Our Cat/10/ic Heritage in Texas
JI8
different towns and frontier establishments was prepared. It was suggested that San Saba furnish five officers, forty-five soldiers, and fifty Indians; San Antonio, ten soldiers and fifty mission Indians; La Bahia, one officer, nineteen soldiers, and fifty Indians; San Francisco de Monclova one officer, eleven soldiers, twenty-five militiamen, ten Tlaxcaltecas, and five mission Indians; Santa Rosa in Coahuila, twenty-five soldiers, and ten militiamen; San Juan Bautista del Rio Grande, twelve soldiers, six militiamen, twenty Indians; Peyotes mission, five Indians; San Francisco de Vizarron, five Indians; San Barnardino de la Candela, forty-nine soldiers, forty-one militiamen, ten Tlaxcalteca Indians, and thirty-five mission Indians; San Fernando de Austria two soldiers and two militia- men; San Pedro de Gigedo ten Tlaxcalteca Indians; the Haciendas del Alamo, Cantatores, Cienegas, and Sardinas four militiamen each; Nuevo Reyno de Leon, one hundred men; Colonia del Nuevo Santander, twenty- five men; Saltillo twenty-five men; Nueva Vizcaya fifty men; San Luis and Charcas, eighty-two men. A list of the supplies needed and of the amounts to be paid to the soldiers, the militiamen, and the Indian auxiliaries, was likewise prepared, based on a four months' campaign. The total cost as estimated was approximately fifty-nine thousand pesos. 21 While the ]tmta was deliberating on the ways and means for the proposed campaign, disquieting rumors of a new attack by the northern Indians on San Saba and San Antonio were rife. On January 12, 1759, a messenger arrived from East Texas, sent by Father Fray Jose de Calahorra y Saenz, who wrote to the governor to inform him of what he had j,ust learned while visiting among the Indians in the vicinity of Los Adaes and Nacogdoches. Called to minister to the natives who were sorely afflicted by a raging epidemic of measles and smallpox, he learned that the Indians were planning to make a new and more determined effort to destroy San Saba and San Antonio early in the spring. The Tawakonis, Tonkawas, and Wichitas were to be joined by the Tejas in the proposed attack. Encouraged by the success of the previous year, the natives hoped to drive every Spaniard out of Texas. The good Padre had been told by loyal Indians on their deathbed to abandon his mission before the spring because it was planned to kill all the Spaniards and the friars when the victorious raiders returned from San Antonio. But Father Calahorra assured the governor in his letter Fear of renewal of Indian attack. ZOTestimonio de los auttos formados sobre la cuenta de cargo, datta, qe. da el Coronel Don Diego Ortiz Parrilla . . . A. G. I., A11die11cia de Mexico, 92-6-:12 (Cunningham Transcripts, 1763), pt. 5.
Powered by FlippingBook