USA > Texas > Galveston County > Galveston > Diamond jubilee, 1847-1922, of the diocese of Galveston and St. Mary's Cathedral > Part 2
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A military council wa's held at the new outpost of Mexico, Monclova, and Captain Alonzo de Leon was dispatched in 1689 to find and destroy LaSalle and his colony. The pioneer Spanish priest to accompany this expedition was the Franciscan Father Damian Massanet. Captain De Leon found the fort erected by La Salle but it was abandoned and nothing left of the French colony save bleaching bones scattered about the blockhouse where the little colony made its last desperate stand against the blood-
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thirsty Indians. The broken walls of the fort were restored. The first mission in Texas was begun and dedicated to San Fran- cisco de los Tejas. This was in 1690, and at Crockett, some fifty miles southwest of Nacogdoches. Now the Spanish flag fluttered in the breeze and De Leon took possession of the country in the name of the King of Spain. Soon thereafter there came mission- ary bands out of Mexico and in various parts of Texas and the foundations were laid for the so-called missions, some of which are to this day the pride and joy of Texan Catholics. They were scattered along the various shores of all the rivers and streams in Texas from the Sabine and Neches to the Brazos de Dios and San Antonio Rivers and down to the Rio Grande.
In 1699 Fathers Hidalgo, San Buenaventura and Ysidro de Espinosa crossed over the Rio Grande River, where steps were taken to establish the missions along this river. They were San Juan Batista, San Bernardo, San Cristobal and San Francisco. These were maintained until 1718, when they were transferred to San Antonio, where before that time no missions were as yet founded.
From 1690 to 1714 neither France nor Spain seemed inclined to trouble themselves about taking formal possession of this vast country, now Texas, by establishing missions and colonies in it. An incident however occurred in 1714 which gave the first impetus to real activity along these lines. It was the incident of the Bold Rider, Juchereau St. Denis, a shrewd French explorer and trader, who was sent in 1714 by the Governor of Louisiana, Cadillac, on an expedition to open trade across Texas with the Spanish in Mexico. St. Denis set out from Mobile in that year and arrived in Mexico and made known his plans to the Mexican Government officials. An expedition was organized, with Domingo Ramon as commander and St. Denis as guide. In all there were twelve Franciscan Friars, among whom was our Ven. Antonio de Margil, founder of the missions around Nacogdoches, and some sixty civilians, who set out in April, 1716, and came into the land of the Tejas. They journeyed on until they reached the place where the first mission was opened by De Leon's missionary band in 1690. This they now re-established under the new name of San Fran- cisco de los Neches, and besides this, five other missions were founded, all within' twenty-five to fifty miles of our present Nacogdoches. They bore the names of (1) Nuestra Senora de la Guadalupe, (2) La Purissima Concepcion, (3) San Jose, (4) San Miguel de Linares, and (5) Nuestra Senora de los Dolores. The first mentioned was where now Nacogdoches is located, and was founded by Ven. Antonio Margil July 20, 1716. Here a wretched hut was the convent of the missionary fathers, but they were as happy as in a palace. They recited the office in common, had their hours of meditation, hours for the study of the Indian
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language, and time for cultivating the ground for their own sup- port, and time for working on their Church and convent. To this day the people of Nacogdoches of Spanish origin point to a spring of pure water which their ancestors named the "Fountain of Father Margil," asserting that it was due to the prayers of that holy man in a season when all springs had failed. In January, 1717, Father Margil, suffering from cold and hardships, joined the Mission of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores, west of the Sabine. In March he established, near the sheet of water in western Louisiana called to this day the Spanish Lake, the Mission of San Miguel de Linares. All these missions were completed by 1717. After the establishment of these eastern groups of mis- sions, another expedition set out under Martin de Alarcon, Gov- ernor of Coahuila and later of Texas, to look after colonization of Texas lands. He set out in 1718 and founded the presidio of San Antonio de Bejar on the San Antonio River and the Mission San Antonio de Valero. This foundation is not a new one, but a transfer of the one named San Francisco Solano on the Rio Grande founded in 1699.
The Mission of San Antonio de Valero was soon re-enforced by several others. In 1720 the Mission of San Jose de Ogury was founded, and in 1722 that of San Francisco de Naxera. In 1731 the eastern missions around Nacogdoches were moved to San Antonio and their names changed to San Francisco de la Espada, La Purissima Concepcion de Acuna and San Juan Capis- trano. The missions founded by Ven. Antonio Margil, however, were maintained. These were Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, near the present city of Nacogdoches, and the missions of Los Dolores and San Miguel. Near here was also maintained the Spanish frontier presidio or military post, which the missionaries attended as chaplains, as they did also Nacogdoches, when it was made a parish.
What is now known as the Alamo is the transferred San An- tonio de Valero Mission, said to have been begun in 1722. It appears to have been the chapel of the Mission of San Antonio de Valero.
Almost from the beginning the work in Eastern Texas there seems to have been some among the Spanish who distrusted the system of colonizing by means of missions. In 1727 General Pedro Rivera made a round of inspection among the established missions in Texas. He found them all in bad shape and recom- mended that they be suppressed. The missionaries protested. The presidios were suppressed, but the Friars obtained permis- sion to move their missions to the San Antonio River.
In 1755 Governor Barrios of Texas learned that the French intended to establish a colony on the Trinity River. He reported the danger to the viceroy in Mexico and provided at once to se-
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cure the position for his country, Mexico, by establishing a pre- sidio and mission at the mouth of the Trinity, which was called the mission of Nuestra Senora de la Luz. Fray Romero, Chavira and Satereyn were the active missionaries in this territory among the Orcoquisac and Bidai Indians. The site was fixed two leagues from the head of the Bay or near the north line of present Cham- bers County. It was called also San Augustin de Ahumada. Barrios soon complained that these missionaries were unsuited for their task, because the one was very young and the other, Father Chavira, was old and feeble in health. He carried his complaint to Father Vallejo at Adaes, further east, who promised to have them removed and others sent. Before long Father Chavira suc- cumbed to the unhealthfulness of the country and died. Father Satereyn remained. The Indians here were very tractable and friendly. They professed anxiety to enter the mission ; they built a house for the missionaries and planted six "almuds" of corn. The church was made of wood all hewn, and beaten clay mixed with moss and had four arched portals. To select a site for the villa, Barrios commanded Lt. del Rio and Don Bernardo de Mir- ando to make a survey. The first "ojo" examined was three leagues west of the San Jacinto River, going up stream to the village of El Gordo, they found a large stream and dividing at a short distance into two smaller streams, one running from the northwest and one from the south. This was regarded as the best place for the site and is marked on Mirando's map, 1757, as Santa Rosa. It was apparently where Houston now is. (Page 350, foot note, Bolton.) Farther up the Trinity River was founded in 1774 the mission called Nuestra Señora de Pilar de Bucareli, named for Antonio Maria Bucarelli y Ursua, viceroy of Mexico. It was, according to Gil y Barbo, a two days' march from the Texas village at Nacogdoches, near Bidais Creek, which flows into the Trinity River between Walker and Madison Counties, (Bolton, page 406), and near Robbins Ferry at the old village of Randolph. This mission was established for the exiles from Adaes in Louisiana, with Gil y Barbo as their captain. A year after its beginning this mission had numerous jacales, or huts, twenty houses of hewn wood grouped around the plaza, a wooden church and a guardhouse or stocks. In 1777 there were more than fifty houses here, corrals, fields, roads cut open and an improved river crossing. A census taken in 1777 showed the population. of the place to consist of three hundred and forty-seven persons. There was no resident missionary here; it was attended from San Antonio missions by Father Garza, who was sent later on to Nacogdoches and subsequently became president of all the Zacatecan missions in Texas.
Towards the middle of the 18th century, 1747, three missions were established on the San Gabriel River, a western tributary
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to the central Brazos River. The first was called San Francisco Xavier, the second San Ildefonso and the third Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria. The chief missionaries here were Fray Mariano and Fray Gonzábal, the latter being killed for the cause of the Faith. These missions were located in Milam County in the neighbor- hood of Rockdale and San Gabriel. In 1750 there were in the three missions four hundred and eighty resident Indians and the books of the mission showed that two hundred and sixty-six had received baptism. Some progress was also made in building and agriculture and in October, 1750, the construction of an irriga- tion ditch and a dam was begun. Felipe de Rabago Teran was made military captain of these missions. Hardly did he arrive when a dispute arose over the mission guards. He hampered very much the progress and work of these missions and was not at all friendly towards the missionary fathers. He was exhorted by them to change his immoral life, but not heeding their prayers he was reprimanded publicly for living openly in adultery and was finally excommunicated. His soldiers in the presidio were likewise leading scandalous lives and giving the missionaries much cause for worry. As there was no harmony between the military and the missionaries, the Indians, instigated by Rabago, killed Fray Gonzábel in 1752, as he was found standing in the door of the mission of Candelaria. Fray Mariano wrote to his superiors in 1750 that the Indians were living in insubordination and that the missionaries had little power to restrain them since they saw the King's agents living in strife and sin. Provisions were always short, as the royal officials of the exchequer in Mexico flatly refused aid for these missions. They even denied the missionaries the permission to solicit alms from the other missions on the Rio Grande and San Antonio Rivers. In the summer a terrible epidemic of smallpox broke out that almost swept clean the missions of their neophytes. The scenes were horrible, but the missionaries worked bravely, lending aid where possible and rejoicing at the opportunity to baptize the dying savages. These missions were the scenes of constant trouble from one source or other. The crisis was reached in the murdering of Father Gonzabal. It seems that Rabago instigated the Indians against this missionary for having posted the notice of his ex- communication on the presidio. The Indians went on the warpath and after piercing Fray Gonzabal's heart with an arrow, they made life around these missions impossible and put an end to their usefulness in this locality. They were soon removed to a site on the San Saba and Guadalupe Rivers. On account of the sins of those who were sent to help the missionaries Christianize the Indian savages, Providence made the site of these missions untenable. Father Mariano, the head missionary of these mis- sions, thus described in 1760 the situation to the viceroy of
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Mexico: "The sacrilegious homicides having been perpetrated, the elements at once conspired, declaring divine justice provoked, for in the sky appeared a ball of fire so horrible that all were terrified, and with so notable a circumference that it circled from the presidio to the mission of Orcoquizac (at the mouth of the Trinity River). It burst and made a noise like a loud cannon shot. The river ceased to run and what water remained became so corrupt that it was extremely noxious and intolerable to the smell. The air became so infected that many died of a malicious pest. We all found ourselves in the last extremes of life. The land, so beautiful a plain before, became a thicket in which hor- rible crevices opened that caused terror. The inhabitants were so aroused that in order to escape extermination they moved more than thirty leagues away without any other permission than that granted them by the natural right to save their own lives."
The missions around Nacogdoches had not such a sad ending. Monsieur de Pages, a French gentleman, who passed through this territory in 1766, writes thus of the mission established at Nacogdoches and dedicated to Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe as seen above. He says he received a hospitable welcome from the Padres there. He describes the fine Plaza at Nacogdoches and its beautiful trees and praises its fine climate. He admires their fine robust horses and says a good horse may be had for a pair of shoes. The Indians there were a corn-growing people. In 1778 a fort was built there for the soldiers. A few huts were clustered about it, which provided a stopping place for travelers and adventurers. It became later the gateway through which Anglo-American energy and ambition came into Texas. From its plaza unrolled a panorama full of life and vigor. It opens with Philip Nolan of Irish descent, who in 1797 obtained a per- mit from De Nava, the Spanish commandant general of Texas, to collect in Texas wild horses for the American army. They went as far west as where the city of Waco now stands, where they found "elk and deer plenty, buffalo and thousands of wild horses."
On the 10th of April, 1794, Don Pedro De Nava, Command- ant General of the northeastern internal provinces, of which Texas formed a part, published a decree by which all missions were secularized. The Franciscans remained as pastors of their flocks until 1824. On the 28th of July, 1801, Rt. Rev. Martin de Porras was elected Bishop of Linares and soon afterwards made a visitation of his diocese. In 1805 he came to Texas as far as Nacogdoches, where he was received in a splendid manner by the soldiers and people.
In Texas the Franciscan missions terminated in 1824, when the missionaries were suppressed by the Spanish government and
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the Indians dispersed. Rough and turbulent frontiersmen, full of hatred for the Catholic Church, took their place.
In 1832 a last attempt was made to seek entrance again upon the Texas missions and the Bishop of Monterey sent Father Diaz (1) de Leon to Nacogdoches. But he was not to labor long, for the hand of an assassin was ready to send him to his Maker. The saintly Father de Leon felt that he was among many wolves and prepared to follow his Savior, forgiving all his enemies before he died. The following he left in writing: "House of Mr. Prentiss Bordon. This Sunday, November 4th, 1834, I returned to this house and as it seems to me to be the last day of my life- God knows why-I address my weak and languishing words to my beloved parishioners of Nacogdoches, bidding them from the bottom of my heart an earnest farewell. Adios, Adios. I salute them with my heart in my eyes and in my tears, especially Mr. Roberts, Lt. Col. E. Bean, etc., etc., and all and every one who believes in Jesus Christ, and let it be clear and well known from this that I beg pardon from each and all the persons whom I. have offended and likewise prostrate in spirit, on the ground, I pardon, with all my heart all and every person who may have offended me, be the offense why it may. I press all, without exception, to my heart as my beloved children in the charity of
(1) Vide Sotomayor, p. 517.
"Cuando se destruyeron las Misiones de Tejas para que entraron los empresarios estranjeros, pidieron los Gobiernos secular y eclesiástico, de la federacion y de N. Leon, al Colegio de Guadalupe, que proveyese de ministros los nuevos establecimientos. Como entre los empresarios habia algunos católicos, uno de ellos, acaso con acuerdo de varios, dirijió una comunicacion al Colegio, en idioma latino, suplicándole al Rno. P. Comisario que no permitiera fuera ninguno de los religiosos que se pedian, porque le constaba que en varias reuniones de los em - presarios no católicos, se habia tratado de declarar una oculta perse- cucion á los misioneros. Parece que no creyó la nota anónima en que se daba tan importante aviso, y marcharon para aquellas tierras los RR. PP. Antonio Diaz de Leon y Fr. Miguel Muro. Este último tuvo aviso de las intenciones de los estranjeros, pero el R. P. Diaz, creyendo buena fé en ellos y no cierto lo que se decia, se internó hasta Nacog- coches, á donde llegó resolviéndose á vivir en aquel desierto, llevado únicamente del celo de las almas. Hizo inmensos sacrificios para reedi- ficar un temple arruinado . Los estranjeros que, sin duda, eran protestantes, se disgustaban de ver aquel apóstol de la verdadera Iglesia. . y concibieron el impio proyecto de asesin arlo Esperaron la ocasion y consiguieron su intento, quitando la vida en despoblado al V. P. Diaz de Leon, y haciendo despues correr, con sumo descaro, la especie de que el V. Mártir, se habia suicidado. Este martirio sucedio el dia 4 de Nov. de 1834. "El . P.", dice el Rdo. P. Frejes, "quaià preveia su muerte, escribià carta à sus fieles lena de conceptos religiosos y de expresiones las mas tiernas y fervorosas con que un Pastor puede hablar en la horá de su muerte á su rebano".
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our Lord Jesus Christ ; also to the Alcalde of the Ayuntamiento, Don Juan Mora, farewell, I say, farewell. Amen, Amen. This letter with like expressions of affection I address to my dear friend, Dr. Sam Santos, that he may send it to his correspondents to display my heart to all my parishioners, whom I beseech in the bowels of our Savior, Jesus Christ, to persevere firmly in keeping the law of God and the sacred obligations they contracted in baptism. And I beg him to hand this to my nephew, Santos Antonio Aviles, that he may copy it and live in the fear of the Author of his being." Fray Antonio Diaz de Leon.
He left the house and was never seen again. It is recorded that he was assassinated near the town of St. Augustine, some thirty miles southeast of Nacogdoches.
CHAPTER III.
THE VENERABLE ANTONIO MARGIL DE JESUS.
Mgr. W. W. Hume, D. D.
[The following sketch is based upon the lives of P. Margil by Espinosa (his companion in Texas), Vilaplana and Ignacio Da- vila-Garibi, upon the Histories of Sotomayor and Tiscareño, and upon some few notes made by the writer from archives in Mexico. The writer desires to point out that the sketch is wo- fully deficient, for he has not at hand even the Cronicas; he hopes however that it may serve to direct attention to the greatest of all Texan and Mexican missionaries and he begs those who may read it to say a Hail Mary to Our Lady of Guadalupe, to whom Margil was always most devout and in whose hands he placed the keys of his College at Zacatecas, calling her its Superior, that we may soon see the triumphant beatification of him who in his humility used to call himself "la misma nada."]
The Servant of God, Antonio Margil de Jesus, was born at Valencia in Spain on August 18th, 1657, and from his earliest days gave promise of great sanctity. He entered the Franciscan Order just before he was sixteen, receiving the habit from P. José Salelles on April 22nd, 1673, in the Convent of the Holy Crown of Christ in Valencia and making his solemn profession on April 25th of the following year. His life at this time was, as always, most mortified as the following story shows. His custom was to go every night after Matins to the garden of the Convent where he made the Stations of the Cross, carrying a very heavy cross of wood; after he had finished this task he used to go to a little oratory and pray there for as long as his Director would permit. One day the Director, as a test, asked him if he used to drive away the mosquitoes whilst he was praying or if he endured them in patience. Margil replied that he would let them bite him as they would, and obeyed so literally that the next day he appeared with his face terribly swollen-and the Direc- tor, being a man of sense, put an end to this particular mortifica- tion. After his ordination he was sent to the town of Onda, where his preachings were most successful, and thence to the Con- vent of Denia, where he found the well-known P. Antonio Linar, who was about to leave Spain for his missionary work in the New World. Margil obtained permission to join him and sailed with him and his companions from Cadiz, arriving at Vera Cruz on
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June 5th, 1683, shortly after that port had been sacked by the pirate Lorencillo. The band of Missionaries started at once for Querétaro, preaching on the way, and reached the Convent of the Holy Cross on August 16th of the same year. Here Margil remained until March, 1684, when, in company with his beloved P. Melchor Lopez, he set out to preach the Gospel throughout the whole of Southern Mexico and what is now Central Amer- ica. The difficulties of the work were prodigious, the country being unexplored, filled with wild beasts and populated by Indians, many of whom were most hostile (some being canni- bals) and all of them sunk in idolatry and superstition. The Missionaries were, in general, dependent upon themselves for their support and they lived as real Apostles upon what they could find for themselves or on what the Indians gave them. Margil went through all those desert places, full of rocks and thorns and without tracks for the most part, barefoot (according to Espinosa he only rode once, shortly before the journey to Texas, and then suffered agonies, as he was troubled with a double hernia) and it was noticed after his death, that the feet which had borne him so many leagues "preaching the gospel of peace," which should have been worn and calloused, were as white and supple as those of a child. His work, especially in Guatamala, was amazingly successful and it is said that in Tala- manca alone he baptized more than 40,000 Indians. In spite of his unceasing labors he found time to study the Indian lan- guages, for which he seems to have had an astonishing facility, and made vocabularies of many of them. After thirteen years of work in Central America he was recalled to Queretaro in April, 1697, and appointed Guardian. He was again sent to Guatamala in 1701, where he founded the Missionary College of Santa Cruz, of which he was the first Superior; In 1703 he went to Nicaragua, where his main work was the spiritual con- quest of Sévaro. Returning to Mexico in 1706, he founded the Missionary College at Zacatecas, placing it under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whom he named as its Superior and before whose holy picture he placed the keys of the house. He was the Founder, First Visitor and President of this College, many of whose sons were to have a great share in the future history of Texas, among others, the well-known P. José Guerra, of whom Margil used to say: "El Padre Guerra es guerra con- tra el infierno."
In 1711 he attempted the thankless task of the conversion of the India's of the Sierra of Nayarit, a work in which he failed becau s Mota Padilla says, the Indians were not only heathen, but in . any cases apostates as well, and thus the more obstinate. Margil failed and to this day the conversion of Nayarit has been only partially accomplished. After the failure of this expedition,
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Margil was occupied with- Missions in the north of Mexico, where he founded the Hospice at Baco de Leones in Nuevo Leon, which was afterwards of such service to the Texas Missionaries.
About this time it was determined to send an expedition to Texas, the motives being partly to establish posts to provide against the dangers of a French invasion and partly, and genu- inely, to send the Gospel to the Indians in North-east Texas, in which region lived "two confederacies of the great Caddoan linguistic stock, the Hasinai and the Caddo proper. The Hasi- nai lived on the Angelina and Upper Neches rivers, and com- prised some ten or more tribes, of which the best known were the Hainai, Nacogdoche, Nabedache, Nasoni and Nadaco. They were a settled people who had been living in the same region certainly ever since the time of La Salle and probably long be- fore. They dwelt in scattered villages, practiced agriculture to a considerable extent, and hunted buffalo on the western prairies. The Caddo, whose culture was similar, lived northeast of the Hasinai, along Red River, between Natchitoches and the region of Texarkana. Of this group the best known tribes were the Adaes, Natchitoches, Yatasi, Petit Caddo, Oadadacho, Nassonite and Nadaes. (Bolton : "Texas in the 18th Century," page 2).
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