Our C atltolic Heritage in Texas
So
Early in January they set out for Espiritu Santo. They proceeded to Muelle Viejo, accompanied by Father Fray Mariano Velasco who had been appointed to take care of the new mission until Father Silva returned from Mexico. Upon their arrival they found only one hundred thirty-eight Indians still waiting; the others had gone hunting food. 10 Tlie formal founding of Mission Refugio. After the inspection of several sites, it was decided to establish the mission at M uelle Viejo, near the mouth of the Guadalupe. The confusion that has existed as to the actual date of the founding can now be dispelled. Here are the facts drawn from the documentary sources. The governor, anxious to return to San Antonio, desired the ceremony to take place on February 2, but Fathers Garza and Velasco wished to postpone it until the 4th. At the insistence of the governor a compromise was reached and the 3rd was agreed upon as the date. But a severe storm during the night of the second made it impossible to carry out the ceremony as scheduled. Thus, because of the inclement weather, the formal founding was delayed until February 4. Father Mariano Velasco was placed in charge of the new mission in a ceremony witnessed by the one hundred thirty- eight Karankawas who agreed to be congregated. 31 The beginnings of Mission Refugio were beset with hardships which reveal the difficulties which the missionaries had to put up with even at this late date. 32 On February 24 Father Garza wrote Governor Munoz that it was very difficult to keep the Indians in the new mission without the essential food. Lack of food had already forced a large number to go hunting game. He estimated that to feed the one hundred thirty- eight Indians of the mission, he needed at least eight bushels of corn and eight beeves a week, a total of four hundred sixteen bushels of corn SOBolton, op. cit., The Quarterly, XIX, 403. Cf. Dunn, op. cit., The Quarterly, XXV, 181. 31 Bolton, op. cit., Tire Quarterly, XIX, 403; Pedro Nava to the Viceroy, November 6, 1794. A.G.!., Audk11cia de Guadalajara, 104-1-1 (Dunn Transcripts, 1794-98, p. 67). Governor Munoz, in a subsequent report made two years after the founding took place, stated that the ceremony was on February 8. He was writing from memory and probably mistook the date of his official report of that date for that of the founding (Munoz to Nava,. January 26, 1795, . ibid., p. 43). The actual date is confirmed in a letter of Father Garza to Governor Munoz, written on February 24, 1793, in which the missionary requested reimbursement for the expenses of main· taining the Indians at the new mission from February s to date. ( Bexar Archives). 32 Thc only two monographs on the establishment of the mission are those of Bolton and Dunn to which reference has been made. The details of the hardships are not given in either.
;
I ! l I
j
Powered by FlippingBook