Alarcon's Expedition - Villa, Mission and Presidio at the "Head of the River" - Route of the Aguavo Expedition - Abandonment of the East Texas Missions - Re-establishment - San Fernando of the Canary Islanders - A Permanent Texas Settlement.

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     To the Spaniards of that day two years were but a yesterday.  At the end of 1716 all preparations seemed to be made for the entrada (expedition) into the province of Texas which was to repel the advance of the French and to better control the Indians of the missions.  It was not until March, 1718, however, that Don Martin de Alarcon, leader, with the title of lieutenant-general of the province of Texas, or the Nuevas Fillippinas, was ready to receive formal orders and instructions prior to departure.  Among other orders was one requiring that a place be selected as a capital for the prince in which there should be erected strong houses of stone for the soldiers' quarters.  It was also ordered that a villa be established on the banks of the San Antonio, in proximity to the missions to be established, which must consist of not less than thirty inhabitants, citizens and soldiers, who should be accorded all the privileges in lands, waters, and pastures which the royal laws granted.
     Fray Antonio Olivares, experienced in missionary work among the Indians, acquainted with the tribes and country beyond the Rio Grande, and provided with a well worked out plan for founding a mission of his own, had charge of the friars of this expedition.  A few months later the party, composed of fifty persons, including soldiers, missionaries, mechanics and families, arrived at the head waters of the San Antonio River, where "in the most pleasant placein the province of Texas," was founded San Antonio de los Llanos.  This establishment consisted of a Village named Villa de Bejar, and by its side, a mission called in honor of the viceroy, San Antonio de Valero - later known as "The Alamo."  To this latter Fray Olivares transferred the Jarami Indians from the mission San Francisco Solano, which he had founded in the northern part of Coahuila.  The villa soon had as many as thirty familes, and the mission a large number of Indian residents, which Alarcon left - under protection of the presidio, and in a peaceful and comfortable condition, but destined not long to remain secure and in harmony.
     Not until the founding of this little colony on the San Antonio can Spanish occupation of Texas be considered permanent.  The six missions east of the Trinity, with the small quota of missionary fathers, a few soldiers, and an occasional half-breed family, were ever threatened by hostile Indians or the en-

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croachments of the French, but this settlement made it possible to retain them.  So the Spaniards rested for a season from their expeditionary labors, - but the season was doomed to be short.  The next movement of occupation came in 1721, when war having been declared in 1719 between France and Spain,  and French incursions being made into Spanish Texas, a more strenuous military policy was undertaken.  The expedition led by the Marquis de Aguayo, governor-general
of New Estremadura and the New Philippines, was better equipped, consisted of a larger body of men, and traveled a greater distance than any other sent out by Spain.  This expedition crossed the Colorado River near the mouth of Onion Creek, and followed a northward course which brought them across what is now Brushy Creek, the San Zavier (San Gabriel) River, Little River near Belton, thence to the Brazos about Waco; thence in a southeasterly direction to the Tejas tribes, where Aguayo re-established the missions which had been abandoned two years before because of French incursions.  It was this expedition which determined the ownership of Texas - or of what is now Southern Texas - in favor of Spain.
     But these missions were again destined to abandonment.  Espinosa himself recognized the dismal failure of attempting to civilize the Indians of the Hasinai settlements, into pueblos, built in close order.  They determined to live in ranchos (separate houses) well apart from each other, each household seeking a place

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Side View of Mission San Juan, before restoration.

suitable for its crops and having a supply of water.  Again, while events had justified the Spanish estimate of the importance of the Hasinai as a base of political operations, and their control had remained for a century or more a cardinal point in the politics of the Texas-Lousiana frontier, it was soon learned that the less and smaller tribes of the San Antonio River nearer Mexico and farther removed for the contrary influence of the French, afforded a better field for missionary labors.  It was these causes which it brought about the establishment in 1729, after fifteen years of effort, of all but one of the missions of the

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group, and the re-establishment of San Francisco, Concepcion, and San Jose to the San Antonio River, in the environs of what is our modern San Antonio.
     The padres, after Aguayo left Texas in 1722, continued their labors under great disadvantages, and finally despaired of success in making permanent settlements unless they could induce the government to send out more people to furnish to the Indians an example of life they were expected to lead, and to teach them the most necessary arts.
     The first officially recognized civil settlement* in Texas was the villa† of San Fernando de Bexar‡ founded in 1731 by a group of Canary Islanders.  Several new features appeared in the plan for the establishment of this villa.  Hitherto the arrangement for the settlement of families had been worked out by the missionaries, the orders issued by the viceroy, and all families brought in, natives of Mexico.  Now the idea was taken up by the king; all the orders were issued by him at the suggestion of the Marquis de Aguayo, and all families were to be brought from the

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     *The information in this chapter relative to the early settlement of San Antonio and its preliminaries, is a brief summary of an article by Miss M. A. Austin (Mrs. Hatcher), entitled "The Municipal Government of San Fernando de Bexar," in Vol. VIII, No. 4, of Texas State Historical Association's Quarterly, founded on original records in Bexar archives, translated by Miss Austin.
     † In Texas the term "villa" seems to have been applied exclusively to corporate towns.  San Fernando, the only settlement possessing a municipal government during the period of Spanish rule, was the only place thus designated. - M. A. Austin. 
     ‡Named in honor of Ferdinand III, king of Castile and Leon, who died in 1252 and was canonized four centuries later, - and in honor of the Duke of Bexar, second son of Philip of Spain, then ruling sovereign.

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Canary Islands (a Spanish possession).  Their transportation and maintenance for one year, were to be at the government's expense.  In response to this decree, a few people, numbering but ten families at the beginning, started out from the Canary Islands.  Within a month their number was increased through marriage, to fifteen families.  The heads of these families were Juan Leal Goras, the oldest among them and the leader; Juan Curbelo; Juan Leal Jr., Antonio Santos, Joseph Padron, Manuel de Niz, Vincente Alvarez Travieso, Salvador Rodriguez, Joseph Cabrera, Maria Rodriguez Provayna, Mariano Melano,
and four single men, Philip de Armas, Joseph Antonio Perez, Martin Lorenzo de Armas, and Ignacio Lorenzo de Armas, constituting a total of fifty-six persons and fifteen families, or sixteen families if unmarried men be counted as one family.
     These immigrants reached Bexar at eleven o'clock, March 9th, 1731.  A dispatch from the the viceroy had authorized the governor of the province, Don Juan Antonio Bustillo y Zevallos, or in case of his absence, the captain of
the presidio of San Antonio, as soon as the families should arrive, to "take such persons of intelligence as may be available to examine the site a gunshot's distance to the western side of the presidio where there is a slight elevation forming a plateau suitable for founding a very fine settlement.  On account of the location it will have the purest air, and the fresh

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est of water flowing from two springs or natural formations, situated on a small hill a short distance from the presidio of Bexar."  According to this dispatch boundaries were to be measured and marked out, and lands and water assigned; streets laid off, town blocks, the main plaza,* the site for a church, the priest's house and other buildings, all marked as therein designated.  Directions were also given whereby the dwellings might be made beautiful and adapted for defense, cleanliness and healthfulness. 
     The new municipality was to be governed by a city council or cabildo† whose duties were the administration of justice and the protection of the interests of the commonwealth. All orders for the appointment of the members of this body were issued long  before the ''Isleños" arrived. Although there were other settlers already at Bexar, remnant of the colony of 1718, which, harassed by Indians and unable to support itself, had dwindled to but a handful, to whom should have been given a share in the municipal government of the newly-founded villa, practically in the earlier years this was not the case.  In July, 1731, Don Juan Antonio Perez de Almazan, captain of the presidio of Bexar and justice mayor of the villa, named from among the Isleños all the officer's except two alcaldes.  But it was not until Octo-

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     *This plaza constituted the center of the settlement and is the Main Plaza of modern San Antonio.
     † Later known as the ayuntamiento .

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ber 24th, 1731, that a completely organized municipal government was established, the only civil community in the province.

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