CHAPTER III
THE FOUNDING OF SAN ANTONIO AND THE EXPANSION OF MISSIONARY ACTIVITY, 1716-1719 With the coming of the Marquis of Valero to succeed the aging Duke of Linares as viceroy of New Spain, the desire to strengthen the claim to Texas, to put an end to the illicit trade of the French from Louisiana, and to extend the missionary efforts of the Franciscans became the para- mount object of the government. Evidence of the widespread activity of the French and the great influence they had acquired over the various Indian nations that occupied the vast region between the Mississippi River and the Rio Grande had been transmitted both by Ramon and the missionaries. It was publicly known, by the fall of 1716, that exten- sive preparations were being made in France to reenforce the settlements on the Mississippi and that tradesmen and soldiers were being enlisted to establish a new colony on the mouth of the river. The new viceroy was officially informed by the Fiscal that these preparations could have no other purpose than the desire of the French "to penetrate from there into the country of the Tejas in order to dispose of their goods in the said provinces [of Nueva Estremadura, Reynos del Nuevo Leon, Nueva Viz- caya, and Parral] ." 1 The difficulties of preventing smuggling and of keeping the Indians friendly with the reduced number of soldiers now in East Texas and the scanty supplies at their disposal, coupled with the troubles of transportation, made it evident that a halfway station between the remote missions and presidio established among the Tejas and the Rio Grande was indispensable. Father Olivares' proposals for new missions. When Father Fray Antonio de San Buenaventura Olivares arrived in Mexico late in Sep- tember with a letter from the Guardian of the College of Queretaro, Father Fray Joseph Diez, to report what was needed for the maintenance and development of the new missions, he found an interested listener in the new viceroy. Father Olivares was an experienced missionary who for many years had been in Coahuila and had come in contact with some of the Indians that visited the outposts on the Rio Grande. In 1709 he had accompanied Father Espinosa in his expedition to the San Marcos
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lDictamen del Fiscal, P,-ovincias lnte,-nas, Vol. 181, p. 137. [ 70]
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