Explorations and Settlements A loug the Rio Grande
219
Shortly after his arrival in Guadalupe Mission, Rabago y Teran had dispatched a messenger to Captain Idoyaga, asking him to return to La Junta to have a conference. Idoyaga replied on December 24 that he would be back in four or five clays. But since he did not return to La Junta by the time Rabago y Teran left, the Governor of Coahuila refused to wait any longer and returned to Monclova. 20 While at La Junta he also met Father Fray Lorenzo Saavedra, resident missionary of San Francisco de la Junta. In reply to a letter from Captain Joseph Idoyaga of San Bartolome, Governor Rabago y Teran declared on January 1, 1748, that in his opinion the new presidio could be established at La Junta on either bank of the Rio Grande. The valley of the river at this point was not as extensive as desired but would do for a moderate settlement. The purposes desired by the king, which were to provide safety to his vassals and promote the conversion of the natives, would be accomplished. There was a large ancon (open level country) between the Conchos and the Rio Grande and along both of these streams where the pueblos of Guadalupe, San Juan and San FranciscCr-on the west side of the Rio Grande-and San Antonio de los Puliques and San Crist6bal--on the Texas side, were established. Here the Indians raised one or two crops a year of wheat, corn, beans, and lentils. Firewood was abundant in the neighborhood, and timber, chiefly cedar and pine, could be secured for construction about twenty- five leagues to the southeast. The floods of the two rivers precluded all possibility of irrigation but this fact was no great handicap in view of the successful cultivation of the land without it. Recommendations for a presidio at La Junta. The presidio, if placed in this area, would help to restrain the Indians already congregated; it would check the incursions of the Apaches and their allies, preventing their depredations in the adjoining provinces of Nueva Vizcaya and Coahuila; it would put a stop to thefts and murders in the frontier outposts; and it would insure safe communication between all the presidios along the Rio Grande. This would permit the develop- ment of mines in the area. To reenforce his opinion, Rabago y Teran
_zooi~rio ~e la Campana_executada ... Historia, v. 5 2 , pp. 143-190. A copy of this Diary 1s also found m A.G. I., Audiencia de Guadalajara, 104-6-15 (Dunn Tr. 1743-50).
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