By Dr. Bruce Winders, Alamo Historian
“It can therefore be inferred that this mission cannot be called a mission of Indians but a gathering of white people. The few pure Indians who remain are, in trading and communication, as intelligent as the others. Consequently, the College ought to disassociate itself and give the mission over to the bishop so that he takes care of their souls.” — Father López, 1792
Founded in 1718, Mission San Antonio de Valero existed seventy-five years before it was ordered to be closed in 1793. Missions had always been planned as an intermediary step in establishing a permanent community. By the end of the eighteenth century, mission building throughout the Spanish borderlands approached its inevitable conclusion.
Spain’s commitment to the mission system represented significant outlay of royal capital. Although the missions received funds from the royal war chest because of their role in frontier defense, they were expected to contribute to their own upkeep, ideally they would become self-sufficient someday. Some income came from the sale of mission crops to the local presidial garrisons and residents of Villa de San Fernando. However, a mission’s wealth was measured in livestock. In addition to maintaining farms, each mission operated large ranches worked by mission convert vaqueros. The sale of cattle and horses driven to Louisiana (sometimes legally and sometimes not) returned money and merchandise to the missions. An inspector visiting the area in 1772 reported that Valero alone processed between 4000 and 5000 cattle of its own. Missions also kept horses, mules, goats, sheep, and various types of fowls. In 1778, though, a change in royal policy stripped the missions of their livestock, depriving them of their major revenue. Teodoro de Croix, Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas del Norte, decreed that all unbranded cattle, horses, and mules belonged to the King of Spain. Years of hostile activity by Lipan Apaches had prevented mission personnel from conducting their annual roundups, resulting in many of their cattle being unbranded. The fact that the decree permitted the missions keep their unbranded livestock by paying a royal tax did little to make their financial predicament better.
The missions were also under pressure from local Spanish settlers. In 1731, fifty-six Canary Islanders were settled in the river bend opposite Valero in a civil town called Villa de San Fernando. Civilians who settled near missions looked forward to the day that these church lands would be secularized or turned over to civil authorities. Civilian settlers commonly believed that the missions not only occupied more land than they needed but the pool of Indian converts gave the missions an unfair advantage in labor. Royal officials received frequent complaints from settlers demanding the missions be closed and the land be made available for their use. After all, hadn’t the missions been around long enough? That was a question that Spanish officials began asking themselves as they looked for ways to cut royal expenditures.
In 1792, Father José Francisco López inspected the San Antonio missions and submitted his recommendation to his superiors. He called for all five missions to be secularized. Valero, he said, was no longer a mission. He described it as “but a gathering of white people,” since most of its current residents were racially mixed Spanish speaking Catholics. Although some residents still retained some of their Indian traits, most had adopted Spanish dress and customs. He further contended that there were no more “pagans” within 150 miles of San Antonio and that Indians still living in the wild were satisfied with their way of life and therefore had no desire to convert. Since the missions had completed their original task of establishing Spanish communities, closing them at some point was not only expected, but would free up the missionaries to pursue other endeavors. López contended that turning the mission over to its residents who had been prepared to live on their own would be the true test as to whether or not the system had worked. If the converts had only come into the mission for the comforts it provided it would then be seen that no real transformation had taken place. Even if that were the case, the missionaries could not be held responsible for their converts’ future. As for backsliders, the priests could only remind them of the Lord’s words, perdition tua ex te (thy help is only in me).
Officials accepted López’ recommendation and in 1793 ordered Mission Valero secularized. The other missions, however, were saved for the time being — but not without changes. Due to the decline in current residents and seeing little chance for large scale recruitment, López had recommended combining San José with Espada and Concepcion with San Juan Capistrano, thereby creating two missions instead of continuing to support four. Although this did not happen, the secularization process was set in motion, eventually concluding in 1824. Reports submitted during this period detail how the missionaries turned over mission property to their former converts. They also reveal that local civilians began to take up residence in the old mission compounds as they vied for control of mission land. Boundaries blurred as former mission residents began to play a larger role outside their past confines. By the mid-1800s, both residents and visitors called their community — which had begun as separate entities — by a single name: San Antonio.
Father López’ Reason for Closing Mission Valero
“The first point I make is obvious from the fact that in the sixty and more leagues surrounding these missions of Bejar there is no nation Indians which can be converted. Those who are at a greater distance to the east, north, and south, cannot be taken out of their land without violence to their nature, without offending the laws of humanity, the pontifical regulations, and repeated decrees of his Majesty, nor has it been possible for the missionaries to win them over by favors and kindness, so that they freely leave their lands and congregate in one of the missions. At different times from 1703 till the present year of 1792 various and costly experiments have been made in vain toward this end.
Secondly, it is evidently true, shown not only by the long time of eighty nine years since the mission of San Antonio was founded, but felt also in the trade and communication with those Indians, that although they have not given up entirely the traits that are proper to and inseparable from their natural low way of living and their fickleness, they nevertheless are seen to be more civilized and cultured than many other Indians and pueblos in lands beyond.
Finally, the experience of so many years has taught us that the best fruit we can promise ourselves for the future of these Indians will be only to preserve in them the faith and Christianity they have received, just as it is preserved in the other Christian pueblos by the help and preaching of their pastors. But no apostolic increase in spreading the faith can be made among them, and yet this is the proper and special office of the missionaries, to which alone our efforts ought to be directed.”
Cited: Leutennegger, Benedict. “Report on San Antonio Mission in 1792,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Vol. 77, №4 (April 1974), 487–498.
