BULL. 30] 



MISSIONS 



875 



enson has left a pleasant picture of the 

 prosperous condition of the mission towns 

 and their Indian population as he found 

 them in 1699, which contrasts strongly 

 with the barbarous condition of the 

 heathen tribes farther s., among whom 

 he had been a prisoner. 



The English colony of Carolina had 

 been founded in 1663, with a charter 

 which was soon after extended southward 

 to lat. 29°, thus including almost the 

 whole area of Spanish occupancy and 

 mission labor. The steadily-growinghos- 

 tility between the two nations culmi- 

 nated in the winter of 1703-4, when Gov. 

 Moore, of Carolina, with a small force of 

 white men and a thousand or more well- 

 armed warriors of Creek, Catawba, and 

 other savage allies invaded the Apalachee 

 country, destroyed one mission town af- 

 ter another, with their churches, fields, 

 and orange groves, killed hundreds of 

 their people, and carried away 1,400 

 prisoners to be sold as slaves. Antici- 

 pating the danger, the Apalachee had 

 applied to the governor at St Augustine 

 for guns with which to defend themselves, 

 but had Ijeen refused, in accordance with 

 the Spanish rule which forbade the is- 

 suing of firearms to Indians. The result 

 was the destruction of the tribe and the 

 reversion of the country to a wilderness 

 condition, as Bartram found it 70 years 

 later. In 1 706 a second expedition visited 

 a similar fate upon the Timucua, and the 

 ruin of the Florida missions was complete. 

 Some effort was made a few years later 

 by an Apalachee chief to gather the rem- 

 nant of his people into a new mission 

 settlement near Pensacola, but with only 

 temporary result. 



In the meantime the French had ef- 

 fected lodgment at Bilo.xi, Miss. (1699), 

 Mobile, New Orleans, and along the Mis- 

 sissippi, and the work of evangelizing the 

 wild tribes was taken up at once by secu- 

 lar priests from the Seminary of F'oreign 

 Missions in Quebec. Stations were es- 

 tablished among the Tunica, Natchez, 

 and Choctaw of Mississippi, the Taensa, 

 Huma, and Ceni (Caddo) of Louisiana, 

 but with slight result. Among the 

 Natchez particularly, whose elaborately 

 organized native ritual included human 

 sacrifice, not a single convert rewarded 

 several years of labor. In 1725 several 

 Jesuits arrived at New Orleans and took 

 up their work in what was already an 

 abandoned field, extending their effort 

 to the Alibamu, in the present state of 

 Alabama. On Sunday, Nov. 28, 1729, the 

 Natchez war began with the massacre of 

 the French garrison while at prayer, the 

 first victim being the Jesuit Du Poisson, 

 the priest at the altar. The "Louisiana 

 Mission," as it was called, had never 

 flourished, and the events and after con- 



sequences of this war demoralized it until 

 it came to an end with the expulsion of 

 the Jesuits by royal decree in 1764. 



The advance of the French along the 

 Mississippi and the Gulf coast aroused 

 the Spanish authorities to the importance 

 of Texas, and shortly after the failure of 

 La Salle's expedition 8 Spanish presidio 

 missions were established in that terri- 

 tory. Each station was in charge of two 

 or three Franciscan missionaries, with 

 several families of civilized Indians from 

 Mexico, a full equipment of stock and im- 

 plements for farmers, and a small guard 

 of soldiers. Plans were drawn for the 

 colonization of the Indians around the 

 missions, their instruction in religion, 

 farming, and simple trades and home 

 life, and in the Spanish language. Through 

 a variety of misfortunes the first attempt 

 proved a failure and the work was aban- 

 doned until 1717 (or earlier, according to 

 La Harpe), when it was resumed -still 

 under the Franciscans — among the various 

 subtribes of the Caddo, Tonkawa, Carri- 

 zos, and others. The most important cen- 

 ter was at San Antonio, where there was a 

 group of 4 missions, includingSan Antonio 

 dePadua, the famous Alamo. Themission 

 of San Saba was established among the Li- 

 pan in 1757, but was destroyed soon after 

 bythehostileComanche. Amore success- 

 ful foundation was begun in 1791 among 

 the now extinct Karankawa. At their 

 highest estate, probably about the year 

 1760, the Indian population attached to 

 the various Texas missions numbered 

 about 15,000. In this year Father Bar- 

 tolome Garcia published a religious man- 

 ual for the use of the converts at San 

 Antonio mission, which remains almost 

 the only linguistic monument of the Co- 

 ahuiltecan stock. The missions contin- 

 ueil to flourish until 1812, when they were 

 suppressed by the Spanish (Tovernment 

 and the Indians scattered, some rejoining 

 the wild tribes, while others were ab- 

 sorbed into the Mexican population. 



In 1735 the Moravians under Spangen- 

 berg started a school among the Yama- 

 craw Creeks a few miles above Savannah, 

 Ga., which continued until 1739, when, 

 on refusal of the Moravians to take up 

 arms against the Spaniards, they were 

 forced to leave the colony. This seems 

 to be the only attempt at mission work 

 in either Georgia or South Carolina from 

 the withdrawal of the Spaniards until the 

 Moravian establishment at Spring Place, 

 Ga., in 1801. 



The great Cherokee tribe held the moun- 

 tain region of both Carolinas, Georgia, 

 Alabama, and Tennessee, and for our 

 purpose their territory may be treated as 

 a whole. Dismissing as doubtful Bris- 

 tock's account, quoted I)y Shea, of a 

 Cherokee mission in 1643, the earliest 



