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Escandon a11d Settlement of Lower Rio Grande, 1738-1779
would not be put off. He made a new appeal, and when the matter was again referred to the Marquis of Altamira, the cautious and patient adviser was almost beside himself with chagrin. Summarizing the con- flicting reports of the missionaries and the captain of the Presidio of La Bahia, Altamira declared "all the foregoing but illustrates how, in this as in all like affairs of places at such long and uninhabited distances come inopportune and irregular letters, proposals, representations, and petitions, that only leave the questions unintelligible. The Reverend Father Santa Anna, who had experienced this inconstancy, on December 20 pied the cause of these same Cujanes, only to report forty days after, on January 3 1, of this year ( r 7 52), that the occasion had passed because all of the Indians had deserted. That is what happens daily on those and all the other unsettled frontiers.... The same will be true two hundred years hence, unless there be established settlements of Spaniards and civilized people to protect, restrain, and make respectable the barbarous Indians who may be newly congregated, presenting to them before their eyes a living example of civilized life, application to labor and to the faith." 61 But still Father Santa Anna persisted. Finally on October 2 , 1752, the Fiscal reviewed the entire case as to claims of the Queretaran and Zacatecan Colleges to exclusive rights in the conversion of the Cujanes. He concluded that the best interests of God and the king would be served by both colleges attempting to congregate individually as many Cujanes as they could. He recommended that the viceroy enjoin both colleges and the captains of the respective Presidios of San Antonio and La Bahia to cooperate in the reduction of Cujanes. 62 In the meantime work had continued in spite of many real difficulties at La Bahia, where Father Fray Juan de Dios Maria Camberos had been sent by the College of Zacatecas to congregate the different Karankawa tribes. Agreeable to a decree of the viceroy of April 14, 1750, in which he enjoined the missionaries at the new site to do all in their power to reduce, congregate, and convert the Cujanes, Karankawas, and Guapites, everything had been done to attract them. and they had been promised a new mission if they would agree to be permanently congregated. In December, 1753, Captain Piszina informed the viceroy that strenuous efforts had been made during the last two years to reduce the Cujanes, 61 Bolton, Texas in the A-fiddle Eig/1/eet1/l1 Ce11/11ry, 309; Altamira to the Viceroy, February 29, 1752. H istoria, v. 287, pp. 12-17. 62 Fray Santa Anna to the Viceroy, March 22, 17 52; Diclam4n Fiscal, October 2 , 17 52. n;storia, vol. 287, pp. 26-35.
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