The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 36, July 1932 - April, 1933 Page: 15
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Forerunners of De Leon's Expedition to Teacas
boy of the Quezale Indians, who was a captive, they said that after
two days they would come to see me."
The Giorna kept their promise. "Those of the rancheria where
I was staying," the missionary writes, "went out to receive them,
all daubed with paint. They performed a dance for them, which
is a sign of peace; and they exchanged bows and arrows for
greater security of peace." On the following day, with the aid
of an interpreter, Pefiasco spoke to the Giorna Indians about God
and told them about the king of Spain. He exhorted them to
form settlements and to live in peace and friendship with their
neighbors. Finally he assured them that the missionaries, to
quote from his letter, "were sent by God and by his majesty in
order to protect them against the Spaniards83 and to instruct them
in our holy Catholic faith."
"I got on so well with them," Pefiasco continues, "that I won
over more than three hundred of them, while seventy others re-
mained with some sick in order that, when these were restored to
health, they might come to the settlement, where we have at dis-
tances of two, three, five, and seven leagues more than three thousand
and two hundred Indians." With this summary statement, he con-
cludes the account of his journey. Whether the above-mentioned
seventy Indians ever came to Santa Rosa is not known. The
other three hundred of the Giorna, however, together with the
Manosprietas accompanied Father Pefiasco on his return to the
Rio de las Sabinas where they doubtless received a cordial wel-
come from Father Larios and the Indians settled there. It is
important to add that among the Indians whom Pefiasco met on
this occasion and took with him to Santa Rosa were some of the
Tejas tribe.34 Consequently, more than a decade before Father
8"Here Pefiasco adds parenthetically: "for whom they have a notable
abhorrence on account of the knowledge they have of the tyrannies they
[the Spaniards] practice on those in the country beyond." This is a frank
statement and largely true to fact. Past abuses practiced on the Indians,
in defiance of protecting laws of Spain, by unscrupulous individuals and
petty government officials was one of the obstacles that hampered the
work of Father Larios and his fellow missionaries in northern Coahuila
at this time.
"This fact, not stated in Pefiasco's letter, we gather from the testimony
officially rendered sixteen years later at Saltillo. The occasion for this
testimony was the investigation, conducted by the alcalde mayor of Sal-
tillo, incidental to the controversy that arose between the Franciscan
Province of Jalisco and the Franciscan Missionary College of Queretaro
over Father Massanet's founding of Mission Santiago, in Coahuila, one
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 36, July 1932 - April, 1933, periodical, 1933; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101093/m1/23/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.