Our Catholic Heritage in Te:ras
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hunts, if they did not agree to return directly to the missions. But the wily Lipans knew the threat could not be enforced. The Comanches began to press the Spanish outpost on the San Saba, more openly located than the new missions, and Captain Rabago y Teran felt the need of more men and of more adequate armament. Early in I 764 he reported a serious attack on Presidio de San Saba and urged the immediate dispatch of ammunition, arms, and two new swivel guns. The viceroy replied on February 17 that he had issued instructions to Governor Lorenzo Cancio in Coahuila to send him the necessary munitions and the required swivel guns. 45 A year rolled by but neither the ammunition nor the swivel guns arrived. The Comanches had learned by now that in January the Lipans went on their buffalo hunt and that the Presidio de San Saba was left more defenseless than usual. In January, 1765, a band of Comanches lay in wait at the entrance of Lechuga canyon (Rio Frio canyon) where they surprised a small detachment of Spanish soldiers on the Camino Real. The soldiers had been sent in pursuit of a deserter from Presidio de San Saba. As they made their way back with the prisoner and his wife, the Indians attaclced the party, killed three men and the woman, and allowed the corporal to escape. He arrived in San Saba and reported the enemy, thus averting a surprise. 46 By 1766 the Comanches had lost their fear of the hilly country south of San Saba and west of Rio Frio. This year they planned to surprise the Lipans in the Mission of San Lorenzo and to destroy them if possible with one blow. Without waiting for them to set out on their buffalo hunt, they silently stole into the canyon of the upper Nueces and approached to within a quarter of a league from the mission. El Turnio and his people had abandoned the mission early in the fall, feigning displeasure, but perhaps more likely forewarned of the impending danger by their spies. The thirty soldiers assigned for the .protection of the mission and a small number of Lipans were at San Lorenzo, when a man who had gone out to gather wood early in the morning discovered the enemy and hurriedly returned, giving loud warning to the unsuspecting establish- ment. Everybody rushed to the mission and prepared to defend himself. The mission had a square seventy varas on each side, protected by walls that were far from defensible, if vigorously attacked. There were •~The Viceroy to Rabago y Teran, February 17, 1764. • 4. G. M., Historia, Vol. 94, pt. I, pp. 36-37• 46 Rabago y Teran to the Viceroy, January 25, 1765. A.G. M., Historia, Vol. 94, pt. I, pp. 46-47,
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