The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905 Page: 302

302 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
this new settlements it was impossible to fulfill these requirements.
There were, as will be seen from the list of Islefios' only thirteen
married men over eighteen years of age-the age of Antonio Rod-
riguez, the youngest member of the first cabildo. Unmarried men
were not eligible. Therefore the number of those available for
election was, at the outset, limited to thirteen. As the younger
men were married the number was gradually increased. But there
were also, as has been shown, other settlers at Bexar when the
Islefios reached that place2-those who had come out with Alarc6n,
1See Appendix II.
2Some of these settlers, or perhaps all of them, were called vecinos
agregados. The term was probably applied first to the colonists who at-
tached themselves to the expeditions of Alarc6n and Aguayo (Espinosa,
Chronica, 149, and Representacion . . . que la Republica de la villa de
San Fernando ... ha puesto a los pies de . . . Rafael Martinez Pacheco,
etc., 1785, page 5, Boxar Archives), and with such significance, it would be
properly applied only to these colonists, to the exclusion of the men
who came independently without military protection in 1715 (Ibid., 4)
Before the villa was founded, however, all these groups were merged into
a single settlement attached to the presidio under the common designa-
tion. In at least one document (Complaint of vecinos agregagdos against
the Islefios for usurpation of privileges, 1745, B6xar Archives.) occurs
the expression vecinos agregados del presidio with apparent reference to
the settlers thus grouped. Later, at the time of the founding of the
villa, or subsequent thereto, they became attached to it, and the term
agregados may have taken on a new meaning in relation to this fact.
(Cf Yoakum, History of Texas, I 393.) It was the intention of the gov-
ernment that the settlers sent out by Alarc6n and Aguayo should, in
accordance with the laws of the Recopilacion, be given lands and paid
salaries for their services as soldiers. (Espinosa, Chronica, 448.) The
lands, however, may not have been assigned. When the Islenos reached
B6xar, they were given lands that had been cultivated by the ancient
settlers of the presidio (Appendix IV), in spite of the fact that the
viceroy, in his instructions for the laying out of the villa, had provided
that the plan should be altered if any of the land intended for the
Islefios were already settled. This would indicate that some of the set-
tlers had merely cultivated the lands, but had never been given titles to
them. (See also Petition of Fr. Benito Hernandez de Sta Anna Presi-
dente de las Misiones de S. Antonio, y San Xavier de la Prova. de Texas,
in Memorias de Nueva Espaia, XXVIII, 131 vta. 133.) In 1745, Don
Pedro Oc6n y Trillo, in a complaint presented to the governor in behalf
of the vecinos agregados, (Against Islefios for usurpation of privileges,
1745, Boxar Archives.) states that the Islefios made proud by the title