•
187
Escandon and Settlement of Lower Rio Grande, 1738-1779
and decent than either the presidia! chapel or the church of Mission Espiritu Santo. They had also built a house for the missionary and all the necessary offices. Captain Piszina had detailed nine soldiers to help the missionary. In his report to the viceroy, he declared one thousand -pesos were needed to buy the necessary supplies of corn and beef for the mission Indians. In addition a grant for the purchase of plows and other equipment should be made. At the same time Captain Piszina requested that the garrison of forty men be increased to fifty. The request for the additional men and the allowance to the mission of the customary aid was repeated three or four times during the following three years. Finally on April 17, 1758, a Junta General was held in Mexico to decide all pending questions in regard to the new establishment. After some discussion, it was decided to grant Mission Nuestra Senora del Rosario the one thousand ,pesos requested in addition to the necessary equipment customarily supplied to a new mission; to increase the garrison of Presidio de Nuestra Senora de Loreto by ten men as requested for a period of seven or eight years to enable the men to perform their numerous duties better; to ask the College of Zacatecas to send another missionary to Mission Dolores so that there would be two there as before, allowing him the usual stipend of four hundred and fifty ,pesos; to send Captain Piszina six light cannons as requested; and to consult Escandon, if he thought it still practical to establish the civil settlement he had proposed at Santa Dorotea. 68 By the summer of 1758 Mission Nuestra Senora del Rosario had reached a flourishing state. There were about four hundred Cujanes, Copanes, Guapites, and Karankawas. Father Camberos had, however, baptized only twenty-one. But this reflected his cautious policy in administering this sacrament. He said that if he had baptized all those who requested the sacrament, the entire coast would be filled with baptized Indians living as heathens. The Indians had hoped to build the church, the granary, the house for the priest, the offices, and their own quarters. They helped to cultivate the fields and had learned to do many things. They did not like to have to go to the coast when supplies gave out, nor did they care to be sent to the more prosperous missions of San Antonio. They preferred to live and die in their own country. The mission had seven hundred head of cattle, one hundred sheep, and fifty horses. It
68 Piszina to the Viceroy, _January
I 5, 1755, November 10, 1755, December 22,
6,
1756; Junta General, April 17, 1758. A. G. M., Historia, v. 287 1
pp. 71•
7
80-83, 102-103.
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