San Antonio de Valero and iY!issionary Activity, I7I6-I7I9 87
missionary who now assumed a supercritical attitude. He called Alarc6n's attention to the fact that most of the men he had enlisted as soldiers were not married, contrary to the express command of the viceroy, that their character was not of the best, and that many of them were not of Spanish blood. This exasperated Alarcon, who appears to have been naturally hot-tempered. He replied that unfortunately he did not have an Apostolic College from which to recruit his men, that in the Province of Coahuila there were only Mielatoes, Lobos, Coyotes, and i11estizos. 23 "Such people," -exclaims Father Olivares, "are bad people, unfit to settle among gentiles, because their customs are depraved, and worse than those of the gentiles themselves. It is they who sow discontent and unrest among them and come to control the Indians to such an extent, that by means of insignificant gifts they make them do what they please. When it is to their interest, they help the Indians in their thefts and evil doings, and they attend their dances and nzitotes just to get deer and buffalo skins from them ... It is with this sort of people, Your Excellency, that he wishes to settle the new site on the San Antonio and the Province of the Tejas." 24 There was little hope of cooperation between the two leaders of the expedition from this time on. Reason for delay on Rio Grande. It has been said that the chief reason for Alarc6n's delay at the Rio Grande was the lack of instructions, but that as soon as he received these, he lost no time in starting. 25 The fact is that the instructions drawn up by the viceroy on March 11, 1718, did not reach Alarcon until a week after he had departed from San Juan Bautista. By this time he had already crossed the Nueces and was plan- ning to proceed to San Antonio as rapidly as possible. In view of the orders received, which he misinterpreted, he changed his plans and decided to go first to La Bahia del Espiritu Santo. 26 The instructions were most 23 A lobo was the offspring of a negro and an Indian, a coyote was the offspring of a mestizo and an Indian, and a mestizo the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian. 24 Father Olivares to the Viceroy, June :a2, 1718. Provincias /nternas, Vol. 181, 250-251. 25 Clark, The Beginnings of Texas, 1684-1718, 85-86. 26 The details of the Alarcon expedition can now be determined, thanks to the finding of his long lost Diary by Senor Vito Alessio Robles, of Mexico City, who discovered it in 1933 among the 3000 volumes in the Seccion de Tierras, of the Archivo General de la Nacion. He presented a typewritten copy of this important document to the University of Texas and it is this copy which was used in the writing of this chapter. References to the Diary will be made frequently in the remainder of the chapter. The diary has been published as Volume V of the Quivira Society Publications.
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