Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
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and Concepcion, thirteen. These numbers included the sick and aged. The property held was as meager as the number of Indians left. Espada had eight yoke of oxen, one cow, five horses, about thirteen hundred sheep, and six bushels of corn planted. Capistrano had only two yoke of oxen of its own, having to borrow six more yoke from Concepcion to plant its crop. It had thirty-seven cows, twelve horses, and a small field of corn. San Jose owned twelve yoke of oxen, thirty head of cattle, forty horses and mares, and ten bushels of corn planted. Concepcion had nine yoke of oxen, about one hundred head of cattle, and eight bushels of corn planted in the fields. The governor further explained that he had obtained this information not from the missionaries, but from mission overseers. There was one other consideration that made it advisable to postpone the secularization of the missions until after the crops had been harvested. Espada and San Jose, promising to pay after the harvest, had pur- chased supplies on credit from the presidio and from some of the mer- chants of the Villa de San Fernando. If the entire mission property was distributed now, the creditors would be unable to collect. 22 Secularization of Missioti San Francisco de la Espada. While pleading for time, the governor took steps, nevertheless, to comply with the orders received. The same day on which he wrote to Nava, he requested the new president of the missions, Father Fray Jose Mariano Cardenas, to instruct the missionaries under his jurisdiction to make the necessary inventories for turning over all temporal property to the Indians of the respective missions as ordered by the commandant general. He set July I I as the date for putting the decree into execution and stated that the seculari- zation of the remaining missions would begin with San Francisco de la Espada." Father Cardenas had previously received a copy of the decree directly from Nava. He wrote to the commandant general on July 6, assuring him that the news of the decision taken would please Father Fray Ignacio Maria Lava, guardian of the College of Zacatecas, since the college had been anxious for many years to be relieved of the respon- sibility of the temporal administration which he had offered to surrender when the Caballero de Croix was in Texas in 1778. "If I may speak 22 Governor Manuel Munoz to Pedro Nava, June 25, 1794. Saltillo Arc/tives, Vol. VI, pp. 85-87. 23 Governor Munoz to Fray Jose Mariano Cardenas, June 25, 1794. Saltillo Archives, Vol. VI, pp. 106-109.
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