The Spanish Missions of Texas
Father Marion Habig, O.F.M.
Birth: June 28, 1901

audio

Father Marion Habig

"And Then We Found Another Mission"

Good morning, Father Habig. You have kindly allowed us to take a small bit of time from your busy schedule in order to have this interview about your interest in the missions and your life as a Franciscan, a writer, and a scholar.

I would like to begin by asking you to give some comments about your early life, place of birth, education, the seminary, and your decision to become a Franciscan¹ father.

I was born in St. Louis, on June 28, 1901, so I'm an octogenarian² now. My interest in the Franciscan order was a natural development. The parish where I was born, baptized, and went to school - St. Anthony's church in St. Louis - was a Franciscan parish. The Franciscans were in charge of it. And not only that, my brothers all joined the Franciscan order. Father Francis Xavier was the oldest; Father Tom was next; Barnabas, only a cleric when he died, was the third. And then I came, the fourth one. After me, another brother of mine who was somewhat handicapped, partially paralyzed, became a Franciscan brother. So five of us joined the Franciscan order.

Was he ever stationed here? Your younger brother?

No, none of these brothers of mine were stationed here. I came down here to visit San Antonio way back in the '40s. But none of my brothers were stationed here.

What seminary did you attend, Father?

Well, I went to the Franciscan Seminary, the preparatory seminary, at a town called Teutopolis, Illinois, just 100 miles from St. Louis. That was the first time I ever rode on the railroad. I thought that was a big journey―100 miles! I went to school there for six years: high school plus junior college. Then I went into the novitiate.³

What year was this, Father?

This was 1914. Six years later, in 1920, I went into the novitiate. After the novitiate year, I continued my studies in a suburb of Cleveland, which is now part of West Park. We had a seminary there for philosophy and the sciences.

Then I moved to St. Louis, where we had our theological seminary. After three years there, I was ordained a priest. I had one more year of studies to go, and by that time the old school in Teutopolis had been converted into a theological seminary. I spent my last year there in Teutopolis.

You were ordained in what year and to what province of the Franciscan Fathers?

I was ordained⁴ in 1927. I belong to the Province of the Sacred Heart, which we also call the St. Louis/Chicago Province. It comprises the whole area of the Midwest and, therefore, also Texas.

After my ordination and an additional year of studies, I was appointed to be a teacher in the high school department of Quincy College.⁵ That’s in Illinois. I was there a few years, and then I went on to Chicago to be an assistant to the editor of the Franciscan Herald, a magazine that we were publishing at the time.

Those were the years of the depression, and the magazine didn’t require my help anymore; it [the magazine] was reduced to a minimum. So I became a teacher in the new preparatory seminary near Chicago, St. Joseph’s Seminary in Oak Brook. From there I went to the Catholic University of America [in Washington, D.C.] to begin some graduate studies. I spent one year under Father Francis Borgia Steck, a Franciscan historian.

Oh, yes, I remember.

You remember. He was supposed to have written this history of Texas that was being sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.⁶ But he gave up that job to become a professor at the Catholic University. That’s how Dr. Castañeda got the job [of writing the history of the Catholic Church in Texas].

I had only one year there [Catholic University], and then I moved to the University of California at Berkeley, where Professor Bolton was at the time. That’s how I got to be Professor Bolton’s student.

You mentioned earlier that you went to Catholic University of America in Washington [D.C.] to do graduate studies. Was this in history, theology, or what discipline?

My major at the Catholic University was history, not only history but Spanish-American history. That was the subject I wanted to get my degree in eventually.

You seemed inclined toward history at a very early age as a Franciscan. Did you not?

Oh, yes. History was always a favorite topic of mine. I enjoyed reading history, especially, of course, Franciscan history. I was interested in the history of the Franciscan order mainly, and that included a lot of Spanish America.

You went to Berkeley, and there, did you find Dr. Bolton or did Dr. Bolton find you?

From the Catholic University I went to Berkeley because Bolton was there. I had heard a great deal about him, and I admired the work he was doing. I was anxious to do some graduate work under his guidance. That’s how I came to California.

The sojourn in California only lasted about a year. I didn’t go through for a doctorate. So I was there for a year, but during that year I learned a great deal.

I was called back to my province to teach at Quincy College. Besides, the switch from the Catholic University to the California university was not favorable because all the [course] work I did before was annihilated―they wanted me to go through all kinds of preparatory studies at the University of California at the time. But anyhow, it was Dr. Bolton who introduced me to the Querétaro archives.

Querétaro archives?

Yes. I spent my Christmas vacation there. He [Dr. Bolton] sent me down to Mexico to microfilm selected documents in the archives of the College of Querétaro, ⁷ the college that sent missionaries to Texas and also to northern Mexico. They succeeded the Jesuits in northern Mexico after the Jesuits were expelled from northern Mexico and southern Arizona in the east Primería Alta region. So that is how I got acquainted with the Querétaro archives for the first time. I did microfilm quite a number of select documents. They were hidden away in Celaya; nobody knew where they were except Bolton.

Aren’t they still at Celaya?

They are still at Celaya, but they are no longer hidden away. In those days—that was in about 1940—the church was being persecuted in Mexico. I had to go down there in disguise. I had to buy a gray suit and a tie; I had to wear those instead of a Roman collar. But I think those people knew I was a priest anyway. At the National Archives in Mexico City, where I went to have certain documents pertaining to this northern part of Mexico copied for Dr. Bolton, the man in charge of the archives called over to one of the secretaries and said, “This padre here wants these documents here from our archives.” He said, “This padre here.” (laughter) I wasn’t dressed like a priest—how did he know?

Anyway, I stayed in Celaya for about a month that time. They had hidden the documents away in a room. Some of them had been lost when they were transferred from Querétaro to Celaya. They were all mixed up. I tried to put them in order. The padre was very grateful for the work I did in the archives.

That was an unauthorized friary where they were. It was just a little house near the church. In order to get to the church, we had to climb over a roof and then down a ladder into a little courtyard next to the sacristy. (laughter) The church bells were not robbed; they were just not allowed to ring any church bells. But the padre did conduct services in the church at the time. That’s how I found the archives and how I met Dr. Bolton. I was very grateful to Dr. Bolton. He was very kind—a big, strong man—but he had a big heart, too.

Father, you said you did not complete your doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley but went on. When did you finally get your Ph.D.?

I didn’t get any Ph.D.

You didn’t? You did graduate work.

No. I had previously gotten a master’s degree at Loyola University in Chicago. That was during that period when I was associate editor of the magazine. They didn’t need much help from me anymore, so before I went to the seminary in Oak Brook, I attended Loyola University and got a master’s degree in history.

But you did your post-graduate, your doctoral work, under Dr. Bolton.

After I got my master’s degree, I went to the Catholic University and then on to Berkeley and Dr. Bolton.

My master’s dissertation was on French missionaries in Illinois, the Franciscan Recollects⁸ who came with La Salle. Particularly, my dissertation was on Father Zénobe Membré,⁹ who was the chaplain of La Salle’s expedition. That’s when France claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for France. Spain had claimed that territory, of course, but they were unable to stop the French from occupying the Mississippi Valley.

Father, what was the name of your thesis; the date in which it was completed, and from what university?

From Loyola University. The name was “The Franciscan Père Marquette.” (laughter) See, the Jesuits had their Father Marquette, their leading man in that area; so I called [Father Membré] the Franciscan Père Marquette—Father Zénobe Membré, La Salle’s chaplain. I think that was the exact [title].

When was it published?

The manuscript was published as a book. It is out of print, of course.

What year was your dissertation completed?

I’m not sure now. I haven’t the exact dates with me—'35, I think it was.

1935.

Something like that. About 1935.

You said you went back East after your stay in California. Did you maintain your correspondence and your relationship with Dr. Bolton over the years?

No. There was no real opportunity nor real need for correspondence. I did write to him after I left. I took with me some of those documents with his permission. I had planned to make use of them, you see, some of those documents from the College of Querétaro, but I never got around to that.

While I was still in California, living over in San Francisco, I used to cross the bay on the ferry to get to the university. While I was there, I did write an article on the builders of San Xavier del Bac, the famous white doves of San Xavier del Bac. This article proved it was the Franciscans, not the Jesuits, that built this mission. See, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino¹⁰ had the mission there—a primitive structure—and that occupied a different site, nearby, of course, at San Xavier del Bac near Tucson.¹¹

I’ve been there, Father.

You’ve been there. Anyhow, my article, the report of Father Barbasco, showed that the Franciscans succeeded the Jesuits after they had been banished from that area and all of New Spain. This document showed that the Franciscans built this new church, the present San Xavier del Bac.

Drawing by José Cisneros of missionaries from New Spain

These Franciscans that moved in after the expulsion of the Jesuits from New Spain, what college were they from?

From the College of Querétaro.

Querétaro. And the Franciscans who were working in California were from San Francisco Grande in Mexico City?

No, they were from the College of San Fernando in Mexico City. Father Junípero Serra came from San Fernando. San Francisco el Grande was the headquarters of the province, the Province of Mexico of Santo Evangelio.

Statue honoring Junípero Serra at the Plaza of Santa Cruz, Querétaro, Mexico

They had the specialized purpose to work on the frontier among the Indians as missionaries and also to send out men to form so-called parish missions and establish Christian communities and towns, etc. They went from town to town; they didn’t stay in one place. They stayed for a week or two or three and then moved on to other towns. That was the work of the colleges—the twofold purpose they had. So the missions were just one part of their work.

Those missionaries of Querétaro who were in Texas moved. They left Texas in 1773 and moved to Primería Alta and took over those missions that had been in the hands of the Jesuits. That’s how they got over there.

When the missionaries of the College of Querétaro left Texas, they left these missions in charge of the Franciscans of Zacatecas. Is this not true?

The Texas missions, of course, were in the hands of both colleges. Of Querétaro and Zacatecas, Zacatecas came first. But it was a cooperative work of two colleges, Querétaro and Zacatecas, which had been founded by Father Antonio Margil.

Portrait of Antonio Margil de Jesús, c. 1700. Courtesy of Art Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

Their joint effort came in 1716, when Spain decided to occupy the eastern part of Texas to stop the advance of the French who had moved in there. So they [the Spanish] established those missions in East Texas in 1716. Three missions were founded by the Querétaro College and three missions by the Zacatecas College. The leader of the Queretaráns was Father Espinosa.

Isidro Espinosa, yes.

 He wrote a big poem, you know. They called it Chronicle of ….¹² You know the book. Then Father Margil was the leader of the Zacatecan missionaries.

Antonio Margil.

Yes. So I did start working on Texas—not on Texas but on the history of the College of Querétaro way back in 1940.

What moved you in the direction of the Texas missions? Gradually I see your knowledge of the Franciscan endeavor in the northern frontier during the time of New Spain became more and more a part of you; you became so familiarized with it that I see from what you’re saying that you began to make all sorts of historical relationships as the Queretarán fathers moved from Texas and then the areas around Querétaro and then over in the direction of the Sinaloa, Sonora, and Baja, California. How did you begin to center in on Texas with so much devotion, knowledge, and success, let us say?

When I was in Washington [D.C.] at the university, the Catholic University, Father Francis Steck, my professor, was very much interested in the history of Texas, so that was one subject that we talked about a great deal. And then, in 1936, Dr. Castañeda’s first volume, the first of those seven volumes, came out. That, of course, was a book in which I was deeply interested.

As I said, there were other jobs I had during the period that followed. I was in the Quincy College and then in the seminary in Oak Brook. After my return from California, I was back at Quincy College, and I was suddenly called away to New York City to be Secretary of the Franciscan General Delegation during World War II. So I lived in New York City during World War II. That was the headquarters for the Franciscans for all of North America, and it included Mexico. [There] I became acquainted with the Franciscans in Mexico, the heads of the three Franciscan provinces down there. So I was in New York from '42 to '46. And then I became Superior of the newly established Academy of American Franciscan History in Washington, D.C. You know that academy?

Oh, yes.

I was there for one year to get the place started. I was not the Rector of the academy, just the Religious Superior of the academy. But I remained a member for another year and went back to California and began to transcribe the letters of Father Mariano Payeras,¹³ a California missionary—the Commisario Prefecto and the president of the California missions, Father Mariano Payeras. I spent the whole year out in California, just reading those letters of Father Mariano Payeras. They [the letters] are now in the academy in Washington, D.C.

Have they been published, Father?

Not yet.¹⁴ They have to wait their turn. They have letters of other presidentes—Father Serra, of course, and Father Fermín de Lasuén. But [the letters are] still up there in their hands.

 Father, I’ve noticed that you’ve turned out to be quite a skillful paleographer¹⁵ and transcriber. How many languages do you know?

Well, I do not have the ability to speak fluently in many languages, but I can read a lot of languages. I speak English, of course. German I learned when I was a youngster—I can speak German. I can get along in Latin and a little bit in French and Spanish and Italian. I can read those languages. I have not much difficulty in reading. Of course, with the aid of the dictionary, I can read those Spanish documents quite well. But, unfortunately, I never learned to speak Spanish; I never had the practice, and you have to practice to speak Spanish.

That’s very interesting, Father. When did you decide to come back to Texas? How old were you when you started carving out the Texas missions and San Antonio missions in particular. It’s much of your life’s work.

It all started in 1966.

How old were you then, Father?

Sixty-six. I’m always one year younger than the century. Born in 1901.

So you might say, at the young age of sixty-six, you began.…

Sixty-five, it was. I was appointed the historian of the Franciscan Province of St. Louis, Chicago, the entire Midwest, including Texas.

What year were you given that assignment?

That assignment? In '54. Then, in '66, they had a big celebration here in San Antonio—the Knights of Columbus, the Order of the Alhambra,¹⁶ unveiled a big monument, or plaque, at the Arneson River Theater on the San Antonio River. They celebrated the 275^th anniversary of the naming of San Antonio. You’ve seen that plaque at the Arneson River Theater?

I was called down to deliver the address during the Mass. We celebrated right there in the theater. Our Provincial¹⁷ was there, and I was with him at the altar. All the dignitaries were there in one of those boats on the river. A big crowd of people was all around us. And I gave the talk during the Mass, the homily, but it was really a historical talk that I gave. [It was about] the first governor of [the Spanish province of] Texas, Terán de los Ríos.¹⁸

Domingo Terán de los Ríos?

Replica of San Francisco de los Tejas Mission in East Texas

[And] Father Massanet—Damián Massanet—how they came to the San Antonio River 275 years earlier. That was in 1691. They were on their way to East Texas, where Father Massanet had established a mission the previous year, the first one in East Texas, San Francisco de los Tejas Mission.¹⁹ The first one is still remembered at Weches [in Houston County]. In the state park there, they have a church, or chapel, representing the original church.

Signature of Friar Damián Massanet

Anyhow, in 1691 Terán de los Ríos and Massanet came to the San Antonio River to an Indian village which had the name of Yanaguana, which means “refreshing waters.” This village was near the source of the San Antonio River, near the San Pedro Springs. There they paused on the Feast of Corpus Christi, and Father Massanet celebrated Mass there. The Indians were there, and [the governor and Father Massanet] named the river. The governor called it the San Antonio River, and Father Massanet named the place in honor of St. Anthony of Padua or of Lisbon. [St. Anthony] came from Lisbon. In Portugal they call him St. Anthony of Lisbon. They named the place and the river in honor of St. Anthony.

Drawing by José Cisneros of an indian, a friar, and aconquistador

The remark that Father Massanet made on that occasion, I think, was, “This is the place at some future date we will have to erect missions.” He recognized the place as an ideal spot for missions.

So I gave that talk, and I realized at the time that there was a deep desire and hunger for more information, more accurate information about these missions here in San Antonio, this chain of five missions. So I got busy.

In '68, just two years later, appeared my history of the San José Mission, entitled San Antonio’s Mission San José. There’s more than one San José, you know, among the Spanish border missions. While I was working on that history of San Antonio’s San José Mission, I proceeded in gathering information about the other missions. And so in the same year came out this other book, The Alamo Chain of Missions.

The same year, Father?

The same year, but later on.

What was the year of publication?

1968. That was two years after I came down for that talk in 1966.

But you had been doing a considerable amount of research before the talk and before the publication.

Oh, yes. I had studied Castañeda’s²⁰ volumes.

Quite thoroughly.

Oh, yes. In fact, my books are based to a great extent on Castañeda’s previous work. I gathered together what he had scattered around in his volumes and put that together into one volume: San José, and then the other one on the five missions.

But I made additional researches, and we shared. Father Ben Leutenegger came down here in 1970, and he began to collect documents and transcribe them. We got some documents from the Bexar Archives²¹ before my book was published.

For ten years I came down here every year. Until '76 I came down here every year, sometimes shorter periods, sometimes longer periods. Some [visits] were as long as three months, and I devoted the time to research. I gathered my material for my first books right here in San Antonio for the most part.

Father, I understand you did quite a bit of research, a lot of it in traveling through Texas and through sectors of Mexico, not only to gather documents, but I have also been given the impression that you wanted to see firsthand the places where many of these sites originally stood. Will you tell us something about that?

Yes. That was one of Dr. Bolton’s hobbies, to visit the sites to see the places about which he wrote. Well, I sort of inherited that desire. 

And so in the summer of ’68—September, it wasn’t so hot, and that was an ideal time—for three weeks Pete [Pierson DeVries] and I made expeditions from San Antonio to visit the sites of all the Spanish establishments in Texas. We went not only to the missions but also to the presidios²² and the villas, the towns of the Spanish settlers. So briefly shall I tell you what we did?

Oh, please. We’d like to know very much.

The first big expedition we made was from San Antonio to the Apache region.

The San Sabá²³ missions?

The San Sabá and the later Apache missions of the 1760s, the San Lorenzo Mission²⁴ and the Candelaria Mission.²⁵ There were three Apache missions, and we visited them first.

Drawing by José Cisneros of Friar García de San Francisco de Zúñiga, the founder of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de El Paso Mission in present Ciudad Juárez, c. 1656

And then we went on to El Paso and visited all the missions in the El Paso region. On our first day we didn’t get all the way to El Paso. We stopped at a motel. But the next day we were in El Paso and visited those missions, starting at the bottom with San Elizario, then Socorro,²⁶ and Ysleta.²⁷ The sites of the others that were out there, there’s nothing left of them.

We went to El Paso and stopped overnight in the Seminary of the Franciscans in Mexico, the Province of Santo Evangelio. Mexico City had a seminary up in El Paso at that time. The friar I met there, an old friend of mine with whom I had been corresponding, Father Felipe Cueto, a famous historian from Mexico, was there at the seminary at the time. We stayed at the seminary overnight. The next day we once more visited all those historic sites and missions, then kept on going down to Presidio. At Presidio we visited the sites of those missions.²⁸

Did you go to Our Lady of Guadalupe parish in downtown Juárez?

Drawing by José Cisneros of Friar García de San Francisco de Zúñiga looking at plans for Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Manos del Paso del Norte with his assistant, Friar Gabriel de la Natividad

Of course. We crossed the river and visited Juárez when we were there in El Paso. We crossed one bridge and came back on another.

The very first day before we went up to the seminary, we visited Juárez and saw the old Guadalupe Church. Imagine, the Guadalupe Church had been founded there in sixteen-something [1659]. And the church is still standing there next to the cathedral in Juárez, the old Guadalupe mission.

Drawing by José Cisneros of an Indian with the missions of Isleta, New Mexico; Tortugas, New Mexico; Juárez, Mexico; and Ysleta,Texas, in the background

From El Paso we went down to Presidio, and then we took a little vacation trip. We stayed right along the Rio Grande and went down to the Big Bend National Park. We stayed there overnight. The next day we started for San Antonio, but on the way we made a detour down to Guerrero, Coahuila, the site of San Juan Bautista Presidio and the mission down there.²⁹ The next day we headed home for San Antonio.

Is that on the Mexican side? It's Nuevo Guerrero, isn’t it?

No, that’s another Guerrero. This is the Guerrero in Coahuila. The other Guerrero is down in Tamaulipas. That’s where they built the dam.

You’re talking about the one in Coahuila, not the one in Tamaulipas.

We visited that one [in Tamaulipas] later on. So we visited the San Juan Bautista site, especially the San Bernardo Mission where the church is standing. The church is part of the San Bernardo Mission. But of the other establishments there’s hardly anything left. From there, we went back to San Antonio. That was our first expedition.

Ruins of San Bernardo Mission north of Guerrero, Coahuila, Mexico

How long did the trip take you, Father?

Four days.

All that in four days? You really moved.

On the second expedition, we left San Antonio and traveled through Austin, where those eastern missions were that were later transferred to San Antonio. The missions were there for a short period in 1730. We went through Austin up to the San Xavier River, now called the San Gabriel River. We visited the sites of the San Xavier Missions.³⁰

The ones that were built for the Apaches?

Right. Well, not just for the Apaches but for all kinds of tribes. Querétaro College started those missions. They didn’t last long. One the padres was murdered there—Father Joseph Francisco de Ganzábal. He had been a missionary here in the Concepción Mission.³¹

Two of those missions were later moved to San Marcos and to the Guadalupe River, [near] the present New Braunfels, so they were at different sites. We went to the ones at New Braunfels and San Marcos; the one after that was San Xavier Horcasitas.³² So we visited those and then on to East Texas. We visited the sites of the two earliest missions³³ and then the subsequent missions,³⁴ the three of the Querétaro College at those places. They’re north- northwest of Nacogdoches. Then we reached Nacogdoches and stayed there overnight. We took the best of the vacant spots in one of those places where you stay overnight with a car?

Motel?

Motel. We stayed there overnight. Then the next day we went on and visited the sites of the three Zacatecas missions in East Texas. There was one in Nacogdoches, of course, the Guadalupe Mission there. Then the next one, San Augustine.³⁵ And then we crossed the Sabine River over into Louisiana. Los Adaes was the capital of Texas for half a century.

Is there anything left of Los Adaes?

Nothing. But they have a little monument, a marker, there near the town of Robeline, Louisiana, a little marker that Louisiana put up. There’s no marker for the mission;³⁶ it’s a shame. Later on, I wrote a letter to the governor of Texas, Governor Connally, and a letter to the governor of Louisiana. I proposed to the two governors to get together and put up a decent monument for the first capital established there in Robeline, Louisiana. Governor Connally was in favor of it, but the other governor—I don’t think my letter even got to him. I don't think it even got beyond the governor's secretary. I got a reply, "Oh, there's one there," but it doesn't amount to much.

Too bad.

So then we had to get back into Texas. We went all the way down to the mouth of the Trinity River, where there was this other mission, the place that the Indians called Orcoquisac. There was a presidio near the mouth of the Trinity River. We went to a place called Anahuac. That’s where the site was for the mission.³⁷ They were not too far apart.

Did they have historical sites at both places? Orcoquisac and Anahuac?

We found no markers. On our return from Anahuac, we went to Houston and stayed there overnight at the home of Pete’s parents.

On the way, we passed a place where there was a marker.³⁸ We didn’t get out of the car; the traffic was too heavy.

Drawing by José Cisneros of Father Alonso Benavides celebrating Mass at an early mission, c. 1629

The presidio at the mission was not far away, on Garcitas Creek, according to Dr. Bolton. So we wandered around in that area until we got to a place called La Salle. That is as close as we got to the first site of the presidio. From there we went on to the town called Bloomington, south of Victoria. In 1936 they had put up a monument there, a marker, as the second site of the mission³⁹ and the presidio of La Bahía. However, that has been questioned or denied. It is claimed that the second site was in Mission Valley, north of Victoria. However, in my opinion–-this is my idea–-even after Monsignor Oberste made a survey of all that area by airplane, he thinks Mission Valley was the second site. Mrs. [Kathryn] O’Connor thinks Mission Valley was the second site. My idea is this: after the misfortune where the Indians rose up against the Spaniards at the first site—one of the Indians was shaking out a blanket, and one of the soldiers got mad and went after the Indian, and there was an insurrection there at La Bahía—they moved away, first from the mission, then later on in the year 1726, from the presidio.

Native American pictograph of a mission

Now, in the accounts it says that the missionary padre from the second site of the mission continued to take care of the soldiers at the presidio at the first site for half a year. If this second site had been up there in Mission Valley, that would have been eighty miles, and the padre surely didn’t travel eighty miles occasionally to visit the soldiers at the presidio on Garcitas Creek. I think that’s a convincing argument. According to the accounts, too, it seems that the second site was much closer. They were near the Gulf; the reports speak of being near the Gulf.

So my idea is that the second site was at Bloomington, as they called it in 1936, but only temporarily, only for a short time. Then they moved up to Mission Valley; that became the third site. From Mission Valley, the presidio and the mission were moved down to present Goliad. That’s my opinion.

So we visited all those places—Mission Valley to Victoria and then to Goliad. They have restored the presidio there. Mrs. [Kathryn] O’Connor restored that. And there is a church and the mission that is supposed to be a sort of replica of the last church that they built at that mission. Of the Rosario mission,⁴⁰ there are still some foundations left.

From Goliad we went down to Refugio, which had three different sites. In the present town of Presidio, there is a church built on the spot of the former Refugio mission. Monsignor William Herman Oberste was the priest in charge there at that church. He’s the one who wrote this history of the Refugio Mission⁴¹—a very good piece of work. And since then, in his old age as a retired priest down in Corpus Christi, he has produced another manuscript on these Gulf Coast missions. He got an award, the [Presidio] La Bahía award, two years ago, and I think that, though he didn’t expect it, he’s going to get a publisher for the book.

We visited these missions in the Gulf Coast area and then went back home to San Antonio. That was the end of the second expedition.

Was there a third expedition?

There was a third expedition. We visited the lower Rio Grande. No, there were no real missions on the lower Rio Grande comparable to those in Texas. However, after the establishment of Nuevo Santander, there were four towns on the Mexican side of the river that were established. In three of the towns, there was a separate mission. And these towns, these villas, and the missions were governed by the padres from Zacatecas College, too. These towns were Guerrero, the old Guerrero, which originally was called Reynosa.

Reynosa was further down the river. There were about five towns on the south bank.

In 1749 there were four towns established.

Reynosa, Camargo, Revilla, Mier. And the fifth one, on the north bank, was Laredo.

Yes, and there was Dolores, too.

The little ranch settlement of Dolores, right?

But those were on the Texas side. They were real Texas-Spanish settlements—Dolores and Laredo. But the others were in Mexico.

Revilla.

Revilla was the present Guerrero, or New Guerrero. Revilla, then Mier, then Camargo, then Reynosa [Old Guerrero]. We visited all those Mexican towns. The reason was....

What was the Franciscan influence on those settlements, Father?

They took care of the spiritual needs of the settlers in all of those towns. And at the same time they worked on the Indians in that area to make them Christians, see?

So, the Franciscan fathers had two tasks: to take care of the civilian settlers and at the same time to try to Christianize the surrounding Indians. Is that true?

Drawing by José Cisneros of a Franciscan friar conducting a youth choir

That was by way of exception. The colleges ordinarily did not take care of the Spanish settlements. But incidentally, by way of exception, they did. Even in Texas, the padres took care of the settlers in San Fernando occasionally, you see. They had a diocesan priest in charge, but they helped out there in the parish church of San Fernando and in the presidio. In that one on Garcitas Creek, the original La Bahía, one of the missionaries was appointed the official chaplain of the presidio there, by way of exception.

But, anyhow, the reason for our visits to those places was the fact that the Rio Grande was not a boundary at that time. Those towns really extended across the river into Texas. They had ranches and farms on the other side of the river. And so those Mexican towns actually went into Texas. These Texas establishments, these ranches, were not real villas [towns], but they were ranches on the Texas side, and we can count them as visitas, places that were visited by the missionaries. They administered to the people living on those ranches and the Indians that were there, who worked on the ranches. So we had those four towns with their extensions on the Texas side plus the two villas farther up—Dolores and Laredo.

Native American pictograph of a padre

And there was a third villa, or town, Palafox, which was established in 1810 and did not last very long. It came to ruin because of the attacks of hostile Indians.

We tried to reach the site of Palafox. There are ruins still at Palafox. When we were at Laredo, we went up to Palafox, but we couldn’t get in the ranch there—the gates were locked. Besides, we didn’t have permission to go in. But, anyhow, we got near the spot of Palafox. Later on, we made further investigations and were able to get in there and take pictures and so on.

I suppose you know that Miss Carmen Perry wrote a beautiful book on the documents they found in Laredo. [She] put them together and translated them. The book was published by St. Mary’s University here in San Antonio.

Father, when did you return from your third trip? How long was this one?

That was just two days. We stayed overnight in Brownsville. And, of course, we went across to Matamoros. In Matamoros they had archives on the Texas missions. Monsignor Oberste found papers over in Matamoras.

Whereabouts in Matamoros?

I don’t know, but he did find in Matamoros papers on the Refugio Mission—the Gulf Coast mission—in church records they found there. Some of them were removed over there.

Monsignor Oberste did not say whether they were at a church or a convent or part of the civil records?

I don’t know. Maybe there is mention of it in his book,The History of the Refugio Mission. I think there is. Just where he found them, I don’t know. It’s an interesting thing that he found them over in Matamoras. Or someone found them, or he got hold of them or learned about them.

Father, you made three trips through Texas, parts of Louisiana, and the northern Mexican frontier to better acquaint yourself with the Texas missions. All of this, of course, reinforced your own research and made it easier for you to write more convincingly in your own mind, I’m sure. Let me ask you this before I go on: was there another expedition or were there just three?

There were a lot of shorter expeditions.

Why don’t you give us an account of number four.

Well, you could call it expedition number four and five. For instance, we went down to Las Cabras, the ranch.

Down by Floresville. Yes.

Mission Espada’s ranch. It has been proved now that it was really the ranch of the Espada Mission.⁴² That was my idea that it was the Espada ranch. The other mission, San Juan Capistrano,⁴³ had a ranch too, farther south, the Mora ranch. We learned that from a diary that one of the missionaries wrote, the Narvais diary. That’s the Narvais, the pen name of Father Vasconcelos,⁴⁴ who wrote the diary; he was one of the Texas missionaries.

Drawing by José Cisneros of a Franciscan friar with long-horned cattle in the background

Whereabouts did you consider the location of La Mora ranch to be?

I made a map.…

It is further south than Las Cabras, you said.

Just a little farther south, yes.

In that general direction?

Oh, yes. It was on the road from San Antonio to Goliad to La Bahía. There was a whole array of ranches. I made a map, and it was published in the El Campanario book. There were a lot of private ranches between San Antonio and La Bahía in the latter part of the Spanish period. So that was one expedition.

Chapel of La Bahía Mission in Goliad, Texas

Another one coincided with a meeting of TOMFRA, Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association. (Their bulletin is El Campanario. I contributed articles on all the missions of Texas; a whole series of articles appeared in the first nine volumes of El Campanario. These, by the way, are published in book form, all the first nine volumes of El Campanario.) They had a meeting over in San Angelo. So we went up to San Angelo for the meeting. Bishop [Stephen A.] Leven was there. And he asked me about a mission there, and I said, “No, you haven’t a mission here. That was just an expedition that the Spaniards made in this area.”

Afterward, I got to thinking this over. “Wait a minute. Maybe they did establish a mission.” And when I got back home, I found out there was a mission at San Angelo after all, one we had overlooked. We had simply counted it among the expeditions of the Spaniards. [Established] in 1632, that was the first mission in Texas. The missionaries from New Mexico came all the way down to San Angelo to the confluence of the three Concho Rivers. There’s the Middle Concho, and the North Concho, and the Concho. And that’s where San Angelo is. There was a mission there for six months, and the Indians there were the Jumanos.

Native American pictograph of a Spanish mission

They were the ones that had been instructed by Mother Ágreda.⁴⁵ They sent a delegation to Isleta, the oldest mission in New Mexico. In fact the missionaries had come down to their territory and established missions there. They were instructed in the Christian faith. Where did they get it? The story of Mary Ágreda [the Lady in Blue] cannot be dismissed as a legend at all. The historical fact is too convincing.

Anyhow, the missionaries did make two trips down to San Angelo. On the second trip, one of the missionaries stayed there. He stayed there for six months, and then, it seems, he went back to New Mexico. It was too far away. Imagine that distance from Isleta, New Mexico, to San Angelo, Texas—five hundred miles or so?

The missionaries were coming out of the El Paso area, not the Santa Fe area.

The missionaries from New Mexico belonged to the Provincia de Santo Evangelio in Mexico. They didn’t belong to the colegios⁴⁶ at all.

Drawing by José Cisneros of a friar, a soldier, and an Indian arriving to establish the first town of the new Mexico

As part of the New Mexico province, then?

Of the Mexico City Province. It had its dependent branch in New Mexico, which they called a custodial of New Mexico, that included Northern Arizona.

Was that during the administration of Father Nicolás López?⁴⁷

López? New Mexico?

In El Paso.

Oh, in El Paso. López went there after they were driven out of New Mexico [during the Pueblo Revolt]. And López is the one who went down to the other territory, to Presidio, where there also were Jumano Indians.⁴⁸ They called them Julimes Indians at the time, but they were Jumanos, too. The Jumano Indians were traders, bison hunters, and [they] moved around all over Texas. Their summer home was around San Angelo, and their winter home down in the Presidio area. They called it La Junta de los Rios, the confluence of the Mexican Concho and the Rio Grande.

Drawing by José Cisneros of Agustín Rodríquez, O.F.M., with Friar Juan de Santa María and Father Francisco López in the El Paso region, c. 1581

That’s very interesting, Father, about San Angelo. Would you say the historical origins of the name of San Angelo, Texas, rests with that mission?

No. I suppose that name came later on. It had no connection with the first mission. It didn’t even have a special name; it was just there for six months. We don’t know of any special name; we don’t know of any name that was given to it. We called it San Angelo Mission. You can put it in quotation marks, “San Angelo Mission.”

We’re not quite so sure where they got the name San Angelo?

No. I guess you could find out when the town was established. That was sometime later in the nineteenth century. It doesn’t mean that the mission had that name at all.

Did I mention that other Jumano mission? I think I forgot it. They went down to Presidio and established those missions down there.⁴⁹ From Presidio, they traveled all the way up to the San Angelo region where the missionaries had been a half century earlier. At the confluence of the Colorado and the Concho Rivers, they had a little mission there for one and a half months. So there were two missions among the Jumanos in the San Angelo area. We counted that one in our list, you see, that one-and-a-half-month mission. Now we found one that lasted six months; we certainly should add that one to the list. So instead of thirty-six missions, we had thirty-seven, thirty-seven including the one in Louisiana.

And then we found another mission.

Where was this, Father?

The last one, number thirty-eight. That is the mission of Santa María de las Caldas over in the El Paso region between San Elizario and Socorro. Santa María de las Caldas existed from 1730 until 1749, almost two decades. The man who discovered that mission is the Jesuit (sic) Father Espinosa in El Paso. The Jesuit historian Father Ernest Burrus found that in the records. And this is the only mission in Texas that was not in the hands of the Franciscans. The Bishop appointed one of his own diocesan priests to take care of that new mission for Santa María de las Caldas.

Drawing by José Cisneros of a friar and an Indian near Socorro and Ysleta, c. 1682

That’s very interesting, Father. Let me ask you one more thing: in your book you talk about the five missions—the Alamo Chain of Missions—and you talk about the five missions of San Antonio. In your other book, San Antonio’s San José Mission, you speak quite extensively and eloquently of San José Mission. What are your impressions of Mission San [Francisco] Xavier de Nájera, Father? You don’t go into much of that. Maybe you can give us some of your thinking, orally.

I had put together what I could find about it in the book on the Alamo Chain of Missions.

Aguayo⁵⁰ came to reconquer the East Texas missions. They had been abandoned in 1719, when the French attacked Los Adaes Mission and the Spaniards fled to San Antonio. Aguayo went back and reestablished them in 1721. One of the leaders of the Aguayo expedition was an Indian. He [the Indian] was anxious about his people who occupied the territory, had their rancherias there, somewhere between the East Texas missions and San Antonio. He wanted a mission for his Indians, too. And Aguayo promised to establish that mission, to bring them down to San Antonio to the San Antonio River to establish a mission for them. And he did.

San José y San Miguel de Aguayo Mission

After he had been in the East, he came back, and he did establish that mission. But it never got beyond the beginning stage. Some of the Indians did come, but then they weren’t satisfied, and they went back home to their rancherias farther east. They tried to persuade them to join the Indians in San Antonio de Valero, but they wouldn’t do that either, so San Francisco de Nájera,⁵¹ as it was called, was abandoned.

Indian pictograph of a mission

Actually, I counted them among the thirty-eight missions. San Francisco de Nájera was intended to be a full-fledged, independent mission. Actually, it amounted to a visita,⁵² an asistencia, because Father González, who was at San Antonio de la Valero,⁵³ took care of San Francisco de Nájera as long as it existed. But he kept separate records for San Francisco de Nájera.

So you call it more of a visita, then?

Asistencia.

Now, if that was the case, Father, there’re two things that we could possibly speculate about at San Francisco de Nájera: first, regarding the extent of foundations and structures of that mission and, secondly, the site. Let’s take the second part first. Where do you think it was located?

Well, among the secondary sources that I consulted, we find that they say it was on or near the site where later on the Mission Concepción⁵⁴ was established. That’s as close as I could get.

What was the extent of construction that would be made for a visita, a training center of this lower type?

There were only primitive buildings that they were able to put up in those days. They existed only for a few years, primitive buildings. I don’t see how you could find ruins–-an archaeologist would be able to find the remnants of that establishment, San Francisco de Nájera.

There is a marker on Mission Road for San Francisco de Nájera, but that’s pretty far down, away from Concepción. According to what I have read and found, the mission was closer to Concepción.

Father, one more thing I’d like to ask you is this. During the course of our visit, you have mentioned some people that demonstrated a certain amount of interest in the San Antonio missions. I know in my speaking to you on the occasion of the Mission Research Conference, you mentioned another one, namely John Francis Bannon. Here is the list of some of the people I’ve noted that you’ve been bringing to our attention—men, of course, of your caliber, like Herbert Eugene Bolton; Dr. Castañeda from Austin; John Francis Bannon, whom you talked about earlier; Monsignor Oberste from the Corpus Christi area; Father Steck from Washington [D.C.]; and our own Father Ben Leutenegger. You mentioned also Carmen Perry.

Now, when we talk about these people, we’re talking about people who—some, of course, more than others but certainly all of them—had an intense interest in the Spanish Southwest, Spanish Texas, and the Spanish missions. Could you by way of a kind of a “historigraphical” résumé—you know these people pretty well, and I’m sure you know others as well—can you comment on these people as your friends, fellow scholars, as people who have worked alongside of you over this period of time? First of all, what sort of man was this Castañeda, Carlos Eduardo Castañeda?

Well, I met him only a few times, but I got the impression that he was a very meticulous investigator. He certainly was able to read those Spanish documents well. His series of books, the seven-volume history, in that work we find summaries of those various documents that he had which were available to him, and they are quote summaries. But we still sometimes have to go back to the original documents. There are some slight errors in his great work. That’s to be expected; you can’t expect a man who has gone through all those hundreds of documents not to make a single mistake. There is a mistake that says that Father Mariano de los Dolores y Viana was at a meeting in 1769 here in San Antonio; the date was 1759. Probably a typographical error, but it misled me. When I made a sketch of Father Mariano de los Dolores y Viana, I said, “Darn it, he couldn’t have died in 1763 because he was at this meeting in 1769; how could he have died in 1763?” Well, it was '59; he did die in 1763. That’s a correction that I made in my revised edition of The Alamo Chain of Missions.

Then there is that famous report of Father Ortiz,⁵⁵ Francisco Javier Ortiz, of the visitation he made to the San Antonio missions. Castañeda didn’t know about it; he couldn’t find it; he didn’t have the documents, the original documents. The original documents haven’t been found to the present date. But that report of his was printed in Mexico in the very year in which he made the visitations. The Alamo Mission library has found that printed report of Father Ortiz when he visited the Querétaro missions in 1756. And he is the one who tells us when the church of Concepción was completed, dedicated.

Drawing by José Cisneros of a Franciscan in a church belfry

Archbishop [Robert E.] Lucey on one occasion asked me, “Can you find out when that church was completed and dedicated?” I didn’t know at the time, but I said, “I hope to find out something,” and I did in that report of Father Ortiz at the Alamo Mission Library. And I owe it to that librarian at the Alamo Mission, who knew that was there and put it in front of me. She said, “Here is a report on the missions.” Carmen Perry translated that report when she was at St. Mary’s University. The translation hasn’t been published. It should be at St. Mary’s University. It should be published, I think, the report of Father Ortiz. It’s a facsimile of the original printed report, the old type they had at that time.

Father, would you say that any serious researcher of Spanish Texas must start off with Castañeda to get himself oriented, you might say? Point him in the direction of his own specialty?

Yes, certainly. That is important. And you simply can’t go through the books and read. You’ve got to relate things and read over and over. I did. I read Castañeda many times, not just one time but many times. And every time I’d find something new or some connection with something else.

There was a man by the name of William Dunn who was a protégé of Herbert Eugene Bolton. He was quite active at the University of Texas in transcripts and translations.

He made transcripts in Mexico and in Spain.

Did you ever run across him?

I never met the man.

But you are aware of his works, aren’t you?

We are benefiting by his work, his transcripts, sure.

If I may add, you were talking about people who were interested in the Texas missions. There’s a young man here in San Antonio right now who is immensely interested. And you know who I mean?

Richard C. Garay.

He’s been corresponding with me for some time. He is so anxious to do something. Richard has never had any higher education. He did go to high school to the seminary with the Vincentians⁵⁶ in Houston for a year, and then he was with the Irish Capuchins⁵⁷ in California for three years. So he had a high school education, but he never went to college. But he is a very serious investigator. I was surprised; I was amazed. There’re possibilities of that young man going somewhere.

That’s good. I’m interested to hear that. We have to know that for the missions, the National Park Service. Let me ask you, Father. You mentioned the importance of William Dunn’s transcripts. Those of us who have used them would have to concur with you. What sort of impression can you give us of Father John Francis Bannon, who was at Berkeley about the time that you were out there studying under Bolton?

Yes. There were two Jesuits there; I forget the name of the other one. The other one remained in California. We were good friends; we met just a few times. We traveled on the train between San Francisco and Berkeley several times. He is a man who was very capable, I think. He did a great deal of work on the history of the Spanish borderlands.

You mentioned Monsignor Oberste several times.

Yes.

The historian of Spanish Texas and particularly of the missions in East Texas and close to Corpus Christi and also the Irish immigrants in Texas. Can you tell us something about Monsignor Oberste? What are some of your impressions of him?

He did this as a sort of hobby, I think. He was the diocesan priest for the diocese of Corpus Christi. He was raised to the rank of monsignor. He spent all his life as a priest, not only as a priest, but as a historian, too, I think. That was his occupation whenever he had some extra time—examining documents and trying to gather together the history of that area, what I call the Gulf Coast missions: La Bahía, Rosario, and Refugio. He also wrote a very excellent book, that history of the Refugio missions, an excellent history.

Aerial photograph of the ruins of the Rosario Mission at Goliad, Texas

How about Father Steck?

Father Steck.

You seem to have a lot of pleasant memories of Father Steck.

Yes. He was a good conferee of mine. I worked with him for a while. But his attention, his interest, was divided. You see, he was interested in Spanish America, very much so, but he also was interested in New France, the French area of North America. He carried on quite a controversy about Father Marquette. Did you know that? He claimed that Marquette was not a priest, that he was only a cleric, that he never was ordained a priest, that there was no evidence that he was ordained a priest.

Jesuit seminarian in major orders? Minor orders?

Minor orders, not major orders. The Jesuits did send such seminarians into the missions in those days and at other times, too. So he may be right on that. He wrote all kinds of things on that question. Some of the publications were published in bibliography form. But he had quite a controversy with the Jesuit historians.

There was a Father Boris. Maybe that’s the same one in El Paso, I’m not sure. I just recall there was a Father Boris. He tried to refute or defend Father Marquette as a priest. Anyhow, he published a book, a special book, but I forget the exact title. You see, after Father Steck had been at the university in Washington, he went back to Quincy College and was a teacher there for a while.

 He had a wonderful library that he got together during his lifetime—Spanish-American history, especially the Borderlands.

Father, you mentioned that the Catholic hierarchy had contact with him earlier, on the possibility of writing a history of the Catholic Church in Texas, the job that was later given to Castañeda, resulting in seven volumes on Catholic Texas. Can you tell us something about when and why Father Steck was selected by the bishops of Texas to write this book and what led to his almost taking the job?

Actually, he did start out on this project. He wrote some articles, which were very good. He had the reputation at that time of being an authority on Spanish America. And that’s the reason that the people here in Texas—it was a Knights of Columbus commission, I think—engaged his services. There was a Father Foik [Dr. Paul J.], who was contributing to this project at the time. They recognized him as an authority, and so they thought this is a good man to write the history of Texas, and I think he would have been if he had continued.

But he got the offer of a professorship at the Catholic University. They were anxious to get him up there, so he accepted that offer. He gave up the Texas project.

Father, one last question: what do you think is the future of the San Antonio missions as you see them now? Secondly, what areas of research do you recommend that we follow up? What would be your advice to us as we come to the end of this tape? What would you tell us?

Well, it would be a continuation of what we started, I think. You know, Father Ben has started his documentary series.

Tell us about Father Ben, Father Ben and his work. Father Ben is a modest man who works hard and diligently. We all know that. Tell us something about him, Father.

He was very much interested in the history, the story, the biography of Father Antonio Margil. He translated the biography by Ríos. It was written in Mexico, published in Mexico. He translated that into English, and it was published by the Academy of History in Washington. Then he became the vice-postulator for the cause of Father Margil after it was dormant for a while. He came to San Antonio in 1970. And then he became a corrector of documents and translator of documents. That’s his specialty—the translating of the documents. He is not drawing the conclusions from the documents or rescinding the data from the documents, but he is devoting himself entirely to just translating those documents into English and publishing them in the documentary series of which six⁵⁸ have appeared now.

I cooperated with him as a historian to make these documents understandable to research students by writing introductions and notes to the documents.

The books are excellent, Father. We’re coming to the end of this tape. I want you to know that we really appreciate your time; that we will deposit this tape in the special library of the National Park Service here in San Antonio.