The Agony of the Cliurck in Te%as, r821-r836
32r
of all missions in Texas, claiming there were seven, when, in fact, only three were nominally in operation, all in La Bahia. Final secularization. Before the Deputation had approved the recom- mendation, Father ·Diaz de Leon had protested that it did not apply to the missions in San Antonio. Political Chief Saucedo, however, informed him on October 31, 1823, that the decree of the Spanish Cortes applied to all "without exception." He was ordered, therefo~, to make an inventory of the remaining property of each of the four missions in San Antonio and told that the Ayuntamiento of La Bahia would decide the procedure to be followed there. About the same time the Political Chief asked Alcalde Aldrete at La Bahia to send a full report on the condition of the three missions in his district in order to arrange for their secularization. He, likewise, advised the Adminis- trator of the Diocese of Monterrey of the new order and of his preparations for carrying it out. 30 · Administrator Leon Lobo promptly replied that he was ready to cooperate, but would have to await instructions from the Guardian of the College of Zacatecas, to whom he was writing in regard to the transfer of the missions at La Bahia. A few days later he informed Saucedo at Bexar that instructions had been sent to the parish priest in San Antonio to receive by formal inventory the sacred vessels, plate, vestments, images, and all other things pertinent to religious worship in the four missions, as soon as the lands were distributed. 31 The greed prompting the move to secularize the missions is reflected by the petitions that poured in for lands and sections of the buildings. In November, 1823, twenty-six applications were filed for farms and five, for grazing lands in San Jose; almost as many more for land grants in Mission Espada, but principally by former neophytes, and one requested that the sman houses along the mission walls of Valero (the Alamo) be put up for sale as soon as barracks were built for the soldiers. 32 In the meantime the President of the Texas missions expostulated 30 Jose Antonio Saucedo to Diaz de Leon, October 31, 1823; to Miguel Aldrete, Alcalde of La Bahia, November s, 1823; to Leon Lobo, October 29, 1823, Blttar Arc/r;ves. 31 Leon Lobo to Saucedo, November 19 and December 31, 1832 (Coples also in Saltillo Arc/rives, XVI, 69-70); Saucedo to Leon Lobo, February s, 1824, Bi:rar Archives. 32 Sauccdo to Ayuntamiento, November 5, 1823; Josef Nicolas Paez to Saucedo, October 29, 1823; Alejandro Trevino to Felipe de la GarZ2, December 21, 1823, Bexar Arcl,ives.
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