Description
The turning point used to be the San Sabá Mission disaster and the ensuing military campaign to punish the Indians responsible. In 1758, the mission, near present-day Menard, used to be destroyed with the loss of several lives, including two of the missionaries, lower than a year after its founding. In The San Sabá Mission Robert S. Weddle examines the factors that led to this tragedy and its influence at the reshaping of frontier policy, in addition to the residual effects not only at the immediate Spanish settlements but at the area’s development as a whole.
Weddle’s book offers a gripping account of the presidio’s role in the episode, drawing on archival sources, including correspondence of missionaries and military officers with their superiors in Mexico. Weddle analyzes the consequences of the mission-to-settlement system and concentrates at the military aspects of the mission, noting that after the religious mission used to be abandoned, the presidio served later as the base for the strongest Spanish military expedition against Indians in Texas and probed territory as far west as the Pecos River.
The San Sabá Mission recounts probably the most most sensational events in Spanish-Texas history in an intriguing and entertaining voice. A new introduction to this 1964 classic describes the findings of archaeologists after the mission web page, not in the past known, used to be came upon and excavated in the early 1990s. This volume stands as a valuable resouce in the canon of Texas history.