Our Catleolic Heritage in Tezas
come to this site and offered to gather in missions." The patron saint of the new community was to be La Purisima Concepcion, and the settlers were enjoined to attract the Indians and win their friendship by kindness and fair treatment. The spiritual administration was entrusted to the missionary stationed in Camargo. 43 By 1755, Mier had twenty-seven families with one hundred and sixty- six persons. There were many gentile Indians living regularly with the settlers for whom they worked and by whom they were supported. But absence of a resident missionary made their establishment in a mission and their conversion impossible, a fact which Escandon deeply deplored. He pointed out, however, that a great mission could be founded here and declared that many of the settlers, following the example of those of Camargo, were beginning to pasture their herds on the north side of the river. In 1757, when Tienda de Cuervo made his inspection, Mier had thirty- nine families with two hundred and seventy-four persons. Their property included twenty-seven hundred horses, over thirty-eight thousand sheep, and over one thousand head of cattle. The houses of the villa were scattered over a wide area with no uniformity and were mostly jacales. There were a few of stone and mortar, such as the residence of Captain Chapa. There was still no resident missionary in spite of the repeated requests that one be sent. The spiritual administration was in charge of the zealous Fray Juan Bautista Garcia Resuarez, who did everything he could to encourage reduction of the natives to mission life. At this time the Garzas and the Malaguecos, two tribes numbering about one hundred and fifty Indians, had established their rancleenas on the outskirts of the villa and were submissive, and although they had no mission they did not leave the settlement to forage in the woods without permission from the captain. The inhabitants depended largely for their living on the sale of cattle and horses, fat, hair, wool, and hides. They did little or no planting. Lopez de la Alta Camara declared in 1758 that the Garzas and the Malaguecos, who numbered about two hundred and twenty persons, "live on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande." If they had their ,-ancleer-fas across the river, it is logical to deduce that they were visited there by '3Tienda de Cuervo Inspection, 17 57, in Estado General, ( Publicaciones del Archivo, XIV, 4u-419); Escandon to the Viceroy, August 8, 1755, Ibid., 34-35; Report of Escandon, March 6, 1753. A. G. M., Provincias /nternas, vol. 172, 205-212.
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