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Our Cat/1olic Heritage in Texas
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the southern section of the new land as far as the plateau of Nuestra Senora de las Caldas, and to those from Guadalupe de Zacatecas the missions that would be founded in the remainder of the new province as far as La Bahia del Espiritu Santo. He explained that he did not ask for missionaries from the College of La Santa Cruz de Queretaro, because he was aware that they were at this time engaged in the pacification and conversion of the Apache and other I~dians, whom they were trying to reduce to mission life on the San Xavier River, at a site located about seventy leagues due north from the Bay of Espiritu Santo. This work was a complement to that he was about to undertake in the Gulf coast region, because the success of the San Xavier missions would restrain the Apaches from making incursions into the lower Rio Grande, for in recent years these Indians had begun to extend their raids into this area. 20 It is time that a brief mention should be made of the religious who accompanied Escandon in his epochal reconnaissance of the Seno Mexicano, or who took part with the other groups that entered simul- taneously from the various points on its frontier. Mention has already been made of Father Fray Juan Gonzalez, who helped Captain Orobio y Basterra in his exploration of the Gulf coast area from the Guadalupe to the Rio Grande. Father Fray Joseph Ortiz de Velasco, Commissary of Missions of the Franciscan Order in New Spain and a member of the College of San Fernando, together with Father Fray Lorenzo de Medina, set out with Escandon from Jaumave and accompanied him throughout the entire expedition. Of the services of Father Fray Joseph Ortiz, Escandon says: "He accompanied me throughout the whole expe- dition and his indefatigable zeal, truly apostolic, and his good example contributed greatly to the good order of the troops and the kind disposition with which the gentile Indians received us, as I have already related in this report. They became so attached to him that they continuously asked me to bring them Padres like him, to congregate them in missions. ... With his great practical sense and his tact, he dispelled all troubles that arose like the rainbow stills the tempest." 21 Upon his arrival at San Luis Potosi, Escandon had been joined by Father Fray Agustin de Jesus, Carmelite, of the Province of San Alberto, who furnished forty soldiers, fully equipped, for the expedition. At Salinas de la Barra, near present Soto la Marina, he met Father Fray Diego
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20/bid., 291-292. 21/bid., p. 292.
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