Destruction of tlze San Xavier 111issions
That same day Father Ganzabal, in charge of San Ildefonso, in accept- ing the appointment and approving the proposals of Fray Mariano, called his attention to the fact that his mission was still without Indians, and that should these return he would not be able to give his personal attention to the work. The neophytes who had left in August had not returned, but he was expecting them daily. Formal obedience was given likewise by Father Fray Mariano de San Joseph Anda y Altamirano of Mission San Xavier, and Fathers Fray Acisclos Valverde and Fray Bartolome Garcia, of Mission Candelaria. 21 On October 14, Fray Mariano wrote a formal request for cooperation to Francisco de la Cerda, who had been left in charge of the garrison upon the departure of Eca y Musquiz in August. After summarizing the duties of presidia! guards in connection with the work of the missions, he pointed out that the soldiers were not only to protect the missionaries and neophytes against the enemy, but that they were to induce the mission Indians to abandon their heathen practices and to instruct them by example in the customs and habits of civilized life. Up to the present the military had failed to perform their dutie~ in this regard. He now hoped that Eca y Musquiz had left definite instructions concerning this important matter. Without the cooperation of the soldiers "it is impossible for the padres," he exclaimed, "to restrain the Indians in their abominabl1 practices, or induce them to the indispensable labor required for thl maintenance ;,f life." Without further preliminaries, he explained that arrangements had been made to begin digging an irrigation ditch on October 15 in which all the missionaries and the neophytes would participate. But to insure the success of the undertaking the active cooperation of the garrison was necessary. He, therefore, requested that Cerda appoint or designate a soldier to take charge of the tools supplied by the missions to prevent their being lost; that another soldier or group of soldiers take care of the yokes of oxen supplied to haul the rock necessary for the construction of a dam, taking particular pains that the oxen were not lost as this would constitute an irreparable loss to the missions which needed ·them to sow their crops; that a guard be appointed to watch the horses of the mission Indians to keep them from going to the woods instead of working, or from running away, and that the soldiers assigned to this duty be instructed not to ride the horses themselves or maltreat them,
21Frays Ganz.ibal, Anda y Altamirano, Garcia, and Valverde to Fray Mariano, October 12, 17 so. In ibid., · pp. 20-22.
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