Our Cat/1olic Heritage in T e:xas
Bautista on the Rio Grande heretofore ignored and thought impossible. Likewise the route back from San Juan Bautista, by way of the Rio Grande to the Presidio de Conchos had opened a large area heretofore unexplored and had shown a new route of communication. The greatest advantage enjoyed by the hostile Indians that inhabited these regions was their intimate knowledge of the country through which_they made their escape. The ignorance on the part of the presidia! soldiers accounted for their inability to check the depredations of the Indians in this vast frontier. But with a growing knowledge of the lands where the Indians took refuge, the time would come, Rivera said, when such depredations would cease entirely. In closing his parecer, Rivera emphatically declared that the country left unexplored along the Rio Grande from San Juan Bautista to the Junta de los Rios should be explored and that His Excel- lency should issue the necessary orders for a new expedition as soon as possible. 43 Opinion of tlte Auditor. The diary and report of Berroteran, together with the opinion of Rivera were referred to the Auditor Olivan Rebolledo, who, after a careful study of all the related documents of this expedition, wrote an opinion on May 12, 1730. He pointed out that the undertaking entrusted to Berroteran had had two purposes in view: to explore the country along the Rio Grande from San Juan Bautista to the Junta de los Rios, and to open a new means of communication between Nueva Vizcaya and Coahuila, in order that the presidios in these two provinces might be better able to render each other mutual aid. The accomplishment of these two objectives would have naturally resulted in forcing the Indians who inhabited these regions to make peace. The additional knowledge gained by the expedition, had it succeeded in its two purposes, would have permitted the location of the Presidio of Sacramento, now in Nueva Vizcaya, somewhere along the Rio Grande, where it could render more effective service in checking the depredations of the Indians from the north. But it was evident that the first object of the expedition had not been attained and that the failure to do so was due to the reasons so ably pre- sented by Rivera. The second object, however, had been accomplished and a new route opened for communication and transit between the presidios of Nueva Vizcaya and those of Coahuila. It would be highly advisable, 43Parecer del Brigadier D. Pedro de Rivera. September 9, 1729. A. G. I., Audi- encia de Guadalajara, 104-6-15-
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