Tlte Secularization of tlee )J,/issions
49
their products, when they themselves had to work for a living? The missionaries lived with the Indians, they had interests in common, and had no other obligations to meet. The justices had families of their own to provide for and would have to neglect their duties toward the Indians unless an adequate salary or compensation was granted them. The temptation to profit from their position would in all probability prove too great for the inherent weakness of human nature. He remonstrated that the usual ten-year limit for secularization should not be applied to the missions of the Interior Provinces. Ten years were not sufficient to teach the wild Indians of Texas the habits of industry and self-control. In that time they could not learn to be self-supporting, nor could a surplus be accumulated by the common labor of the neophytes to permit each Indian to become a self-supporting individual. It was a grave mistake to think that the surplus accumulated by the missions was idle wealth. The supply of food and clothes ·stored by the mission was indispensable as a reserve in lean years and as a constant inducement to attract new converts. "It is always necessary," he declared, "to provide for the widows, the invalids, and the orphans of each mission. But in order to attract and hold the new converts, the goods and supplies themselves are a powerful inducement, constituting a guarantee that they will be fed." 21 The opinion of the bishop in the case was entirely disinterested. It is to be kept in mind that he would receive no direct revenue from the mission pueblos as long as these were under the administration of the missionaries. Once secularized, each pueblo became a parish under a secular priest. Had selfish motives dictated the letter of the bishop of Nuevo Leon, he would have heartily endorsed the plan for their imme- diate secularization. On June 25, 1794, the governor wrote the commandant general that he would proceed to put in effect the decree of secularization as soon as circumstances permitted him to carry out its provisions. A sense of duty, he felt, constrained him to explain the difficulties confronting him at this time. Governor 1Jt/ut"ioz pleads for time. In the first place, the condition of the missions was such that it made their secularization almost impossible. San Francisco de la Espada had only fifteen Indians; San Juan Capistrano, eleven; San Jose, twenty;
21 Bishop of Nuevo Leon to Pedro Nava, May 11, 1794. Saltillo Arcnives, Vol. VI, pp. 80-84.
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