Ot1r Catlwlic Heritage in Texas
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Reqt1-est of Juniano Indians for missionaries. In that year a certain Juan Sabeata, an Indian chief of the Jumano nation, who had journeyed on several occasions from far-away Santa Fe and Chihuahua to the remote province of the Tejas, petitioned the Governor of New Mexico, Captain Domingo Jironza Petris de Cruzate, and the Reverend Father Fray Nicolas Lopez, Cttstodio and Ecclesiastical Judge of New Mexico, to send mis- sionaries to his people. He was joined in his petition by a number of other chiefs of his nation and of the Tejas, all of whom had come expressly for the purpose. 1 The Mendoza-Lopez Expedition. Several expeditions had been sent in search of the Jumanos and the Tejas during the preceding fifty years, as well as the mythical kingdom of La Gran Quivira and the Seven Cities of Cibola. Interest in the fabulous wealth of these kingdoms had not entirely died out, while the missionary desire to bring into the fold of the Church the thousands of misguided souls that roamed the vast unknown regions beyond the Rio Grande had been quickened anew by the request of Juan Sabeata and his companions. It was not strange, therefore, that the Governor and the zealous Custodio of the Franciscans in New Mexico should have readily acceded to the request. Active preparations for an expedition were begun in the fall and by December 15, 1683, everything was in readiness for the start. The Presidio of El Paso del Norte was wisely chosen as the starting point rather than Santa Fe. The old presidio was on the west or south side of the Rio Grande, more or less on the site of the present city of Juarez. About twelve leagues to the south, on the same side of the river was the Mission of San Lorenzo of Manso Indians. It was from here that Juan Dominguez de Mendoza set out with the little band of soldiers and Indian allies to visit the Jumanos and the kingdom of the Tejas. On December I, fourteen days before, Fathers Nicolas Lopez, Custodio and Vicar General of the Inquisition, and Fray Antonio Acevedo had set out for the Junta de los Rios in advance of the main expedition. lDiario y derrotero del mtre. de Campo Juan Dominguez de Mendosa Cavo Y Caudillo . . . A. G. N., Provincias /nternas, Vol. 37, Pt. 2. The diary of this expe- dition has been translated and published with excellent notes in Bolton, S,Panisn Ex,Ploration of the Southwest, 311-343. References to this expedition are also found in the scholarly edition of Benavides Memorial of F. W. Hodge, and Hackett, Pichardo: Limits of Louisiana and Texas. There is a copy of this diary also in A. G. N., Historia, Vol. 298, where many other related documents are found.
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