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Ottr Catholic Heritage in Texas
to live in the mission and before Escandon left they had begun to bring their families. "Their chiefs," says Escandon, "assured me that there are more than one hundred families, for the congregation of which I left a site marked for the establishment of a mission to be ca1led San Agustin de Laredo, about five hundred varas from the new villa. Two friars were left there to minister to the spiritual needs of the Spaniards and the Indians, both from the Apostolic Co1lege of Guadalupe. I left a supply of corn, as much as I could spare, for the maintenance of the Indians until they are able to raise their first crop.'' 21 Fathers Fray Marquez and Fray Agustin were left in charge of the settlement and mission, but the following year, on February 22, 1750, Father Fray Juan Bautista Garcia Resuarez (sometimes spe1led Garcia y Suarez) also of Zacatecas, came to minister to the Indians and the settlers. "Had I found half a dozen like him," says Escandon, "the conversion of the natives would be much farther along." 29 Finding no Indians congregated, he immediately set about his duties and in April succeeded in inducing twenty-five families of Tareguanos, consisting of ninety persons, to come to live in the new Mission of San Agustin de Laredo. Before the end of the year he congregated also the Pajaritos (a tribe that lived beyond the Rio Grande in present Texas) and the Paysanos, numbering in all one hundred and seven persons. Untiring in his efforts, he brought to the mission the Cueros Crudos ( Raw Hides) and the Tejones (Coons) in 1753. By the spring of the fo1lowing year he reported that one hundred and fifty-two had been baptized and twenty- seven had been married by the church. Almost all of those living in the mission, with the exception of the last two named tribes recently con- gregated, made their Easter duty and frequented the sacraments during the year and all attended regularly at the call of the bell the doctrina and were constant in the various tasks assigned to them. But all this was accomplished under great handicaps. The mission had not been assigned its own lands, nor had a formal establishment with its separate church, quarters for the Indians and the missionary, a storehouse for grains, and regular mission guards been provided. Con- sequently the neophytes frequently ran away and had to be brought back by the personal exertions of the tireless Fray Juan Bautista. Floods ZIEscandon to the Viceroy, April 17, 1749. A. G. M., Provincias /nternas, vol. 179, pt. 2, pp. 503- so 5- StEscandon to the Viceroy, February 8, 1753. A. G. M., Provincias lnternas, vol. I 72, pt. 2.
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