university of texas press espíritu santo de zúñiga a frontier mission in south texas apr 2007

The Spanish Colonial mis-sion of Espíritu Santo in present-day Mission Valley serves as an excellentexample of a Franciscan mission complex.. My goals in presenting thisresearch are: firs

Texas Archaeology and Ethnohistory SeriesThomas R Hester, Editor

Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga

a f r o n t i e r m i s s i o n

i n s o u t h t e xa s

Tamra Lynn Walter

Foreword by Thomas R Hester

university of texas press

Austin

Copyright © 2007 by the University of Texas Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

Walter, Tamra Lynn.

Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga : a frontier mission in South Texas / Tamra Lynn Walter — 1st ed.

p cm — (Texas archaeology and ethnohistory series) Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn-13: 978-0-292-71478-6 (cloth : alk paper)

isbn-10: 0-292-71478-5 (cloth : alk paper)

1 Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga Site (Tex.) 2 Frontier and pioneer life— Texas—Mission Valley Region 3 Spaniards—Texas—Mission Valley Region—Antiquities 4 Indians of North America—Texas— Mission Valley Region—Antiquities 5 Spanish mission buildings— Texas—Mission Valley Region 6 Material culture—Texas—Mission Valley Region—History 7 Food habits—Texas—Mission Valley Region—History 8 Mission Valley Region (Tex.)—Antiquities.

9 Mission Valley Region (Tex.)—History 10 Guadalupe River Region (Tex.)—Antiquities I Title.

f394.e86w35 2007

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Foreword ix

Acknowledgments xiii

o n e Introduction 1

t w o The Historical Record 7

t h r e e The Archaeological Record 27

f o u r Mission Architecture 48

f i v e Investigations at Related Sites 74

s i x Mission Material Culture 84

s e v e n Mission Foodways: The Faunal Collection 162

e i g h t Conclusions 187

Bibliography 199

Index 211

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Having been trained as a prehistoric archaeologist, I hadnever had much interest in the archaeology of the Spanish missions—eventhough I spent a month in summer 1966 as a crew member on the first team

to conduct archaeology at the Alamo However, in the 1970s and 1980s, whileteaching at the University of Texas at San Antonio, I gained a great deal ofexposure to Spanish colonial archaeology through projects by the Center forArchaeological Research and largely through the efforts of Anne A Fox andJack D Eaton This gave rise to a continuing interest in the material culture

of the Native Americans of the missions, and how data on that culture might

be used to evaluate their transition into Spanish life Most of the time, ourexcavation projects were very specific and limited exploration to test pits.While we were able, for example, to trench the front wall of the Alamo rightnext to its main entrance and to do test excavations at Espada to locate itsbastion, we had no opportunity to look at a broader view of mission layout.However, in 1976–1977, Eaton, Fox, and I, along with Fred Valdez Jr and

R E W Adams (who had procured the grants), carried out excavations atMissions San Bernardo and San Juan Bautista at Guerrero, Coahuila, Mexico.These were the Gateway missions that Robert Weddle covered so extensively

in his book San Juan Bautista: Gateway to Spanish Texas, published by the versity of Texas Press in 1968 Though we had specific goals in our researchprogram at the Gateway missions, most of these centered on the lives andactivities of the Indian groups who lived at these missions, as reflected in ar-chitecture But to understand the context of the Mission Indian occupations

Uni-we needed to know a great deal more about the layout of the missions, asplans of these complexes never surfaced in the Spanish Colonial archives

We were able to locate and identify many buildings and assess buildingfunctions at both missions This was made possible through judicious testingand through Jack Eaton’s unnerving accuracy in predicting where the cor-ners of buildings (and rooms within them) would be found! Unfortunately,

x Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

the broad array of structures linked to both these missions was obliterated

or at least heavily damaged after our fieldwork—by a root-plowing rancher

on private property adjacent to San Bernardo and, at San Juan Bautista, by aPemex worker seeking ‘‘treasure’’ with a bulldozer

I knew little about the Espíritu Santo missions other than what I obtained

in visiting the state park in Goliad where the final location of the mission,established in 1749, had been heavily restored Espíritu Santo started out

in 1722 somewhere on Matagorda Bay, and has been the object of severalsearches Clergy at that first location tried to proselytize the Karankawa, whowere definitely not interested in the Spanish or their religion The priestsheard of less hostile Indian groups on the Guadalupe River and in 1725 beganthe transfer of Espíritu Santo to that more pleasant environment An in-terim second location of the mission may have been briefly established inwhat is now the City Park of Victoria, Texas In the early 1960s an amateurhistorian in Victoria exposed some of the ruins known as Tonkawa Bank Butthe definitive work was carried out in 1997 and 1998 by V Kay Hindes, withthe important assistance of Kathleen Gilmore There remains some debate

as to whether Tonkawa Bank is the second location of Espíritu Santo or anoutpost, a visita, linked to another location of Espíritu Santo (likely its third)about five to six miles north of Victoria on the west side of the GuadalupeRiver A presidio was established downstream on the east side that was brieflystudied by the Texas Archeological Field School in June 1968 Whether itwas the mission’s second or the third location, Espíritu Santo at this site onthe Guadalupe was a substantial undertaking, and records indicate that itremained there from 1726 to 1749

After the site was abandoned, the mission was covered by brush and firstrecorded scientifically by C A Calhoun in 1965 The mission ruins were bythen on private property, and access to them was denied by a series of land-owners for many years Since the mission was in brush near the riverbank andcould be easily accessed by boat, the main portion of the mission complexhad been looted, bulldozed, and otherwise disturbed for decades Indeed,

it was only through the continued efforts, starting around 1975, of E H.(Smitty) Schmedlin and Bill Birmingham, avocational archaeologists fromVictoria, that researchers visited the mission from time to time In 1989 alandowner cleared the brush from the ruins, and Smitty and Bill were per-mitted to photograph the area, collect materials, and make a site sketch Butwhen John and Judy Clegg bought the property, new opportunities arose.Smitty arranged for the Texas Historical Commission to do limited testingnear the remaining standing ruins in spring 1995 And since Michael Collins

and I were slated to teach a UT-Austin field school at a prehistoric site inVictoria the coming summer, Smitty and Bill put on a full-court press for atleast a little attention to be directed to Espíritu Santo.

Tamra Walter, the author of this volume, contacted me in early 1995 whenshe was a graduate student at the University of Montana She was looking for

a possible master’s thesis involving a Spanish mission It is always great when

a plan comes together! So, in 1995 I supervised Tamra Walter and several otherfield-school students in doing some test excavations at Espíritu Santo For

my part, I never expected much more than a good sample of mission Indianmaterial culture to be used as comparative data with other missions in Texasand northeastern Mexico Fortunately, Walter developed an attachment tothe site that has led to many important new discoveries since She went on

to do her master’s thesis (published in 1997) on the site, based on the summer

1995 investigations and some follow-up fieldwork And there was no doubtthat her Ph.D research would be expanded to further explore Espíritu Santo.Much of what Dr Walter presents in this book stems from field schoolsheld at Espíritu Santo by the Texas Archeological Society in June 1997 andJune 1998 I served as project director, though all the hard work was done

by Walter and her graduate student colleagues (and collaborators like AnneFox and Jack Eaton)—and the hundreds of TAS members (454 in 1997) whodid such skilled excavation It could have been chaos, but the TAS is wellorganized, and many of its top fieldworkers served as excavation supervisors.With a workforce of that size and level of enthusiasm, many areas of the siteand associated locales were investigated During this period, as Tamra’s bookdetails, the quarry for the mission was found and studied, a dam and acequiasystem was rediscovered and mapped, and remnants of a more ambitiousdam upstream on the Guadalupe were found The sharp eyes of an equip-ment operator doing landscaping for the Cleggs led to the discovery of alarge, well-formed lime kiln, fully excavated in 1997–1998 And excavation at

a ‘‘prehistoric’’ site just south of the mission indicated that many of the phytes may have lived at that spot, given the amount of eighteenth-centuryIndian and Spanish material culture found there We have at these sites a localrecord of Native American continuity from Late Prehistoric times right intothe Mission era

neo-The abundant data presented in this book offer the first detailed viewinto a mission that was a poorly known establishment whose location wasoften in dispute, and that played a major role on the coastal plain of what isnow Texas in the early and middle eighteenth century The mission at thissite provided the foundation for the establishment of the final setting of Es-

xii Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

píritu Santo, in Goliad, by involving the Aranama and Tamique Indians inthe mission process and starting the cattle herds that greatly expanded afterthe move to Goliad

From the work at the second location of Espíritu Santo on the lupe River in Victoria County, Dr Walter has obtained a more detailed,scientifically based picture of the overall mission complex and its innerworkings It is one of just a few missions that can be viewed in a broadperspective Most Texas missions are heavily restored (much of this occur-ring in the federal Work Projects Administration programs of the 1930s),even resplendent, and they are major tourist attractions But those WPAprograms, sometimes supervised by architects and ‘‘cleared’’ with minimalscientific recording, resulted in reconstructions often verging on the imagi-native The ruins of Espíritu Santo, by contrast, remain buried and covered

Guada-by brush, and evidence of the many endeavors that took place there is spreadbroadly across the landscape The mission has been restored only in the pages

of this book

Thomas R Hester

As a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin

I had the privilege of working at the site of Espíritu Santo for my tation research Under the direction of Dr Thomas Hester, a University ofTexas field school and two Texas Archeological Society (TAS) field schoolswere conducted at the mission These archaeological excavations formed thebasis of my research

disser-I would like to thank John and Judy Clegg for permitting us to work at themission and for their enthusiasm for the project Smitty Schmieldin, Bill Bir-mingham, Cecil Calhoun, and the countless volunteers and TAS field schoolparticipants who worked at the site were invaluable to the completion of thisproject Also I am indebted to Thomas Hester, who made all of this possibleand has provided guidance and support throughout the years Jack Eaton,Anne Fox, Kay Hindes, the ‘‘Mission Belles’’ (Betty Inman, Marilyn Shoberg,Jane Lakeman, and Patsy Goebel), Dale Hudler, Brad Jones, Greg Ketteman,Kinley Coyan, and Don Badon contributed both time and expertise to theproject since it began in 1995 Paul Edward De La Rosa provided several ofthe illustrations, and Milton Bell photographed the artifacts Harry Shaferalso provided much-needed guidance and constructive criticism of the ini-tial manuscript Funding was provided by the Texas Historical Foundationand the TAS Donor’s Fund for the work completed at the mission in 1995 and

1996 Additional funding was provided by the Summerlee Foundation and

a Bromley F Cooper endowed fellowship The Texas Archeological Societysupported both the 1997 and 1998 field schools, and the Southern Texas Ar-chaeological Association was very generous in providing local support forthe excavations

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The Spanish Colonial era in Texas began in the sixteenthcentury with the arrival of explorers such as Álvarez de Piñeda and Cabeza

de Vaca The period lasted into the early nineteenth century and is marked

by the remains of missions, presidios, ranchos, visitas (visiting or outlyingmissions), and various Spanish settlements The region we now call Texasincludes a much greater area than the Hispanic Texas known to the Span-ish as Tejas or the New Kingdom of the Philippines, as it was called from

1694 to 1715 During the Spanish occupation of the region, the area passed the lands to the north of the Medina River and east of its headwatersinto Louisiana (Chipman 1992, 1) Although Texas lacked the rich mineralresources found in northern Mexico, it was nonetheless an important prov-ince for the Kingdom of New Spain Foreign intrusions into Spanish ter-ritory from other European groups, especially those from French colonies

encom-in the New World, were a constant threat to Spaencom-in’s landholdencom-ings and ral resources The province of Tejas served as an important buffer zone be-tween the northern boundaries of New Spain and the rich silver mines ofMexico (Bolton 1915, Céliz 1935) In theory, Spanish officials hoped to colo-nize the frontier of New Spain through conversion Once Christianized,the native groups would eventually be converted into loyal Spanish citizensthrough the mission system Ideally, these faithful neophytes would thenhelp protect the land and resources of New Spain from foreign incursions(Bolton 1960)

natu-The missionary efforts in Texas, carried out by the Franciscan order, fore played an integral part in the attempts to colonize the region From theviewpoint of the government, the work of the missionaries was not only

there-to Christianize but also there-to civilize the lands north of Mexico and there-to worktoward holding and expanding this frontier (Bolton 1915, 10) Hence, muchtime and effort were devoted to establishing missions among the various in-

2 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

digenous groups of Texas At least five missions were established in SouthTexas alone for the Indian groups of the area The Spanish Colonial mis-sion of Espíritu Santo in present-day Mission Valley serves as an excellentexample of a Franciscan mission complex

Although research has been conducted at many of the missions lished in various parts of the state, the missions in South Texas remain poorlyunderstood In many cases archival information is sparse or nonexistent Forexample, available historical records documenting the mission’s third loca-tion, the focus of our investigations, are limited to brief mentions of thesite, usually in relation to the nearby fort known as Presidio Nuestra Señora

estab-de Loreto estab-de la Bahía To date, no estab-descriptions of the mission’s layout orarchitecture have been recovered from the archival records, much less in-formation on daily events and lifeways of the mission inhabitants The ar-chaeological investigations of recent years have begun to bring these picturesinto focus, rendering material clues to who resided at the mission, what theirwork entailed, and how they sustained themselves Recent investigations atthe Espíritu Santo site in Mission Valley, therefore, provide an opportunity

to examine the mission system in a more detailed manner

Both history and historical archaeology enrich our understandings of thepast; however, the two disciplines often ask very different questions Histo-rians may focus on prominent individuals in the past or on unique historicalevents, while historical archaeologists trained in the field of anthropology,for example, seek to reconstruct the everyday lives of both the renownedand the anonymous Each discipline can clearly supplement the other, yethistorical and archaeological data are not always equally accessible In thecase of Mission Espíritu Santo, the archaeological record is obviously moreextensive than the few brief historical records that document the mission’sthird site near the Guadalupe River in what is now called Mission Valley.Our investigations centered on this third location among the four sites Mis-sion Espíritu Santo occupied during its more than one hundred years Here,archaeology must serve not only to answer anthropologically oriented ques-tions (e.g., questions concerning daily life, subsistence economies, ethnicity),but it also can serve to flesh out the historical record The archaeology ofEspíritu Santo thus greatly enhances our understanding of this eighteenth-century Spanish Colonial mission

As a graduate student at the University of Montana and later at the versity of Texas, I had the good fortune of meeting and working withThomas R Hester, then a professor of anthropology at UT Dr Hester hadbecome interested in investigating an old Spanish mission in South Texas and

Uni-suggested that I conduct excavations there for my master’s thesis I quicklyaccepted his offer I eventually entered the doctoral program at UT and con-tinued my research at Espíritu Santo in conjunction with fellow graduatestudents and two Texas Archeological Society field schools.

The first formal investigations at Mission Espíritu Santo in Mission Valleybegan in the summer of 1995 and continued until the spring of 1999 A his-torical marker was erected at the site in 1936 to commemorate the mission,although no formal research had been conducted to verify that this locationwas indeed the third site of Mission Espíritu Santo Between 1936 and 1995,occasional investigations were carried out at the site Limited archaeologicaltesting and surface collections constitute most of the work that was com-pleted there prior to the 1995 excavations In 1965 a treasure hunter discov-ered a burial within the mission ruins, and Cecil Calhoun, a local avocationalarchaeologist, recorded it The burial proved to be from the late nineteenthcentury, and thus it was not associated with the Spanish Colonial occupation

of the mission (Calhoun 1965) Archeologists did not return to the site until

1975, when E H Schmiedlin, A Fox, and C K Chandler completed a random survey and surface collection of artifacts The crew noted evidence

non-of extensive looting and disturbance by pot hunters inside the mission ruins

In 1989 Schmiedlin, a steward for the Office of the State Archeologist (OSA),reexamined the site and drew several preliminary sketches of the missionlayout Schmiedlin produced a report on his investigations that brought thesite to the attention of the OSA

In the spring of 1995 the OSA conducted limited excavations at the site toassess its potential for future research Encouraged by the findings, the OSArecommended further research That summer Dr Hester directed archaeo-logical investigations during the 1995 UT field school, and I participated

as part of my thesis research Students and local avocationalists completedtest excavations at the site during the summer, and more testing followed inthe fall UT students and the TAS continued excavations there until the fall

of 1999

Considering the limited nature of the historical record, the archaeologicalrecord serves as the main source of information for Mission Espíritu Santo.Accordingly, excavations were oriented toward answering specific questionsthat the written records alone did not address My goals in presenting thisresearch are: first, to give an overall picture of the mission layout and its re-lated sites; second, to provide a description of the history and everyday life

at Espíritu Santo; and finally, to exemplify the importance of archaeology

to both the history and ethnography of eighteenth-century Spanish Texas

4 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

Ideally, the study of Mission Espíritu Santo will serve as a model for research

at similar early Colonial sites in Texas and elsewhere

In the following chapters I will present archival, archaeological, and chitectural data relating to the site as a way to bring the mission experience

ar-to life Chapter 2 presents a hisar-torical overview of Spain in the New Worldand of Spanish Texas as context for the founding of Espíritu Santo The his-tory of the mission is discussed in its entirety, from its establishment on thecoast to its virtual abandonment in the late eighteenth century and even-tual secularization in the early nineteenth century Through the use of his-torical and ethnohistorical accounts and the archaeological record, I offer anoverview of the Native American residents of Espíritu Santo Chapter 2 alsopresents a discussion of Late Prehistoric cultural patterns that are related tothose evidenced at Espíritu Santo The mission Indians affiliated with Es-píritu Santo are clearly related to the prehistoric groups that occupied theGuadalupe River Valley prior to the arrival of Europeans

Chapter 3 presents an overview of the archaeological work at the site.Archaeological excavations helped to define living areas inside and outsidethe mission compound The investigations provide information concern-ing the locations of particular habitation areas for the indigenous residentsand the Spanish occupants of the site Excavations in a large area believed

to be located outside the mission compound revealed cultural materials dicative of a mission Indian occupation Additional excavations of a smallmound inside the mission plaza strongly suggest the presence of activity andliving areas related to presidial soldiers and their families who were probablystationed at the mission during its tenure in Mission Valley

in-Chapter 4 focuses on the mission architecture In particular, the tectural investigations within the mission ruins are supplying informationregarding the building styles and plan of the compound The chapter presentsdetailed discussions of each identified mission structure and the layout ofthe mission complex as well as the construction and possible functions of themission buildings For example, the remains of wall foundations that wereexposed during the investigations helped to outline the arrangement of themission complex and provided insight into the possible functions of some

archi-of the structures Ultimately, all archi-of the data recovered from the architecturalinvestigations are combined to reconstruct a more comprehensive picture

of the mission’s organization

In Chapter 5, an overview and discussion of work completed at the nearbysandstone quarry, the associated dams, and the acequias emphasize the impor-tance of the numerous components that make up a mission compound In

Chapter 5 I review the results of our investigations and their relationships tothe entire mission complex to reconstruct how the mission and all of its re-lated parts functioned together as a whole Reviewing the mission system inits entirety contributes to a much fuller understanding of the inner workings

of an eighteenth-century mission complex

The analysis of cultural materials including artifacts in Chapter 6 and mal bones in Chapter 7 provides further insight into daily life at the mission

ani-In particular, these analyses explore such aspects of mission life as diet, access

to European goods, daily activities, and residents’ overall health ing habitation zones and activity areas across the site through the analysis ofcultural remains therefore adds to reconstructing aspects of mission life andthe lifeways of its inhabitants The analysis of the material record at the mis-sion likewise helps to consider questions concerning the ethnic affiliations

Delineat-of the mission residents

Although ethnohistorical accounts and historical records provide someinformation regarding the different groups residing at the site, the materialrecord offers a more in-depth look at the mission population Historicalrecords tell us that the Aranama and Tamique were among the only indige-nous groups living at the mission However, cultural materials recoveredfrom the excavations, especially those inside the mission compound, indicatethe presence of members of other groups and/or interactions among thesegroups and the mission residents in the form of trade Spatial analyses of thecultural materials are used to make some preliminary inferences about theethnic affiliations of the native residents and their relationships with othernative groups

The faunal remains, both animal bone and shell, are particularly useful forexamining issues of subsistence-related economic behaviors For instance,the two refuse middens, one inside the mission compound and one outside,contain large amounts of faunal remains and supply a great deal of informa-tion about mission foodways I emphasize comparisons between the mid-dens as a means to reveal distinctions suggestive of the activities that led tothe accumulation of each midden Furthermore, quantifying domestic andwild faunal materials present in each feature contributes significant infor-mation about the food resources available to the mission occupants and theimportance of cattle to the mission diet and economy

I employ a multidisciplinary approach to address the research goals andmultiple lines of evidence to explore the Mission Espíritu Santo holistically,encompassing archaeological, architectural, historical, and ethnohistoricaldata By examining and combining all available data, we can develop a better

6 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

understanding of the mission inhabitants and the social and cultural roundings at Espíritu Santo Written records alone cannot tell the story ofthe mission The archaeological record, however, provides us an opportunity

sur-to piece sur-together a much more detailed picture of the mission and frontierlife in eighteenth-century Texas

Although Spain’s presence in the New World began in thelate fifteenth century, the expansion of its empire into North America didnot officially begin until the middle of the sixteenth century Spanish ex-plorers beginning in the early 1500s had already penetrated parts of NorthAmerica Ponce de León, who explored the coastline of Florida, undertookone of the earliest recorded journeys to the region, in 1513 Motivated bythe prospect of gold and other rich resources (Céliz 1935), several Spaniardsundertook subsequent journeys into the region of North America Álva-rez de Piñeda investigated the area along the Gulf Coast in 1519, and Pedro

de Quejo explored the Atlantic coastline from Florida all the way to ginia in 1525 Cabeza de Vaca’s adventures in North America began in 1528when a shipwreck left him stranded on the coast of Texas and ended in 1536when he eventually made his way back to Mexico (Covey 1961) Hernando

Vir-de Soto’s journey from 1539 to 1543 took him across much of the southeasternUnited States, while in 1540 Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was leading anexpedition into the southwest interior of North America that reached as farnorth as present-day Kansas (Chipman 1992, Weber 1992) The exploration

of New Mexico led by the conquistador Juan de Oñate in 1598 resulted inthe establishment of the first European settlement west of the Mississippi(Simmons 1991)

These Spanish expeditions during the sixteenth century led to the ing of modest colonies in Florida and New Mexico The real transformation

found-of the North American frontier found-of Spain’s empire, however, began in theseventeenth century Significant changes in the growth of the frontier across

La Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California can largely be tributed to the missionaries and their evangelical spirit that accompanied theexpanding colonization efforts of northern New Spain (Weber 1992) TheSpanish occupation of Texas exemplifies the great efforts exerted by Spanishmissionaries to colonize and civilize this frontier

at-8 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

Spain in Texas

Although Spanish explorers entered the area of Texas prior

to Spain’s official occupation of the province, foreign incursions, especiallythose of the French into the interior region of the Mississippi Valley, served

as the catalyst for permanent settlement Arguably the biggest push for nization of the border province of Texas occurred after the French explorerRené Robert Cavalier de La Salle established a small colony along EspírituSanto Bay in what is today Matagorda Bay (Figure 2.1) Fort Saint Louislasted only five years, from 1684 to 1689 The colony met its demise when itwas attacked and burned by Karankawa Indians The attackers killed all thecolonists except for a few children, whom they took captive At the time,

colo-La Salle was away on an expedition to find the mouth of the MississippiRiver, and during the journey he perished at the hands of his own men (Fos-ter 1998)

Recognizing the threat that the French posed, Spanish officials began anaggressive campaign to populate the region Even though the primary mo-tivation for occupying the area was territorial possession and the preven-tion of foreign intrusions, they viewed conversion of the native populations

as a key element in colonizing the province Therefore, the mission systemwas enacted as a way to cope with the native groups of Texas and was in-tended, ideally, to Christianize and convert the Indians into loyal Spanishcitizens Presidios, or forts, commonly accompanied the establishment of mis-sions, supplied protection for the friars and their new converts, and served

to secure the frontier from foreign encroachments

Missions of Texas

Mission and presidio settlement began in the late seventeenthcentury and gained momentum in the eighteenth century The practice de-veloped of establishing a mission and presidio together after the first mis-sionization attempts in East Texas failed In 1690 and 1691 San Francisco delos Tejas and Santísimo Nombre de María were among the earliest missionsestablished in Texas Both were located near the Neches River and were in-tended for the Caddo ( John 1975), but by 1694 both had been abandoned.The Caddo, who lived in villages with cultivated fields and who had alreadyestablished trade relations with the French, had no real incentive to enterthe Spanish missions The missions had been placed in less than ideal loca-

tions, and shortly after they were established their crops began to fail andfood supplies ran short.

After these first attempts failed, the padres blamed the downfall of themissionary enterprise on the lack of sufficient military force to back theirendeavors Father Damian Massanet, who had volunteered his services to themissionary effort in East Texas, suggested three courses of action to ensurethe success of the next missionary attempt: first, a presidio was needed inorder to gain the Indians’ respect for the padres; second, the mission com-pounds should be placed in more favorable locations; and lastly, the Indi-ans should be gathered into pueblos to promote religious instruction TheEast Texas mission experience familiarized the Spaniards with the landscape

of Texas and convinced Spanish officials that the only way to successfullyconvert and Hispanicize the native populations was through coercion andpersuasion (Chipman 1992, 99–100)

It would take several years before missionary efforts in Texas were newed At the start of the eighteenth century, the ‘‘gateway’’ missions—San Juan Bautista, San Bernardo, and San Francisco Solano—were foundedalong the Rio Grande (Weddle 1968) These missions (also now called theRio Grande missions or Guerrero missions because of their proximity to thepresent-day town of Guerrero) served as launching point and supply stationfor many of the expeditions into South, Central, and East Texas during thefirst half of the 1700s From 1713 to 1717, missions and presidios were againestablished in East Texas in an effort to reoccupy the Caddo region and pre-vent foreign intrusions into the Spanish borderlands In South Texas a total

re-of nine missions were founded among the hunting and gathering groups re-ofthe area These regional bands of Indians are often referred to as ‘‘Coahuilte-cans,’’ although there appears to be significant diversity among the groups(Campbell 1983; Hester 1989a, 1998) In 1718 San Francisco Solano was moved

to the San Antonio River and became San Antonio de Valero Eventually,five additional missions (San José y San Miguel de Aguayo, San FranciscoXavier de Najera, San Juan Capistrano, San Francisco de la Espada, and Nues-tra Señora de la Purísima Concepción) would be founded between the years

1722 and 1731 along the San Antonio River in what is today the city of SanAntonio In 1722 the mission of Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zú-ñiga was established on Garcitas Creek near the Texas coast The two latermissions, Nuestra Señora del Rosario (1754) and Nuestra Señora del Refu-gio (1793), were meant for the Karankawa, a group of hunters and gathererswho lived along the coast

Despite the considerable efforts of the Spanish missionaries, none of the

10 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

South Texas missions fully succeeded in converting the native populationsbrought into the mission system, although the San Antonio missions can

be said to have experienced the greatest success Spanish-Indian relationsalong the frontier of New Spain were strained from the beginning His-torical documents have provided limited information about the failure ofmany of the South Texas missions Besides economic and geographical fac-tors and the spread of diseases, the prevailing reason cited by the Spanish forthe failure of missionization attempts was the Indians themselves Desertionrates of the mission Indians were high, something that the Franciscans oftenequated with a dislike of hard work and discipline Although most of thefriars brought to the frontier were concerned with the social and economicconditions of the Indians, they nonetheless viewed the indigenous peoples aschildren who were quite often incapable of civilization (Sylvest 1975) Suchantagonistic attitudes could not have been conducive to good relationshipswith the mission Indians Furthermore, the onslaught of raiding by outsidegroups such as the Apache and Comanche was particularly menacing to theSpaniards and their converts

Role of the Franciscans

The spiritual conquest of Texas was undertaken entirely bymissionaries from the Franciscan order Accounts of friars entering Texas insearch of native groups begin as early as 1535 and continue until 1675, whenpreparations for the founding of missions began (O’Rourke 1927) Franciscanmissionary colleges de Propaganda Fide, institutions founded for the education

of missionaries charged with spreading the Catholic faith, were established

in Querétaro and in Zacatecas These two institutions assumed the primaryresponsibility for establishing and operating the Texas missions (Bolton 1915,John 1975) The Apostolic College of Santa Cruz at Querétaro was founded

at the end of the seventeenth century, followed by the College of NuestraSeñora de Guadalupe at Zacatecas Both colleges served as training centersfor the Franciscan missionaries who would eventually be sent to proselytizethe native groups found in the northern borderlands (Almaráz 1989) In thecase of Espíritu Santo, friars from the College of Guadalupe de Zacatecaswere in charge of the care and administration of all locations of the mission(Ramsdell 1938)

The missions were to function as frontier institutions that were sible for introducing the Catholic faith to the indigenous populations andcivilizing the farthest reaches of the Spanish Empire Ideally, missionaries

respon-would educate and train neophytes in agricultural practices, herding, andother skills thought necessary for civilization In theory, after ten years theprocess of conversion would be complete and the missions secularized (Bol-ton 1915) Moreover, at the time of secularization, the lands of the missionwere to be equally divided among the mission converts, who would becomeindependent landowners and farmers (Habig 1977, 3) Rarely were these planscarried out, especially in Texas, where conversion attempts were at best onlypartially successful and took several decades to implement Nevertheless, theFranciscans remained optimistic, establishing thirty-seven missions duringthe Spanish occupation of Texas (Habig 1990).

While each mission was unique, historical, architectural, and logical data reveal a general pattern for the management, organization, andlayout of these institutions All of the missions were designed to becomeself-sufficient, and the Franciscans, having taken a vow of poverty, receivedonly a small yearly stipend (sínodo) from the royal treasury They used most

archaeo-of their stipends to buy supplies for the mission and kept only small amountsfor their personal use (Castañeda 1936) The Franciscans obtained grants fromthe royal treasury to cover the costs of founding missions and usually couldsecure supplementary funds from alms and on rare occasions private dona-tions Friars commonly relied upon older missions for aid in establishing newmissions (Bolton 1960) In the case of Espíritu Santo, the primary sourcesfor supplies were the San Antonio missions and the gateway missions on theRio Grande

The administration of the Texas missions, regardless of the college fromwhich the missionaries were sent, varied little In fact, the ‘‘method of found-ing a mission, the style of buildings erected, the system of catechetics em-ployed, the crafts and trades taught the Indians, and the regulations fol-lowed in the admission of the Indians to Baptism, were practically all alike’’(O’Rourke 1927, 77) In theory, two missionaries were supposed to be sta-tioned at each mission, but in many cases there was only one In addition

to the friars, two or three presidial soldiers were regularly attached to themission to provide protection and to aid in the discipline and instruction ofthe neophytes (Bolton 1915) Geographically the missions were often placed

on high knolls or hills close to streams (Corbin 1989) and when possiblenear Indian camps (Eaton 1989) Available water resources and arable landfor farming and stock raising were emphasized in the search for a suitablelocation After an appropriate site was selected, a crude church or chapelwas usually built Later, a more substantial structure typically made of stonemay have replaced the original church The mission eventually encompassedbuildings such as the monastery, granary, storerooms, living quarters for the

12 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

mission Indians, and workshops where residents learned carpentry, smithing, tailoring, and other trades and crafts (Oberste n.d., III-4) In manycases, the housing provided for the neophytes consisted of small huts, orjacales Castañeda (1936, 180) describes the mission Indian quarters at Goliad

black-in 1758 as jacal structures made of brush and plastered with clay and thatchedwith grass The mission compound was usually built around a plaza area orcourtyard with restricted access to the inside Compound walls or enclosuresaround the complex were common, and the close grouping of buildings alsoserved as a defense at some missions (Eaton 1989, 248) An acequia, or watercanal, was built to irrigate the agricultural fields (Weddle 1968)

History of Espíritu Santo

Due in large part to the fear of French intrusions, as tioned, in 1722 the mission of Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zúñigawas established on Garcitas Creek near the Texas coast and Espíritu SantoBay (Figure 2.1), and the corresponding presidio, La Bahía, was built uponthe site of La Salle’s ruined colony When the Spanish learned of a Frenchcolony in territory claimed by Spain, they sent several entradas (expeditions)

men-to locate the site When Spanish soldiers finally arrived at Fort Saint Louis in

1689, the fort already had been destroyed Nevertheless, the Spanish decided

to found a presidio and mission at this location to discourage future zation attempts by the French The mission was built near the presidio, butits exact location is not known

coloni-The hostile natural environment of the Texas coast in combination withpoor relations with the Karankawa prompted the Spanish to move the mis-sion and the presidio to a more hospitable location with ‘‘friendlier’’ natives(Almazán 1724) Sometime before 1725 the mission was moved to an interimsite near a place called Tonkawa Bank in what is today the city of Victoria(Hindes 1995a) Sometime in 1726 the mission was moved to the GuadalupeRiver in present-day Mission Valley (Figure 2.1) Once the mission began tofunction at Mission Valley, the intermediate site probably served as a visita orauxiliary (Walter and Hester 1998) Espíritu Santo remained in Mission Val-ley for the next twenty-three years before it was moved a final time, in 1749,

to a location along the San Antonio River in Goliad The mission continued

to operate at this location until it was secularized in the 1830s (Walters 1951).Many of the Texas missions, especially those in San Antonio, housed

a myriad of fragmented native groups from various parts of northeastern

Mexico and South Texas Historical and archaeological evidence indicatesthat the Aranama and Tamique, however, were the two primary groupsliving at Espíritu Santo John (1990, 85) notes that in Texas ‘‘Franciscans real-ized that linguistic and cultural disparities, as well as deep-rooted enmities,forbade the lumping together of many groups Therefore ministry to most ofthe new supplicants would require new missions in environments acceptable

to them.’’ This appears to be the case at Espíritu Santo, where its third site,

in Mission Valley, was primarily selected for its proximity to the local nativegroups of the Aranama and Tamique (Almazán 1726), who are thought tospeak the same language and to be related The Aranama and Tamique, it washoped, would be more receptive to missionization attempts

During their tenure at Mission Valley, the Spanish—usually one can friar and probably a few presidio soldiers with the help of Indian labor—attempted to irrigate the mission fields They invested several years in con-structing an acequia system and two mission dams (Bolton 1915; Rinker, Cox,and Bousman 1999) After ten years of trying unsuccessfully to irrigate themission fields, they abandoned the acequia system Shortly thereafter, theSpanish found a switch to dry farming to be much more productive andsuccessful (Castañeda 1936)

Francis-During these first difficult years, the primary missionary, Father Mariano

de Anda y Altamirano, relied on supplies from distant missions EspírituSanto was relatively isolated from the other Texas missions, and supplies wereoftentimes insufficient for sustaining the mission Indian population Sup-plies had to be transported sixty leagues from San Antonio or more than onehundred leagues from the gateway missions Frequently, Father Anda relied

on his own allowance to pay mission expenses, and it was common for theIndians to leave the compound for the greater part of the year to find theirown food (Bolton 1915)

At Mission Valley, Father Anda served as Espíritu Santo’s principal sionary from 1727 to 1747 He was preceded by Father Agustín Patrón yGuzmán, who accompanied the move from Garcitas Creek to the Guada-lupe River before he returned to Zacatecas in 1726 During Father Anda’stenure, Father Andrés de Aragón also was assigned to the mission from 1737

mis-to 1741, and Father José Cosmé Borruel stayed for a brief time in 1737 FatherAnda was succeeded by Ignacio Antonio Ciprián and Juan José González,who were both at the mission in 1747 Father Ciprián returned to MexicoCity in 1749, while Father González accompanied the mission to its newlocation in Goliad (Figure 2.1), where he served as a missionary until 1756(Leutenegger 1973)

f i g u r e 2 1 Locations of Mission Espíritu Santo and related sites (1) First site of Presidio La Bahía (same locale as Fort Saint Louis) (2) Approximate location

of the first site of Mission Espíritu Santo (3) Approximate location of second site of Mission Espíritu Santo (4) Second site of Presidio La Bahía (5) Third location of Mission Espíritu Santo, in Mission Valley (6) Final location of Mission Espíritu Santo (7) Final location of Presidio La Bahía (8) Mission Rosario.

Mission Indians

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, indigenous groups had longoccupied the area we now know as Texas Archaeological evidence suggeststhat human occupation of the area started as early as the Late Pleistoceneperiod (Hester 1989a) A predominately hunter-gatherer way of life persistedthroughout the prehistory of most of the region, especially in South Texas,where it appears to have endured well into the protohistoric era (Hester1995), the period prior to sustained interaction with Europeans

When Spaniards reached the area, they encountered various groups withdiffering lifeways, including the sedentary Caddo groups in East Texas whopracticed agriculture and the hunting and gathering groups in South andWest Texas who relied on the seasonal collection of local plants and animals(Hester 1989a) Thus, in colonizing and expanding their new frontier, theSpanish faced varying responses from the diverse indigenous population InSouth Texas, the Spanish exerted great efforts to missionize the hunting andgathering groups that occupied the region Despite the missionaries’ failure

to convert the Caddo in East Texas, they hoped that the native populations

of South Texas would more readily accept conversion

Late Prehistoric Period

During the Late Prehistoric period (1300–1700 c.e.), a distinctcultural pattern known as the Toyah Horizon dominated much of the area(Black 1989) and was characterized by an emphasis on bison hunting Thisadaptive pattern lasted well into the protohistoric period in South Texas,although it was fading in parts of Texas west of San Antonio in the 1600s(Hester 1995) The material culture associated with this hunting and gather-ing pattern consisted of a variety of objects, including arrow points, gravers,end scrapers, knives, drills/perforators, bone tools, bison faunal remains, andbone-tempered pottery referred to as Leon Plain (Hester 1989b) Similar as-semblages of artifacts and faunal remains are found at many of the SouthTexas missions Clearly the continuity of material culture observed from theLate Prehistoric to the mission era links the mission Indians of the eigh-teenth century to the prehistoric and protohistoric groups in the area prior

to the arrival of Europeans

16 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

Protohistoric Period

The protohistoric era in South Texas encompassed the periodfrom roughly 1350 to the 1700s (Hester 1995) Recently the use of the termprotohistoric to describe the period between the Late Prehistoric and Historiceras in South Texas has been criticized (Hindes 1995b, McGraw 1991) Much

of the criticism derives from a lack of definition concerning the period tween the Late Prehistoric era and long-term interaction with the Span-ish Hindes (1995b, 25) suggests that ‘‘Late Prehistoric/Historic AboriginalContact Construct’’ is a more useful term for describing the protohistoricperiod Although the period is difficult to define, Ricklis (1994) describesthe protohistoric in the area of the Lower Mississippi River Valley as theperiod when initial interactions between native groups and Europeans wereoccurring, beginning around 1500 c.e., and he associates the closing of theprotohistoric around 1700 c.e with the French and Spanish colonization ofthe Gulf coastal plain Aboriginal groups of that area had limited access tosome European manufactured goods, but no drastic changes in lifeways arenoted (Ricklis 1994, 23) The term protohistoric as it is applied here, however,refers to the period between ‘‘the defined Late Prehistoric cultures in parts

be-of south Texas and the recognizable historic groups’’ (Hester 1995, 2) andmarks the period prior to long-term sustained interaction between nativeand Spanish groups that begins with the first appearance of Europeans in theearly sixteenth century

The native peoples who inhabited southern Texas and northeastern ico during the protohistoric and mission eras have commonly been referred

Mex-to as Coahuiltecan The groups that have erroneously been lumped under thiscategory comprised the majority of the South Texas mission Indian popu-lation Campbell (1983) notes that Coahuilteco was probably a second lan-guage that may have been learned in the missions The Coahuiltecan clas-sification is based primarily on a shared secondary Coahuilteco languageamong the mission Indian populations and similar cultural traits rather thanany specific ethnic affiliation Equating this language, which was probablylearned after native groups entered the missions, with culture has led to themyth of a ‘‘Coahuiltecan people,’’ an ethnic entity that has never existed(Hester 1998, 5) Recent linguistic and archaeological research indicates thatthere were several distinct languages (including Coahuilteco, Comecrudo,Cotoname, Tonkawa, Solano, Karankawa, and Aranama) and varying cul-tural patterns across the region (Hester 1989b, 215) These regional varia-tions are most likely related to the multitude of small bands that inhabited

South Texas and northeastern Mexico and who shared similar traits but played local variations and differences in language (Hester 1989a, 194) Con-sequently, we possess only a broad understanding of these groups, and thismust be kept in mind when making references to specific groups or bandsthat have been labeled Coahuiltecan The Aranama, who in the past have beenaffiliated with the Coahuiltecans (Newcomb 1961), maintained their iden-tities into the early part of the nineteenth century and were, in fact, notCoahuiltecans (Hester 1998, 5).

dis-The indigenous groups that entered Espíritu Santo in Mission Valley sembled other hunting and gathering groups of the area In general, weknow that the indigenous people of South Texas lived in mobile bands ofvarious sizes and that they fished and hunted bison, deer, rabbits, mice, andother local fauna and seasonally collected pecans and prickly pear fruit Span-ish accounts record the use of bows and arrows, possible rabbit-huntingclubs, and nets and baskets for collecting plant foods (Hester 1989a) Theywore little clothing, usually consisting of loincloths and fiber sandals and,when weather dictated, cloaks or robes made of animal hides (Newcomb1961) The groups had no formally designated chiefs and only minimal po-litical and social organization (Campbell 1983)

re-Mission Era

Unfortunately, written records have provided little tion about the Aranama and Tamique groups that were brought into themission for religious instruction and labor in the mission fields Althoughhistorical records have offered only limited details about the Aranama, evenless is known about the Tamique, who may have been a subgroup of the Ara-nama The few existing historical and ethnohistorical accounts of the Ara-nama and Tamique provide varying descriptions that are reviewed below

informa-In general, most researchers agree that the Aranama were a hunting andgathering group that inhabited a large area around the Guadalupe River Val-ley (Foster 1995, Ramsdell 1938, Walter and Hester 1998) Friar Juan AugustínMorfí (1935) identifies the Aranama and Tamique as small bands that werenot related to the Coahuiltecans and that lived along both sides of the lowerGuadalupe Several scholars have identified the Aranama as the Mariames, agroup of natives that Cabeza de Vaca encountered in Texas (Castañeda 1936,Davenport and Wells 1918, Krieger 1955, Newcomb 1961) However, Camp-bell (1988, 23) argues that the Aranama were not related to the Mariames

18 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

and attributes the confusion to the ‘‘presumed similarity in names and in thebelief that both groups were associated with the same section of the Guada-lupe River.’’

The Franciscans established Espíritu Santo at its third location, in MissionValley on the Guadalupe River, particularly for the Aranama In a letter tothe viceroy, Governor Almazán (1726) specifically refers to the Aranama inhis report concerning the removal of Espíritu Santo from its original loca-tion on Garcitas Creek Almazán states that the site of the new mission onthe Guadalupe River is in the neighborhood of the Aranama, for whom themission was to be established The recorded pre-mission appearance of Ara-nama groups in the vicinity of the Guadalupe River in combination withthe archaeological record supports the theory that these groups are linked

to the populations associated with the Toyah cultural pattern of the LatePrehistoric

At the time of its founding, as many as four hundred Aranama and mique may have congregated at the mission (Ramsdell 1938) During Briga-dier Pedro de Rivera’s (1727) inspection tour, he described the native inhabi-tants at Espíritu Santo as nomads who practiced paganism and wore animalskins of deer and buffalo For the mission Indians the promise of food andprotection may have been the biggest incentive to enter the mission Ini-tially, conditions at Espíritu Santo were so poor, however, that native inhabi-tants could not rely on a steady supply of food In 1736 the dams and acequiawere abandoned in favor of dry farming, and as Bolton (1915, 20) notes, the

Ta-‘‘Indians raised, by their own labor, plentiful maize and vegetables, and caredfor large herds of stock.’’

Cattle were vitally important to this mission, and eventually cattle ing became its primary economic activity Ramsdell (1949) observes that by

ranch-1735, Espíritu Santo was the most important ranch in Texas Starting withonly a few hundred head of cattle at Mission Valley, the mission herds grew

to at least forty thousand head at the Goliad location of the mission ing its best years (Ramsdell 1949) Throughout their tenure at the mission,the neophytes in addition to farming were instructed in ranching, and manybecame skilled vaqueros (Oberste n.d.)

dur-When the mission was moved in 1749 to the San Antonio River at Goliad,the padres attempted to congregate groups of both the Aranama and Karan-kawa there (Mounger 1959) Hostilities and tension between the Aranamaand Karankawa proved that combining these two groups at the same mis-sion was a mistake In an effort to resolve the problem, Spanish authoritiesestablished a separate mission, Nuestra Señora del Rosario, in 1754 for theKarankawa The remaining residents at Espíritu Santo consisted of the Ara-

nama and Tamique as well as the Piquianes and Manos de Perro (Forrestal1931), who may represent different nations of the Aranama.

Information regarding the daily lives of the mission Indians at the sion Valley location is lacking Nevertheless, some insight into what life mayhave been like can be gained from a review of the social and cultural con-ditions of the mission at its final location, in Goliad, for which historicalrecords are more abundant In particular, reports generated by the mission-ary Friar José Luis Mariano Cardeñas provide valuable information aboutthe daily mission routine

Mis-Daily life at the mission consisted of morning prayers and religious structions, after which men, women, and children were separated for laborand chores Children were gathered together to learn the Spanish languageand the catechism Some of the men labored in the mission fields, whileothers raised cattle or helped build homes and fences They were overseen

in-by other natives who were ‘‘superior in carefulness and judgment’’ and who

‘‘inform Father on the doings of the day and ask what will be done on thefollowing day’’ (Cardeñas 1778, 6)

Besides the priests, other Spanish residents from the civilian settlement of

La Bahía were hired as cowhands to teach the Indians how to ranch dell 1938) They worked from sunrise until midday, when they ate and rested,and then continued to work until sundown The women spun cotton andwool, and the married women stayed at home to take care of their chil-dren Boys over the age of seven helped the native foreman at the workshopwhere a loom was used to weave clothing, blankets, and mantas From a 1773inventory at Goliad created by Cardeñas we know that in addition to theworkshop used for weaving, there were also a tallow workshop and a forge

(Rams-At the end of the day all of the neophytes were expected to reconvenefor evening prayers and worship The priests said mass on Saturday morningfor the women and girls and again at evening time, when everyone, ideally,attended On Sundays and holy days everyone assembled to hear mass andpray the stations of the Blessed Sacrament Priests said additional masses onFridays for all the peoples of the pueblo (Cardeñas 1783) Although this wasthe expected routine for the mission, whether the mission Indians followed

it is another matter, and much of what Cardeñas recorded may represent anidealized version of how mission life was supposed to be structured

In fact, many mission Indians in Texas and throughout the Spanish lands fled from the missions to avoid the restrictive and oftentimes oppres-sive atmosphere and the harsh punishments administered if they did not ad-here to the rules of mission life Abandoning the mission was among the mostcommon form of the resistance displayed by the Indians At the Texas mis-

border-20 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

sions, as elsewhere, abandonment was a frequent complaint of the cans ( Jackson and Castillo 1995) Ironically, the missionaries at the third loca-tion of Espíritu Santo had to turn natives away during its earlier years due tofood shortages and lack of supplies needed to properly operate a mission Asconditions improved at this location, however, native residency likely sta-bilized, and the friars undoubtedly began to require more labor from themission Indians and a stronger commitment to mission life and the Christianfaith As life at the mission became more restrictive for the Native Ameri-cans, the desertion rate certainly increased The problem of runaways con-tinued at Espíritu Santo at its fourth location up until the mission’s demise.Unlike Mission Valley, incidents of runaways at the mission’s final locationare well documented in the historical record Father Cardeñas (1783), forexample, blamed the failure of Espíritu Santo on the lack of support forthe missionary effort by the secular authorities and particularly the mili-tary Natives were leaving the mission, according to Cardeñas, because troops

Francis-at the nearby Presidio La Bahía neither helped protect them nor returnedthe runaways Likewise at Mission Concepción, the friars dealt with fleeingnatives and often traveled to the coast to bring them back and gain new re-cruits in the process The Franciscans feared that if the mission Indian popu-lation continued to decline, the missions would come to an end (Leute-negger 1994) Initially, the missions may have been very attractive to thenomadic groups like the Aranama and Tamique who were seeking refugefrom war, hunger, and disease However, as the mission era in Texas pro-gressed, many Indians grew disillusioned by what the Franciscans offered.Populations continued to decline due to disease, and mission life demandedmuch and offered little to the neophytes Ultimately, a return to traditionallifeways may have been a welcome change for those who fled

The entire mission community planted crops on a yearly basis Theyplanted corn, fruit, and cotton, but the success of these crops dependedlargely on the amount of rain that fell during the year Gaspar José de Solís,

a Franciscan friar who visited missions in the province of Texas in 1767,recorded his observations in a diary of the journey The diary gives a de-tailed account of many of the missions, including Espíritu Santo at its fourthlocation Solís (in Forrestal 1931) notes that watermelons, cantaloupes, sweetpotatoes, peaches, and figs were also harvested at the mission The econ-omy of the mission relied heavily on the cattle herds that were raised there.Cattle also comprised a significant portion of the mission diet Twice a weekcows were killed and divided among the families, and additional cattle wereslaughtered when deemed necessary by the padres The mission diet was

also supplemented with wild fauna including bison, deer, bear, turkey, duck,quail, geese, and fish (Forrestal 1931).

Besides cattle, tobacco, corn (when available), clothing, and other rationswere also supplied to the mission Indians Tobacco was dispensed twice aweek, and once a week everyone was given a bar of soap Salt and candywere given out as needed The dispersal of clothing varied from year to year.Men and boys were usually given a pair of cloth trousers, a chulo, or headcap, underwear, cotton work shirts, blankets, a hat with a chin strap, and apair each of woolen hose and leather shoes The women and girls receivedwoolen skirts, petticoats, blouses, shawls, blankets, top hats, ribbons, coarse-spun silk stockings, Cordoban shoes, and jewelry including rings, bracelets,necklaces, and combs Special clothing was given to those men and womenwho ‘‘stand out from the others in good judgment, rationality and clean-liness, (and) those who are more diligent and more Christian, more care-ful and helpful and more concerned about their pueblo’’ (Cardeñas 1778).Indigenous overseers, alcaldes (mayors), governadores (governors), and fiscales(custodians of the granary) received clothing made of a high-quality clothsuch as fine scarlet and silk Additional supplies included large knives forthe men, when needed, saddles, bridles, spurs, and other horse trappings.Women also received knives, and families were provided with supplies forthe kitchen and home Each household was given a metate, a pot, an irongriddle, and a kettle According to Solís, at least thirty of the Native Ameri-can residents were armed with guns, bows and arrows, lances, and boomer-angs (Forrestal 1931)

In general, historical accounts of the everyday operations of the missionsestablished in Texas are scarce Nonetheless, a review of the routines of thefriars and the structured daily regime imposed on the Indians at other mis-sions in the region provides further insight into Spanish Colonial missionlifeways Particularly informative is a document believed to have been writ-ten in 1787 or 1788 by Friar José García (Leutenegger 1994) The translateddocument, ‘‘Guidelines for a Texas Mission: Instructions for the Missionary

of Mission Concepción in San Antonio, Texas,’’ was meant to instruct comers in the administration of the missions (ibid., 76) The document de-tails a wide range of activities to be carried out at the mission, including theprocedures for electing Indian officials (e.g., governors, fiscales, and alcaldes),the distribution of foodstuffs and other supplies, religious observances, andappropriate tasks for male and female neophytes

new-A number of daily and weekly chores that the guidelines describe ably were similar to activities at many of the Texas missions For example, at

prob-22 Espíritu Santo de Zún˜iga

Concepción the head vaquero was expected to care for the horses and overseethe delivery of the mission’s meat supply on a weekly basis Typically severalvaqueros would leave the mission on Thursday in order to return by Saturdaywith the necessary number of cattle When only a few natives were present,four to six cows were usually required to meet their needs, and an additionalcow was slaughtered for the friary The cattle were slaughtered on Sundaymorning and cooked to prevent spoiling particularly during the summer-time The tallow and fat were to be collected and fried before storing

On Sundays after mass, the fiscal gave out tobacco to both men andwomen On Mondays women received rations of corn, kept securely in themission granary On Fridays during Lent, the fiscal directed the preparation

of pots of beans and occasionally squash, meanwhile also ensuring that none

of the neophytes consumed meat Other holidays such as Christmas calledfor special meals such as beans, squash, sweet potatoes, and sweet breads.During Easter the friars would present each Indian with a bar of chocolate

or a sugar cone if available

Similar activities certainly took place at other missions, although the dailyroutines may have varied at bit At Mission Rosario, for instance, a typi-cal day involved waking at dawn and preparing for morning prayers Afterprayers, the laborers ate breakfast and resumed work in the mission fields

At noon, the midday meal was served, and an hour or two was allotted for

an afternoon siesta The neophytes returned to the fields until the eveningmeal, never working more than six or seven hours a day (Gilmore 1974, 16)

At the fourth location of Espíritu Santo, in Goliad, the padres dividedtasks according to sex and age, with only slight variations from the prac-tices at other missions Females’ chores were primarily domestic in natureand included sewing, cleaning, and cooking for their families, while the menworked in the fields and took care of the livestock At Concepción, bothmales and females of Spanish descent lived among the neophytes The hand-ful of Spanish men worked as servants, and their wives were assigned choressuch as kneading flour to make biscuits and bread for the missionary’s break-fast If no Spanish women were available, the friar advised that an Indianwoman be asked to prepare his morning meal After mass on Saturday, theIndian women swept out the friary patios, the church, and the sacristy Al-though the women normally did not work in the fields, they would pickcotton and help out at harvest time if there were not enough men to com-plete the task

Both Indians and Spaniards worked as shepherds, making sure the sheepwere sheared by March or April The boys of the mission, with occasional

assistance from the women, would first wash wool in the acequias and lateraid the weavers by making spools and adding thread Women and childrenhelped with processing wool by serving as carders Carding involved clean-ing and straightening the fibers of raw wool before it was made into cloth.Once carded, the material was given to the children, who made thread Un-carded wool was given to the women to spin on a spinning wheel and even-tually made into blankets In 1716 Friar Olivares in a letter to the Viceroyobserved that the Indians in the San Antonio missions kept busy makingbows and arrows, and women in particular strove to excel in this activity(Morfí 1935) Olivares noted that the women cut and tanned the hides ofbuffalo that the men hunted.

Most of the work performed by the men consisted of manual labor inthe mission fields and tending the livestock The Indians tilled the soil andplanted cotton, fruit, chiles, beans, and corn in the late spring and earlysummer When the fruit ripened and the crops were ready for harvest, afew men were sent to guard the orchards and fields to prevent theft Thoseassigned to the mission livestock were responsible for corralling the cattleand oxen every evening and letting them out to pasture in the mornings.Older males were also expected to contribute, although their workloadswere much lighter For example, they were responsible for bringing in hayfor the horses Moreover, at Mission San José, old men were observed makingarrows for the warriors (Forrestal 1931) Some men were assigned to main-tain the dams and acequias, while others repaired walls within the missioncompound Boys and men also helped to make soap Boys were sent out tocut quelite, an edible grass that was burned to ashes and used with lye to makesoap According to ‘‘Guidelines for a Texas Mission,’’ during Lent and Ad-vent, a neophyte was employed to work solely as a fisherman catching fishfor the missionary’s meals The author indicated that at Concepción, menwere responsible for fishing In contrast, Solís, during his visit to MissionSan Miguel de Aguayo in 1767, noted that old women caught fish for thepadre stationed there (Forrestal 1931)

A number of tasks performed by males required training, and Spaniardsperformed many of these jobs Candle makers at Concepción, for instance,came from the nearby presidio, although mission boys usually assisted them.Moreover, all of the San Antonio missions, according to the author of theConcepción document, had saddles made only by Spaniards Nevertheless, aneophyte was usually selected and trained in blacksmithing, although it wassometimes necessary to borrow a blacksmith from the presidio Blacksmithsproduced and maintained iron tools for the mission and were particularly