011r Catlzolic Heritage in Texas
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The viceroy was further requested to write to the Governor of Lou- isiana and informed him, without revealing the source, that a report of the attempted establishment of trade with the various frontier provinces of New Spain had been received; that such trade was strictly prohibited by the king of Spain; and that in view of the circumstances, the Governor of Louisiana should warn all subjects of His Most Christian Majesty to abstain from such trade. Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre Expedition. Not content with all this, the Junta recommended that immediate steps be taken to establish contact with the Tejas Indians and all their neighbors in order that they might be used to prevent the introduction of illicit trade into New Spain. It was this last suggestion that resulted in the Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition in 1709, which paved the way for the entrada of Ramon seven years later. The earlier entry into Texas just mentioned was practically unknown until its recent publication. 56 In accord with the resolution adopted by the Junta General held on August 7, 1708, Captain P~dro de Aguirre, commander of the Presidio of Rio Grande del Norte, was ordered by His Excellency, the Duke of Albuquerque, Viceroy of New Spain, to escort Fathers Antonio de San Buenaventura Olivares and Isidro Espinosa, both friars of the Fran- ciscan Order and missionaries of the Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Que- retaro, as far as the San Marcos River (the Colorado?), where the Tejas Indians were said to be now congregated. The expedition could not get on its way, however, until April 5, 1709. On this day Captain Aguirre, ·the two missionaries, and fourteen soldiers crossed the Rio Grande, after leaving the Mission of San Juan Bautista, and set out on their lonely quest for the Tejas. Traveling as rapidly as possible they reached the Nueces by the 8th, and arrived in the present site of San Antonio on the I 3th, where they named the San Pedro Springs and called the river San Antonio de Padua. Six days later they reached their goal, the Colorado River, but much to their disappointment found no Tejas Indians awaiting them there as they had expected. After a day of fruitless searching for friendly Indians, they discovered a group of Yojuanes. But let the pious Espinosa tell the story himself: "Seeing that our efforts to reach the arroyo of the Otates in the hope of meeting the Tejas had been fruitless, and knowing that the Indian leader of the Yojuanes, called Cantona, frequents the province of the S6Gabriel Tous, T. 0. R., "The Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre Expedition of I 709" in Preliminary Studies of tlte Texas Catlto/ic Historical Society, I, No. 3.
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