The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947 Page: 493

rke kexar Archies
MALCOLM D. McLEAN
T HE Bexar Archives consist of the collection of official
Spanish documents accumulated in San Antonio de Bexar
when that city was the capital of Texas under Spanish and
Mexican rule. After the Anglo-American capital was estab-
lished in Austin, these Spanish documents were left in San
Antonio, in the custody of the Bexar County Commissioners'
Court. On September 30, 1899, the court passed a resolution
transferring by contract to the University of Texas all the
collection except such documents as would be needed in Bexar
County for legal purposes. Under the terms of the agreement,
the University promised to house these documents in fireproof
vaults, to make a complete calendar of them, and to translate
the entire collection within a reasonable length of time. Those
documents which were left in San Antonio have been calendared
by Carlos Eduardo Castafieda in A Report on the Spanish
Archives in San Antonio, Texas (San Antonio, Yanaguana So-
ciety, 1937).
The University of Texas Archives received 80,795 documents,
or 204,500 pages of records, pertaining to the military, civil,
and political life of the Spanish province of Texas and the
Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas from 1699 through 1836.
Most of the documents deposited in the University Archives
are manuscripts written in brown, oxidized ink on time-yellowed
paper, but there are also some printed documents.
The earliest documents (1699-1734) deal mainly with the
affairs of the Canary Island settlers. From the very beginning
through the closing years of the eighteenth century, reports of
Indian raids and atrocities take up much space. At the opening
of the nineteenth century, friction on the Texas-Louisiana bor-
der is the main topic recorded. Smuggling, Indian troubles, and
Anglo-American incursions are prominent in the period from
1800 to 1815. The Mexican Revolution of 1810, with its counter-
part in Texas in 1811, is vividly recorded. Full accounts are
given of the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition of 1812-1813, the
Battle of Medina in 1813, the Champ d'Asile incident in 1818,
Dr. James Long's expedition in 1819, the coming of Moses