xavier.” ³¹ The two designations agree essentially with each other and harmonize with the testimony of other documents.

The Yojuane are less easily traced. They were a wandering Tonkawan band, as were the Mayeye, and their general history was much the same as the better known Tonkawa tribe. ³² They were mentioned by Casañas in 1691 as “Diu Juan,” in a list of enemies of the Hasinai. ³³ In 1709 Fathers Espinosa and Olivares met a tribe called Yojuan near the Colorado River. ³⁴ About 1714 they destroyed the main Hasinai temple near the Angelina. ³⁵ The Joyuan tribe met by Du Rivage in 1719 near the Red River above the Caddodacho seem to have been the Yojuane. ³⁶ Later on the Yojuane were closely associated with the Mayeye and the Hierbipiame, and for some time before 1745 they lived northward of these tribes between the Trinity and the Brazos. Mediavilla y Ascona, governor of Texas between 1727 and 1730, stated that he frequently saw them on the road to eastern Texas. Bustillo y Zevallos, his successor in office, said that they lived “to the northwest, up the Trinity River, far distant from them [the Deadoses and Mayeyes] and neighbors to a tribe of Apaches called los Melenudos.” Before the middle of the eighteenth century the hostility of the Yojuane toward the Hasinai seems to have ceased, for thereafter the two tribes frequently went together against the Apache.

The sources for the history of the San Xavier missions establish the already conjectured ³⁷ identity of the Deadoses with the Agdocas of earlier times. The name is variously written Yacdocas, Yadosa, de Adozes, Doxsa, Deadoses, ³⁸ etc. The same documents also make it clear that the Deadoses were a branch of the Bidai-Orcoquiza linguistic group. ³⁹ On this point the anonymous document in the archives at Zacatecas, cited just above, says “Yadocxa ought to be called Deadoses. This is a band of Viday Indians who, being dismembered from its vast body, which has its movable abode between Trinidad and Sabinas Rivers, have lived for more than twenty years, for the sake of the trade afforded them by the transit of the Spaniards, on this (western) side of the River Trinidad, and, extending as far as Navasotoc, . . . are accustomed to join the Mayeyes, who reside in the thickets of the River Brassos de Dios.” According to the same document, the Deadoses were habitually forty leagues east of the Mayeyes. ⁴⁰ These statements harmonize with various other detached items of information. In 1714, for example, the Agdocas were said to be twelve leagues south of the Assinais (Hasinai), that is, in the country near the mouth of the Angelina River, ⁴¹ where Bidai continued to live to a much later date. In 1721, as has been seen, Aguayo found the Agdocas west of the Trinity, mingled with Ranchería Grande. ⁴² They evidently had already begun to move westward.

Bustillo bears testimony that both the Mayeyes and the Deadoses were in his day already succumbing to the principal enemy of the native American race, disease. He says: “Both of these tribes are small. I have seen them various times, the last being in 1734, when I left that province. I do not believe that they have increased since that time, because of the epidemics which they are accustomed to suffer and which they were suffering, of measles and smallpox, which are their sole destroyers.” In 1745 the four bands, Ranchería Grande, Mayeyes, Yojuanes, and Deadoses, were said to comprise 1228 persons. ⁴³

Other tribes intimately connected with the history of the San Xavier missions were the Bidai, of the lower Trinity River, and the Coco, a Karankawan tribe of the lower Colorado. Early Spanish contact with these tribes has been discussed by the present writer elsewhere, and will not need discussion here. ⁴⁴

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II. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MISSIONS, 1745

1. The petition of the four tribes.—The establishment of missions for these tribes was due primarily to the zeal of Fray Mariano Francisco de los Dolores y Viana, missionary at the mission of San Antonio de Valero. ⁴⁵ He had come to Texas in the year 1733, ⁴⁶ and had made occasional visits to central Texas, now to recover apostates, and again in search of new tribes from which to replenish the missions, ever in need of recruits because of desertions and the ravages of disease. In the course of these expeditions he had visited the Deadoses, Yojuanes, Mayeyes, and the Ranchería Grande. The precise details of these visits, unfortunately, have not appeared. We are told, however, that with some of the tribes he had contracted friendship as early as 1734. ⁴⁷ Presumably the first to be dealt with were the Indians of Ranchería Grande, since, as we have seen, with these the missionaries of San Antonio had frequent and early contact. We learn, again, that in 1741, when Fray Mariano accompanied governor Wintuisen to the Trinity, he carried presents to the Deadoses and the Mayeyes and tried to induce them to enter his mission; ⁴⁸ and, again, that for some time before 1745 he had been visiting all of these tribes and they him, “either every year or nearly every year.” ⁴⁹ Thus, contrary to what might be inferred from some of the documents, it is clear that a project to found missions for these four tribes was no sudden thought.

But it was not till 1745 that matters came to a head. On the second of June of that year, after numerous unfulfilled promises, it would seem, four chiefs of the tribes in question, with thirteen followers, came to San Antonio and asked for a mission, requesting that it should be in their own country, at a site which Fray Mariano should select. ⁵⁰

2. The appeals of Fray Mariano, June-July, 1745.—It happened that just at that time the Commissary Visitor, Fray Francisco Xavier Ortiz, was at the San Antonio missions on an official visitation. Accordingly, although he had already passed by the mission of San Antonio de Valero, on his way down the river, Fray Mariano embraced the opportunity and asked Father Ortiz to return, recommending that the desired missions should be established, with a presidio of thirty soldiers to protect the missionaries from the Indians, and the latter from their enemy, the Apache. From such a step he prophesied great results. Not only would these Indians be brought to a knowledge of the true God, but their friends, the Texas, who had so long been obdurate, would also be converted. Moreover, great advantages would result in case of war with France, for the Indians, if converted, could be relied upon to aid the Spaniards, whereas, at present, they would be sure to join the French. To avoid unnecessary expense, he recommended that half of the garrison of Adaes be put under a captain and assigned to the proposed new presidio. To make possible the two or three missions that would be necessary for the 1228 souls which the four tribes were reported to comprise, he recommended appealing to the king for the required initial sum and a suitable annuity thereafter. ⁵¹

Father Ortiz granted the request that he return to the mission of Valero, and, while the Indians were still there, had their petition formally examined by Thoribio de Urrutia, captain of the presidio, in the presence of the other officials. ⁵² We are told that Captain Urrutia tried to persuade the Indians to settle at San Antonio, where he would provide them a separate mission, but that they refused to go so far from their relatives, their lands, their friends, and their trade with the Texas, from whom they were accustomed to procure their weapons. Next, Captain Urrutia proceeded to test their sincerity, telling them that if they entered the mission they must be subordinate to the missionaries, labor in the fields, attend religious services, receive instruction, and fight the enemies of the Spaniards. When they consented to all this he promised, in the name of the king, to aid them against all their foes, and again they repeated their request for a padre to go with them to their country, see their people, and instruct them as to what they must do in preparation for a mission. ⁵³

In addition to the appeal made to Father Ortiz, Fray Mariano addressed one ⁵⁴ to the guardian of his College, Fray Alonso Giraldo de Terreros, a zealous soul, who, a decade later, was to suffer martyrdom in Texas. In this appeal Father Mariano stated that, in view of the great number of Indians who would be likely to join the petitioning tribes, the opportunity of the College was the rarest it had ever had in Texas.

According to the reports and the names of the unknown Kingdoms which there are in all that region, making a conservative estimate, at the lowest figure there would not fail to be more than six thousand souls who in time could be reduced. It would be a pity to lose this opportunity, which would lead to another equally holy. . . . It is a fact that on one of the occasions when I went inland, I came upon Indians of whom those which we have reduced had never heard at all. And thus the report which the Indians themselves give is made to appear credible. And even if it were not, it cannot be denied that, besides those who wish to be converted, there are large nations, none of which, we know, will ever become converted unless means be taken to establish missions for them in their own country or near to them, according as there are conveniences in the different places.

Continuing, Fray Mariano suggested that Fray Diego Ximénez, secretary of the visitor and present with him at San Antonio, be sent to assist in the new work, and that the conduct of the matter before the viceroy be entrusted preferably to Father Ortiz, and if not to him, then to Father Ximénez. ⁵⁵

Father Espinosa, in his Chrónica Apostólica, which was completed in 1747 (though its title page bears the date 1746) ⁵⁶ makes a statement which may furnish the real reason why the project of a mission for these tribes, which, as has been seen, had been known and dealt with for some time, came to a head just at the time when it did. He says that the mission of La Punta, or Lampazos, had just been secularized, and that the College wished to establish another in its place, and, therefore, promoted one on the San Xavier. As Father Espinosa was at the time chronicler of the College, just completing his now famous history, and as he took some part in the struggle for the San Xavier missions, there is good reason for accepting his explanation ⁵⁷ as at least a part of the truth. One of the opponents of the project goes so far as to say, but evidently without foundation, that he believed that Father Ortiz's visit to San Antonio was for no other purpose than to see about establishing these San Xavier missions. ⁵⁸

3. A new embassy and the selection of a site.—While waiting for help and for approval of his project, Fray Mariano did his best to keep the petitioners favorably disposed, and to prepare the way for the establishment of the hoped-for missions. Indeed, for more than a year he and his College labored without help from the central government, and still another year before that government could be induced to authorize the mission, although for much of that time an inchoate mission settlement was in actual existence on the San Xavier.

Before the visiting Indians returned to their homes, they had promised Fray Mariano that they would assemble their people at some specified place to await his coming at the beginning of the winter. When they departed they were accompanied by an escort of mission Indians, who returned in a short time reporting that the news carried by the chiefs had been joyfully received by the people of the tribes, and that a search for a site had already been begun. ⁵⁹ This report was made before July 26, 1745.

Some time later, just when does not appear, the petitioners sent to San Antonio a delegation who reported that a site had been selected, and told of “many other nations” which had promised to join them in the proposed missions. ⁶⁰ The names of these tribes, as given in the autos reporting this visit—as yet the autos have not been found—are apparently those given later by Father Ortiz in his memorial to the king. ⁶¹ His list was as follows: Vidais, Caocos, Lacopseles, Anchoses, Tups, Atais, Apapax, Acopseles, Cancepnes, Tancagues, Hiscas, Naudis, Casos, Tanico, Quisis, Anathagua, Atasacneus, Pastates, Geotes, Atiasnogues, Taguacanas, Taguayas, “and others who subsequently asked for baptism.” ⁶² Among these we recognize the Bidai, of the lower middle Trinity, who lived below the Deadoses; the Coco and the Tups, Karankawan tribes of the lower Colorado and the gulf coast; the Naguidis, a little known branch of the Hasinai, of eastern Texas; the Tonkawa, Kichai, Towakana, and Taovayas, tribes then all liying on the upper Trinity, Brazos, and Red Rivers, ⁶³ beyond the Hierbipiames and Mayeyes; and the Tanico, a tribe near the Mississippi. The wide geographical distribution of these tribes might cause one to be suspicious of the genuineness of the report, but this doubt is lessened when we learn that later on a number of the tribes named actually became identified with the enterprise. The most that could be said in criticism of the report is that the outlook was perhaps regarded with a somewhat unwarranted optimism.

After making suitable presents to the delegation, Fray Mariano set out with them, accompanied by some mission Indians and soldiers, to visit the petitioners in their homes, and to view the site which they had selected. The place, it seems, was beyond the first or the second arm of the Brazos. The journey was impeded by high waters, and Fray Mariano was forced to turn back. But he sent forward some of the soldiers and neophytes, who succeeded in reaching a gathering of Indians, of various tribes, who were awaiting them in the Monte Grande on the Brazos. ⁶⁴

Now, it seems, on account of the difficulties of passing the high waters, the place which had been chosen was given up, and the soldiers were conducted to the San Xavier River, instead, and shown a site there. There are indications also that one of the reasons for a change of site was the discovery by the Indians that in their immediate country the necessary water facilities were lacking. This could hardly have referred to a lack of water, but rather to a topography unsuited to irrigation.

On returning to San Antonio the soldiers reported that they had examined the site shown to them on the San Xavier and that they had found it satisfactory. Hereupon ⁶⁵ new autos were drawn before the captain and the cabildo, giving an account of the occurrences just related, expressing a favorable opinion of the site chosen, asserting, as a warning, that the petitioners had all come armed with French guns, and giving assurance that “through this establishment of pueblos the malice of the Apache nation will be punished and the communication of the French nation will be prevented.” ⁶⁶

4. The beginnings of a tentative mission, January-April, 1746.—Various items of rather fragmentary information enable us to record the circumstances and to establish the date of the actual beginnings of tentative missionary work at San Xavier, both of which matters have hitherto been undetermined.

True to his promise, at the coming of winter Fray Mariano went to meet the petitioners at the designated site, where we find him in January, 1746, accompanied by the alférez of the San Antonio garrison, a squad of soldiers, and some mission Indians (and, presumably, with oxen and agricultural implements), making preparations for the hoped-for missions. ⁶⁷ Besides the original petitioners, he found at the site some of the Coco tribe, with whom he had communicated in the previous October. They assisted in the preparations, promised to enter the missions, and returned to their native haunts for their families. ⁶⁸ A mission site was chosen on the south side of the San Xavier River, now the San Gabriel, a short distance above its junction with the Arroyo de las Ánimas, now Brushy Creek. ⁶⁹ Sometime before April 13, evidently, Father Mariano wrote to his president at San Antonio that, since the good intentions of the Indians had proved constant, “he had founded a mission to attract them, on the banks of the San Xavier, ⁷⁰ in which enterprise he had spent all he possessed; that the place was most fertile, and its fields spacious and watered with good and plentiful water, that he had planted potatoes, and that though he had lost [some], he still had enough for another planting.” ⁷¹ The mission was regarded as having been “founded,” therefore, between January and April 13, 1746. Thus far, however, the founding seems to have consisted in little more than the selection of the site and the planting of crops. It had not yet been duly solemnized.

Before the middle of April, Fray Mariano returned to San Antonio, but he left some mission Indians from the latter place in charge, to plant and care for crops with which to support the prospective neophytes. When he departed he promised the assembled Indians that he would return with Spanish settlers and missionaries. ⁷²

The injury to the missionary cause which the fathers frequently had to suffer at the hands of the military authorities is illustrated at this point by Father Mariano's experience with the Cocos. ⁷³ As some members of this tribe were returning from San Xavier for their families, they were attacked, apparently without provocation, by Captain Orobio Bazterra, of Bahía, who was on his return from the lower Trinity, whither he had been to reconnoiter French traders. ⁷⁴ In the course of the trouble two of the Cocos were killed and others captured. On receiving the news of the occurrence on April 13, Fathers Mariano and Santa Ana complained to Captain Urrutia, saying that they feared that the mission project would be sadly interfered with and that even an outbreak might result unless something were done, and requested that Orobio should be required at once to release the captives. Captain Urrutia issued the order and also sent to San Xavier a delegation of mission Indians to make explanations and to help keep the peace. The result seems to have been satisfactory, for later on the Cocos entered one of the missions at San Xavier, as we shall see. ⁷⁵

Between April and June, evidently, there were no missionaries at San Xavier, for early in the latter month a delegation of Indians went from there to San Antonio again to urge Father Mariano to return with the promised friars and supplies. Four days later the “principal chief of all the nations” went from another direction to San Antonio to complain of the delay in sending them missionaries. Ethnologists would like to know to what tribe the principal chief belonged, but the information does not appear. Fray Mariano took this occasion to send a new appeal for help, predicting that the Indians could not be expected to wait longer than till October before giving up in disgust. ⁷⁶ Meanwhile, the crops had been cared for by the new tribes, who had remained in the vicinity in spite of Fray Mariano's absence. ⁷⁷

Sometime during the summer the construction of mission buildings was begun. We learn this fact from an undated document of this year by Father Ortiz, who writes that “it appears from other letters that the said father [Mariano] has already begun a church, habitation, and other things necessary, in order that the religious may live there, and that they have planted maize, potatoes, and other grains, for which he took from his mission of San Antonio forty cargoes, yokes of oxen, Indian workmen, and others to escort him, besides the soldiers.” ⁷⁸ Before January 16, 1747, Father Mariano had spent $2262.50 in supporting and entertaining the Indians, and by February, 1747, the sum had increased by $5083.50.

In the spring of 1747 some of the prospective neophytes, twelve in number, were at San Antonio, probably to complain again of delay. At any rate, near the end of March Fray Mariano sent back with them some Indians from the missions of Valero and Concepción, together with a Spaniard, named Eusebio Pruneda. Pruneda was provided with seed grain, and was instructed to plant crops and to “serve as a diversion for the people” until the viceroy should give the necessary orders for proceeding regularly. He found at San Xavier “Deadoses, Cocos, and Yojuanes.” They welcomed him and turned in to help plant the crops, “the said Indians working in person”—a fact that was regarded as noteworthy. When half through with the task, however, Pruneda's enterprise was broken up by the Apaches. A band of twenty-two Cocos who had been sent out to secure buffalo meat for the assemblage met the enemy near by, fought with them, and killed one. But seeing or learning of “many rancherías” of Apaches close at hand, at Parage de las Animas (evidently on Brushy Creek) they returned to San Xavier, where the whole body of Indians remained three days prepared for battle. At the end of that time, fearing an attack by a larger force of the enemy, and “fearful of the ruin which they might wreak upon them,” the Cocos withdrew to the lower Trinity, designating a place where they might be found. Before leaving they sent word by Pruneda to Father Mariano that he had deceived them by his promises to send missionaries and other Spaniards; that until these should be forthcoming they would seek their own safety by retiring; but that when they should be provided not only would they be prompt to return, but several other tribes from “muy adentro” (far in the interior) whom Father Mariano had not seen, would come also. ⁷⁹

It would seem that during a part of this time Fray Mariano had with him two assisting missionaries, for later on the College of Santa Cruz asked for reimbursement for the stipend paid three missionaries for work at San Xavier during the full years of 1746 and 1747. It appears, however, that during this period missionaries were at San Xavier at most only intermittently. One of the friars who assisted Father Mariano during this time was Mariano de Anda y Altamirano, a missionary formerly of the College of Zacatecas, who had served both at the Bahía mission and at San Miguel de los Adaes. In the summer of 1747, while at San Xavier, he was ordered to hasten to Mexico to assist in securing the desired license for the missions. He passed through Saltillo on his way south in July, ⁸⁰ a fact which gives us a clue to the approximate time of his departure.

We have thus been able to piece together some fragments of information concerning the circumstances of the beginnings of missionary work on the San Xavier; but practically all that we know of actual operations there between June, 1746, and February, 1748, is that the missionaries were there, from time to time at least, catechising and feeding the Indians, until the project should be definitely authorized and supported, and something permanent undertaken.

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III. THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTHORITY TO ESTABLISH THE MISSIONS  AND FOR A PRESIDIO

1. The approval of the college and of the fiscal obtained.—Meanwhile affairs were taking their slow and uncertain course in Mexico. If one does not care to follow the tedious details of the persistent struggle made by Father Mariano and the College of Santa Cruz for authority from the civil government to found the desired missions, for a presidio to protect them, and for funds to support them, he will do well to pass this chapter by. But as a monument to the zeal and the dogged fighting qualities of the Franciscans, and as a study in actual government in the frontier provinces of New Spain, the struggle deserves to be faithfully and somewhat fully recorded.

On leaving San Antonio in the summer of 1745, Father Ortiz carried with him written evidence of all that had occurred there relative to the request of the tribes for missions. ⁸¹ He evidently did not reach his college at Querétaro until late in the fall, for the report of his visitation was certified by his secretary at La Punta, or Lampazos, on October 11. ⁸² The College heartily approved the plan of Father Mariano, and, as he had suggested, entrusted the conduct of it before the viceroy to Father Ortiz, who, through his representative, Francisco Xavier Marqués, presented the two letters of Fray Mariano, and besought the viceroy's patronage for the enterprise. This was on or before January 18, and on that day the matter was referred, in the regular routine of such affairs, to the royal fiscal, Don Pedro Vedoya. ⁸³ Just a month later this official advised the viceroy to secure, before deciding so important a matter, from the governor of Texas, the officials of San Antonio, and the commissary general of missions, who was then at the College at San Fernando, “detailed information regarding the advantages and the need of increasing missions and missionaries in those places, the nations named in the two letters, the distances from the presidios of San Antonio de Valero and los Adaes, and the direction to each.” On the same day the viceroy ordered that Vedoya's advice should be acted upon. ⁸⁴

Before these orders could be complied with, the College presented a new memorial based on later news from Texas and urging haste. It told of the additional tribes that had offered to enter the missions, reported that the site selected was satisfactory, and asked for the establishment, in addition to missions, of a presidio of at least fifty soldiers to withstand the warlike Apaches and to cut off their trade with the French. ⁸⁵

The matter was again sent to the fiscal, and on March 28 he, satisfied with the evidence produced and the importance of haste while the Indians were in the right frame of mind, gave his approval to the project. He proposed that for the present, until a larger number of Indians should congregate, two or three missions should be established and supplied; and that, in order to avoid additional expense for their maintenance, the garrison of Boca de Leones and the presidio of Cerralvo, in Nuevo León, should be extinguished. To provide defence for the missions and for the settlement of Spaniards who it was hoped might locate near them, instead of approving Fray Mariano's plan of dividing the garrison of Los Adaes he recommended transferring to San Xavier the presidio of Santa Rosa del Sacramento, of Coahuila. ⁸⁶

This proposal of Vedoya to rob Peter to pay Paul, like that of Father Mariano, was altogether characteristic. They are but single examples of a policy widely practiced by the Spanish government on the northern frontier of New Spain. The government was always “hard up,” and yet was desirous of distributing funds and forces where they were most needed. Demands for protection against the Indians and for money to aid the missionaries and colonists were multitudinous. Consequently, the officials were ever under the necessity of cutting off here in order to piece out or patch on there. The truth is, therefore, that many of the new enterprises of the eighteenth century represent rather transfers of effort from one scene to another than real expansion. Actual increase in annual expenditure was in reality slight, or even tended to decrease. ⁸⁷

2. Opposition by Bustillo y Zevallos, May, 1746.—Vedoya's dictamen was referred to the auditor de guerra, the Marqués de Altamira. He, in turn, on April 13, recommended that an opinion on all the matters involved should be obtained from Juan Antonio Bustillo y Zevallos, at the time alcalde ordinario of the City of Mexico. ⁸⁸ Bustillo had been twelve years in Texas, seven of them as captain of the presidio of Loreto, or Bahía del Espiritu Santo, and three as governor of the province. As captain at Bahía he had assisted in the transfer of the Querétaran missions from eastern Texas to San Antonio. His administration as governor had been notable for the settlement of the Canary Islanders at San Antonio and for a campaign to the San Xavier and the San Sabá Rivers led by himself in 1732 against the Apaches. ⁸⁹ Altamira's advice was followed by the viceroy, who in a decree of April 18 requested Bustillo to make the desired report. ⁹⁰

The opposition to the San Xavier mission project offered by Bustillo in his memorial of May 28 was the focal point of much of the tedious discussion of the matter which followed. ⁹¹ He began by paying a generous tribute to the zeal of the missionaries of Querétaro in the northeastern provinces and reviewing the history of the San Xavier matter to date. Then he proceeded to present objections to nearly every point which had been raised. According to him, the country along the highway between San Antonio and the Trinity was occupid by only the two small tribes of the Mayeyes and the Deadoses. The Yojuanes lived far up the Trinity to the northwest, and the Ranchería Grande, now little more than a name, between the Deadoses and Yojuanes. All of these tribes were now beyond the Brazos, and by no means close to the San Xavier, while they were applying for missions merely in order to get the material benefits, “since they will never accept the principal without the accessories.” ⁹² The Vidais might some day be reduced, but, because of their barbarity and their plentiful supply of food, he doubted very much whether their reduction could be speedily effected. The Karankawan tribes of the coast ⁹³ could never be subjected to mission influence, a fact which had been proved by the failure of his own efforts and those of the missionaries covering many years. He doubted the feasibility of irrigating the lands of the San Xavier, because he had camped on it three days during his campaign of 1732 without noticing any facilities for irrigating ditches. Indeed, he had reported this opinion in December, 1744, when settlement on the San Xavier was being contemplated. As an example of the ease with which one could be mistaken on such matters without adequate information, he said, with truth, one had only to remember the disappointment of the missionaries in 1730 when they had attempted to establish on the San Marcos the missions removed from the east.

Moreover, said Bustillo, the San Xavier River was in a dangerous location, being on the highway by which the Apaches sallied forth from their hills in the west. As to the possession of French guns by the petitioning tribes, they had not gotten them directly from the French, but from the Texas, who were the middlemen in this trade. The French themselves had never entered so far into the interior. The presidio of Los Adaes could not be reduced without great danger to the eastern frontier, and if any of the soldiers were to be taken away they might much better be stationed at Cadodachos, where the French had so long had an establishment. Adaes was the capital of the province, and should be the residence of the governors. The only reason why governors had lived at San Antonio was to avoid the hard life at the frontier post. On the other hand, the garrisons at Cerralvo, Boca de Leones, and Sacramento were all needed in their respective places, as a defence against the Tobosos and Jumanes, and besides, there was more hope of establishing a settlement of Spaniards at the last named place than there ever could be at San Xavier.

After all these objections to the San Xavier plan, however, Bustillo was ready with a substitute. The four tribes in question and the others which had been named, were, he said, nearer to “Texas” ⁹⁴ than to San Antonio. Why not establish a mission for some of the petitioners at the village of San Pedro de los Nabedaches, as an example to the Nabedache tribe; and another at the Aynais village called El Loco, between the Angelina and Nacogdoches? “In this way,” he concluded, “three desirable ends, in my opinion, will be secured. First, that the moving of the Presidio del Sacramento may be dispensed with; second, that the Reverend Fathers may realize the fruit of their desire, and the Indians the wish which it is said they have manifested; third, and more important, that there may be restored to the poor Texas the consolation which has been taken away from them. Indeed, I am most certain that they will receive it with notable rejoicing, for many times I have seen them lament with tears the fact that they were deserted—not that I should say for this reason that they were weeping for the lack of access to our Holy Faith, for none of the Indians with whom I have communicated give this reason, but rather those of intercourse and of trade in their products.” ⁹⁵

Withal, it would seem that Bustillo was a man of more than ordinarily sound sense and of candor. His experience with the barbarian Indians had taught him their most usual motives to a first profession of love for Christianity.

3. Rebuttal by Mediavilla and the College.—Again the matter went to the auditor. With the memorial of Bustillo was sent the news from San Antonio that the Indians had proved constant in their desires; that Fray Mariano had actually founded for them a mission and planted crops on the banks of the San Xavier; that the place was extremely fertile and well watered, and that Father Mariano had spent his all on the work. ⁹⁶ Hereupon, at the auditor's instance, Father Ortiz was called upon for a reply to Bustillo's objections. ⁹⁷

To prepare an answer, the College called into requisition a gun of like calibre, another ex-governor of Texas, indeed, Don Melchor Mediavilla y Ascona, who was then at Hacienda de Galera y Apaseo. ⁹⁸ Mediavilla had preceded Bustillo as governor of the province. He had been in office at the time of Rivera's inspection in 1727, had sided with the missionaries in their opposition to that official's recommendation to reduce the Texas garrisons, and had supported their appeal in 1729 to be allowed to retire from eastern Texas. It was for these actions, according to Bonilla, that he had been removed from office in 1731. ⁹⁹ Evidently the College expected hearty support from him, and it was not disappointed.

Fray Alonzo Giraldo de Terreros, at the time guardian of the College, wrote to Mediavilla relative to the matter on June 23. ¹⁰⁰ In his reply, made at his hacienda on June 28, Mediavilla was as emphatic in his advocacy of the San Xavier project as Bustillo had been in his opposition to it. He said that he knew from personal acquaintance with them that the four tribes in question were docile, and that he believed them to be “domesticable.” As they lived near the San Xavier, they could easily be taken there and settled. For such a purpose this river was the best place in the province, having good water facilities and fertile lands. Bustillo, he said, could hardly be taken as an authority on this point, as he had crossed the River near the Brazos, and not near the proposed site; besides, he was rather frightened while in its vicinity on his campaign, and could not have been expected to make careful observations. As to taking the Yojuanes and other tribes in question to San Pedro and the El Loco settlement, this was impracticable, for to say nothing of other difficulties, they would be unwelcome, since they had different rites and customs from those of the Texas. On the other hand,—and the delightful inconsistency did not disturb him—it would be most easy to settle on the San Xavier not only the petitioners, but also the Texas and the Nabedache, who, as Bustillo had said with truth, greatly lamented the departure of the missionaries from their midst. But Bustillo was wrong, he said, in supposing that the Yojuanes and others did not trade directly with the French, for, as a matter of fact, they were visited regularly by traders who came by way of Cadodachos and the Texas. Indeed, entry was so easy that in 1725 five hundred French soldiers (genizaros) had penetrated the country for a distance of ninety leagues, looking for a rumored mine on the Trinity, and had returned by the same route without even being molested. ¹⁰¹ It was clear, therefore, if for these reasons aione, that the province needed the protection of another presidio, whereas those of Sacramento and Cerralvo were not needed where they were, and were at best serving only a temporal purpose. Well might they be taken to the San Xavier to serve so important a spiritual end.

Supported by Mediavilla's opinion and a paper of similar tenor written by Fray Isidro Felix de Espinosa, who had been for several years president of the Querétaran missions of eastern Texas, ¹⁰² Father Ortiz prepared his answer. It was dated at the College of San Fernando on July 30. His reliance was mainly on the opinion of Mediavilla, which he submitted with his reply. Father Ortiz himself added to the discussion little that was new. ¹⁰³

Upon receipt of these opinions, the autos were remanded by the viceroy to the fiscal. This official was of the opinion that Bustillo was completely worsted in the argument, and, considering that he had no reason to change his original views, but, rather, strong additional ones for maintaining them, he reiterated his opinion of March 28. ¹⁰⁴

4. Delay due to the undertakings of Escandón.—Now arose a new cause or excuse for delay. The king had a short time previously charged the viceroy with the pacification and colonization of the coast country between Tampico and Bahía del Espiritu Santo, the last portion of the Gulf coast to receive attention by the Spaniards. To effect this important task, José de Escandón, Count of Sierra Gorda, was appointed by the viceroy on September 6, 1746. To enable him to explore, preliminary to colonizing, the large stretch of country assigned to him, Escandón asked the aid of detachments from the garrisons at Adaes, Bahía, Sacramento, Monclova, Cerralvo, and Boca de Leones. ¹⁰⁵ In view of these facts, the auditor de guerra gave the opinion ¹⁰⁶ that with the garrisons thus occupied, none of them could be spared for the proposed San Xavier missions. He recurred, therefore, to his former opinion that neither could the presidio of Sacramento be moved nor a new one be erected, and recommended that Father Ortiz be asked to propose some other means of securing the end so much desired. ¹⁰⁷

5. New plans proposed by Father Ortiz.—On September 28 the auditor's opinion was sent to Father Ortiz, and on October 10 he was ready with his reply. With the courage of convictions that usually marked these frontier missionaries, he dared to question the judgment of the auditor on matters of state, insisting that the garrisons of Sacramento, Coahuila, Boca de Leones, and Cerralvo were unnecessary, and slyly affirming that they could be diverted either to take part in the Escandón enterprise or to protect the proposed missions at San Xavier. Since a suggestion had been asked for, he submitted two alternative plans. One was for a volunteer civil colony, the other for a presidio which should become a civil settlement after a term of years. The first plan was to use the funds now being spent in supporting the Sacramento garrison, for the maintenance of one hundred volunteer settlers at San Xavier, assigning them lands, providing them with an initial outfit, and maintaining them for a term of eight years, after which they might be expected to support themselves. This would make a garrison unnecessary. The second alternative plan was that the company at Sacramento, or another of equal strength, should be maintained at San Xavier for a term of years, with the obligation to remain thereafter as colonists, having been supplied during their period of service with the means of pursuing agriculture. In either way, he said, a substantial village or city of Spaniards would be established at the end of ten years, while the missions would meanwhile have the necessary protection. It will be seen that both of these suggestions involved the use, for the defence of San Xavier, of the funds then being spent in Sacramento, and could hardly be regarded as entirely new plans, or greatly different from that of the fiscal.

Finally, in order that the Indians now gathered at San Xavier might be kept friendly and retained at the spot, Father Ortiz requested that, while the fate of the project was being decided, a sum of money should be assigned from the royal treasury for the purchase of presents and food, for “the eagerness (moción) of the Indians is such that the like was never before witnessed, and ... if this enterprise should fail ... we do not know what would happen.” ¹⁰⁸

Notwithstanding the suggestion of Father Ortiz, the advice of the auditor prevailed, and, in view of the operations of Escandón, ¹⁰⁹ the viceroy ordered all discussion of the matter suspended. The date of the order was apparently February 1, 1747. That Escandón's projects were the cause of the viceroy's withholding his decision is clearly stated in his dispatches of February 14 and July 27.

6. Tentative approval by the viceroy: funds and a temporary garrison authorized.—Nevertheless, the viceroy and the auditor were sufficiently convinced of its desirability to give the San Xavier project tentative support. On February 1, 1747, ¹¹⁰ as a result of another escrito from Father Ortiz, and in conformity ¹¹¹ with a recommendation of the auditor made on January 28, the viceroy ordered that the 2262½ pesos which had already been spent by Fray Mariano in attracting and maintaining the Indians at San Xavier should be repaid, and on February 14, in order to prevent the neophytes from deserting whilst the Seno Mexicano was being inspected, to protect them from the Apache, and to aid the missionaries in founding the settlement, he ordered the governor to send at once to San Xavier ten soldiers from Adaes and twelve from Béxar. ¹¹²

Students should be guarded against an error at this point. An original despatch of the viceroy contained in the Lamar Papers, here designated as “Erecion,” says that on December 26, 1746, the viceroy ordered the establishment of three missions on the San Xavier. From what has been stated above it will be seen that this is a mistake of the document, although it is an original. ¹¹³

7. Father Ortiz appeals to the king, 1747.—Perhaps in despair of success at the viceroy's court, or perhaps at the viceroy's suggestion, and to aid any effort which the latter might make, Father Ortiz now turned to the king himself. In a memorial written some time after the viceroy's decree of February 14, ¹¹⁴ he reviewed the circumstances under which the tribes had asked for a mission, gave a list of those which had subsequently joined the first four tribes in their petition, recounted the efforts that had been made in Mexico by the College, and cited the fiscal's unqualified approval and the viceroy's tentative aid recently given. With great shrewdness he made much of the political advantages of the desired missions, “even more notable because these Indians and their broad, fertile, and bounteous country are coveted by foreign nations, who anxiously try to add them to their crowns, and with this aim maintain commerce with them and supply them with guns, ammunition, and other things which they know they like.” “It follows, therefore,” he continued, “that if they are not heeded, and if—God forbid—France, on whose colonies they border, should become hostile, and, with the desire to gain their affections, should maintain closer friendship with said Indians, and they should become her partisans, she might without any difficulty get possession of not only this province but of many others of New Spain.” But, by making the necessary provision for these Indian petitioners, New Spain would be sufficiently protected and very much increased. Not only would these tribes enter missions, he added, but the Apache, who so infested the province, and yet so many times had asked for missions, would be forced to accept the faith and attach themselves to the crown of Spain. “And in this way the Province of Texas will become a most extensive and flourishing kingdom, which may freely trade and communicate with New Mexico and other provinces of New Spain and even with others of your royal crown if this communication is sought by sea.” With not a little wisdom he argued, further, that by pacifying the Indians and peopling the country, many presidios would become unnecessary, and the crown thereby saved great expense.

On the basis of this argument on political grounds, to which he did not fail to add the obligation to extend the faith, Father Ortiz proceeded to request not only permission to permanently found the missions already being provisionally established, and all the means necessary for the purpose, but also asked permission and funds to establish a hospital in Texas, either at San Xavier or other convenient place, to facilitate the broad missionary project under contemplation. It should serve as an infirmary and a place of rest for sick and wornout missionaries, and be the headquarters of the prelate of the San Xavier missions, who otherwise would be three hundred or four hundred leagues from headquarters with no means of succor or medical aid. In addition to the prelate, there would be necessary two missionary priests, to act as substitutes for the missionaries, care for the military, and serve civilian Spaniards, and two lay brothers, one to serve as nurse for the sick, and the other to act as financial agent, with the title of conductor of alms, to secure funds in Mexico to help on the project.

Father Ortiz closed by repeating his request for reimbursement of the sums that had been spent by the College in maintaining three missionaries at San Xavier in the work of catechizing and otherwise preparing the Indians for mission life. ¹¹⁵

8. Opposition to the plans for a temporary garrison.—It was not enough for the viceroy merely to order a garrison sent to San Xavier, for excuses, or even good reasons for respectful argument, were easily found and hard to resist. And thus it was with the order of February 14. It reached San Antonio on May 7, by a courier who had been delayed on the Rio Grande two months by Apache hostilities. This circumstance, coupled with recent occurrences at San Antonio and the situation at San Xavier revealed by the declaration of Pruneda, made three days before, augured ill for the fulfillment of the despatch.

On the 9th Fray Mariano presented the document to Urrutia, ¹¹⁶ and asked for its fulfillment. Urrutia gave formal obedience, but wrote on Mariano's escrito several reasons why the detachment of the twelve soldiers should be suspended until further orders should be received from the viceroy. Apache hostilities were especially bad just then; in the preceding month the tribe had run off the horse herds of three of the missions, and were now camped near the San Xavier in large numbers; at that very moment he had in his possession a memorial of the cabildo on the subject, dated April 29, waiting till a courier could take it to Mexico; and a petition from the citizens asking him to request the aid of fifteen or twenty of the soldiers of Adaes to strengthen the defense. ¹¹⁷ To support this petition, on the next day he presented the matter to a joint meeting of the military officers, the cabildo, the justicia, and the regimiento of the villa of San Fernando, and this body issued a statement similar in tenor to that of Urrutia, adding to his reasons for suspending the order the shortage of supplies at San Xavier. ¹¹⁸ On May 19 the subsbtance of these deliberations was embodied by Urrutia in a consulta, or opinion, and sent to the viceroy. ¹¹⁹

While the immediate purpose of Fray Mariano was thus frustrated, the College of Santa Cruz seized the occasion to ask not for less but for more. Fray Francisco de la Santissima Trinidad, joint agent with Marqués at Mexico for the College in promoting the San Xavier plan, put in the appeal. In a memorial to the viceroy he referred with evident approval to the reasons for not fulfilling the order of February 14. He then argued at length on the importance of controlling the group of Indians for whom the new missions were desired. They lived on the French border, secured their firearms from the French, and were in pernicious communication with the French. They were dexterous in the use of firearms, and in case of a breach with France it would be important to have them on the side of Spain. The only way to secure this allegiance was to “reduce” them to mission life; this done, they would defend the frontier against both the French and the Apache, and perhaps bring that dangerous nation to Christianity. And to do this properly would require a presidio, not of twenty-two soldiers, but of sixty or more, for which number he now asked. ¹²⁰

The matter now went again through the regular routine of the viceroy's secretariat. It was first referred to the fiscal, who replied on June 28; and then to the auditor de guerra, Altamira, who gave his dictamen on July 4. Complying with Altamira's advice, on July 27 the viceroy issued new despatches. By these despatches the nine soldiers belonging to the presidio of Bahía but serving at the missions near San Antonio were to return to their post; from the presidio of Bahía thirteen soldiers were to be sent to San Xavier, and from that of Los Adaes seventeen. Each soldier sent was to be of good character and suitable for the purpose. Though the captain of Béxar was exempt from complying in form with the order of February 14, that place was to suffer a loss of the nine soldiers borrowed from Bahía. And the new order must be fulfilled without excuse or interpretation, on pain of dismissal from office and a fine of $6000 for any failure or violation. The viceroy was now showing his teeth. ¹²¹

The missionaries were no better pleased with the new order for a temporary guard than had been the commanders in Texas with the former order. The removal of the nine soldiers from San Antonio would be a hardship to the missions; and, besides, what the missionaries demanded was a regular presidio. This feeling was made known in August by Father Mariano de Anda y Altamirano, in a memorial to the viceroy. ¹²² As has already been stated, he had been assigned to the new missions on the San Xavier River; had been to the site; had been sent to Mexico to aid in securing the necessary license; and had heard of the order of July 27. His argument now was much like Father Trinidad's had been. In his memorial he prophesied that the governor of Texas and the captain at Bahía would give only formal obedience and then proceed to raise objections, with resulting delays. As for himself, he saw two difficulties. If the nine soldiers of Bahía doing duty at San Antonio were to be removed, either they must be replaced by soldiers from that presidio or the missions near San Antonio would be without protection. To take soldiers from the presidio would leave San Antonio exposed to attack. The presidio of Los Adaes, being on the French frontier and surrounded by Indians, could ill spare any of its sixty soldiers, most of whom were constantly needed to escort the governor, the missionaries, and convoys of goods from Saltillo, to cultivate the fields, or to guard the storehouse. ¹²³ The presidio of Bahía was almost as much in danger from Apaches as was San Antonio; and the Cujanes were bad.

Moreover, the garrison of thirty soldiers assigned to San Xavier was altogether too small. Twelve men would be needed to guard the three missions being planned; ten to guard the horse herd; this would leave only six to escort the supply train and the missionaries, making no allowance for desertions and deaths. Finally, any guard less than fifty soldiers would be too small in case of trouble with the barbarian tribes at the new missions or of attacks by their enemies.

The provision of one hundred settlers would not serve at present, since it would take a long time to secure them, especially if the task were left entirely to the missionaries, already overburdened; besides, the allowance of two hundred pesos per family was too small, since, in spite of the greatest economy, the expense for one missionary going to Saltillo or Coahuila, with only one servant, was at least one hundred pesos.

A presidio at San Xavier, on the other hand, would be on the very frontier against the Apaches, and would help to restrain the French, who were now entering by way of the Trinity River. Indeed, it was now well known that they had a large settlement on that stream, with a garrison and fifty or sixty cannon, and were supplying the very Indians of San Xavier.

In view of all the foregoing, Father Anda closed by urging, first, that the presidio of Sacramento be moved to the San Xavier River, and, second, that thirty or forty men be added to it. If this could not be done, he urged that eighty or ninety men be detached from other presidios—not including those of Texas—and formed into a new presidio at San Xavier.

As Father Anda predicted, the disposition of the Texas commanders to comply was no better than before, though in saying this we would not wish to convey the impression that the military authorities did not have good grounds for resisting the reduction of their petty garrisons. But the resistance of the captain at Bahía, Orobio Bazterra, seems to have been in part inspired by ill feeling toward Father Mariano. The Apache situation, at least, was really serious. The captain set forth his objections in communications of November 1 and 21, and the governor, Francisco García Larios, gave his in one of December 12. ¹²⁴ From a review of these documents given by the viceroy in a despatch of January 29, 1748, it appears that the objectors maintained that all of the soldiers were needed in their respective presidios; that the San Xavier, though called a river, was only an arroyo, and that their soldiers had refused to go there to live. The governor added that he feared that if he should try to carry out the order, the men would desert to Natchitoches. This argument might appear frivolous if we did not know that twenty years afterward nearly the whole garrison of San Agustín did that very thing. The captain concluded by saying, maliciously, it would seem, or at least without foundation, that the favorable reports given of San Xavier were false, and had probably been secured by subornation or collusion of witnesses.

Captain Orobio had a substitute plan to urge as an excuse for non-compliance, and he may have been sincere in his support of it. In 1746, as we have seen, he had gone to the lower