USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 2
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From a military point of view the expedition was fruitless, and scarcely more can be said for the missionary efforts. Not one of the eight additional missions was established. In fact, the friars soon found
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
it impracticable to maintain the two original missions. The Indians were giving trouble, the small guard of soldiers proved unruly, drouth blighted the crops for two successive seasons, the cattle died of disease, and Manzanet, after more than a year of unsuccessful effort, confessed to the viceroy the impossibility of sustaining the establishment without sufficient military protection. But with the fear of French aggression allayed for the time, the government ceased to be concerned about Texas, and on August 21, 1693, the priests were ordered to abandon the missions and return to Mexico.
For twenty years thereafter Texas existed only in name, and over the forts of the soldiers and the chapels of the priests the aboriginal wilderness held sway as in the years before La Salle landed on the shores of Espiritu Santo. The career of Texas contains many vicissitudes, and by no means least interesting of her annals is the period beginning with the advent of the indomitable Frenchman and closing with the withdrawal of the Spanish missionaries-a drama played through all its scenes in less than ten years.
As to the practical results of these first Spanish entradas, it is main- tained* that these expeditions laid the foundations of experience on which subsequent missionary enterprises were built. "That remote inland settle- ments are difficult to establish, and more difficult to maintain; that the organization of an extensive system of missions must be the slow work of years, and not the accomplishment of a summer campaign; that the conversion of even the most tractable of Indians must be a mingling of force with persuasion; and finally, that the mission could thrive only when it existed side by side with the presidio,-these were the useful deductions from Fray Damian Manzanet's costly experimenting." Fur- thermore, through de Leon's and Teran's campaigns the geography and physical nature of Texas first became a matter of accurate knowledge, a knowledge that was available for all future expeditions.
* By Mr. R. C. Clark, in Tex. Hist. Assn. Quarterly, Vol. V, 201.
CHAPTER III
PERMANENT OCCUPATION BY SPAIN
As the colony of La Salle had first stimulated the Spanish to secure Texas, so a second encroachment by the French led to the permanent occupation of the region between the Rio Grande and the Sabine. The Spaniards had little interest in extending their political dominion over this territory, but their jealousy was quickly aroused by any intrusion of other nations. Without such incentive to occupation, it is reasonable to believe that Texas would have lain unoccupied throughout the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, and would then have presented an entirely open field to American enterprise and settlement.
Though the missions among the Tejas were abandoned in 1693, the work of the friars in that quarter was not forgotten. The zeal of the church to extend its work in this direction was much in advance of the interest and plans of the government. A friar of Querataro, Francisco Hidalgo, who had been with Manzanet among the Asinais, and in the latter years of the century was in charge of the newly established mission of San Juan Bautista, near the Rio Grande, all these years continued his interest in his former converts. But for a long time missionary effort was confined south of the Rio Grande. Finally becoming discouraged, Hidalgo set out alone to the Asinais and for several years labored among them, hoping that his pioneer efforts would be followed by some sub- stantial aid from the south. Disappointed by Spain's policy of neglect of Texas, he turned to the French of Louisiana.
At the opening of the eighteenth century, France had gained a strong foothold at the mouth of the Mississippi. Fort Biloxi had been established and the country north and along Red river was being exploited for trade with the Indians. The extension of French influence was going on rapidly and soon became a menace to Spanish influence in Mexico and the Floridas. The French were much more enterprising and success- ful in the Indian trade than the Spanish. In 1712 a monopoly of the
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Louisiana trade for a period of fifteen years was granted to Antoine Crozat, and he proceeded with much energy to occupy the field and drew the trade of a broad territory toward the Mississippi. To further his commercial schemes, he tried to negotiate some sort of trade agree- ment with Mexico. The Spanish authorities at once took alarm and declared a rigorous policy of "closed door" to all foreign nations. Thus early did the Spanish exclusiveness assert itself in the conduct of the American provinces.
But the opportunity came to the French from an unlooked for source. His missionary zeal proving stronger than his patriotism, Hidalgo had, in 17II, written a letter to the governor of Louisiana, inviting his co- operation in establishing a mission among the Asinais Indians. Here was an excellent pretext for extending trade among the Texas tribes and at the same time coming into relations with the Spanish that might prove profitable from a commercial standpoint.
The outcome was that an expedition set out from Mobile in 1713, its objects being stated in the passport dated September 12, 1713, as follows: "The sieur de Saint Denis is to take twenty-four men and as many Indians as necessary and with them go in search of the mission of Fray Francisco Hidalgo in response to his letter of January 17, 171I, and there to purchase horses and cattle for the province of Louisiana." Louis Juchereau de Saint Denis, the next important character in this history, was an officer from Louisiana. In 1705 he is said to have trav- ersed the country from the Red river to the Rio Grande, and his long familiarity with the Indian tribes and knowledge of their language gave him eminent fitness for the leadership of this expedition.
The ostensible motives of the undertaking were thus two-fold, and provided he conformed his actions to the instructions of his passport his movements could hardly be interpreted as hostile to Spain. Arriving at Natchitoches, the party built store-houses and left them under guard as a base of supplies while they set out into Spanish territory. At the vil- lage of the Asinais, where the old mission had been, they halted for six months or more. There they were able to obtain horses and cattle in great abundance, and this being the professed object of the expedition, and not having found Hidalgo and hence unable to effect the restoration of the mission, there was little reason for the continuance of the journey inland. But Hidalgo had made himself much beloved by the Indians, and they besought the help of St. Denis in effecting his return to them. Finally, an Indian chief and some of his followers offering their services
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
as guides to the Spanish settlements, St. Denis set out for the Rio Grande.
The mission and presidio of San Juan Bautista, which was the north- ermost Spanish post, located about two leagues south of the Rio Grande, was then commanded by Captain Diego Ramon. Arriving there early in 1715, St. Denis gave the commander his passport and proposed the establishment of trade relations between the Spanish and French.
The captain of the presidio received St. Denis kindly, but detained him until he should receive instructions from the viceroy. In the mean- time the Louisiana captain became enamoured of the commander's grand- daughter, whom he afterward married. This may have influenced his loyalty, for he is afterwards found acting, apparently, a double part. With complete disinterest for his former employers, he advocated that Spain should occupy Texas and pictured the many advantages that would come through commerce and agriculture in that region. By the viceroy's orders he was sent to Mexico, where he made a deposition of all his purposes and plans in entering so boldly upon Spanish territory.
With the French firmly established on the lower courses of the Mississippi, aggressively reaching out for commercial if not military con- quest, and with one of their advance guards audaciously penetrating Mexico and asking favors that Spanish policy had firmly forbidden, the viceroy and his advisers felt that the need to occupy and protect the northeastern border demanded immediate action.
During the summer of 1715 an expedition was organized. Domingo Ramon was appointed its captain, and St. Denis himself was given a salaried position in the company. Only a small body of regular soldiers composed the military strength of the entrada, but to prevent the recur- rence of such evils as had undone the former invasions, only men of family were sent along to accompany the priests, and the actual settlers were equipped with agricultural implements and oxen. Padre Hidalgo, who joined the company, now saw his hopes of many years about to be realized. Early in 1716 the march was begun, and in April the band, of sixty-five persons in all, with a great amount of baggage and live-stock, left the Rio Grande under the guidance of St. Denis.
In June Captain Ramon arrived at the site of the abandoned mission of San Francisco de los Tejas, and set to work re-establishing it. A new site was selected about twelve miles away, and the building was soon under way. Serving as the religious center for several tribes, it was now named San Francisco de los Neches, with Hidalgo in charge. Among the Asinais, nine leagues distant, was founded Purisima Concepcion; and
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
at the village of the Nacogdoches, the mission of Nuestra Senora de Gua- dalupe, while some twenty miles away was mission San Jose. A little later two other missions were established among the Adaes and Aes, nearer Red river.
Thus, as a direct result of the bold incursion of St. Denis, which in itself was but a part of the energetic movement of the French to occupy Louisiana and extend the limits of New France deep into the western wilderness, the Spaniards, in the year 1716, established a group of mis- sions and military garrisons on the borders of East Texas, where for more than a century the French, and later the Americans, were to con- tend with the Spanish in a vain endeavor to maintain a boundary be- tween two opposed types of civilization.
The real significance of the expedition of St. Denis is "that it deter- mined the ownership of Texas. The Spanish established, by fact of actual possession, their title to the lands east of the Rio Grande. The entrada of Captain Ramon was followed by others till a line of missions and presidios was established extending from the lands of the Aes and Adaes to the Rio Grande; and the western limit of Louisiana was fixed at the Sabine. But for the menace of St. Denis' presence to arouse the slow and indifferent Mexican government to action, it is probable that the movement to occupy Texas would not have come till much later."*
The three instruments by which Spain endeavored to hold Texas were: the mission, the presidio, and the pueblo. One of the chief objects sought with more or less sincerity in Spanish colonization in America was the Christianizing of the Indians, and the mission worked to this end. The principal figures of the mission were the priests, who en- deavored to instruct the natives in the arts of civilization and the Chris- tian religion.
They also tried to induce the Indians to dwell in central communities and villages, and depend for existence upon the settled pursuits of agri- culture instead of roving from place to place, which always proved the most embarrassing quality of the Indian character. This settlement of Indians was known as the pueblo, and both pueblo and mission were com- posite parts of the general scheme.
In addition, there was the presidio, or fortified stronghold garri- soned with soldiers, which was especially necessary when the attempt was made to plant the colony in a hostile country. Such a military post
* R. C. Clark, Tex. Hist. Assn. Quarterly, Vol. VI.
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
was usually placed within convenient distance of a group of several missions.
It will be seen that this plan of colonization involved considering the natives as factors and co-operators in the scheme, and the holding of the Indians in such social and administrative ties as would form a mixed community of white and red men. History has shown that this was an impracticable ideal. The theory in practice was the weakness of both Spanish and French civilization in America. On the other hand, the English disregarded the red men altogether, and did not admit them into their scheme of society at all; they put the red men on the same plane with the wild beast of the forest, took his land by treaty or force, and by their own hardihood and colonial enterprise founded a society strong both within and without, and able, after establishing its own boundaries, to push out and permanently conquer the western wilds.
In addition to this vital defect in her plan of Texan occupation, Spain, partly from European wars and consequent weakness at home and abroad, lacked the enterprise necessary to send strong and inde- pendent colonies into Texas; the few attempts she did make during the eighteenth century were barely self-sustaining, and cannot be compared with the pioneer movements that crossed the mountains from Virginia into Kentucky and Tennessee.
CHAPTER IV
FOUNDING OF SAN ANTONIO-MISSIONS AND PRESIDIOS OF THE SPANISH FRONTIER
For some time the friars had been asking for the establishment of a mission in the territory between the San Antonio and Guadalupe rivers. In 1716 the matter was laid before the viceroy, with the recommendation that a mission which Padre Olivares had planned to establish on the San Antonio river was, by all means, to be founded, since it could be used to prevent invasion through Bahia del Espiritu Santo, and as a connecting link between this bay and the country of the Tejas. Following this recommendation orders were issued for the establishment of one or more missions between the San Antonio and Guadalupe rivers. In locating these missions and the Indian settlements connected with them, space should be left for the founding of two cities or villas, which, as time passed, would be needed as capitals of the province.
In May, 1718, Father Antonio de Buenaventura y Olivares, in pur- suance of the viceroy's orders, removed "the Xumanes Indians and everything belonging to the mission of San Francisco Solano," on the Rio Grande, to the San Antonio river, where he founded the mission of San Antonio de Valero, named in honor of the patron saint and the vice- roy, Marques de Valero. The mission was located on the right bank of the San Pedro, about three quarters of a mile from the present cathedral of San Fernando. There it remained until 1722, when it was removed, with the presidio, to Military Plaza.
About the site of the old mission has since grown the city of San Antonio. After the mission came the military garrison and civil settle- ment. For a description of this we turn to an ancient chronicle, the Compendium of the History of Texas, written by Bonilla in 1722 :* "The missionaries kept anxiously begging for San Denis, with a view
* As translated by Elizabeth Howard West in Tex. Hist. Assn. Quarterly, Vol. VIII.
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
to the subjection of the Indians, and clamoring for reinforcement of people helpful in promoting their stability. But his excellency, the Mar- ques de Valero, gave the appointment of governor of Coaguila and Texas to Don Martin de Alarcon of the order of Santiago, with a salary of two thousand and five hundred pesos a year." Alarcon was a soldier of for- tune, yet high in favor with the government. His achievements. in. Texas hardly justified his previous official record.
"This new governor," continues Bonilla, "was under orders to carry fifty married soldiers, three master carpenters, a blacksmith, and a stone- mason, to teach the Indians and put the settlement on a firm basis, each one, like the soldiers, drawing a yearly salary of four hundred pesos. These measures were approved in royal cedula of the 11th of June, 1718.
"A year's salary was advanced to Alarcon, and at the beginning of 1718 he entered the province of Texas. But, although he founded the presidio of San Antonio de Vexar, the missionary fathers at once made complaint that he had not brought the master mechanics, or filled out the number of the [fifty] soldiers, and [that] those [he did bring were] idle fellows, and very hurtful, on account of belonging, for the greater part, to the most corrupt and worthless classes in all Nueva España ; and, finally, that his irregular measures endangered success in the reduction of the heathen."
The settlement, containing about thirty families, the presidio of San Antonio de Bexar, both founded by Alarcon, and the mission of San Antonio de Valero, which had just previously been founded by Padre . Olivares, were all placed near together. "Hitherto the Tejas country had been the objective point of occupation. Now, Bexar, which was to become the final rallying point of the Spaniards, begins to rise into view; while the eastern frontier becomes a secondary consideration, and finally relatively unimportant. Bexar was at first founded to prevent invasion through Bahia, while later the settlement at Bahia (Goliad) was kept up as a means of protecting the more important stronghold on the San Antonio river."*
Resuming the quaint commentary of Bonilla, we read: "War having broken out between Spain and France during the regency of the Duque de Orleans, the French invaded the presidio of Panzacola, on the 19th of May, 1719; and on the same day in the month of June following, Don Luis de San Denis took the opportunity to relieve his outraged feelings,
* Mattie Alice Austin, on the Municipal Government of San Fernando de Bexar, in Tex. Hist. Assu. Quarterly, Vol. VIII.
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
by attacking, with the aid of the Indians of the north, the missions of los Adaes and Texas and compelling their inhabitants to retreat post- haste to the presidio of San Antonio de Vexar."
This French invasion had the usual effect of stirring the Spaniards to fervid. activity. Alarcon having in the meantime resigned, the gov- ernment of Texas and defense of its borders was intrusted to Mar- ques de San Miguel de Aguayo, who started on his march to Texas in the year 1720 "with five hundred dragoons which he had levied at his own cost, and two companies of cavalry, paying all expenses occasioned by this expedition. He came without opposition to the Adaes country, as the French had retreated to their posts of Candodachos and Nachi- toches, and the general convocation of Indians, which San Denis had assembled, had disappeared.
"The king, being notified that this expedition had been prepared, ordered that when the Province of Texas was once recovered, steps should be taken to fortify it, and that the war should not be waged against the French. Accordingly, all acts of hostility were suspended.
"The Marques de Aguayo re-established the old missions, founded the rest which are now in existence, and the presidios of Nuestra Señora del Pilar de los Adaes, Loreto or Bahia del Espiritu Santo, on the same site where Roberto Cavalier de la Sala had put his fort, and that of los Dolores, which today is the site of the abandoned Orcoquisac; he found a better site for San Antonio de Bexar, locating it between the rivers San Antonio and .San Pedro ;. and finally, left the province garrisoned with two hundred and sixty-eight soldiers, .... taking eighteen months for the expedition."
Aguayo gave San Antonio another mission. San Jose de Aguayo, the most beautiful of all the missions, even in its present ruins, was "erected" (that is, authorized) in 1720; being denominated "de Aguayo" in honor of the governor who came to the province in that year. It was the first of the missions about San Antonio to be finished, on March 5, 1731 ; on the same date the three others missions south of the city were begun.
"When the Marques de San Miguel de Aguayo retired from the Province of Texas, in 1722, his lieutenant general, Don Fernando Peres de Almazan, stayed as governor. In the time of the former the attacks of the common and the most perfidious enemy of the Internal Provinces, the Apache tribe, had begun to be experienced; afterwards they were so often repeated and so cruel that they compelled the governor to ask
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
for permission to wage a vigorous war against the tribe if they did not consummate the peace which they had promised."
Meanwhile the Padres prosecuted their labors under many disad- vantages. Their requests for a larger number of actual settlers, whose example would be beneficial to their proteges, met no response. In fact, when, in 1727, Rivera made a general inspection of the province, "he reduced the garrison of los Adaes to sixty troops, that of la Bahia del Espiritu Santo to forty, and that of San Antonio de Vexar to forty-three ; and he suppressed that of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores; so that the strength of these companies, which had consisted of two hundred and sixty-eight men, remained, as a result of this revista, one hundred and forty-three. Even this number of troops seemed to him too large."
The missions in northeast Texas were found to be without warrant for existence, so few were their Indian converts. "Next to the presidio of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, he inspected the establishment of the missions of Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion de los Asinais, San Fran- cisco de los Neches, San Josef de los Nazones ; all without Indians, and the missionaries with little hopes of collecting them. These missions, however, were afterward removed to the vicinity of San Antonio de Vexar."
This removal, which was effected about 1730, brought to the capital city of the province the three remaining missions whose ruins still form such picturesque features of San Antonio. Mission of Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion Purisima de Acuna was transferred to a point south of the presidio and became the "first mission" as it is now called (referring to its position, not to the date of its building). The foundation stone of this mission was laid, as above stated, March 5, 1731, the same day on which San Jose was completed. The building required twenty-one years, being completed in 1752. Mission San Josef de los Nazones, when trans- ferred to San Antonio, was re-dedicated as San Juan de Capistrano. San Francisco de los Neches became San Francisco de la Espada. The actual work of construction of each of these began in March, 1731.
The present city of San Antonio may be considered a whole body, with, of course, many factors combining to make it a body politic and social. One could not now consider the religious institutions in a group apart from the city ; a comprehensive view of San Antonio would embrace the churches as one of the prominent features of the city. And the same is true- of all institutions, social groups, and commercial or other interests located anywhere in the municipal limits.
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ALAMO PLAZA, FIFTY YEARS AGO
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
But to understand the early history of the city, it is necessary to have a clear conception of the three distinct and co-ordinate elements existing side by side on the site of the present city, and from the aggregate of which San Antonio is descended. These were, first, the mission San Antonio de Valero, a religious establishment with priests, attendant laborers and converted Indians; second, the presidio, or garrison of sol- diers, whose primary object was to maintain the authority of Spain in the land, at the same time furnishing protection to the missions ; and third, the villa, or settlement, an organization separate from both the other two, and whose local governing officers were responsible only to the governor of the province or his superiors. Here, then, were three independent institutions-military, political and religious-each containing social and industrial elements to serve as the nucleus of a civic community ; event- ually their separate identities became merged under the one municipal title of San Antonio.
The presidio, that is, the military post, of San Antonio de Bexar was established in 1718. About the same time, and in the vicinity of the garrison, was established the mission San Antonio de Valero. Around, and, it might be said, under the auspices of these two establish- ments, a number of persons located whose objects were permanent settle- . ment ; instead of working directly and exclusively for the welfare of the mission, or acting in the capacity of soldiers, they built themselves homes, put a certain amount of land in cultivation, grazed their small flocks on the common pasture, and became bona fide colonists. It is probable that some of the soldiers, their term of service over, were suffi- ciently attached to the locality to remain as settlers. It is not known how many of these independent settlers there were, but some years later they asserted claim to being "the true and most ancient inhabitants and conquerors of that territory." This was the origin of the villa of San Fernando, a civil community differing materially from the missionary and presidial establishments that were the principal instruments in the early Spanish occupation of Texas .*
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