Our Catholic Heritage, Volume III

Our C at/10/ic Heritage in T cxas

others, would be visited upon themselves, would not go out to watch the cattle." 17 The mission Indians were not the only ones to become apprehensive. The soldiers made a petition to the governor for permission to remo\'e their families beyond the Rio Grande. They declared that they were not afraid for themselves, that they were willing and ready to stay until the end and to give up their li\'eS if necessary in the sen·ice of the king. but that they wished to remove their families to a place of safety. The Cabildo, in the name of the civil settlers, remonstrated that the weakness of the defence at the presidio endangered the very life of the new settlement, and Father Vergara declared that reenforcements were needed for the garrison to protect the missions. 11 These petitions for relief were confirmed by Governor Bustillo. who transmitted them to the viceroy on April 30, 1733. The result was a complete reversal of the policy recommended by Rivera a few years before. In a feeble effort to check the Apaches. the viceroy appointed Joseph de Urrutia, the most experienced Indian fighter, who, it will be remembered, had lived for several years among the Tejas, captain of the Presidio of Bejar. 19 He ordered the garrison of forty-three men to be increased by fifteen from La Bahia and an equal number from Los Adaes, who were to remain at Bejar as long as the hostility of the Apaches continued. Furthermore, the governor was authorized to request aid from the presidios outside of his jurisdiction in case of urgent need. These feeble measures seemed only to have exasperated the Apaches. who redoubled their attacks, as if resentful at the appointment of Urrutia, their old enemy, as commander of the presidio. In 1734, a party led by a chief called Cabellos Colorados (Red Hair), who figured prominently for several years in the raids made on San Antonio, seized two citizens, whom they met about a league from the presidio, carried them away about seven leagues, and suspended them by their hands from a tree, while the Indians danced a mitote (war dance). When a rescue party arrived, the Apaches fled, taking the captives with them. A year or two later, an Indian boy presented to Governor Sandoval, told how they had 17 Dunn, "Apache Relations in Texas, 1718-1750," Quarterly, XIV, 238. IIStatements by the Cabildo, military company, and Father Vergara, cited by Dunn, op. cit., 238. l9The order to take formal possession of the presidio was issued on July 23, 1733, and confirmed by a royal decree on November 13, 1734. A. G. I., Audiencia de Guadalajara, 104-6-5 (Dunn Transcripts, 17I 0-17 38) .