BULL. ."^0] 



MISSIONS 



875 



eneon luis left a pleasant j)ictnre of tlu^ 

 prosperous condition of the mission towns 

 and their Indian population as he found 

 them in l()9!t, wiiich contrasts stronjily 

 with the barbarous condition of the 

 heathen triljes farther s., aniouij; whom 

 he had lieen a prisoner. 



The Knglish colony of Carolina iiad 

 been founded in 1068, with a charier 

 which was soon after extended southward 

 to lat. 29°, thus includin<j almost the 

 whole area of Spanish occupancy and 

 mission labor. Thesteadily-,Ln()win,ti;lios- 

 tility between the two nations culmi- 

 nated in thewinterof 170o-4, when (Jov. 

 Moore, of Carolina, with a small force of 

 white men and a thousand or more well- 

 armed warriors of ('reek, ('atawba, 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 8t Augustine 

 for guns with which to defend themselves, 

 but had lieen refused, in accf)rdance 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 Biloxi, ^Nli.ss. (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 i)riests from the Seminary of Foreign 

 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 jirayer, 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 (iulf coast aroused 

 the Spanish authorities tt> tiie importance 

 of Texas, and siiortly after the failure of 

 La Salle's expedition 8 Spanish presidio 

 missions were establishefl 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 eciuipment oi stock and im- 

 plements for farmers, and a small guard 

 of soldiers. Plans wen> drawn for the 

 colonization of the Indians around the 

 missions, their instruction in religion, 

 farming, and simple trades and home 

 life,andintheSi)anish 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 Franciscan.s — among the various 

 sul)tribes of the Caddo, Tonkawa, Carri- 

 zos, and others. The most important cen- 

 ter was at San Antonio, where there was a 

 groupof 4 missions, includingSan Antonio 

 dePadua,the famousAlamo. Themission 

 of San Sal);l was established among the Li- 

 pan in 1757, but was destroyed soon after 

 bythehostileComanche. A more 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- 

 ued to flourish until 1812, when they were 

 suppressed by the Spanish (Government 

 and the Indians scattei'ed, some rejoining 

 the wild tribes, while others were ab- 

 sorbed into the Mexican population. 



In 1735 the Moraviava under Spangen- 

 berg started a school among the Yama- 

 craw Creeks a few miles al>ove Savannah, 

 (ia., 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 ISOl. 



ThegreatCherokee tribe held the moun- 

 tain region of both Carolinas, (^eorgia, 

 Alabama, and Tennessee, and for our 

 purpose their territory may be treated as 

 a whole. Dismissing as doubtful Bris- 

 tock's account, quoted by Shea, of a 

 Cherokee mission in 1643, the earliest 



