Our Catholic Heritage in T ezas
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Aguayo started with the whole expedition from his camp at Presidio de los Tejas on August 15, after celebrating in a becoming manner the Feast of the Assumption. He did not reach Mission Guadalupe of Nacogdoches that day. As the church and dwelling house for the Padres had not been completed by the detachment of men sent six days before, the Marquis ordered more workers to speed up the restoration, on the 17th, . and thus he succeeded in getting everything ready for the reestablish- ment on the following day. The Very ~everend Father Antonio Margi} de Jesus had the holy joy of celebrating, on August 18, High Mass at the site of this mission which he had founded five years before and which he had been forced to abandon so reluctantly in 1719. During the celebration of Mass the entire battalion of San Miguel de Aragon, organized into eight companies, was formed in front of the church and fired repeated salutes. The Reverend Father Isidro Felix Espinosa, who came up with Aguayo, preached an eloquent sermon and enjoined the Indians to congregate in a pueblo where they should live as Christians. W~en the Mass was over, the Reverend Father Margil de Jesus, President of the missions in the Province of Texas in charge of the College of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe of Zacatecas, appeared before the Marquis and requested to be placed in possession of the restored mission for the Zacatecan friars and in behalf of the Indians of the Nacogdoche tribe, and such others as might be congregated here later. He asked that these be given sufficient land and water to enable them to sow their crops, to raise their cattle and to establish a pueblo. He stipulated that if in pursuance of the injunction of His Lordship to the Indians to form a pueblo, a better site for this purpose was found, the grant made now should not be invalidated by this circumstance. He pre- sented Father Fray Joseph Rodriguez as resident missionary and declared he was ready to assign him an assistant upon the arrival of other mis- sionaries who were now on their way to the Tejas. Father Rodriguez would teach the catechism to the Indians in the meantime and instruct them in the arts of civilized life. Aguayo readily acceded to the request of Father Margil, stating that in case the mission should be moved to a better location, the matter should be reported, for official record, to the Captain or Justicia of the neighboring presidio. He then took the mis- sionary by the hand and led him in and out of the church, and, doing likewise with the chief elected governor by the Nacogdoche Indians, he gave them sufficient lands and water for the sowing of crops and the raising of cattle.
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