BULL. 30] 



SAN ANTONIO DE VALEEO 



425 



Payuguan, Papanac, and perhaps others 

 were represented. By 1716, 364 baptisms 

 had been performed (Valero Bautismos). 

 In this year, when the government was 

 planning a settlement between the Eio 

 Grande and e. Texas, Olivares proposed 

 transplanting this mission, with its In- 

 dians, to the river then called 8an Antonio 

 de Padua, maintaining that his Xarames, 

 since they were well versed in agriculture, 

 would assist in teaching and subduing 

 new neophvtes (Olivares to the Viceroy, 

 Mem. de Nueva Espana, 169-70, MS.). 

 This plan was carried out in 1718, pos- 

 session of the new site being formally 

 given on INIay 1. The transfer was no 

 doubt facilitated by the close affinity of 

 the tribes at the new site with those at 

 the old. The mission was founded near 

 the E. frontier of the Coahuiltecan group. 

 The tribes or bands near by were ex- 

 tremely numerous and in general cor- 

 respondingly 

 small. One of 

 the chief ones 

 was the Payaya. 



This was not 

 the first time 

 they had heard 

 the gospel, for 

 inl691j\lassanet 

 had entered 

 their village on 

 San Antonio r. 

 (which theyhad 

 called Yanagua- 

 na), set up a 

 cross, erected an 

 altar in a chapel 

 of boughs, said 

 mass in the pres- 

 ence of the natives, explained its mean- 

 ing, and distributed rosaries, besides giv- 

 ing the Payaya chief a horse. This 

 tribe, Massanet said, was large, and 

 their rancherias deserved the name of 

 pueblo (Diario, Mem. de Nueva Espana, 

 XXVII, 95-96, MS.). 



Within about a year the mission, now 

 called San Antonio de Valero, wasremoved 

 across the river, evidently to the site it 

 still occupies (Espinosa, Chronica Apos- 

 tolica, 450, 1746). From the records it 

 seems that only one baptism was per- 

 formed in 1718. In 1719 there were 24, 

 mainly of Xarames and Payayas, but 

 representing also the Cluetau, Junced 

 (Juneal?), Pamaya, Siaguan, Sijame, 

 Sumi, and Terocodame tribes. The first 

 decade resulted in about 250 baptisms, 

 representing some 40 so-called tribes. 

 By Feb. 1740, there had been 837 bap- 

 tisms. Shortly before this an epidemic 

 had gone through all the San Antonio 

 missions, and left at Valero only 184 

 neophvtes; but immediately afterward 

 (1739-40) 77 Tacamanes (Tacames?) were 



CHURCH OF SAN ANTONIO DE VALERO, THE ALAMO' 



brought in (Mem. de Nueva Espana, 

 XXVIII, 203-04, MS.). A report made 

 Dec. 17, 1741, showed 238 persons resi- 

 dent at the mission ( Urrutia to the Vice- 

 roy , MS. ) . On May 8, 1 744, the finst stone 

 of a new church was laid, Vjut in 1762 it 

 was being relniilt, a work that seems 

 never to have been completed ( Diego Mar- 

 tin Garcia, 1745, op. cit., and Ynforme de 

 Misiones, 1762, Mem. de Nueva Espana, 

 XXVIII, 164, MS. ). According to a report 

 made in 1762, the books showed 1,972 

 baptisms (evidently an exaggeration), 

 247 burials, and 454 marriages. There 

 were then 275 persons, of the Xarame, 

 Payaya, Sana, Li pan (captives mainly). 

 Coco, Tojo (Ton), and Karankawa 

 tribes. Of this number 32 were gen- 

 tiles of the last-named tribe, whose 

 reduction was then being attempted, 

 notwithstanding the opposition of the 

 Zacatecan missions {see Nuest m t^efiora del 

 Bosario). The 

 same report, be- 

 sides describing 

 t h e monastery 

 workshops, 

 church, chapel, 

 and ranch, 

 says of the In- 

 dian quarters: 

 "There are 7 

 rows of houses 

 for the dwell- 

 ings of the In- 

 dians; they are 

 made of stone 

 and supplied 

 with doors and 

 windows; they 

 are furnished 

 with high beds, chests, metates, pots, flat 

 earthen pans, kettles, cauldrons, and 

 boilers. With their arched porticoes the 

 houses form a broad and beautiful plaza 

 through which runs a canal skirted by 

 willows and fruit trees, and used by the 

 Indians. To insure a supply of water in 

 case of blockade by the enemy a curbed 

 well has been made. For the defense of 

 the settlement, the plaza is surrounded 

 by a wall. Over the gate is a large tower 

 with its embrasures, 3 cannons, some 

 firearms, and appropriatesupplies (Trans, 

 by E. Z. Rather, in Bolton and Barker, 

 With the Makers of Texas, 64-65, 1904). 

 For a description of the massive walls, 

 see Bancroft, No. Uex. States, ii, 207-08, 

 1889. 



After 1765 the activity of this mission 

 suddenly declined, even more rapidly 

 than that of the neighboring missions. 

 This decline was contemporaneous, on 

 the one hand, with the lessening of po- 

 litical activity in Texas after the acquisi- 

 tion of Louisiana by the Spaniards, and, 

 on the other hand, with a growing hos- 



