T lee Province of Texas in I 76.2
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irresistible force upon the student of the mission era. It was, in fact, the missions that supplied food to the settlements in their want; it was the mission Indians that saved San Antonio on more than one occasion. It was the missions that offered greater protection against the attacks of hostile tribes than the poorly built and run down presidios in Texas. Lastly, it must be recognized that the officials themselves admitted the fact that only the influence of the missionaries kept the numerous Indian nations, who far outnumbered the Spanish soldiers and settlers, from destroying the Spanish outposts in Texas and driving the Spaniards out. It has been asserted, without any foundation and with but little thought, that the missions in Texas were a grand failure. Unfortunately the asser- tion has been repeated by Catholics and non-Catholics alike to the point where it has become an admitted and undisputed fact. But this conclusion is unfounded and merely the result of a deduction from a false premise. It has been deduced that since the missions disappeared and only their silent and romantic ruins stand today before the gazing crowds, they failed. But the fundamental fact is ignored, that the mission in the Spanish system was a transitory frontier institution designed as a stage in the progress of the extending frontier, like the military posts them- selves, which moved on to new frontiers or were abandoned when the settlements became self-supporting and the need for protection had ceased. Just as the stagecoach, the covered wagon, the trading post, and the thundering herds of the buffalo have passed away, so did the missions of the Spanish frontier give way to a new age for which they had labored so faithfully. Each served its purpose in the development of the frontier. each made possible in its own way a new era. The missions, however, like the zealous austere pilgrims of the Atlantic coast, carried into the wilderness the elements of a new civilization, but with greater love and sympathy for the native, whom they tried to convert and civilize and in whom the missionary recognized another fellow-being. By no standards can it be said that the Texas missions failed. Temporally and spiritually they succeeded admirably, as the records plainly show. They accomplished their task well and unselfishly held high the torch of civilization. The repeated accusations by unscrupulous officials and envious neighbors, that they prospered at their expense, is the begrudging admis- sion of their uncontested success. It is the despairing cry of those who fail. Had the missions failed, had they had no material goods, had the Indians lived under their protection and care as wretchedly as the
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