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Establisliment of 11'/issions in East Texas, 1689-1693
34i
Leon by Domingo Teran the following year. Evidence of the misunder- standing is found in the long letter of Father Massanet to Don Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora. 11 Be that as it may. The viceroy, fully aroused by the situation, called a general Junta for September 10, to consider the circumstances that had transpired in the interim. When the officials met, they reviewed the measures adopted on July 5 for ·the conversion of the Tejas Indians and the report received since then from Coahuila. In view of the fact that the renewed activity of the French seemed worthy of credence, the Fiscal recommended that the arrangements should be hurried as much as possible to prevent a surprise on the part of the French. It was decided, therefore, that Governor Leon, as leader of the proposed expedition, should be requested to furnish a detailed estimate of the supplies and men needed. All orders, it should be understood, were subject to change in the event that subsequent information should warrant the modification of the plan now contemplated, which would not be put into execution until February or March. The Governor should be instructed to send, in the meantime, as many soldiers as he deemed convenient, accompanied by missionaries, to visit and win the friendship of the Indians imme- diately beyond the confines of Coahuila in order to prepare the way for the main entrada. With regard to his proposals for the establishment of a line of presidios, he should be informed that although this plan did honor to his zeal and loyalty, the Junta did not deem it advisable, because the conversion of the natives should be the result of peaceful persuasion rather than of intimidation. While waiting for the time to undertake the main expedition, it would be well for Governor Leon to send the Mescal Indian, Joseph, back to the Tejas to find out why they had not come to Coahuila as they had promised and to gather such other infor- mation concerning the activity of the intruders as possible. 12 Upon receipt of the orders recommended by the ltmta, Alonso de Leon lost no time in carrying them out. On October 19, he informed the viceroy that he had again questioned the- Indian, Joseph, who had declared that the number of Frenchmen who were living among the Tejas was eighteen; that some of them had gone back to the big river to bring other settlers; that their settlement on the big river was about ten days' journey from the country of the Tejas. Governor Leon offered the suggestion that perhaps the Frenchmen had come from the same
11 Massanet, Carta, reprinted in Bolton, Spanish Exploratio11, 366. 12 Junta General, September Io, 1689, in / bid., 42-47.
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