Our Catl,olic Heritage i.11, Texas
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lands of Mission Espiritu Santo on which to establish a settlement. Gonzalez had to ask Saucedo if Espiritu Santo had or had not been secularized. Saucedo promptly replied that the execution of the federal order had been suspended in the La Bahia area pending action on Father Diaz de Leon's petition for the grant of lands to the former neophytes of Espiritu Santo and the continuation of Mission Refugio.J 7 Saucedo, in fact, favored the petition of Father Diaz de Leon in behalf of the Jaraname Indians, but he objected that the amount of land requested appeared excessive. In reply to a second inquiry of Governor Gonzalez, Saucedo wrote in February, 1826, that the four missions in San Antonio had long since been secularized and that their lands had been distributed among the landless citizens in accord with instructions, but that the three in La Bahia had remained in the same state as before. The missionaries, Saucedo reported, had been administering their lands and property. Recently Father Diaz de Leon, the president of the missions, had informed him that there were several Christian Indian families of Espiritu Santo and Rosario still living on the mission lands and that there was a goodly number still under instruction at Refugio. The College of Zacatecas had asked, therefore, that the presence of Indians still under training be taken into account before executing the order for secularization. As to the lands requested by Father Diaz de Leon for the twelve Jaraname families, Saucedo had come to the conclusion that the grant was ill advised, for they had neither the ability nor the means to cultivate them. 38 Comanche hostilities forced the abandonment of Refugio again in May, 1826. All property was ordered transferred to La Bahia. Reluctantly Father Muro left the mission just as the freshly planted fields gave promise of an early crop. The old families at Espiritu Santo scattered in search of food. 39 Two more years passed, yet the La Bahia missions were not secularized. Those who longed for the mission lands remonstrated against the waste of two priests among so few while thousands of colonists went without spiritual ministration. They communicated again with Lobo and succeeded 31 Gonza.Iez to Jefe Politico, October 7, 1825; Saucedo to Gonzalez, October 30, 1825, Bexar .Ardives. 38 Saucedo to Gonzalez, February 19, 1826, Bexar .Archives. 19 Muro to Diaz de Leon, April 2, 1826; Ahumada to Comandante General, April I 5, 1826; Saucedo to Vice-Governor, April 16, 1826; Tomas Buentello to Saucedo, July 7, 1827, Bexar .ArcMves. See also Oberste, Histor~ of Refugio Mission, 3:11.
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