San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo Mission by myrrhluz

Photography • Historical • posted on Feb 07, 2012

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Description

I'm sorry that I haven't been around much lately. Various factors have left me short of time and energy. I've been looking, even if not commenting very often. This was taken at San Jose mission in San Antonio. The following information is directly quoted (with some abridgement) from the article sited at the end. I have several images and I will be quoting excerpts from this article with them. The San Antonio de Valero Mission mentioned in the article is the mission that is now known as the Alamo. "San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo Mission, one of the five Spanish missions in San Antonio, was founded in the early eighteenth century as a result of a shift of missionary effort from East Texas to South Texas. In 1719 war between France and Spain resulted in the temporary withdrawal of Spanish missionaries from the East Texas missions. Father Antonio Margil de Jesus... went to San Antonio, where, on December 26, 1719, he requested that a new mission be founded. The Marques de San Miguel de Aguayo, governor of Coahuila and Texas, responded by issuing a decree on January 22, 1720, which authorized Capt. Juan Valdez... to select a suitable site for the mission. On February 23 Valdez, assisted by Capt. Lorenzo Garcia, presented a large tract of land on the east bank of the San Antonio River to Margil, downstream from San Antonio de Valero Mission. The land was assigned to about 240 Indians from an area not far south of San Antonio...the first bands to reside at the mission. Margil entrusted their care to fathers AgustiÂn Patron and Miguel Nunez de Haro. Nunez moved the mission across the river probably before 1730... After a disastrous epidemic in 1739 reduced the number of Indian inhabitants to forty-nine, the mission was moved to its present location on higher ground, more than one-half mile from the former site. Numerous Indian groups were represented at San Jose. Because the baptismal, marriage, and burial registers-the most reliable sources of information about the identities of Indian inhabitants-are apparently lost, probably no more than half of the groups represented can be identified... Displacement, fragmentation, population decline, and Apache hostility often prompted Indians to seek refuge among the Spaniards. The Spanish themselves-notably through such massive colonization efforts as that of Jose de Escandon-exacerbated the material problems that encouraged the Indians to move to the missions." Gilberto R. Cruz, "SAN JOSE Y SAN MIGUEL DE AGUAYO MISSION," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/uqs23), accessed February 06, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. Thanks for viewing and for previous comments and favs!

Comments (39)

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npauling

6:49PM | Wed, 08 February 2012

A very impressive building with a hard to pronounce name. I like how you have caught the light and shade in this clear shot and thank you too for all the information about it.

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KatesFriend

8:26AM | Sat, 11 February 2012

A really well balanced photo. There is a broad range of light levels in the scene with no over or under exposure. And the array of colours is impressive. All very natural too. Curiously, this building looks like it might have grown out of the earth on its own much like the trees that surround it. Perhaps this is a consequence of it being here so long that nature has adopted it as its own. Thanks for the historical details of this place, its always interesting to trace the origins of a place.

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blondeblurr

9:18AM | Sat, 11 February 2012

Fascinating bit of history and also an extremely well build Mission, in the old European architectural style - I've learned something new today and thanks for sharing this with us here ... BB

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