Our Catliolic Heritage in Texas
responsible for opening the floodgates that were to sweep away the Spanish mission system in Texas, waste the reserves built up during more than half a century of systematic and painstaking effort, reserves which might have been utilized for its settlement, but gave an unexpected opportunity to the ambitious pioneers of the north to penetrate the vast province. The flotsam of the wreck was to attract the hungry sea gulls and birds of prey. Proposals for secularization of Sa11 Antonio -missions. When Father Fray Manuel Silva was elected commissary and prefect of the missions of the College of Zacatecas in 1790, he undertook a personal inspection that brought him to Texas. Aroused by a desire to convert the wild coastal tribes who had resisted all missionary endeavors, he conceived a grandiose plan that included the establishment of a new mission near the Presidio of La Bahia and a line of similar establishments from the mouth of the Colorado to the distant villages of the Taovayas. 1 Early in 1792 Father Silva went to Mexico and presented a long memorial to the viceroy concerning the new mission and others which he intended to found for the Karankawa and Tawakoni Indians on the Colorado and the Taovayas on the Red River. He explained that by establishing the proposed missions with the proper military guard, numerous tribes along the entire Gulf coast and the rivers that flowed into it would be brought under control, and the work of evangelization eventually would be extended to the fierce Comanches. In order to save additional expense to the royal treasury, he proposed that the old mission of Valero be secularized, that the four missions of Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, San Juan Capistrano, San Jose, and San Francisco de la Espada be reorganized as two, and that the two missionaries assigned to the new settlement of Nuestra Senora del Pilar at Nacogdoches be released and the spiritual administration be turned over to a secular priest. These measures would make available six missionaries for the new estab- lishments without additional expense to the royal treasury. 2 Fray Jose Mariano de los Reyes, who had dedicated much time to the study of the missions of New Spain, and who had labored in Texas, was the first to be consulted. He ·objected Objections to pla11 of Fatlier Silva. I Petition of Fray Manuel de Silva to the King, October Io, 1793. A. G. I., Audien,ia de Guadalajara, 104-1-1 (Dunn Transcripts, 1790-1793, pp. 164-169). %Memorial to the Viceroy, March 13, 1792, summarized in letter of Galindo Navarro to Commandant General Nava, June 26, 1794. A. G. I., Audien,ia de Guadalajara, 104-1-1 (Dunn Transcripts, 1794-1798, pp. 14-1 s).
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