San Antonio's Old Franciscan Missions: Material Decline and Secular Avarice in the Transition from Hispanic to Mexican Control

1987 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Félix D. Almaráz
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Municipal Government ◽  
San Antonio ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Franciscan Missions

In the twilight years of the eighteenth century, Spanish authorities of church and state resolved that the original Franciscan missions of Texas had achieved the goal of their early foundation, namely conversion of indigenous cultures to an Hispano-European lifestyle. Cognizant that the mission as a frontier agency had gained souls for the Catholic faith and citizens for the empire, Hispanic officials initiated secularization of the Texas establishments with the longest tenure, beginning with the missions along the upper San Antonio River. Less than a generation later, in the transition from Spanish dominion to Mexican rule in the nineteenth century, the Franciscan institutions, woefully in a condition of material neglect, engendered widespread secular avarice as numerous applicants with political contact in municipal government energetically competed to obtain land grants among the former mission temporalities.

Demographic, Ethnic and Occupational Structure of New Mexico, 1790

1978 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia V. Tjarks
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Occupational Structure ◽  
Population Statistics ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Franciscan Missions

Since early times civil and religious authorities of New Spain showed considerable interest in population statistics of New Mexico. Such an interest was directly related to the peculiarities of settlement in the province since the Reconquest, fourteen years after the bloody Indian uprising of 1680. From then on, control over New Mexico could only be sustained with great difficulty—final pacification could not be achieved until the late eighteenth century—for a purely geopolitical reason: keeping New Mexico for the Crown as a defensive bulwark in the northern approaches of New Spain against the penetration of hostile Indians and foreigners. In that sense, the Franciscan missions performed a decisive role in affirming the Spanish occupation of the territory.

Franciscan Missions and Chiriguano Workers: Colonization, Acculturation and Indian Labor in Southeastern Bolivia

1987 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erick D. Langer
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Franciscan Missions ◽  
American Foundation ◽  
Science Research Council

An earlier version of this essay was presented at the Symposium “Bolivia: Formation and Development of a Labor Force, 1600 to the Present,” organized by Ann Zulawski and Lesley Gill for the 45th International Congress of Americanists, Bogotá, Colombia, 1985. The author wishes to thank Robert H. Jackson, Brooke Larson, and Nils Jacobsen for their comments on the paper. Research funds were provided by the Social Science Research Council, Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Research Program, and the Inter-American Foundation.

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