171
Escandon and Settlement of Lower Rfo Grande, r738-r779
planted this year. The mission [is there] although it has no Indians regularly congregated. It is expected that many can be secured, consid- ering the large numbers in the vicinity, who come and go daily, all of whom are more gentle than those living in the interior of this province." 41 Although formally incorporated as a town on March 6, 1753, by Escandon, the actual settlement in this region dated back to 1734, when Jose Felix de Almondoz established a cattle and horse ranch at El Paso del Cantaro, the original name of the site on which the present town of Mier, opposite Roma, Texas, stands today. Almondoz soon afterwards sold his ranch to Prudencio Orobio y Basterra, former commander at La Bahia. Others came to this area in the years immediately following, chief among them being Manuel Hinojosa, Captain Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon, Jose Florencio de Chapa. The majority of the settlers were from Cerralvo, Nuevo Leon. Paso del Cantaro was about eight leagues northwest of Camargo. When Captain de la Garza Falcon was appointed to command the new town of Camargo, in 1749, he immediately invited the owners of the various ranches in the neighborhood to be enrolled in the new settlement, threatening to drive them out if they did not comply with his request. Nineteen families were thus enrolled as settlers of Camargo in 1751. It was these nineteen families that Escandon decided to organize to form a new town of Nuevo Santander and to whom he assigned special lands for the purpose on March 6, 1753, changing the name of Paso del Cantaro to Mier. The new town was located on a mesa between the Alamo River and the Rio Grande, and Don Jose Florencio de Chapa was named Captain. In reporting the new establishment, Escandon declared: "It will facilitate the founding of settlements north of the Rio Grande, which will ultimately result in the conversion of many Indian nations, who have Tlze founding and development of Jlllier, r753-r76r. 42 The facts summarized above were found scattered in the following documents: Autos de F1111dacion de la Villa de Revilla, July-October, 1750, A.G. Al., Provincias lnternas, vol. 180, pt. 1, pp. 375-394; Report of Fray Manuel Jose de Silva and Fray Buenaventura Rivera on the Mission of San Francisco Solano de Ampuero, April 22, 1752, A. G. M., Historia, vol. 29, pt. 2, pp. 392-393; Testimonio de las ultimas diligencias practicadas en la visita de la Villa de Revilla por . .. Jose de Escandon, January-February, 1753, A. G. M., Provincias /nternas, vol. 172, pp. 216-235; Report of Fray Buenaventura Rivera, July 26, 1754, Provincias Jnternas, vol. 179, pt. 2, pp. 642-644; Escandon to the Viceroy, August 8, t 7 5 5, Estado General, ( Publicaciones del Archivo, XIV, 34-35, 429-433, 419-427, Tienda de Cuervo, Informe, in Ibid., XV, 117-120; Agustin Lopez de la C:imara Alta, Descripcion General, A.G. M., Historia, vol. 53, 138-141; Escandon to the Viceroy, December 30, 1761, Provincias lnternas, vol. 110, p. 163.
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