Plans for tl1e Reorganization of tl1e Frontier
He likewise recommended that in case Los Adaes was not joined to the jurisdiction of Louisiana, but it was decided to abandon the site, the families should be removed preferably to San Antonio. With the fairness that characterized his judgment, he added that their settlement in San Antonio should not be arbitrary. The families of Los Adaes should be given the right to choose, whether they wanted to remain in San Antonio, or retire farther into the interior of the new province of Nuevo Santander. Pointing out that the original line from the west coast to the Guadalupe had been modified by the terrain and the course of the Rio Grande, as well as by the location of a considerable settlement at El Paso, Santa Fe, and San Antonio, he now suggested that since the distance from San Antonio to La Bahia, which should be the eastern end of the reorganized chain of presidios, was seventy leagues, a new post should be established between the two presidios. This did not have to be exactly half way, because there was little or no danger of attack or molestation by Comanches and northern Indians beyond fifteen or twenty miles south of San Antonio. Under the circumstances he suggested that a new post with twenty men should be established on the Cibolo, at the distance indicated. The men could be detached from the eighty assigned to San Antonio, under whose jurisdic- tion they would be. If this arrangement was not found satisfactory, perhaps a part of the Orcoquisac garrison could be utilized for this purpose, when the presidia at that point was suppressed. In that case the com- mander in San Antonio would have one hundred men available in case of an emergency. 6 z Giving up east Texas. "There will not be lacking those who will Recomme11datio11s for a site on tlte Cfbolo. consider my suggestion ungenerous and contrary to the accepted maxim that the king's dominions must be ever advanced at whatever cost, when I propose the curtailment by several hundred square miles of that which we are wont to call improperly the king's domain in Texas," he explained, in discussing the abandonment of Los Adaes, the mission at Nacogdoches, and the presidia at Orcoquisac. Thus virtually withdrawing from the extended and uncertain eastern frontier. Fearlessly, frankly, and emphat- ically he declared that in the entire area of two hundred fifty leagues between Los Adaes and San Antonio, and the two hundred to La Bahia, the only part where Spanish dominion was in fact exercised was along
61 / bid., pp. 39-40.
Powered by FlippingBook