CHAPTER VI
WITHDRAWAL OF QUERETARAN MISSIONARIES FROM TEXAS
To the trying hardships of conversion was added the more thankless task of the temporal administration of the missions. The success attained at the cost of countless sacrifices and endless toil seemed only to arouse the cupidity of the unredeemed tribes and the envy of the less fortunate civil settlers in the proximity of the missions. This was particularly true of San Antonio, where the Canary Islanders and the families of the wretched soldiers looked upon the prosperous missions with deep resent- ment. They contrasted the affluence of the neophytes with their own penury and want, and like all those in less fortunate circumstances begrudged them the success attained by dint of systematic labor and orderly adminis- tration. Agafn and again the missionaries had to protest the wanton destruction of the mission herds, the encroachment upon the cultivated fields of the neophytes, and the unscrupulous dealings of the neighboring settlers. O_ff-er to resign temporal administration, 1769. While the Governors of Coahuila and Texas were meeting in San Antonio with Colonel Ortiz Parrilla, early in 1769, to plan a campaign against the northern tribes, the veteran missionary Fray Mariano de los Dolores made a formal resignation of the temporal administration of the missions. Speaking for all the sons of the College of La Santa Cruz de Queretaro, he declared that the cardinal aim of the missionaries was to com·ert the nati\·es and to instruct them in the principles of Christianity. This was the chief reason for their being sent to the frontier and the only justification for the payment allotted them by the king's treasury. On the other hand it was the express duty of governors and military officers to cooperate with the missionaries in attaining the desired purpose by bringing the Indians to the missions, helping to keep them in proper subordination. and instruct- ing them by word and example in the manners and habits of cidlized life. It was their duty and not that of the missionaries to protect them against their more barbarous brethren, as well as from unjust and unfair treatment by their Christian neighbors. From the beginning of the occupation of Texas, ci\'il and military officials had been reluctant to assume their respective responsibilities. This [259]
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