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Our Catliolic Heritage in T e:xas
The balance was spent for cloth and blankets for the Indians. The industrious and frugal Fray Juan Bautista had not only done his work well, but he had succeeded in paying off the indebtedness of the new mission out of the proceeds from salt, wool, sheep, and goats. The salt, however, was a most profitable trade. .Thirty leagues to the northeast, there was a large saline from which the mission Indians, as well as the settlers, extracted large quantities of salt. For this purpose they had a boat to cross the river and many persons traversed the long stretches of the Lower Rio Grande Valley northeast of present Rio Grande City almost daily, while engaged in this lucrative trade. In 1761 the mission was moved to the west bank of the San Juan River and a ferry established on this stream to connect it with Camargo. At this time Escandon declared that the people of the villa "have already settled all the opposite bank of the Rio Grande del Norte, within the limits of the land granted them, and the country as far as the Nueces has become so desirable, that most of the settlers aspire to it." 34 Founding and development of Reynosa, 1749-1761. After the formal establishment of Camargo on March 5, 1749, Escandon and his men proceeded down the river twelve leagues to the east, where they met Captain Carlos Cantu with ten soldiers, who had brought forty families from Nuevo Leon to found a settlement. Captain Cantu was an experienced frontiersman, who had visited this region earlier and who added to his many qualifications a knowledge of the language of the natives. While waiting for Escandon, he had assembled more than a hundred Indian families, who were ready to be congregated in a mission. After the usual preliminaries, the new settlement was established formally on March 14, when lands were assigned in common to the settlers for the new villa. This place was named Reynosa and its patron saint was to be Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. A short distance from the villa a site was designated for the mission, which was named San Joaquin del Monte. In order that the natives could start the cultivation of the land Escandon sent them a few days later some tools, harrows, and oxen, as well as a supply of corn and some clothes. Before leaving he entrusted the care of San Joaquin del Monte to the College of Zacatecas, but Father Marquez objected that this mission was not included in the six the College had undertaken to administer and
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M/bid., vol. XIV, pp. 32-33; 395-399; 400-406; Escandon to the Viceroy, December 30, 1761. A.G. M., Provincias /nternas, vol. 110, p. 162.
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