The years drifted on, peaceful and sluggish, towards the end of the
eighteenth century. There were few happenings either in San Antonio
itself or in the province, which was at last laid down on the map as
Texas. There was no further dispute concerning boundary lines or
property. Spain was the lawful owner of everything west of the
Mississippi River. For Louis the Fifteenth of France, in 1762, for state
reasons, presented to the King of Spain the handsome French province of
Louisiana. The people of Louisiana were very angry when they
learned—more than a year after the transfer—that they had been handed
over without their knowledge or consent to the hated Spaniard. But Louis
did not trouble himself in the least about what they thought or felt.
Thus, the colonists being all Spanish subjects, were bound to peace
among themselves. Even the dashing St. Denis, had he lived so long,
could have found nobody to fight except the despised Indian. But that
doughty warrior and courtly gentleman had long since fired his last shot
on the field, and trod his last measure in the dance. According to the
old chroniclers he remained to the end of his life “a devoted friend and
a noble fighter.”
In 1729 a widespread plot was formed among the Indians in Texas and
Louisiana to massacre all white people within reach, Spanish and French,
men, women, and children. A friendly chief warned St. Denis of the plot.
He gathered his troopers hastily together and rode out of Natchitoches,
where he had continued in command, and in a short time defeated and
scattered the tribes. After this they hated and feared him, but they
looked upon him with awe, believing him to be protected by their own
Manitou.
[Illustration: The Cathedral of San Fernando.]
He was at length killed by the chief of the Natchez Indians. He lies
buried near the town of Natchitoches.
In spite of the peace between Spain and France (1762)—or perhaps because
of it—there was little progress in Texas. Spain forbade her colonists to
trade with other nations; she did not allow them to manufacture anything
that could be made in the mother-country, or to plant anything that
could with profit be sent over from there. They were even forbidden to
trade with their fellow-colonists in Louisiana.[10] Under these hard
conditions settlers came in slowly. Texas remained almost neglected,
peopled only by fierce savages.
But the little town in the southwest had a life of its own. Nearly
everybody who had any business with Texas or Mexico traveled the Old San
Antonio Road laid out by St. Denis in 1714; and all travelers halted at
this lovely oasis in the wilderness. They were always loth to go away.
For there were wonderful _fiestas_ (feasts) in the Churches of the Alamo
and San Fernando, and solemn processions to the grand Missions of
Concepcion and San José; there were stately gatherings in the houses of
the Island Spaniards, and merry boating parties on the blue-green waters
of the river San Antonio. There were gay dances on the plaza at night to
the music of guitar and castanet, and Mexican jugglers throwing balls
and knives by the light of smoking torches. Bands of Mexican muleteers
jingled in from the presidio on the Rio Grande, driving before them
trains of mules loaded with ingots of silver, on their way to
Natchitoches, four hundred miles distant; caravans traveling westward
with bales of smuggled goods crawled lazily through the narrow streets.
There was a continued coming and going of swarthy soldiers and
black-gowned priests, governors, bishops, alcades, and christianized
Indians; among them appeared, now and then, the fair face and wiry form
of the American, the forerunner of that race which was one day to sweep
all the others out of its path and to possess the land.
Once, in 1779, when Spain and England were at war with each other, there
was even more than the usual stir on the Military Plaza. Nearly all the
inhabitants of the town were gathered about the doors of the Church of
the Alamo, where a priest was saying mass. Presently there was a burst
of martial music, and a little company of soldiers came out; their heads
were lifted proudly and their step was firm and assured. A cheer broke
forth from the crowd; the soldiers sent back an answering shout as they
mounted their waiting horses and rode away under the gaudy pennon of
Leon and Castile.
Spain was at this time at war with England, and this handful of fighting
men was the quota of troops furnished by the Spanish province of Texas
to Don Galvez, the commander-in-chief of the army at New Orleans. They
reached Louisiana in time to take an active part in the war and to
rejoice with Galvez over his victories at Natchez, Mobile, and
Pensacola.
In 1794 all the missions were secularized; that is, the control of them
was taken away from the priests and given to the civil authorities. Upon
this, the Missions of San José and Concepcion ceased to be the centers
of activity they had been for nearly a century. San Antonio was shorn of
a part of her glory. The majestic buildings remained, but the pomp and
circumstance of fortress and chapel had forever departed.
III.
NACOGDOCHES.
(1794-1821.)