Our Catlzolic Heritage in T ezas
124
Pursuant to his orders, these sons of Saint Francis had established three missions in East Texas in 1716, namely, Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches, Nuestra Senora de los Dolores, located about eighteen leagues east of Guadalupe, among the Ais; and Mission San Miguel, about thirty-two leagues farther east, only seven leagues from the French post of Natchitoches, among the Adaes. Four years later, while the mis- sionaries were in San Antonio waiting for the arrival of the Marquis of Aguayo, the zealous Fray Antonio Margil de Jesus, had founded Mission San Jose in I 720. Condition of San Jose in 1749. This mission, he declared, had been originally founded for the Mesquites, Parnpopas, and Pastias. It was, without doubt, the one that had made most progress spiritually as well as temporally. At this time it had over two hundred neophytes living in the mission pueblo. So advanced were they in Christianity and civilization that the missionary says: "They not only comply with the duties of the church but many of them frequent the sacraments during the year. On Saturday they say the rosary outdoors and sing it very sweetly and with much devotion. They are all dressed in cotton and woolen cloth from the mission where they weave it themselves in their modest looms. They have two thousand head of cattle and one thousand sheep. Of corn they harvest fifteen hundred fanegas ( three thousand bushels) each year, and if they planted more, they could raise more. When the Indians in this mission are administered the sacrament of Baptism, they resign their practice of polygamy and after they chose one wife, they are duly married by the church." The mission pueblo was farther advanced than that of all the other missions in San Antonio. "The mission has a friary of stone," says an eyewitness, "with arched corridors, and a very interesting church, capable of accommodating two thousand persons. The houses of the Indians are likewise of stone, so strongly built that they make the mission a veritable fortress. Although greatly exposed because of its location to the attack of the Apaches, who have become so daring that they threaten the Presidio of San Antonio even in the daytime, they have never bothered the mission. Whenever they have attacked the mission Indians, it has been out in the fields. There is a large cemetery, with a Via Sacra leading to it." During Lent, the neophytes, led by the missionary, recited the Stations of the Cross on this road. 71 ~y Ignacio Antonio Ciprian to Fray Juan Antonio Abasolo, October 27, 17 49. Sa11 Fran&isco ,l Grana, ArcMves, vol. S, pp. 41-46.
Powered by FlippingBook