QUERETARO. 
ARCHIVO DEL COLEGIO DE LA SANTA CRUZ DE QUERETARO. 
(THE ARCHIVE OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS OF QUERETARO. ) 
One of the richest archives for the early history of the Southwest is that of 
the ancient Franciscan College de Propaganda Fide of the Holy Cross of 
Querétaro. This venerable institution was founded in 1683, when it was put in 
possession of the already noted monastery of the Holy Cross. From the 
outset it played a most important part in the exploration and the conversion 
of the natives of the northern provinces of New Spain as well as of some of 
the interior provinces and of Guatemala. It was this college which claimed 
Fray Antonio Margil de Jesus, Fray Isidro Felix de Espinosa, Fray Fran- 
cisco Garcés, and Father Font, all indissolubly connected with the history and 
the historiography of the Southwest. 
Work on the northern side of the Rio Grande was formally begun by the 
college in 1690, when two missions were founded in eastern Texas among the 
Hasinai, or Texas, Indians. In 1693 a band of Querétaran friars were sent 
to help restore the revolted missions of New Mexico. In the same year the 
Texas missions were abandoned, but before the end of the century others were 
established on and near the Rio Grande, and from here the friars again 
extended their missionary labors and their explorations across the border. In 
1716 the first Texas mission was reestablished and two others founded in the 
same vicinity, but in 1730 all three were transferred to San Antonio, where 
the college had already maintained for a time the weak mission of San Xavier. 
Just before the middle of the century three new missions were founded on the 
San Xavier (now San Gabriel) River, in central Texas, and somewhat later 
three Apache missions were established on the San Saba and Nueces rivers, 
jointly by the colleges of Santa Cruz and San Fernando. 
On the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 the College of Santa Cruz assumed 
the conduct of the missions left vacant in Sonora, or Pimeria Alta and 
Pimeria Baja, the latter of which is partly included in modern Arizona. To 
better conduct the work in Pimeria Alta, the missions of Texas were given 
over to the sister College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas in 1772, and those of 
Coahuila and Pimeria Baja to the province of Jalisco, or Guadalajara, in 1772 
and 1776, respectively. The leading character in the missions of Pimeria 
Alta, and one of the heroes of early American history, was Father Francisco 
Garcés. As soon as he reached Arizona he began to make explorations to the 
northward, and to plan for missions on the Gila and Colorado rivers, a project 
which was consummated in 1780 by the founding of two missions on the Cali- 
fornia side of the Colorado, near its junction with the Gila. Within two 
years, however, the settlements were destroyed in a revolt of the neophytes. 
Meanwhile Fathers Garcés and Font had made important explorations in 
California and Arizona. 
In 1783 the Sonora missions were formed into the Custodia of San Carlos 
de Sonora, part of them being still under the care of the missionaries of the 
College of the Holy Cross. The custodia was unsuccessful from the first, 
and in 1791 the missions were restored to the college, in whose hands they 
remained well into the nineteenth century. Attempts were now made and 
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