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Our Catholic Heritage in T ezas
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But the real seat of Spanish power in the new province was the Presidio de San Antonio de Bejar, on the site of the present city of San Antonio, founded in 1718 by Alarcon. That same year the zealous Father Antonio Olivares had established by its side the Mission of San Antonio de Valero, destined to become immortalized as the Alamo. Along the river, to the south, for a distance of twelve miles there were four other missions; namely, Concepcion, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, and San Francisco de la Espada, located in the order named. Of these San Jose had been founded by the saintly Father Margil de Jesus, of the College of Zacatecas, and the other three had been removed by the Queretaran missionaries from east Texas in 1731. Near the recently founded presidio and the Mission of San Antonio de Valero stood the newly established Villa de San Fernando de Bejar, settled by Canary Islanders, reenforced by a few families from the garrison who had pre- viously made their homes in the vicinity. This little community of civil settlers proudly enjoyed the distinction of being the first municipality in Texas. Between the settlement and missions on the San Antonio River and the presidio and Mission of Nuestra Senora del Espiritu Santo on the Guadalupe cattle ranches were beginning to dot the land. By the middle of the century their small herds were to multiply and grow into thousands of steers, the forerunners of our cattle industry. Heretofore the advance of the Spanish frontier from Mexico had been stimulated chiefly by the hope of discovering and working rich mineral deposits. The lure of gold and silver mines account in great part for the expansion northward. But in the case of Texas it was the earnest desire to convert the native tribes to Christianity on the part of the missionaries, and the determination to prevent the French from gaining a foothold on the part of the officials of New Spain that were responsible, in the- final analysis, for the ultimate occupation of this vast territory. By 1731, therefore, the claim of Spain had been established beyond a doubt to most of the region and the general outlines of the province drawn. Conditions were, however, far from being settled. "At the close of the first third of the eighteenth century Texas was distinctly a buffer province. The two principal factors which made it worth while at the time to occupy the district were its French neighbors and its native inhab- itants."' The former were the main preoccupation of Spanish officials while the latter were the chief interest of the missionaries. But in the struggle for supremacy, the control of the Indian tribes became the
1 Bolton, Teras ;,. Ille Middle Eiglileenlls Cenlur,y, 4.
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