Destruction of tlze San Xavier 1Jlissions
the most active one and went from one mission to another." This fact would be meaningless, were it not that when the new governor came early the following year and held an investigation concerning the activity of the French, both Fray Ramirez and a soldier at Los Adaes testified that Chief Sanchez Teja, induced by the French, who were angered at the restrictions placed on traders, had threatened the life of the mis- sionary at San Miguel mission and had told him that the Indians did not want the Spaniards because the French would not sell the natives guns and ammunition as long as they remained in East Texas. The suspicious French-looking Indian may not have been a mere figment of the excited imagination of the padre, but a trader who was promoting dissatisfaction among the natives of San Xavier. 11 The investigation conducted by Eca y Musquiz had disclosed the urgent need of an acequia (irrigation ditch) to provide a more abundant crop of maize and other food for the neophytes. Fray Mariano, who had been in San Antonio promoting his new project for Apache missions even at the cost of the abandonment of San Antonio, hurried back to San Xavier to verify the statements of the juez comisionado concerning the superior advantages of Santa Rosa and Santa Maria. Early in October, 1750, he made several explora- tions of the two new sites proposed 19 and convinced himself that they offered no greater advantages than the location now occupied by the three missions on the San Xavier. He concluded, therefore, that it would be best to allow them to remain where they were. 111aterial improvements. Preparations for digging the irrigation ditcli, October, 1750. On October 12, 1750, he formally addressed himself to all the missionaries in San Xavier. "The digging of a ditch to water the fields in time of drought being indispensable," he declared, "it is obligatory that we should do everything in our power to attain this object. Upon it rests the permanence of the Indians, the progress of the missions, the honor of the college, the credit of the missionaries, and the welfare of the numerous souls who will be saved only by insuring their physical main- llArricivita, Clironica, 329; Fray Joseph Francisco Ganzabal to Fray Mariano sobre la desamparacion de la mision, August 20, I 7 so ; Fray Mariano to Eca y Musquiz sobre la vlsita que hicleron los Texas a las misiones de San Xavier, Sep- tember 9, 1_ 7 so; Testimonlo de.Fray Pedro Ramirez de Arellano, November 6, 1 7 5 1 ; San Francisco el Grande Archwe, Vol. 19, pp. 95-99. 1 'For the report of Eca y Muzquiz on Santa Rosa and Santa Maria see page 2!)6.
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