Mission San Francisco de la Espada Bexar Texas United States
Related Events
Showing 2 events out of 2 total
News of the destruction of the French fort "created instant optimism and quickened religious fervor" in Mexico City. (Chipman, Donald E. (1992), Spanish Texas, 1519–1821, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press).
Spain has learned a great deal about the geography of Texas during the many expeditions in search of Fort Saint Louis.
Alonso De León in March 1690 leads an expedition to establish a mission in East Texas.
Mission San Francisco de los Tejas is completed near the Hasinai village of Nabedaches in late May, and its first mass is conducted on June 1.
Spain appoints the first governor of Texas, General Domingo Terán de los Ríos, on January 23, 1691.
On his visit to Mission San Francisco in August, Terán discovers that the priests have established a second mission nearby, but are having little luck converting the natives to Christianity.
The natives regularly steal the mission cattle and horses and show little respect to the priests.
When Terán leaves Texas later this year, most of the missionaries choose to return with him, leaving only three religious people and nine soldiers at the missions.
The group also leaves behind a smallpox epidemic.
The angry Caddo threaten the remaining Spaniards, who soon abandon the fledgling missions and return to Coahuila.
Spain will again ignore Texas for the next twenty years.