·- ~----------------------------------
Frencli Intervention in Spain and Its Reactjon in Texas
379
proposed that the city of San Fernando de Bexar be moved to the east side of the San Antonio River, where the higher ground, better venti- lated and less subject to floods, was more healthful. On its original site between the San Antonio Ri\'er and San Pedro Creek, the city was inundated by every flood, and the citizens were plagued with sickness, because the terrain was damp and the atmosphere humia. The east side, they argued, was more healthful and suitable to habitation, whereas the area occupied by the villa was better for truck farms and fruit orchards. Removal to the location suggested would not entail too great a hard- ship, they pointed out, because most of the homes were worthless straw huts. They recommended that the new capital city be laid out to accom- modate a maximum of only 20,000 persons. Apparently large cities with their attendant crowded unsanitary conditions were in disfavor with the Junta members. Public buildings such as the church, the governor's palace, the jail, the hospital, the treasury, and the military barracks- most of which the city either lacked or could not be proud of, because they were in a very dilapidated condition-could be erected with a royal loan. This outlay, they said, could later be repaid out of the proceeds from the sale of city Jots and farms, or from the fees on building permits. They specifically recommended that the expenditures on public buildings be not met by a sales tax on food. 70 The proposed removal was ignored by the commandant general, and nothing was e,·er done about it. The Junta suggested certain modifications of the proposal made by Bonavia to convert the four missions into four independent municipalities. The Junta proposed that San Jose and La Espada be surveyed for subdivision into lots and plats for two new towns, and San Juan and Concepcion be converted into two haciendas. They suggested that, regardless of the claims of the individual missions, each town and hacienda be allotted four leagues square of land. The thirty families from the villas of northern Nuevo Santander who had requested permission to settle in Texas at their own expense were to be assigned lands in either of the two new towns, San Jose or La Espada, but only after every Indian living at the missions had been given land equal in amount to that assigned the individual settler. At least one hundred families should be required for each town; the first fifty families to arrive at each town were to be given their lands free of charge to encourage their speedy settlement, and the other fifty were to be charged a nominal price. The land of the other two missions which were to be converted into haciendas
10 /bid., pp. 230-231.
Powered by FlippingBook