The Beginnings of Missionary Activity, 1670-1676
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to whom he could not attend. He, consequently, made a report of what he had accomplished alone, pointing out the great need of more mis- sionaries to help him carry on the work among the numerous neighboring nations. The Provincial not only approved of his work but sent Father Esteban Martinez and the two lay brothers Fray Juan Barrero and Fray de la Cruz to assist him. "Very probably it was also during these years that Larios founded and named San Ildefonso de la Paz," says Father Steck, "the settlement which was destined to figure so prominently a few years later." 9 /11dia11s request conti11uation of ,mssionary work. In the spring of 1673, Father Larios was ordered by his superiors to leave his neophytes in the north and go to Parral. Soon after his arrival, it seems he decided to go to Guadalajara to make a personal report of his work to the Pro- vincial. While on the road to Guadalajara, he was again accosted, as several years before, by a group of Indians, among whom were several of those he had baptized in northern Coahuila. They informed him that they all wished to become Christians and to be established in settlements, where they could learn the doctrina and live like the Spaniards in pueblos. Father Larios selected twenty of the petitioners, twelve of whom were Christians, to accompany him, telling the rest to return to their country to wait there for the missionaries who would come later. With the escort he arrived in Guadalajara early in September and immediately went to the Franciscan monastery of that city, where he and his companions were cordially received and given lodgings for the next three months. 10 During their stay with the Franciscans, the Indians appeared before Father Alonso Guerrero, Commissary Visitor, who was inspecting the Province of J alisco at the time, and they declared thar they had come at the command of their chiefs to solicit missionaries to teach and baptize their people. "We have brought in our company," they said, "a son of 9 Steck, Francis Borgia, "Forerunners of De Leon's Expedition to Texas, 1670- 1675," Texas Catholic Historical Society, Preliminary Studies, II, No. 3, p. 8. Prior to the publication of this excellent study based on the original documents and letters of Father Larios and h is companions copied by the writer in Mexico, the only accounts available were those given by Mota Padilla, Frejes, and Portillo in the works pre- viously cited, and the brief introduction of the entire episode given by Bolton in Span;sh Exploration in tl,e So11tl,west, 283-290. In all these accounts the details of the events that preceded the Bosque-Larios expedition were extremely meager. To Steck we owe the first complete and detailed account. 1 0Tanto de las Auttos e informacion dada par la parte de la Santa Provincia de Xalisco, MS. San Francisco El Gra11de Archive, l, 34-58. Photostat copies in the University of Texas.
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