Ottr Catliolic IIeritage in Texas
when he was ordained under oath 9f obedience. Shortly after his arrival he founded the Mission of Nuestra Senora del Socorro, where he was instrumental in building the church and planting the first vineyard in New Mexico. It seems that after the first attempt of Father Antonio de Arteaga to establish a mission, the Manso and Zuma Indians of El Paso were in the habit of going to the mission at Senecu to solicit the Padres to come to teach and baptize them in their ranclierias. Some time between 1656 and 1659, Father Garcia, accompanied by Fathers Juan Cabal and Francisco Perez, made a second attempt to establish a mission among the Mansos. After congregating them in a pueblo, it seems that Father Garcia left his two companions to look after the Indians. When the missionaries remonstrated that the natives seemed to be intractable, Father Garcia told them not to despair, that the hour for their conversion had perhaps not arrived. Shortly after his departure, the Indians became tired of mission life and threatened to kill the Padres. When news of the disturbance reached Governor Mendizabal, he sent a rescue party under the command of Maestre de Campo Thome Dominguez de Mendoza, who succeeded in quieting the Indians. But the temper of the new con- verts was such that the missionaries decided to accompany Mendoza when he returned to New Mexico.• Tlie establislmient of ivlission N11estra Seiiora de Guadaltipe de El Paso. No sooner were the Manso and Zuma Indians left alone once more, than they penitently went to the Pueblo of Senecu to beg that missionaries should come to live among them again. Fray Juan Gonzalez, the new C1utodio, now ordered Father Garcia de San Francisco to go and establish a mission among these Indians. Having secured the necessary authori- zation, he set out in November, 1659, accompanied by Father Fray Juan de Salazar and ten families of Christian Indians from the Mission of Senecu, which Governor Mendizabal authorized him to take along to help him congregate the natives at El Paso. As soon as he arrived he busied himself in gathering the Indians at a suitable site opposite the crossing of the river on the south side, where, with the aid of the natives, he built "a church of branches and mud and a monastery thatched with straw." He then planted a cross and having celebrated Mass he pro- ceeded to take formal possession of the new conversion and of all the neighboring tribes that might come to be congregated later "and I named 8 Vetancourt, Menologio (Mexico, 1871), 24-25; Ayer, Benavides Memorial, 205; Hughes, Begi1111i11g of Spa11ish St1ttleme11t, 304. Autos sobre los Socorros, MS. 295- 296 (St. Edward's University).
Powered by FlippingBook