The Spanish government, acting on the governor-general’s advice, ordered
four hundred families to be sent out to the New Philippines from the
Canary Islands. These islands, situated off the coast of Africa,
belonged to Spain by right of conquest, and were settled by Spaniards of
pure blood, noted for their honor and chastity, and for their devotion
to the Catholic religion. Of the four hundred families only thirteen
ever came. They reached San Antonio by way of Mexico in 1729, bringing
with them their stores of clothing, silverware, and jewels. They built
their dwellings around the present square of the Constitution, which
they called _Plaza de las Islas_ (Square of the Islands), in homesick
memory of the sea-girt isles they had left behind.
Other colonists from Monterey and from Lake Teztuco, in Mexico,
followed; houses sprung up beside the musical water-ways; vines were
trained over the yellow adobe walls; semi-tropical vegetation made a
paradise of the spreading fields and gardens. Finally, the newcomers,
emulous of the growing walls of San José, laid on their plaza the
foundation (1731) of San Fernando Church.
Enlarged and rebuilt on the same spot, San Fernando remains to this day
the parish church of the Spanish-speaking Catholics of San Antonio.
But the settlers, or townspeople—as they may now be called—were full of
anxiety in those troublous times. No more French soldiers, it is true,
came riding across the border, chasing the Spanish troops to their very
gates. But there were the Apaches and the Comanches. For in spite of the
efforts of Spanish friars and Spanish soldiers, but few of the Apaches
and Comanches had become _Indios reducidos_ (converted Indians).
Thousands of _Indios bravos_ (wild Indians), as savage and cruel as if a
mission had never been built, roamed the country, ready to swoop down at
any moment upon the ill-guarded little post. A messenger would hurry in,
perhaps from the missions below, which kept ever a keen lookout,
breathless with the news that the Apaches were creeping stealthily upon
the town. Or, suddenly and without warning, a ringing war-whoop would
echo in the air, and leaping from cover to cover among the scattered
houses, the Comanches, tomahawk in hand, would pursue their hapless
victims to some last hiding-place; then, leaving death and desolation
behind, they would vanish as suddenly as they had come.
At last the new settlers determined to put an end to this state of
affairs. They organized themselves into a small army, and aided by the
little garrison of soldiers then stationed there, they marched against
their Indian foes, whom they defeated in a pitched battle.
[Illustration: THE MISSION OF LA PURISSIMA CONCEPCION.]
This victory (in 1732) gave some security to the place. The _Indian
bravos_ still harried the country, killing those who ventured far from
post and mission, and plundering where they could not kill. A number of
years later (1752), after a fresh quarrel with the miners at Las
Almagras, they fell upon the Mission of San Saba, and butchered every
human creature within its walls. But rarely did they again venture near
the dwellings of those determined pale-faces who had overcome them on
their own hunting-grounds.