3i3
Establiskment of Missions in East Texa.s, 1689-1693
de los Tejas on June 8. 5 z They arrived just in time to prevent the aban- donment of the Tejas country. The missionaries had already decided to leave in July, if relief did not arrive. Governor Salinas Varona now learned what had transpired since the departure of Teran. Shortly after the troops left, the recently estab- lished Missicn of Santisimo Nombre de Maria on the banks of the Neches had been de~troyed by a flood. The Spaniards and missionaries had all retired to San Francisco de los Tejas. During the summer and fall sickness had again broken out and one of the missionaries, as well as many of the Indians had died during the epidemic. Although crops had been planted with great hardships, the labor had all been in vain, because the first sowing was destroyed by floods and the second by the drought. The Indians, who had driven away the cattle, had later been reduced to such need that the women begged for any piece of cowhide and accepted it with thanks. The soldiers had been obliged to subsist on meat alone, while the Padres had been fortunate to get one small corn cake twice a day for their subsistence. At the time Governor Salinas Varona arrived, they had all been reduced to a limited corn ration for several weeks. But what hurt the missionaries even more than hunger and sickness was the indifference of the natives. They had persistently refused to be congregated, they would not attend church or come to the doctrina. The Cona (medicine men) of the tribe had convinced the Indians that the waters of baptism were fatal to them, because most of those who were baptized in articulo mortis died. What was worse yet, those who were baptized and died were taken away by their relatives and buried in the woods in accord with their heathen practices, instead of sepulture in holy ground. Father Massanet deplored deeply that the Indians refused to believe there was but one God. He explained that the Indians declared there were two: one who gave the Spaniards clothing, knives, hatchets, and all the other things they had, another who gave the Indians corn, beans, nuts, acorns, and rain for their crops. They had lost all respect for the priests and had on various occasions threatened to kill them. Massanet, after a residence of a year among the Tejas, was now con- vinced that the Indians did not really love the Spaniards or wanted to become Christians; that all they wanted was their gifts and food. In a formal report to the viceroy he set clown ten reasons why the missions
5 ZViaxe que hizo El Capittan de Cauallo~ Coraza/; Don Gregorio de Salinas Varona ... in Ibid., pp. 26-61.
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