01'r Catl,olic H 1ritage in T ezas
of Indians under instruction, or Christianized, was inadequate for the proper cultivation of the extensive lands of the missions and insufficient to carry on the multiple activities of this once flourishing establishment, with its looms now idle, and shops abandoned. But the enthusiastic missionary would neither be discouraged nor would he spread the alarm by making known the conditions he found. 13 The reports of Governor Munoz, two years later, when the order for secularization was put in effect, disclosed the true condition of affairs, the causes for which have been previously discussed in the· present volume. Modification of original plan. It had been the main purpose of Father Silva and his companion to visit the northern tribes and to make plans for their conversion. When they manifested their desire to the governor of Texas, he informed them that at this time they could not carry out their proposed visit, because all communication with the northern tribes had been suspended on account of the vigorous campaign being waged by the commandant of the Eastern Interior Provinces, Colonel Ugalde, against the Lipan-Apaches. 1 ' Here was a turn of affairs that had not been foreseen. But Father Silva was consumed by a desire to undertake a heroic task in his mature years -and to accomplish some- thing that should shed legitimate glory upon the College of Zacatecas and its devoted sons. He listened with interest to the reports of recent depredations by the Karankawas and other coastal tribes in the vicinity of Matagorda Bay. These Indians had consistently refused to be Chris- tianized and civilized. Mission Rosario had just been reestablished and by dint of strenuous efforts on the part of its missionaries and the commander of La Bahia (Goliad), some of the Karankawas and J aran- ames had been induced to enter mission life. "Knowing the long continued and fruitless efforts of the royal government to pacify the coastal region, Father Silva concluded that he could not find a more laudable or more useful thing than the conversion of the unruly Karankawas." 15 Early labors of Father Silva among tlee coastal tribes. Having made up his mind, Father Silva, accompanied by Father Garza, went to La Bahia, where he arrived early in February. His first step was to send UGovernor Manuel Munoz to Commandant General Pedro Nava, January .26, 1795. A. G. !., Audiencia de Guadalajara, l 04-1-1 (Dunn Transcripts, I 794-98, pp. 42-46). 1'Bolton, o'/. c;t,, XIX, 401-402. ununn, "The Founding of Nuestra Senora del Refugio," The Quarterly, XXV, 177.
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