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O"r Catlzolic Heritage in T ezas
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hundred head of wild cattle were herded, and from 1780 to I 788, according to official records, over twenty-four thousand were caught, killed, or driven to market in the adjoining provinces. The injudicious waste of this valuable asset was the forerunner of the economic ruin of the missions and the Spanish civil settlements of Texas. Population statistics, 1783-1794. Census reports giving remarkable details not generally suspected, appear to have been made with aston- ishing regularity. It is surprising, therefore, that so many who have written on the Spanish period of Texas history, have been satisfied to give general statements concerning this extremely interesting subject. Nothing gives a better idea of the effect upon the population of the economic policy adopted during the last decade of the eighteenth century than these figures, nor is there any fact more significant. At the close of 1783 a long and detailed census report of the prov- ince was made. There were at this time 1,248 persons living in the Presidio de San Antonio and the Villa de San Fernando, of whom 21 were slaves. In Mission San Jose there were 12fs neophytes; in San Juan Capistrano, 99; in Espada, 96; in Concepcion, 87 ; and in Valero, 144. In the Presidio of Nuestra Senora de Loreto at La Bahia there were 454 persons, of whom one was a slave. At the Mission of Espiritu Santo there were 214 Indians. The recently established settlement of Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Bucareli, now at the old site of the mission of the Nacogdoches, had 349 persons, of whom 14 were slaves. These figures give a total population of 2,819 in the three centers of Spanish power in Texas. Of this number, 1,577 were classed as Spaniards; 677, as Indians; 125, as mestizos (Spanish-Indian) ; 404, as color quebrado (mulattoes); and 36, as slaves. 41 We have another detailed census report, that of San Antonio for 1786. It shows a considerable decrease in population. The total number of inhabitants in the Presidio de San Antonio and Villa de San Fernando was then only 975. In mission San Jose there were 189 Indians; in Capistrano, no; in Espada, 144; in Concepcion, 104_; and in Valero, 126. This gave San Antonio a total of 1,648, not counting 15 slaves. Of this number, 707 were classed as Spaniards; 479, as Indians; 167, as mestizos; and 288, as mulattoes. Present were one secular priest and six mission-
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41 Estado que manifiesta el numero de Vasallos y Habitantes que tiene el Rey en esta Jurisdiccion de la Provincia de los Texas, t 783. Bexar Arc/lives, University of Texas.
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