0,,,. C at/10/ic Heritage in Texas
it is a part of the general frontier advance of the period, and it is intimately related to the occupation of the Gulf coast and the Rio Grande south of present Eagle Pass by Escandon and the attempt to extend the Spanish frontier to the banks of the Trinity and beyond, along the coastal plain of Texas. 1 In the river bed of the San Gabriel, when the water is low, may yet be seen the scattered heap of stones of "Rock Dam," built in connection with the irrigation ditch, which were like the fervent hopes of the missionaries that were so tragically swept down by the current of human passions. The scattered memories of their heroic sacrifices have lasted too, even to our day. The beginnings of tlie idea. Ever on the alert for new converts and more eager than the most ambitious conqueror, the missionaries, in their constant wanderings through the unexplored woods in search of runaways, visited numerous ranclterias located almost in every direction from San Antonio within a radius of over a hundred leagues. They never lost an opportunity to explain to the Indians the advantages of mission life and to incline them to conversion. Among those who worked most zealously in this respect was Father Fray Mariano Francisco de los Dolores y Viana, one of the missionaries of San Antonio de Valero. By his own repeated admission he appears to have come to Texas in 1733. From the moment of his arrival he threw himself body and soul into the work of conversion and within a year had begun his constant wanderings in search of runaways and new converts that carried him in the following years to the coast, to the area beyond the Trinity, and to Central Texas. It is to his efforts in great part that the San Xavier missions, for which he labored incessantly from 1745 to 1757, ruining his health by his constant endeavor, are due. As early as 1734, before Governor Bustillo y Ceballos left Texas, this tireless missionary had already made the IUntll 1915, when Dr. H. E. Bolton published his Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century, the only reference to the San Xavier Missions in English were two brief citations: Bancroft Nort/, Mexican States and Texas, I, 623 (ed. 1884), and Shea, TAe CaJ/Joli& CAur~/, in Colonial Days (1886), 500-501. Since the detailed account of these missions was first published by Bolton ( o,P. &it., 137-278) the present writer published Fray Juan Agustin Morfi's account in Morft's Hi~tory of Texas, 1673. (Q "vi Society Publications, Vol. VI, 2 pts.). A bnefer account was also I 779 u1 ra d' " TL Q l V 1 VI published by Miss West in "Bonilla's Brief Compen 1um, ne uarter y, o . II. A S i h t b e of the participants in many of the events related was pub- pan !I accoun yon , A-" 'l' (M · ) d b F J A i ivita i n Croni&a Seraji&a y yOsto ,ca, ex1co, 1792 . l!she y ray uan rr c . . k i it rare and not generally known. The 1dentificahon of the This Interesting wor s qu e site Is due to Dr. Bolton.
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