The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 9, July 1905 - April, 1906 Page: 110
ix, 294 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
reduced by nearly one-half of its entire number.1 What the nature
of the malady was I do not know, but it was attributed to the ex-
cessive amount of water in the river valley. Before this epidemic
there were in Bucareli, according to report, 99 "vecinos" or, as I
understand the term, adult male residents.2 A census taken some
time in 1777 showed the population of the place to consist of three
hundred forty-seven persons-one hundred twenty-five men, eighty-
nine women, one hundred twenty-eight children, and five slaves.3
Round about lived the Vidais and other Indian bands. Small
though it was, this was a growth that compared very favorably
with that of the Spanish settlements that had grown up in Texas
less irregularly and more under the paternal care of the govern-
ment.
5. Economic conditions.-Bucareli was granted the usual favor
accorded to new pueblos of exemption for ten years from all forms
of royal taxation.4 As we have seen, one of the special advantages
at first claimed for the place was its agricultural possibilities. True
to the traditions of Mexican farming, Ripperda had instructed
Arocha to choose for the pueblo a site affording irrigation facilities.
The location selected failing in these, which were little needed, as
the event proved,5 the settlers sowed their first grain east of the
Trinity, where there were some permanent lagoons. This crop was
spoiled by a flood. The second summer they succeeded in raising
a crop of corn west of the river, in a place pointed out
by the Vidais Indians. Thereafter a number of families settled
on ranchos, or farms, in this direction some distance from the
1Mezieres to Croix, March 18, 1778, in Expediente sobre el abandono,
2; Ripperd& to Croix, October 30, 1777, in Expediente sobre . . . Par-
roco, 12.
'Ripperda to Croix, January 11, 1778, in los Vecinos, etc., 7.
'Ripperda to the viceroy, January 25, 1776, in Quaderno que Corre-
sponde, 67-70; Ybarbo to the viceroy, November 25, 1775, in Expediente
sobre . . . Parroco, 2; Cabello to Croix, May 31, 1779, Expediente
sobre el abandono, 16.
4Representacion del Justicia, 6.
5Ybarbo told Mezieres that good irrigation could 'be had at a distance
of twelve leagues (Mezieres to Croix, in Expediente sobre el abandono
y establacer Comercio, 2).110
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 9, July 1905 - April, 1906, periodical, 1906; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101036/m1/114/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.