Plans for tlie Reorganization of t/1e Frontier
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deaths each year and incapacitated the garrison and settlers most of the time:" From La Bahia, Rubi went directly to San Juan Bautista without passing by San Antonio. On the main route he followed a southwesterly course, crossing the San Antonio some twenty-five miles west of present Goliad, to the Nueces near present Sandia. As La Fora observes. it was below the juncture with the Frio, and continuing southwest they passed by or near present San Diego and a creek which they called Carrizo, where the captain of Laredo had a ranch. Shortly above Carrizo Creek, La Fora noted a road that went north to San Antonio, perhaps connecting Laredo. On November 18, they arrived in present Laredo, having seen during the day numerous rattlesnakes. La Fora observed that they seemed to thrive in this region. Laredo, he describes as ha\'ing about sixty jacales (huts) built on both banks of the Rio Grande, where an equal number of families lived under the administration of a captain of militia subject to the Governor of Nuevo Santander. He explained that Nuevo Santander extended to the Nueces and that the settlers of Laredo were spiritually being cared for at this time ( I 767) by a cleric sent by the Bishop of Guadalajara. On November 19, he crossed the Rio Grande in a good canoe. He describes the crossing as being at a point where the river flowed almost due east and its stream was divided by an island into two channels. They continued their march to the northwest, keeping close to the river in the main and arrived in San Juan Bautista on November 22. 45 Not until February 23, 1768. did the Marques de Rubi and his faithful engineer return to Mexico City. They had travell~d two thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight leagues, approximately seven thousand miles, in a little less than three years. They had visited twenty-four presidios along the northern frontier of New Spain from the coast to the Gulf of California to Los Adaes in present Louisiana, just a few miles from Natchitoches. They had crossed and crisscrossed the country from the west coast to Santa Fe, back to Chihuahua and Sonora, and again to El Paso, hence back to San Bauti,sta and across to San Saba, San Antonio, Los Adaes, Orcoquisac, Espiritu Santo, Laredo, and eventually back to Mexico City by way of Coahuila Significance of tlie ins,pection. 44 The "mal de loa11da" caused considerable damage at San Saba, see ante, p. 197. The description of the march and presidio and missions is based on La Fora, Relacio11 del Viaje ... ff. 74-78. 45 La Fora, Relacion de/ Viaje . .. ff. 78-79.
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