Mission San Jose

Greetings! 

My name is Friar Francisco de Confiable , but you can call me Paco. I serve the Catholic Church here in this new land known as Tejas. I'm told that you have been sent here by his Lord the Marqués de Rubi to inspect our mission and to determine if we are to be funded by the Spanish crown. I will not lie to you, living in this wretched land has been difficult, but we have made progress saving the souls of the indigenous people we have found here.  Let me give you a tour of our humble mission and you can decide for yourself what you'll recommend in your report. Follow me! 

Our mission is named San José y San Miguel de Aguayo, or Mission San Jose for short. We are one of five Spanish missions to be built in the area, with the first, Mission San Antonio de Valero just five miles to north. Why were we founded you ask? Well that's a great question! You see our crown's enemy, the French had originally tried to claim this land 50 years ago in 1684. Yet, they had done so by mistake! By the time our brave Spanish soldiers reached the French settlement on the coast, all they found was bones and a few children the local native people took captive. Well, the Spanish soldiers also found a group of friendly natives they called the Tejas, or as we later learned their actual tribal name was the "Caddo." These people lived east of here and the Spanish enlisted my Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church to establish missions there. We started calling the land Tejas!  

Well as you probably already know, those missions failed as they were not welcomed by the Caddo and were in constant need to be resupplied. After a brief fight with the French in 1719 known as the "Chicken War", all of the East Tejas missions were abandoned and the few native converts and missionaries relocated here along the San Antonio river. 

Our mission was founded soon after in 1720. Our goal was to convert the local native population along the San Antonio river as well as being a waystation for supply caravans. You see, supply wagons often stop here on their way to the now reopened East Texas missions. Yet, the Caddo people who live there have all but abandoned mission life, and the Church struggles there.