Founding of El Paso and Establishment of iJlissions
271
relatively permanent pueblos both along the Mexican Conchos and the Rio Grande, and occupied a large area that extended from the confluence of these two rivers as far east as the Pecos. In their long contact with the Spaniards they had learned to cultivate many crops. "They sow corn and wheat, pumpkins, beans, tobacco, watermelons, and melons," says Father Posadas. st Among them he found a number of Christian Indians, who, like Sabeata, had formerly been baptized at Parral. Shortly after his arrival, delegates from the neighboring tribes, who according to Father Lopez were nine, came to see the missionaries and to ask that they visit their rancherias. Representatives of seven different nations explained to the Padre that they had built churches for them in their pueblos. So favorably impressed were the missionaries with the kind welcome they received, that Father Lopez immc!diately dispatched a messenger to the governor at El Paso, asking him to send sixty men to escort him in a visit to the tribes that lived farther to the east.s 2 Governor Cruzate did not wait for orders from the viceroy but in view of the favorable reports of Father Lopez, authorized an expedition "for the new discovery of the Jumanos and all other nations who hold friendship with them." In casting about for a leader, he appointed Captain Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, an energetic and experienced officer, who thirty years before, while a young man, had accompanied Guadalajara in his expedition to the country of the Jumanos. While urging him to impress the natives with the respect and love due the missionaries, the governor, with a practical turn of mind, instructed Mendoza to examine the Nueces River ( upper Colorado) carefully, to bring back samples of pearls and other products, and to learn everything he could about the various nations visitecl .s 3 Setting out from the old Real de San Lorenzo, twelve leagues south from El Paso, with twenty-six men, Mendoza made his way down the Rio Grande to its confluence with the Conchos, crossed the river a short distance above the juncture, and, continuing down the stream on the Texas side, found the missionaries in the ranclzerza which they named La Navidad en las Cruces, on December 29, 1683. Here they left Father Antonio de Acevedo to minister to the Indians, and the rest of the expedition, accompanied now by Fathers Lopez and Zavaleta, went down the river for a distance of seven leagues, along the Texas side, to the
51 Posadas "Memorial," in Fernandez Duro, Diegn de Pe1i11lflsa, 69. 51 Posadas, Ibid., 69; Hughes, op. cit., 332. 53 Bolton, Spanislt Exploralinns, 3 I 6.
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