Permanent Occupation of Te:xas, I715-1716
asked the missionaries to establish a mission and to come to live among them. Captain Ramon gladly acceded to their petition and appointing as governor the principal chief of this tribe, immediately gave possession of the new mission to Father Antonio Margi! de Jesus, as President of the missions to be founded by .the friars from the College of Zacatecas, which was named Mision de San Miguel de Linares. All this was done with the accustomed solemnity and copies of the official Act of Possession and Establislmzent were given to Father Margil. This mission, founded in the fall of 1716 and not in 1717, as generally believed, was located near the bank of present day Arroyo Hondo, seven or eight leagues from Natchitoches and about a league from Spanish Lake. The place has been identified with the site of modern Robeline, Louisiana.s 9 Founding Mission Dolores de los Ais. From here Ramon and Father Margil went to the country of the Ais, located about half way between the first four missions established among the Tejas and the Mission of San Miguel just founded. The Indians were friendly and numerous, and like the Adaes, asked Ramon to establish a mission among their people. They declared they liked the Spaniards and wanted them to come and live among them. Ramon readily agreed to establish a mission and, with similar ceremonies, appointed a governor for the Indians and gave pos- session of the new establishment to Father Margil in the name of His Majesty. The mission was named Nuestra Senora de los Dolores de los Ais. Father Margil took charge of it, selecting it as his headquarters because of its location between Mission Concepcion and Mission San Miguel. Thus two additional missions were established by Ramon, with the help of Father Margi! and the missionaries of the College of Zacatecas before the end of the year, making a total of six missions, as Father Morfi declares in his Historia. 60 The work of conversion made small progress at first. At the time of S 9 Buckley, op. &it., 53. For the account as here given of the establishment of this the farthest east of all the missions the following letters were used: Hidalgo and Castellanos to Fr. Pedro Mezquia, October 6, 1716; Fr. Margil to the Vice- roy, February 13, 1718; Diego Ramon to the Viceroy, February 2, 1718, all in Provim:ias lnternas, Vol. 181; and Ramon to Alarcon, May 21, 1717, in TIie Gulf Region, 1713-1721 (Dunn Transcripts). 6 0Castai'ieda, Morft's History of Texas, paragraph 204. It has been stated, with- out foundation, that these two missions were established in I 7 I 7. The facts are that some time in August Ramon went to the Natchitoches, as promised in his let- ter of July 26, and on his way back founded the missions as stated here. Father Hidalgo refers to Ramon's trip in his letter of October 6, and says he found two Frenchmen at the big house on the island. St. Denis, in his declaration on Sep~
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