Tlie Kniglets of Columbus Historical Commission
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Texas, and after some deliberation, he accepted the invitation. That Dr. Castaneda is competent to carry on the work expeditiously is proven by his previous efforts. Many years ago he made a study of the Spanish archives of San Antonio. This was a master's dissertation of several hundred pages containing the first careful survey of that immense col- lection of State Papers. In more recent times he has investigated archival depositories for the University of Texas and for the Commission at Mexico City, Guadalajara, Saltillo, and Matamoros. The archives of Mexico City contain over ten thousand pages of revelant source materials regarding the Mission Era of Texas. These papers were formerly located at Convento Grande de San Francisco. Among these records he found Padre Morfi's "History of Texas," considered lost from the time of the author's death in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Dr. Castaneda translated, with over one thousand annotations, this valuable work in part fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.... Dr. Castaneda has also made available the Saltillo Archives, a collection of over sixteen thousand pages of photostats. Here are to be found most of the land grants to various empresarios of Texas. In the Guadalajara Archives the investigator found thousands of pages on the Venerable Padre Fray Antonio Margil de Jesus, one of the pioneer missionaries of Texas, whose cause for beatification and canonization has been recently resumed.... The Commission is indeed fortunate in procuring the services of a scholar with this sort of background, a person who has explored the various fields and knows intimately the value of all these source materials relating to Texas history. His expert knowledge is an asset for the Commission that can hardly be paralleled or duplicated. His availability at this time seems providential, and it is hoped that his rare ability will produce the first complete and authoritative treatment of the history of the Mission Era in Texas. Dr. Castaneda, with pen in hand, began the gigantic task of assembling and reading thousands of old and brittle documents of the Spanish and Mexican periods. His was the task to collate the data, placing it in proper order. There were causes and effects to be considered; the influences of political and economic trends over a period of centuries had to be taken into account; political upheavals, wars, the policies of new administrations within nations, the rise and fall of kingdoms; the personalities of Kings, Viceroys, Commandants; the place of the Church and the administrations of Episcopal and Religious superiors-all these factors required much study in order to place them in their relation to the beginnings and the
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