T /,e P1·ovince of Texas in 1i62
33
and persimmons grew. Not an Indian lived within the mission, howe\'er, the only human beings besides the Padre being the two soldiers and their families and a few half-breed servants. The fields in the vicinity were poorly cultivated, and the few stalks of corn that grew were almost crowded out by the tall weeds. But in the church were still kept the necessary vestments, several chalices, and the other sacred vessels necessary for religious services, thanks to the devotion of the untiring missionary, who in the solitude of the nearly abandoned mission still prayed and hoped. Although no neophytes remained within the old stockade, the natives were not fa, distant. On feast days and on Sundays, or when the spirit moved them, the wayward children of the forest came to the mission. Sickness and the fear of imminent death compelled them at times to solicit the aid and comfort of the holy man of God, who waited patiently for such opportunities to exercise his ministry and always had a kind word for his wayward children. Within a radius of ten to fifteen leagues lived the Nacogdoches, the Cadodachos, the Asinais, and the Nasonis. These Indians had never really been reduced to mission life. The ease with which they could supply themselves with firearms from the French had made them more or less independent from the beginning. They were not only skilled in the use of the rifle, but were excellent horsemen. They harbored no special grievance against the Spaniards. They were friendly in their own way. The old mission had known affluence and even at this 9ate it still had some property left. It counted among its worldly goods eighty sheep, thirty oxen, fifty cows, several bulls, some donkeys, twenty-five saddle horses, twenty mules, two droves of mares, and a stock of plows, plowshares, hoes, and other farming implements.2'' For forty-three years Father Fray Jose de Calahorra y Saenz had lived here and labored to bring the Indians into the fold. Few men had come to know the natives of this area better than this devoted missionary. When the loyalty of the Tejas was questioned by officials, after the unfortunate destruction of San Saba, Father Calahorra stoutly defended them, contending that the Tejas had been the friends of the Spaniards since the earliest days. He maintained that when the Spaniards befriended the Apaches in San Antonio they had naturally alienated the friendship of the Tejas and the other northern tribes. The Tejas and the Tawakonis were the mortal enemies of the Apaches but not of the Spaniards. It is up_ P. Forrestal, The So/ts Diary of 1767. Preliminary Studies of tl1e Texas Catholic Historical Society, Volume I, No. 6, pp. 35-37; La Fora, Relacion, f. 70.
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