Our C atliolic Heritage in Texas
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dition and tl,e personal letter of Teran to the king, written on August 23, 1692, revealed too plainly the full extent of the failure.•• For some unexplainable reason interest in the East Texas missions died out as suddenly as it had formerly developed. After the return of Teran in April, in spite of the report he made to the viceroy and to the king, no efforts were made to renew the plan or to reenforce the missions already established. Not until six months elapsed, did the viceroy again show any concern about the missionaries left in East Texas. On November 25, 1692, he ordered Captain Diego Ramon. Governor ad interim of the Province of Coahuila as a result of the death of Alonso de Leon, to make a report of the latest news from the Tejas and to suggest the best means of communicating with them. Diego Ramon replied on January 1r. 1693. The most recent news from Texas had been brought by two Indians who had come to Coahuila in the previous October. According to them, the missionaries were in good health but in dire need of supplies. Their provisions had been exhausted and most of their cattle had died. f he crops had been a failure, and they were daily expecting relief to be ;ent from Mexico. Diego Ramon then suggested that a party of twenty men from Monclova could take the missionaries the desired supplies, since the road was now well known. 49 Aba11dom11eut of t/1e East Texas missions, 1692-1693. The suggestion was immediately adopted by the authorities in Mexico, and the viceroy issued the corresponding orders for a relief expedition to be undertaken immediately_so By the time the orders arrived in Coahuila, Ramon had been replaced as governor by Gregorio Salinas Varona. to whose lot it fell to carry out the new orders.s 1 According to the instructions, the expedition set out from Monclova on May 3, taking ninety-seven pack loads of provisions and gifts for the Indians, and one hundred and eighty horses for the use of the twenty soldiers who made the trip. Delayed somewhat by the high stage of the rivers, the relief party finally reached the Mission of San Francisco 48 Viceroy to the King, July 26, 1692; Teran to the King, August 23, 1692, in A. G. /., Audie,,cia de Mexico, 61-6-21 (Dunn Transcripts, 1691-1693) . 4 9Ram6n to the Viceroy, January 11, 1693, in Testimonio de Auttos sobre los Proudiencias Dadas .. . A. G. /., Audiencia de Guadalajara, 67-4-11, (Photostat copies, St. Edward's University) . s 0 Respuesta Fiscal, January 29; Viceroy's decree, February 16, 1693, in Ibid., pp. 5-8. 51Dunn, Sfianish and French Rh 1 nlry, 139.
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