The Spanish royal administration closely coordinated all missionary
activity in the New World. The intermingling of church and state was a
legacy of Spain’s own long struggle to push Islam out of the Iberian
Peninsula and to re-establish a homogeneous Christian faith and culture
there. This experience of reconquest set the Spanish nation on a crusade
for most of the rest of its history, combining all civil and religious
activity into one.
In Texas, this meant that only rarely did missionaries venture into
hinterlands without official authorization and without soldiers being
stationed at nearby presidios for protection. This process of approving a
new mission could be lengthy, sometimes beginning in Spain, but often
determined by the viceroy in Mexico. The friars were almost always
eager, but politics and financial restraints often created delays by the
civil authorities. The establishment of the Texas missions, which were
to total some 35, came in spurts, following the rhythm of the fortunes
of Spain.
The locations of mission sites. Click to enlarge.
The Order of Friars Minor, known as the Franciscans, was founded by
St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century. It was the Franciscans who
were given responsibility for all the Texas missions. The first
missionary journeys into Texas came from the west, where the Franciscans
had begun evangelizing the Indian pueblos around Santa Fe soon after it
was made the capital of New Mexico in 1610.
These earliest missions at San Angelo, El Paso and Presidio were
directed from New Mexico, but later most of the Texas missions were
directed from two conventos or colegios (colleges) of Franciscans in
Mexico.
These two units of the order that had custody of the Texas missions
were the College of Santa Cruz at Querétero and the College of Nuestra
Señora de Guadalupe at Zacatecas. Later, there were three missionaries
from the College of San Fernando in Mexico City who served at the Apache
missions on the San Saba River and the upper Nueces River.
This division of custody between the colleges of Querétero and
Zacatecas was reflected in various decisions throughout the Texas
mission history. For example, when the civil authorities removed the
Presidio de los Dolores from East Texas (Nacogdoches County) in 1729,
the Querétero Franciscans decided to remove their three missions from
the area and eventually relocate them to San Antonio, while the nearby
Zacatecas missions in Nacogdoches and San Augustine remained.
Besides providing protection for the Spanish missions and nearby
settlements, the soldiers who lived at the presidios often became the
source of trouble with the Indians and were often in conflict with the
friars. Thus, there was a constant dilemma over whether to place the
presidio close enough to the mission to provide quick response during
attack or far enough away to keep the soldiers from harassing and
aggravating the mission Indians.
The general purpose of the missions was to “reduce” or congregate the
often nomadic tribes into a settlement, convert them to Christianity,
and teach them crafts and agricultural techniques. Once these goals were
met, the mission was to be “secularized”; that is, the church was to be
turned over to the local bishop and administered by “secular” clergy
(local priests not belonging to a religious order). The land was to be
turned over to the Christianized Indians.
The Spanish civil authorities saw the missions and presidios as
financial drains and were often the early proponents of shutting down
the mission activities. Almost without exception, the decision to
secularize was opposed by the friars. They felt the Indians were not
sufficiently educated and would be taken advantage of by the authorities
and the Spanish settlers. Thus, not until 1830 were the last missions
in Texas secularized. i looked up hopefully
