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Reorganization and New Policies, 1770-1800
negotiated. Women and children should be given employment in the tasks that they were able to perform, but the warriors, who were not in the habit of working, were to be allowed to do only what they wanted. Fair wages should be. paid to all those employed, but if no monetary recompense was made, the workers in the field were to receive all the fruits of their labor. 26 Let it not be supposed that the Indian menace had completely dis- appeared. Governor Manuel Munoz, writing to the commandant general in 1793, reported marauding bands of Lipans under Chiefs Jacinto and Mariano still active in the vicinity of La Bahia. Chiefs Canoso (Gray- hair), Chiquito (Shorty), and Moreno (Darky) had a disagreement with the herders of San Jose and were threatening to abandon their ranclierias near San Antonio, while a band of Tonkawas had recently stolen ten head of cattle from the mission. Governor Mufioz deplored the facility with which hostile Indians kept themselves informed of the movements and plans of Spanish troops and broadly hinted that unscrupu- lous citizens of San Antonio were largely to blame. Commandant General Pedro Nava still complained of the tendency of frontier commanders to report incidents in vague and general terms, exaggerating facts to enhance their own merits, and omitting pertinent and essential details that might serve to shape a more effective policy. In respect to the citizens who persisted in carrying on trade and in maintaining relations with hostile Indians, Nava grew impatient and emphatically instructed officials on frontier outposts to exercise the greatest severity in repressing so injurious and disloyal a practice. 27 Economic reform. The series of administrative and economic reforms in Spain and in the colonies that marked the ascension of Charles III were directed primarily to the correction of abuses in the government of the vast colonial empire and to the increase of the royal revenue. In the earnest desire to attain the latter purpose, careful stock was taken of the economic resources of the Spanish dominions in order to adopt measures that should bring to the royal coffers the latent wealth of America. In Coahuila and Texas there were no mines to speak of, agriculture yielded meager returns without irrigation, the population was not suffi- ciently dense to produce the natural revenue that results from the 26 Nacogdoches Archives, Vol. 6, pp. 157-176. 27 Governor Manuel Munoz to Pedro Nava, May 20, 1793; Pedro Nava to Governor Munoz, June 20, 1793. Saltillo Archives, Vol 5, pp. 217-:220; 221-223.
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