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Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
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for goods advanced to the missionary, consisting chiefly of tobacco, grain, and clothes for the mission Indians. Munoz continued that there was no written record of the transaction because it was a verbal agree- ment between the minister and the commissary, whereby the missionary agreed to pay for the goods with grain after the crops had been harvested. But the matter was now settled. The amount had been collected from fifteen individuals who were debtors of the mission and the sum turned over to the paymaster at the presidio. 38 The promised account of all the money due to, or possessed, by Mission San Jose was finally turned over to the governor by Father Pedrajo on June 12, 1795. The embarrassed Padre explained that the long delay in fulfilling his promise concerning a matter of such importance was not due entirely to neglect or procrastination on his part. Immediately after the secularization of San Jose on July 30, he had been ordered by the new president of the missions to go without delay to Refugio as assistant to the resident missionary. He had been engaged at the time in the revision of the accounts of San Jose from I 76 I on, and so had asked to be permitted to finish his report before leaving for Refugio. But Fray Cardenas, promising he would finish the task, had urged him to go. However, when in June, 1795, he returned to San Antonio on business for Refugio, he found, much to his amazement, that the report he had started was exactly as he had left it. He had made haste to finish it and now sent it with his apologies. 39 This interesting account is significant in that it discloses the amounts advanced by the missions to private individuals for the promotion of trade and industry. It reveals the mission playing an unsuspected role on the Spanish frontier. Here is another service rende·red by the mission in the development of civil settlements. Although the list is long, it deserves to be included in the present history for its economic significance. Juan Jose Flores, heading the group, had obtained from the mission 2,533.75 pesos. The well-known French trader, Nicholas Lamathe, who be- came an important Indian agent for the Spanish officials after the cession '>f Louisiana, borrowed from the mission in cash, products, cattle, and horses, 1,385.50 pesos; Vicente Flores, 122.00; Pedro Montalvo, 82.75; Vicente Bocanegra, 283.50; Ignacio Mireles, 30.00; Julian de Arocha, 23.75; Jose Luis Salazar, 49.00; Jose F. Ramon, 13.00; Ignacio Calvillo, HManuel Munoz to Pedro Nava. Saltillo Arclzives, Vol. VI, pp. 196-198. J9fray Jose Manuel Pedrajo to Manuel Munoz, June 12, 1795. Saltillo Archives, Vol. VI, pp. 216,217.
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