Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
presented a bill for transporting the goods, but Father Silva refused to pay the freight, because the train, he claimed, should have been sent at royal expense. 51 The series of Indian protests which took place at the new mission reveal the evil temper of the prospective converts. Alleging that the lean meat being given them was the cause of much of their illness, they left in a group late in November, and stayed away two days, according to Fray Puelles. The friar did not blame them. The last bull killed looked sick and was all skin and bones. He blamed the soldiers, for he sus- pected them of taking the better stock for themselves. They had reported one hundred thirty head of the mission herd as lost. Private trading and gambling were common between soldiers and natives, he declared, and the Indians were unable to keep anything. By June, 1794, the mission was practically abandoned. The hostility of Frazada Pinta and his followers, who had never joined the mission, became unbearable. A band of Indians on June 4 attacked five soldiers and twenty-three natives who were guarding the cattle, and drove them from the ranch. The next day they entered the mission itself, killed a horse, broke with a hammer the lock on the storehouse, and took a bundle of hatchets and one of comales ( flat cooking pans), sacked the Padre's house, drank the wine kept for Mass, stole the brown sugar and chocolate, as well as the cigarettes and ribbons, broke the glass bottles, and scattered the mission records to the four winds. Not satisfied, they wantonly killed two milk cows and one calf before they left. The governor, when he heard of it, asked where the Padre was at the time of the attack. He was told that Father Puelles, who was still looking after Refugio, was away trying to persuade some of the mission Indians to return. 52 Removal of Mission Refugio. It will be remembered that Father Silva appealed through Governor Munoz early in September to Pedro Nava, commandant of the Interior Provinces at Chihuahua, for help to establish the mission on a firmer basis. In the meantime, while waiting impat_iently for relief, he repeatedly asked the governor to allow him to go to Chihuahua to plead the cause of Refugio. In his letters, he raised questions pertaining to the need of more missionaries, the advisa- bility of moving to a better location, the need of establishing a civil st Fray Manuel Silva to Governor M-unoz, November 20, and December 12, I 793· ~ray Manuel Silva to Governor Manuel Munoz, December 12 1 1793; Mufio:r. to Juan Cortes, May 16, 1794; Jose Antonio Cadena to Munoz, June 8, 1 794; Munoz to Juan Cortes, June IO, 1794. Bera, Arc/iives.
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