CHAPTER IX
BEGINNI~G OF SECULARIZATIO:S IX SAN ANTONIO
When in 1778 the newly appointed Coma11da11ta General Teodoro de Croix visited San Antonio in company with Fray Juan Agustin Morfi, future historian of Texas, the little settlement founded with so much suffering and so many sacrifices h~d grown into a sturdy, self-sufficient, and energetic frontier outpost. The Canary Islanders and those who joined them, despite untold hardships, had become definitely established. The missions, likewise, had been replaced by substantial stone and mortar buildings, with chapels that would grace regular parishes, comfortable living quarters for the missionaries and the neophytes, and granaries well stocked with the bounty of abundant crops. But with material and physical progress they had reached the stage where the missionaries must moYe on to new frontiers or return to their College of Zacatecas. The number of Indians under instruction had been reduced greatly; the older neophytes had intermarried with mestizos and others; the process of Christianization and civilization had been accomplished so well, that the continued existence of the original missions could hardly be justified now. They had done their work and had accomplished their purpose. They were ready to pass on. It is interesting to note at this point the influence which remote Los Adaes in east Texas had upon the founding, development, and ultimate fate of San Antonio and its missions. The need of a halfway station caused a settlement to be founded on the San Antonio River in I 7 I 8. A few years later the abolishment of the Presidio de los Tejas caused the Queretaran missionaries to retire from east Texas and to found three additional missions in San Antonio. When in 1773, the former settlers of Los Adaes were ordered to abandon the eastern frontier made useless in view of the Louisiana cession, it could not have been foreseen that the ultimate effect of the recall was to set in motion the process of secularization that was to mark the passing of the missions into history. The removal of the former inhabitants of Los Adaes to San Antonio was not the cause of secularization of the missions, but the activity of the A daesa11os called to the attention of Spanish officials the fact that the missions in this community had sen·cd their purpose and were ready to be converted into regular parishes and to have their property distributed on an equitable basis. [ 344]
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