The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 42, July 1938 - April, 1939 Page: 177
446 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The First Cattle in Texas and the Southwest 177
3,500 horses for the missions on the eastern border.17 By the
time fifteen favored families from the Canary Islands reached
San Antonio, in 1731, the mission ranches there already hlad
numerous cattle. Each family came provided with a yoke of
broken oxen, ten nanny goats and a buck, ten ewes and a ram,
five sows and a boar, five mares and a stallion, and five cows
and a bull.18 Stock-raising became almost the only civilian occu-
pation, despite governmental attempts to enforce farming.
Meantime, the most prolific ranches in Texas were raising cattle
around the Goliad missions farther down the San Antonio River.
The only treatment of any consequence of Spanish ranching in
Texas that has ever been made pertains to these mission ranches.
That study,19 scholarly and delightfully written, is by Charles M.
Ramsdell, Jr. From it are taken the following facts.
Having been established on the Guadalupe River early in the
1720's, the Mission of Espiritu Santo (Holy Ghost) was moved to
the San Antonio River, at Goliad, about 1733. In 1759 it had
4,000 branded cattle; in 1774, 15,000. At the same time it
claimed more unbranded cattle than branded. These unbranded
cattle, more or less under control, for they could be rounded up
and worked with branded animals, were called mesteras (mus-
tangs) and were distinguished from the ownerless and outlaw
cimarrones that ranged on unclaimed territory beyond all control.
Around 1770 the Espiritu Santo claimed 40,000 head of cattle,
branded and unbranded, that ranged between the Guadalupe and
San Antonio rivers, while the neighboring Mission of Rosario
claimed 10,000 branded cattle and 20,000 unbranded cattle,
ranging westward.
Following that date ranching declined rapidly. During the
seven years preceding 1778 the vast herds of the Mission of
Espiritu Santo were rounded up only three times. The Comanches
were out constantly; the Apaches and Lipanes were just as bad.
The resident Indians could not be depended on to work the stock
17"Pefia's Diary of the Aguayo Expedition," translated by Peter P.
Forrestal, Austin, 1935, 57; Castafieda, C. E., Morfi's History of Teas.
Albuquerque, N. M., 1935, 220.
iSCastafieda, C. E., Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, II, 299.
19Spanish Goliad, by Charles M. Ramsdell, Jr., a pamphlet written after
prolonged examination of archives in Mexico City and elsewhere, under
direction of the United States Park Service, which has done extended work
at Goliad. At the present time (December, 1938) the pamphlet is still in
manuscript form, but the Park Service intends to print it.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 42, July 1938 - April, 1939, periodical, 1939; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101107/m1/199/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.