The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 2, July 1898 - April, 1899 Page: 218
[335] p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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218 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
the field of their labors, their task was a vain one, because of the
brutal and licentious conduct of the presidial soldiers toward the
Indians. Those who should have been the support of the mission
movement proved to be its greatest enemies, and contributed not
a little to its ultimate failure.
With the lack of success of missionary and presidial effort, there
remained but one resource known to Spanish colonization-the
creation of a municipality. The Marquis of Aguayo had already
recommended this.2 The Padre Espinosa, at the same time, had
represented to the Viceroy, Riviera, the importance of a chosen
population, well supplied with farming implements and domestic
animals, as an object lesson to the neophytes. He asked that mar-
ried men, with their families, should form the guards for the mis-
sions; that they should enjoy the pay of soldiers for two years, mean-
while cultivating lands assigned to them, and, at the end of that
time, receive a title to the lands they were cultivating. Some poor
families of the City of Mexico volunteered for this service, but the
great distance precluded the possibility of using them. Levies were
made in cities nearer Texas, and among the drafted colonists were
many released from the prisons. With such helpers, Aguayo began
the work of re-establishing the missions in his famous entrada of
1721.3
Upon the recommendation of the Viceroy, the King determined
to people Texas as a more effectual protection against the French.
Accordingly, in 1722, he gave orders for the transportation of 400
families from the Canary Islands to that province.4 Little attention
seems to have been paid to this order, but a later cedula of February
14, 1729, bids every vessel clearing for Havana to carry ten or
twelve families, destined for Texas. This seems to have been more
successful, for we learn the next year that a company of colonists
from the Canary Islands are at the little pueblo of Guantitlan, near
Mexico, ready to engage in the arduous task of subduing the wild
domain of Texas.5
a Bancroft: North Mexican States and Texas, I, 631.
8 Talamantes, par. 25, 26.
4 Bancroft, loc. cit., gives date as 1722. Representation gives the date as
1729, probably referring to the later cedula.
e Decree of Casa Fuerte, Sept. 9, 1730.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 2, July 1898 - April, 1899, periodical, 1898/1899; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101011/m1/222/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.