Escandon and Settlement of Lou,er Rzo Grande, 1738-1779
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Zacatecas for the post and resented strongly the active intervention of the Bishop of Guadalajara. As late as 1766, he told the viceroy that he had no hope of Laredo prospering if the cleric continued to reside there, and that some of the original settlers, unable to bear the burden, had abandoned the villa during the last seven years of his (the cleric's) administration. But Laredo was important and deserved a better fate. "It is important," he declared, "to check the introduction of the Apaches into this province and that of Nuevo Leon ... to attain the conversion of the numerous Indians that live beyond the Rio Grande ... and to permit the ultimate settlement of the country between this river and the Nueces and beyond to Bahia del Espiritu Santo." 50 '::./4emoval of the Presidio and Mission of La Bahia del Espiritu Santo to tlzc San Antonio, 1749-1758. In his report, after the general recon- naissance in 1747, Escandon explained that the Presidio and Mission of La Bahia were on the banks of the Guadalupe, some fourteen leagues northwest of Matagorda Bay, that the climate was unhealthy, and that all efforts to irrigate the surrounding lands had proved futile. Conse- quently the garrison and the missionary were obliged to import practically all their supplies from San Antonio be Bejar, located sixty leagues away, or from the more distant post of San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande. He proposed, therefore, the removal of the presidio and mission to the new site of Santa Dorotea on the San Antonio just explored by Captain Orobio y Basterra, and the establishment of a civil settlement there to be called Villa de Balmaceda, with twenty-five families. He asked that two hundred pesos be allowed each family to enable it to move to the new location. 51 The Junta General approved the removal of the presidio and mission but rejected the plan for the settlement of twenty-five families from Nuevo Leon or Coahuila at a cost of five thousand pesos to the royal treasury. When in 1756 Escandon was blamed for failure to establish 50 Escand6n to the Viceroy, December 18, 1766; also same to same, December 30, 1761, in A. G. M., Provi11cias /nternas, vol. 110, pp. 253-256, 164. For a more detailed account of the early history of Laredo and San Agustin church, see Sister Natalie Walsh, The Founding of Laredo and St. Augustine's Clmrcls, (M. A. University of Texas, 1935). 51 Escand6n to the Viceroy, October 26, 1747. A. G. Al., Provi11eias /nterllaS, vol. 179, pt. 1, p. 243.
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