CHAPTER II
HANDICAPS TO MISSION DEVELOPMENT, 1731-1750
Hemmed in on all sides by hostile Indians and constantly menaced by the designs of the enterprising French traders on the eastern frontier, the three centers of Spanish influence in Texas at Los Adaes, La Bahia, and San Antonio de Bejar were truly on trial during the first half of the eighteenth century. The permanency of Spanish occupation depended chiefly on the courage and determination of the missionaries, whose unflinching faith and ardent desire to convert the natives was to sustain them in their multiple hardships and tribulations and enable them to overcome insurmountable obstacles, in the end crowning their efforts with merited success. During the next fifteen years the struggling missions were to become firmly established, particularly on the San Antonio River, from where expansion into new fields was to carry the unselfish sons of Saint Francis to unexplored regions where some of them were to sea· their work with glorious martyrdom. The fickle nature of the neophytes, the continued raids of the Apaches and their allies, the flaming jealousy of the settlers of San Antonio, the unfair accusations of arrogant officials, and the lack of cooperation from unappreciative civil authorities were not to discourage the Padres or to dampen their enthusiasm. In spite of unfavorable conditions they were to continue their labors, which were to become "the most conspicuous work of the period." 1 A padie hostilities. Hardly had the new settlement of Canary Islanders been established and the three Queretaran missions removed to the San Antonio from East Texas, when the relentless Apaches renewed their attacks, attracted, no doubt, by the greater amount of loot which the larger settlement offered. They had become aware also, perhaps, that the garrison of the presidio had been reduced to forty-three soldiers. Be that as it may, early in 1731 there were a series of daring raids made upon the amazed settlers and frightened neophytes of the new missions. The first of these took place near the Medina River. On January 9, Fathers Fray Salvador de Amaya and Fray Francisco Bustamante, while on their way from Mission Valero to the Rio Grande with a small party,
1 Bolton, Texas in the Aliddle Eighteent/i Century, 14. [ 35]
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