Our Cat/10/ic Heritage in Texas
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Determined to make the new establishment self-supporting as soon as possible, the whole month of January was spent in the construction of irrigation ditches to facilitate the cultivation of the presidio and mission lands. Besides securing watermelon, pumpkin, chile, and melon seed to plant, vine and fig tree cuttings were brought from Coahuila, and an abundant crop of corn, beans, and grain was confidently expected from the early sowing. A new supply of cattle, sheep, and goats was obtained, and boars were brought to breed pigs. Everything looked promising. The mission and settlement seemed to be well supplied in the spring of I 7 19 with all they needed to insure their steady growth and development into a prosperous settlement. 38 Hardships of tile missions in East Texas. But let us turn to the presidio and missions in East Texas. By the spring of 1718, they had been reduced to dire distress and it seemed as if the reoccupation was to be ephemeral. Soon after Captain Domingo Ramon reached the country of the Tejas, he moved the temporary location of the presidio from the west side of the Neches to its permanent location, a quarter of a league from the Mission of San Francisco de los Tejas. 39 The country in the neigh- borhood appears to have been unhealthy, for shortly after the little band of soldiers and missionaries settled itself iri its new surroundings, illness confined. many of them to bed. Ramon, the leader, took ill immediately after his arrival, and by May, 1717, four of his best men had died with malaria. The garrison had been further reduced by seven soldiers who had either run away or overstayed their furloughs. It is true that most of these men had been replaced by those who had accompanied the expedi- tion as supernumeraries, but the little group had dwindled perceptibly. The first winter was particularly severe, and with no relief having arrived throughout 1717, the condition of the disheartened garrison of Ramon had become almost desperate by the time Alarcon at last reached East Texas in November, 1718. 40 Such was the condition of the garrison sent to protect the missionaries and help them congregate the Indians into pueblos. The missionaries 38Diary of the expedition of Martin de Alarcon, 42. (Vito Alessio Robles Tran- script, since translated by Fritz Hoffman and published by the Quivira Society as Volume V of its publications.) 59For the location of this mission see Chapter II, pp. 57-58. 4DHidalgo to Fr. Mesquia, October 6, 171 6; Domingo Ramon to the Viceroy, February 29, 1718, Pr011incias /11ter11as, Vol. 181, pp. 215-218, 226-227; Ramon to Alarcon, M~y 21, 1717. A. G. /., Audiencia de Mexico, 61-6-35 (Dunn Tran- scripts).
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