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Om• Catholic Heritage in Texas
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from the presidio and whether the Medina and other streams joined the San Antonio. Could irrigation be established? To what extent? ·what cost? What advantages? Were there salines in the vicinity? He was asked to explain the character, the location, distance, roads. What was the distance to the Nueces? Where did it rise? Was it as large as the San Antonio? What was the nature of the land? What road led to the Rio Grande? To the new towns of Reynosa and Camargo? How great were the distances to Lampasos on the boundary of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila? To Monclova? To San Juan Bautista? To San Antonio? What were the chief Indian nations? Their character? Where did they live with reference to the new presidio and the other settlements? \Vhat were the most urgent needs for the establishment of new missions? This questionnaire gives a vivid idea of the wide and intelligent interest of the Auditor and explains his grasp of the problems on the distant frontiers of New Spain. 56 Unfortunately, Captain Piszina's reply has not been found. By 1758, Father Fray Joseph Gonzalez had been succeeded by Father Fray Francisco Xavier de Salazar. In his report to Governor Barrios he declared there were forty-nine warriors, fifty women, and seventy-nine children living at Mission Espiritu Santo, a total of one hundred and seventy-eight persons. Since its establishment four hundred and ninety- nine baptisms had been performed. The mission had three thousand two hundred and twenty head of cattle, all branded, one hundred and twenty horses, and sixteen hundred sheep. It had a church and friary made of lime and stone with offices and ample rooms. The lodgings of the neophytes were of the jacal type, made of brush plastered with clay and thatched with grass. The Indians of the mission had attained a degree of pros- perity and civilization comparable to that of the tribes living in the older missions of San Antonio. 57 Such was the flourishing state of Nuestra Senora de la Bahia del Espiritu Santo in 1758, after many years of trials and tribulations. Tlie founding of Mission Nuestra Senora del Rosario, r750-I758. Unlike most of the missions, this was not previously planned nor were arrangements made for it in advance. Rather a series of circumstances S6A!tamira to the Viceroy, March 14, 1750. A. G. M., Provincias lnternas, vol. l 79, pt. 2, pp. 542-549. S7Jnforme del Gobernador sobre la Misi6n de! Espiritu Santo segun certificaci6n de Fr. Franco. Xavier de Salazar, May 28, 1758. San Francisco el Grande ArcMve, vol. 12, pp. 62-63.
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