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RECENT RESEARCH
from
THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
DEPARTMENT OF RESEARCH AND COLLECTIONS
VOL.1 #2 JULY, 1991
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RECENT RESEARCH
from
THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
DEPARTMENT OF RESEARCH AND COLLECTIONS
VOL.1 #2 JULY, 1991
The University of Texas
Institute
of Texan
Cultures
at San Antoruo
©1991
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CONTENTS
Why Document Communities ..................................... .... ....... ........ .. .................... 1
James C. McNutt
At the Escarpment's Edge: .................................................................................. .
An Initial Report on Excavations at Cueva Corbin
Thomas H. Guderjan
5
Crown Policy, Local Interest and Patterns of Mission Secularization: .. ............. .. 13
The Case of San Antonio de Valero
Gerald E. Poyo
What's in a Label...... ...... .... .................... ............... ....... .. ............. .. ... ................... 23
Laurie Gudzikowski
Mutability ........................................................................................... ......... .. ...... 27
Leah Hill Lewis
Iwonski in Texas .................................................................................................. 33
A Fifteen Year Catalogue Raisonne Upadate
1976-1991
J ames Patrick McGuire
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INTRODUCfION
Recent Research is an internal publication of the Institute of Texan
Cultures. Its purpose is to provide a record of the variety of research
projects carried out by Research and Collections and to afford
researchers and curators a medium in which they can begin to formalize
their thinking about particular topics without seeking expensive and
time-consuming professional or academic publication. The individual
articles are the first steps in shaping and grouping the raw materials of
research toward future Institute projects. They will also eventually serve
as points ofreferenceforotherresearchers and individuals working in the
Institute's collections.
Reference copies of Recent Research are distributed to the various
Institute departments for their use and to other researchers and members
of the university community who may request them.
The topics in this particular issue of Recent Research include direct
reports about specific projects by Guderjan and McGuire, an analytical
treatment of a historical topic by Poyo, and discussions of
interdisciplinary issues by Gudzikowski, Lewis, and McNutt. Once again
I would like to thank Laurie Gudzikowski for her excellent work in
assembling and formatting the reports.
James C. McNutt, Ph.D.
Director
Research and Collections
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WHY DOCUMENT COMMUNITIES?
James C. McNutt
The answer to the question "Why document com­munities?"
is fairly easy.l If we do not record
human endeavors, no evidence will remain to
remind future people of our passing. Making this
assumption about the future comes most readily to
those of us who constantly engage in the process of
finding out about the past, and it sometimes leads
to what others perceive as an exaggerated desire to
save things.
A historian who produces living history exhibits
recently suggested one way to preserve the material
evidence of contemporary life: "Buy a lived-in
home from a nice average family, interview them
for awhile on videotape as they go about their
everyday lives, then put a big Plexiglas dome over
the house and seal it up." Such a procedure would,
he claimed, "be cheaper in the long run, easier on
the site's curators a hundred years from now, and a
lot more realistic. ,,2 He did not specify whether or
not the people and dogs and cats should be allowed
to leave before the dome was sealed.
Of course the videotape and Plexiglas dome solu­tion
to history would solve many of the problems
which future historians will no doubt encounter in
their attempts to recover information about partic­ular
people and settings. All it requires of the
present is that we create local, state, and national
committees to select the people and the sites to be
videotaped and domed. This will be almost as
much fun as watching elections. It could even be
accomplished by lottery and reduce our taxes into
the bargain.
Professional assumptions and humorous possi­bilities
aside, "Why document communities?" is a
serious question that can best be approached by
taking up portions of it in turn. First of all, what
constitutes a community? Were the Jumano Indi­ans
who traded along the Rio Grande valley in the
17th century a "community" comparable to the
inhabitants of San Antonio a century later? Were
either of these groups similar to the Japanese
interned at Crystal City and other locations during
World War II, or to the loggers who lived in the
1
East Texas community of Waterman in the early
days of the 20th century? What about the members
of the various local neighborhood associations, of
the many ethnic organizations? Do consumption
communities and political action conunittees also
count as communities? Street gangs? Migrant
laborers? PTA's?
The answer is generally, yes. The image of a com­munity
as a Dick-and-Jane location having a neat
house with children playing on a green lawn, a car
in the driveway, the postman chatting with Father
smoking his pipe, Mother waving from the front
door, and a church steeple in the background
conforms to a rather narrow and static conception
based on descriptions of small town America in the
mid-20th century. The justification for a much
broader definition of community lies in the fact that
so many different groups of people, no matter how
we try to analyze them, evolve a sense of identity.
They define themselves, and they do so through a
process of creating things that they share within the
group.
Using a shared sense of identity as the central focus
of the term "community" helps to avoid limiting our
understanding with particular standards of time,
place, size, location, kinship patterns, ethnic names
or other categories. The comparison of some
neighborhood associations with Indian hunting and
gathering groups requires flexibility, no doubt; but
it provides also the advantage of preserving--and
this is the key--the self-spoken communication of all
groups of people about themselves.
We might say that communities are groups whose
members provide the same answers to the question
"Who are you?" The caveat to this definition is that
the community exists before anyone ever asks the
question. Jumano Indians did not require the
assistance of a twentieth-century archaeologist to
make a community; nor did slaves on Brazos River
bottom plantations require folklorists or sociolo­gists.
What happens is that groups of people
always answer the question unbidden by creating
language, objects, customs and beliefs of their own.
These things that communities and families and
individuals within communities create are the
tangible evidence of the process of iden tification, of
the vitality of the communities. Documenting
communities, the second portion of the original
question, is the process of collecting this evidence,
and the methods range from the translation of
manuscripts to tape recording interviews, to pho­tography,
to digging with a pick and shovel.
The many forms of documentation have one thing
in common: their distinctiveness from the commu­nity's
own process of creating its identity. The
community exists before the documentation takes
place. This does not mean, by the way, that indi­viduals
and communities cannot undertake deliber­ate
documentation of themselves. One worrisome
outcome of documentation . is the unintended
creation or revival of communities that possessed
no clear identity beforehand. More than one ethnic
group has made the move to formal organization as
a response to researchers engaged in interviewing
individuals or collecting historical data. Communi­ty
studies must increasingly weigh the possibilities
of such "instant communities" as the resources for
documentation encounter ever greater demand.
This leads to the fmal and most important point to
understand as the answer to the question "Why
document communities?" Communities create
themselves and form and disintegrate independently
of documentation. The reason to document com­munities
is that people and the communities they
form are so varied and numerous that we must
record information about them so that we can
communicate with them, and they with us and with
each other. Communicating and comparing the
documentation of one community with others will,
we hope, contribute to the broader understanding
of human society and its dynamics.
2
NOTES
1. These remarks were delivered as the introduction
to a daylong public symposium, "Documenting
Texas Communities," held Jan. 13, 1990 at the
Institute of Texan Cultures.
2. James Deetz, quoted in Jay Anderson, "Almost
Gone: Historic Houses of Our Own Time," in
Patricia Hall and Charlie Seemann, eds., FolkJife
and Museums: Selected ReadinEs (Nashville:
AASLH, 1987), pp. 180-81.
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AT THE ESCARPMENT'S EDGE:
AN INITIAL REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS AT CUEVA CORBIN
Thomas H. Guderjan
10 trod uctioo
This paper is an initial report of the excavation of
the small rock-shelter of La Cueva Corbin near the
Medina and Bexar County border (Figure 1).
Study of the materials excavated from the shelter is
not yet complete. However, it is appropriate that
the excavation and its theoretical context be avail­able
to other researchers.
.Where San Geronimo Creek leaves the Edwards
Plateau and enters the south Texas plains, it cuts a
deep gorge several miles long. Within and around
the canyon, ancient settlement was affected by the
availability of water, lithic raw materials, access to
both environmental regions and a generalized
ecotone.
Occupants of the area have always benefitted from
its ecotonal setting. In a general sense, an ecotone
is where two broad-scale environmental zones join.
Characteristically, an ecotone will have greater
biological mass and diversity than either of the
regions which merge to form it. Ecotones provide
very sensitive indicators of climatic shifts as well.
Relatively minor shifts can have relatively great
impacts on pollen in ecotones. Archaeologists have
argued that human habitation in ecotones parallels
. that of biological communities in that populations
are larger and settlement patterns are more diverse
than in either of the adjacent regions.
Equally interesting is the "oasis" setting of San
Geronimo and other locations along the escarp­ment's
edge. Not only is water more available due
to the springs which existed (and in some cases, still
exist) along the escarpment, but downcutting of the
canyons exposes raw materials for the manufacture
of stone tools as well. These locations provide plant
and water resources which attract other animals to
the oasis. These animals, in turn are easy prey for
human hunters. Previous investigators disagree on
whether such oases were more or less permanent
homes to prehistoric hunters and gatherers or they
5
were simply locations which were frequented by
numerous groups. Regardless, the importance of
oases to the early occupants of Texas has been
recognized for some time (i.e., Shiner 1983, Johnson
and Holliday 1984).
This background, combined with the presence of a
number of known sites, led us to the choice of the
San Geronin1O drainage as a study area to investi­gate
the nature of prehistoric adaptation to the
Edwards Escarpment. This is the first report on
those studies. Additionally, the canyon and its
immediate vicinity have now been surveyed by the
Texas Highway Department (McGraw, personal
communication) and South Texas Archaeological
Association members (Kuykendahl, ms.)
Cueva Corbin
Kit Corbin of San Antonio discovered the site of La
Cueva Corbin 1988 while looking for an appro­priate
unexcavated site, similar in nature to Scorpi­on
Cave. Scorpion Cave had been excavated by a
group of avoca tiona I archaeologists. While a report
of the materials excavated has been published by
Lynn Highley and the excavators (1978), it is clear
that a more professional excavation would have
yielded considerably more information. When
Corbin located the shelter, parts of it had already
been damaged by looting. Further, the in1minent
construction of State Highway 211 near the shelter
made long-term protection nearly in1possible.
The shelter is quite small with a floor area of less
than 20 square meters. Much of the floor is gently
sloping bedrock and has retained no material
relating to artifacts or fill. Today, the shelter is
largely open to the canyon. In the past, however, it
had only a small entrance. Since the deposition of
archaeological materials occurred, a large piece of
the wall which separated the shelter from the
canyon has fallen into the shelter. This has further
restricted the amount of the shelter's deposits which
can be safely investigated.
/
Cueva Corbin
Planview
..,..-----;;', ~--- »
Looters' Trench
Looters' Trench
Unit 3
7 N '- -- -- ,
1 meter
Figure 2. Cueva Corbin, Planview
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Cueva Corbin was excavated in October 1989 by a
team organized by the author. Digging was limited
to approximately three square meters which had
remained intact between the two large looters' pits
(Figure 2).While the primary goal of the work was
to mitigate the impacts of looting before the site
was entirely destroyed, we also had other specific
goals. First, we wanted to obtain biological data
which could be used to develop a chronology of
climatic shifts in the ecotone. Such a chronology
could then be related to changes in human adapta­tion
seen from the survey and related excavations.
Such information would come in the form of
pollen, plant, and faunal remains. Secondly, we
hoped to develop a cultural baseline for the study
area. In the looters' dirt pile, we found numerous
large pieces of debitage and debris left from making
stone tools. As we excavated, it became obvious
that these had all originated from the same level
and, perhaps, resulted from a single stone knapping
event. The opportunity to obtain a detailed view of
stone technology through the reconstruction of
flakes onto the residual cores seemed to be at hand.
Strati grapby
Thirteen distinct strata were present, seven ofwhicb
were occupational layers. At this time, radiocarbon
dates and pollen sample have not yet been pro­cessed.
Therefore, chronological control and
environmental data are not available yet. These
will be reported later when they become available.
Figure 3 shows a profile of Unit 1 which includes
portions of each stratum. The strata are numbered
1-13 with the numbers increasing with depth.
Occupational layers are denoted with an alphabetic
designation following the number. Therefore,
Stratum 5C is the flith layer below the surface and
the third occupational layer.
Stratum 1 consists of loose, unconsolidated and
disturbed material. Like all but one of the other
occupational layers, Stratum 1 is a mixture of
particulate roof-fall and ash. While some artifacts
were recovered from this stratum, they were obvi­ously
mixed with looters' dirt pile and recent histor­ic
artifacts.
Stratum 2A is the most recent certain occupational
layer. A Perdiz point was recovered indicating a
date in the 1200-1500 AD range (Turner and Hester
7
1985). This layer was composed of particulate roof­fall,
ash and other occupational debris.
Stratum 3B marks an important sequence ofevents
in an environmental sense. The stratum is com­posed
of bedded alluvial silts which represent an
enormously increased flow in the San Geronimo
drainage which has not occurred since or, within
the bounds of our information, before. Water in
the canyon reached the height of the shelter en­trance.
This water then intruded into the shelter,
flooding it and leaving behind silts which were
originally swept into the canyon by the flood
waters. While artifacts were recovered from this
stratum, they may have been redeposited from
elsewhere in the cave. The repetition reflected in
the bedded silts would seem to indicate that this
flooding occurred repeatedly.
Stratum 4 reflects a spalling episode during which
the cave was unoccupied. Spalling is the constant
process of flaking of materials from the shelter's
ceiling. The accumulation of spa lis buries evidence
of earlier habitation. We do not know the duration
of each "episode" from its relative thickness due to
possible climate changes which effect the rate of
fall . Radiocarbon will be needed to ascertain dates
and durations ofspalling episodes. No carbon was
recovered from any of the spalling events. How­ever,
pollen samples were.
Stratum 5C is a very thin occupational layer
composed of ash, particulate roof-fall and cultural
debris. In this layer and in looters' dirt pile, we
recovered evidence of a stone knapping event which
will be discussed later. Again, until radiocarbon
assays are completed, we cannot assign a chrono­logical
date to this layer.
Stratum 6 is another spalling episode which seals
all previous deposits.
Stratum 7D is a thin occupational layer composed
of particulate roof-fall, ash and other cultural
debris. Again, no date can be assigned at this time.
Stratum 8 is another spalling episode.
Stratum 9E is another thin, undated occupational
'layer which is composed of particulate roof-fall, ash
and cultural debris.
10 disturbed and/or unconsolidated
2A
20 bedded silts 38 30L ~ 5C
401 .....
50
60
uninterupted spall episode
70 10
80
90 11F
100
bedrock
Figure 3. Cueva Corbin, West wall, Unit 1 Profile
8
4-levelline
+- Late Prehistoric Occupation
4
6
Cueva Corbin
West wall, Unit 1
~ Profile
~ ash & charcoal lense
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Stratum lOis a major, uninterrupted spalling
episode, 45-55 ems. thick. This appears to either
mark a long, continuous period of the cave's history
during which it was unoccupied or dramatically
different environmental conditions.
Stratum 11F is a very thin, almost technically
untraceable occupational layer.
Stratum 12 is the basal spalling episode.Stratum
13G was present only in Unit 2. It may be a dis­.
tinct occupation, perhaps below Stratum 12, or a
discontinuous portion of Stratum IIF or a rodent
burrow of unknown origin.
Stratum 5C Stone Knapping Eyent
From the looters' dirt pile, we recovered a number
of large flakes and other residue of core reduction.
As we began the excavation, we could not find
similar materials until we reached Stratum 5C.
Further, no other such materials appeared in any
other location of the excavation. In Units 1 and 3,
Stratum 5C is seen as a thin deposit on top of a
spalling episode. Large lithic debitage lies conform­ably
with the Stratum 6/5C surface in one or two
courses.
By grouping the 30 artifacts from Units 1 and 3
with the 87 artifacts found in the looters' backdirt
of the same materials, we were able to obtain a
relatively clear picture of the behavior involved with
the knapping event. Table 1 summarizes the arti­facts
which were recovered.
Several observations are of interest. First, when we
initially recovered the materials (and, not inciden­tally,
when they were covered with dirt), we thought
that we might be able to reconstruct the core in
order to conduct a detailed analysis of the lithic
reduction strategy. Careful examination and
attempted refitting, though, showed that several
cores were involved and that many of the flakes
were missing. Further, those which were left behind
were unutiJized with one exception. The one excep­tion
was a flake which had its distal end snapped
ofT. This was then retouched on the distal end and
right lateral edge juncture. Both the flake tool and
the distal end were recovered. Further strengthen­ing
the association between the surface materials
and the in situ materials was the refitting of a
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surface flake with a flake from Unit 3. The centrum
of the kna pping activi ty seems to have been just to
the north of Unit 2 where the looters' trench de­stroyed
intact deposits. There was a marked de­crease
in density as we proceeded east and south of
that point.
Consequently, we can argue that the knapping
event did, indeed, occur as a single event. Lacking
a large number of primary flakes in the collection,
we can further argue that initial reduction or "core
testing" occurred outside of the shelter. Then, after
the cores had been fully reduced, the most usable
flakes were removed to another location. The
anomaly of the single flake tool is almost the
exception which proves the rule.
Table 1.
Artifacts Associated With StratUlll 5C Knapping
Event
SJlrtace
Category Brown Black Gray* Unit 1:4 Unit
J:5C
Core 4 1 1
Flake 6** 1 35 2 11
2nd 4*** 24 3 6
Primary 3 1 4
BTF 1 3
Debris 1 6 1
Tool 1**
CTt 4
Totals 13 1 79 8 22
Notes: *Includes material from at least 3 cores;
**Flake tool included in both categories;
***Includes 4 flakes which were refitted.
(Definitions of categories are provided in Guderjan
1981.)
Conclusion
The most in1portant information to come from
Cueva Corbin will be the environmental informa­tion
which will result from analyses and correlation
of geological data, such as the flooding event and
spalling episodes, with archaeological information
such as pollen analysis and radiocarbon data. This
will be correlated further with studies of recent
regional geology and will serve as a baseline for
further interpretation of the remains in the San
Geronimo drainage. As these data are assembled,
they will be published separately.
Acknowledcements
The Cueva Corbin excavation was conducted under
the auspices of the University of Texas Institute of
Texan Cultures at San Antonio. Many thanks are
due to Kit Corbin and the 1989 excavation team.
On behalf of the team, I wish to thank the manage­ment
of the Sitting Duck in Rio Medina for their
very supportive contributions.
10
References Cited
Guderjan, Thomas H.
1981, Archaeological Investigations in the Big
Rock/Forest Grove Areas, North-Cen­tral
Texas. Archaeology Research Pro­gram,
Southern Methodist University;
. Dallas, Texas.
Highley, Lynn, Carol Graves, Carol Land and
George Judson
1978, Archeological Investigations at Scorpion
Cave (41ME7), Medina County, Texas.
Bulletin of the Texas Archeological
Society 49:139-195.
Johnson, Eileen and Vance T. Holliday
1984, Comments on "Large Springs and Early
American Indians" by Joel L. Shiner.
Plains Anthropologist 29:65-70.
Kuykendahl, Mark
ms. Archaeological Survey of the San Geronimo
drainage. Manuscript on file; Department
of Research and Collections, University of
Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San
Antonio.
Shiner, Joel L.
1983, Large Springs and Early American Indians.
Plains Anthropologist 28:1-7.
Turner, Ellen Sue and Thomas R. Hester
1985, A Field Guide to Stone Artifacts of
Texas Indians. Texas Monthly Press:
Austin.
J . ~.:-. ,
~ , . , " .
, . . - " ~>.I-' • -. . - .- _. ~ i
·.. ,~,~,'
< ........ '.~, ' .. . . .~. .. ' :!lr- . ,,, :,~. .~,
. _ _ .. o._ _-~.~ .• >-~ ."T . • . .iJ?5 _ -: t-~:' ~ -. _.00<-_
?~ .1./ La. • / ...... ...;_~.:, ~ -t!/~ , ,_ _~ "'---'-
~ .~_ .~~/ ..~ 4, ........ - .. .r.. . • ~ . A _"",-0 __ ~ ~ A' --"
~ ~ ~_ 4-"'~ ~-,.,-
San Antonio de Valero, sketched by Jose Juan Sanchez Estrada in 1829
12
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CROWN POLICY, LOCAL INTEREST, AND PATTERNS OF MISSION SECULARIZATION:
THE CASE OF SAN ANTONIO DE VALERO
Gerald E. Poyo
Introduction
In 1793, San Antonio de Valero, the first Spanish
mission established on the San Antonio river was
secularized, initiating the official process of inte­grating
the separate Indian communities into the
civil settlement of Bexar. While the process was not
completed until 1824, in reality Texas' mission era
ended with the creation of the pueblo of Valero.
Valero's passing as a mission, however, was not an
act resisted by the Franciscan priests who had
founded and nurtured the institution since 1718.
They encouraged the secularization because, per­haps
better than most, the Franciscans understood
the forces at work that made secularization inevita­ble.
The forces were many, and their sources were
diverse, but, since historians have not yet examined
the topic in much detail, it is difficult to assess how
Valero's case fits the larger patterns of mission secu­larization
across Mexico's northern frontier during
the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
Oakah Jones notes that in Nueva Vizcaya "secular­ization
ofmissions--bothJesuit and Franciscan--be­gan
in 1753-54 and culminated in 1767 with the
expulsion of the Jesuits. All· the Franciscan mis­sions
in the southern part of the province were
turned over to the secular clergy by 1763, leaving
only twelve missions in the north."l While this
occurred in Nueva Vizcaya, new missions were
established in Texas and other borderland regions.
Though eventual secularization was theoretically
built into the mission system, the life cycles of mis­sions
varied considerably. Missions in Sonora­Arizona
survived until the 1840s, but those in Bexar
were for all practical purposes secularized before
the end of the eighteenth century. What factors
determined a mission's secularization? A great deal
more research will be needed before historians can
offer definitive ideas about secularization patterns,
but this paper explores the issue.
In reviewing the few studies that exist for the Mexi­can
period (1821 -1845,) David J. Weber points to
13
the many factors influencing the secularization
process: "The policies of the federal governmen t,
the effect of the war of independence on mission
economies, the shortage of priests, and ideological
opposition all contributed mightily to the rapid
deterioration of the frontier missions under inde­pendent
Mexico. Of great importance, too, were
local conditions: the vitality of individual missions
and the size of their neophyte population; the
demands of non-Indians for mission property; and
attitudes of local officials toward the continuation
of the missions as a form of Indian control. ,,2
Understanding secularization in the eighteenth
century also requires focusing on the variety of ele­ments
involved, including changes in Crown poli­cies,
biases of officials at different governmental
levels, and the political and socioeconomic realities
of the communities within which the missions
operated. A core study of mission San Antonio de
Valero will highlight the complexities involved. The
process leading to the secularization of Valero mis­sion
may have been typical, or perhaps not, but its
experience reflects clearly the interaction of forces
that eventually led to a consensus that the historic
first Spanish institution along the San Antonio river
had outlived its original charge.
Surprisingly, little has been written on Valero's
secularization. Perhaps the most detailed descrip­tion
is still Carlos E. Castaneda's account in his Qur
Catholic Heritage in Texas.3 JesUs F. de la Teja
traces the transfer ofVa1ero's lands to civil settlers
in his disertation.4 Recently, Felix D. Almarz, Jr.,
gave an account of land tenure exchange in which
he describes the effects of secularization on land
holdingpatterns.5 Gilberto M. Hinojosa has recent­ly
written about the demographic decline in the San
Antonio missions that, of course, contributed to
their demise.6 Drawing on this body of research,
my essay offers a holistic approach which conforms
to Weber's view that the mission secularization did
not follow some pattern defined by law or tradition
but evolved through complex processes over a
protracted period of time.
The Crown:
Secularism and Reform
Mission secularization was a topic of considerable
interest to Crown bureaucrats in the northern
provinces by the mid-I770s when Spain's Bourbon
dynasty had firmly established its intention to
extend Crown authority in ecclesiastical matters.7
While it is not clear whether the flurry of seculariza­tions
in Nueva Vizcaya in the 1750s and 1760s was
related to the emergent anti-clerical attitudes of
Bourbon bureaucrats, it is evident that changing
attitudes were taking hold and were intensified with
the arrival of visitador Jose de Galvez to New Spain
in 1765. Galvez demonstrated a keen interest in
reforming the mission system. According to John
Kessell, in one of the few available analyses of
secularization in the eighteenth century, Galvez
viewed the missions as "long-stagnant, govern­ment-
subsidized, semiautonomous concentration
camps," but he hoped to transform the mission
Indians into "newly emancipated and integrated
citizens working their lands and paying their fair
share." Kessell goes on to describe a variety of
ideas and plans being considered to reform the
• • 8 mISSIon system.
Bu t Bourbon policies were not concerned exclusive­ly
with church matters. The reform agenda included
a wholesale restructuring of Spain and its empire.
In northern New Spain this resulted in the estab­lishment
of the administrative unit known as the
Provincias Internas, which in 1776 placed the
borderlands region under a Commandant General
responsible directly to the Council of The Indies in
Sevilla. Of particular significance to the missions
was the appointment of General Teodoro de Croix
as the first Commandant of the new administrative
unit. Not surprisingly, Croix exhibited attitudes
consistent with the Bourbon ecclesiastical agenda
and he shared Galvez's interest in reforming the
mission system. In fact, he had played an important
role in the secret proceedings that eventually led to
the Jesuit expulsion, and was rewarded by his
appointment in the northern provinces.9 His secu­larism
became quickly apparent when he took his
initial inspection tour of the northern regions of
New Spain beginning in 1777.
Croix arrived in Bexar in Janaury 1778, not only as
part of an errort to familiarize himself with the
14
territories under his jurisdiction, but also to meet
with other frontier officials to discuss Indian prob­lems.
During his brief stay in Bexar, Croix met with
local officials, inspected the region, and accepted
petitions from citizens expressing their concern on
a variety oflocal issues. Among the documents was
a petition from a group of poverty-stricken settlers
who complained that they had been unjustly treated
by the Crown and local officials. They were refu­gees
from the east Texas community of Los Adaes,
which had been ordered abandoned by the Crown
when Louisiana came under Spain's sovereignty in
the late 1760s. Most Adaesanos eventually partici­pated
in founding the new town of Nacogdoches,
but some remained in Bexar where they hoped to
settle permanently.
After five years in Bexar, however, the Adaesanos
had still not established an adequate livelihood.
Some eked out a living as artisans, others joined the
presidio, but most worked as laborers on the mis­sions
or for the town's established families. Dissat­isfied
with their condition, sixty-three Adaesanos
took advantage of Croix's presence and directed to
him a petition in which they asked for farm lands
to replace those lost in Adaes. Within a week Croix
ordered local officials to suggest sites where the
Adaesanos could be settled permanently.
Texas Governor Juan Maria Baron de Ripperda
and Captain of Presidio La Bahia, Luis Cazorla,
suggested several sites on the San Marcos, Cibolo,
and Guadalupe rivers but such locations required
Crown investments to protect the setters from
Indians. Bexar's cabildo (city council) advanced
another solution: the establishment of a formal
pueblo on the lands of Mission San Antonio de
Valero. In its presentation the cabildo noted that
the mission not only controlled the principal saca
de agua from the San Antonio river but had the
advantage of an abundance of underutilized irriga­ble
farmlands. They pointed out that the recent
census included only sixty-seven Indians in all the
missions along the river. Such a solution "could
result in the savings of major expenditures on
ministers and other things since it [the mission] is
protected by the arms of this presidio which is only
separated by the river."LO Given Croix's skepticism
concerning the efficacy of the mission system in
general, the cablldo ssuggestion na turally appealed
to him and his auditorPedro de Galindo Navarro.
-
But beyond that, the solution also coincided with
their concern with fmancial matters. Perhaps the
most important aim of Bourbon reorganization in
the Americas was to reduce Crown expenditures by
encouraging localities to underwrite local costs of
government administration. The cabiJdo'slow cost
solution, then, was attractive to Croix and his
advisers:
While Galindo investigated further, Croix consid­ered
the broader issue of the missions and their role
on New Spain's northern frontier. In a letter to the
Minister of the Indies, Jose de Galvez, in September
1778, after his visit to Bexar, Croix revealed that the
mission establishments had not in1pressed him, nor
had the friars' treatment of the Indians. From his
point of view, perhaps the greatest evil of the
Franciscan missions was that they had adopted "the
reprehensible methods" of the Jesuits. He viewed
the priests as acting in their own self-interest, with
little concern for the welfare of their native charges.
After characterizing their activities among the
Indians as outright abusive, Croix concluded that
the status of the natives was actually worse than
slaves. Slaves, he noted, "are given moderate tasks;
they are given some days to work for themselves,
with which they may hope to buy their freedom,
and become owners of material goods." But on the
other hand, he continued, "The Indians never gain
their freedom, and know from experience that their
children inevitably face the same luck." Croix also
complained that most of the Indians joining the
missions were forced to do so and that in Bexar
most Apaches and Comanches had little interest in
joining such poverty stricken institutions. He also
claimed that the missionaries did not allow the
Indians to integrate into Hispanic society, causing
many to flee to their original tribal groups. Croix's
wholesale indictment of the missionaries included
various suggestions for reforming the mission
system.
With specific reference to Bexar, Croix told Galvez
that only Mission San Jose was worth maintaining.
He suggested that San Antonio de Valero and
Concepcion missions be united to the villa de
Bexar, presumably meaning that they be stripped of
their corporate and mission status. He also suggest­ed
that San Juan and Espada be merged into one
community. In his view only San Jose should be
kept as a traditional mission. All neophytes from
15
the others would be transferred to San Jose where
two missionaries would oversee the natives and
engage in recruiting others solely through evangeli­cal
methods. I I
Evidently, Croix's tour of the frontier regions did
not change his general view of the mission system
acquired through his involvement with the expul­sion
of the Jesuits. And this was reflected in
Galindo's dictamen of June 2, 1779 in the Adaesano
case, which recommended the proposal set forth by
Bexar's cabiJdo. Noting the small number of
Indians in Valero mission and the fact that es­paffoJes
already worked the land as salaried em­ployees
of the missionaries, Galindo urged the
Commandant to decree the seculariza tion of Valero
and transfer its lands to the jurisdiction of the villa.
Croix authorized the order and forwarded it to
Texas' new fovernor Domingo Cabello for imple­mentation.
1
The Town:
Immigration and Expansion
Bexar's civil population must have received Croix's
decision to secularize Valero with glee (though of
course restrained and dignified) for the cabiJdo s
suggestion had not emerged from a historical
vacuum. Although presented in a detached and
objective tone, the cabiJdo's report reflected the
historically conflictive and often bitter relationships
that characterized civil/military and mission com­munity
interactions.
Early settlement patterns in central Texas had given
the missions a considerable advantage over other
institutions. Franciscans established their first
mission (San Antonio de Valero) in 1718, which
was followed by a second (San Jose de Aguayo) in
1722. The missionary presence was further
strengthened in 1730 with the addition of three
missions that relocated from the Louisiana border
area. Despite the objections of the local settlers
who feared being overwhelmed by the religious
establishments, the missions consolidated their hold
over local resources and began to expand dramati­cally.
They gained rights over vast lands for ranch­ing
operations and succeeded in developing thriving
economic enterprises. Disputes arose almost imme­diately
between the priests and the civil-military
community in Bexar, particularly over land, water,
labor, and local markets. When the Canary Islands
immigrants who established the official civil com­munity
and the city council arrived in 1731, they
too became entangled in bitter disputes over water
rights on the San Antonio river. This dragged on
for several years and representatives of the council
even traveled to Mexico City to plead their case. 13
Not long after the water rights dispute, the local
settlers began to lobby authorities in Mexico City to
be allowed to hire mission Indians to work their
farm lands. The friars objected strenuously, and,
though the council initially obtained the rights they '
sought, the priests eventually succeeded in blocking
the council's initiative. The settlers also sought
measures to prohibit the missions from selling
maize to the presidio, arguing that their Indian
labor constituted unfair economic competition.
Finally, throughout the eighteenth century the
missions and local settlers engaged in constant
litigation over control of ranch lands and cattle
resources. The missions continually appealed to the
higher authorities for more land, but the local
ranchers fought them every step of the way. Never­theless,
the priests not only succeeded in defending
their interests, but in expanding their overall influ-ence
m. t he regI. on. 14
The initial demographic advantage enjoyed by the
missions began to fade after the 1760s, however, as
Bexar received settlers from mission and presidio
complexes abandoned in the face ofIndian hostility
or indifference and Crown desires to reduce frontier
expenses. This was followed by the arrival of the
Adaesanos in the early 1770s. Bexar also received
immigrants from other parts of New Spain who no
doubt perceived some opportunities on the Texas
frontier. By 1780 Bexar's population had grown by
some seventy percent, to about 1500 individuals,
strengthening the civil community's relative posi­tion
in the region. 15
This demographic expansion after mid-century led
to increasing pressures on land and water. During
its fIrst half century of existence, Bexar offered
newcomers and new generations of Bexarenos
ample opportunity for settlement through the
distribution of lands within the presidio's defense
perimeter. Mexican soldier-settlers and Canary
Islanders, and their descendants, established claims
on community resources. They owned the only
16
irrigable farm lands and most of the non-mission
ranch lands in the vicinity of Bexar.16 After the
1760s, immigrants to Bexar could not necessarily
count on receiving land outright. 17 Despite the
availability of vast expanses ofland beyond Bexar's
immediate environs, the presidio's inability to
protect these lands from Indians made their use
inadvisable; Most ranchers did not even risk living
on their ranches for fear of Indian attacks. IS Only
additional Crown investments in presidio personnel
or new installations could provide the infrastructur­al
$upport necessary for Bexar's physical growth,
but this did not come until after the turn of the
century. In the meantime, Bexarenos had to com­pete
for the limited resources close to their presidio.
As their numbers grew, socioeconomic relationships
between the town and missions increased, as did
political tensions. The civil settlers no doubt saw
great advantages for themselves in a general secu­larization
of the missions, particularly Valero since
it was immediately adjacent to the town.
By 1780, then, the missions seemed destined to
disappear. But while Croix set the stage with his
1779 secularization order, implementation was not
soon forthcoming. In January 1781, Bernardo
Cervantes, an Adeasano leader, complained of the
lack of compliance, and Croix again ordered
Cabello to implement the decree, but the decade
passed with no action. 19 The precise reasons for the
governors' failure to act are not clear, but Bexar's
political and economic climate during the 1780s
presented the governors with a number of difflcult
problems, and secularization was not among the
most pressing. While Governor Cabello seems to
have developed an amicable relationship with the
mission priests, this by itself does not explain his
inaction. The key probably lies in the difficult
relationship between Cabello and Bexar's civil
population, which was not mostly of the governor's
making.
On arriving in Bexar in 1780, Cabello learned not
only that he was responsible for secularizing Valero
mission, but that he was also to enforce an econom­ic
measure that had greatly disturbed both the
missions and the civil community. The measure in
question was Croix's famous appropriation for the
Crown of Bexar's cattle resources. During his 1778
visit to Bexar that launched the secularization
process, Croix had also attempted to put an end to
-
-
the long-standing disputes between the missions
and civilian settlers regarding rights to land and
range cattle. Croix listened to all concerned and
then stunned the community by advancing a
Bourbon-style reform that simply declared all stray
cattle and horses the property of the King. In
addition he regulated and taxed cattle roundups
and exports. The ranchers viewed the action as
unprecedented Crown intrusion on their longstand­ing
rights and traditions and they immediately ap­pealed.
Furthermore, many of the prominent
ranching families disregarded the decree, forcing
Cabello to arrest many of the community's most
influential individuals. Faced with this situation
during his entire tenure as Governor, which lasted
until 1786, Cabello either did not have the time or
the will to confront the priests in addition to the
civilian community. 20
Missions;
DBeemoonEora' phic. D. ech. ne and
rotC CoStS
Despite the attitudes of the Crown and cabildo, in
the end it was not the Comandant, the governor, or
the cabiJdo that forced the implementation of
Valero's secularization. It was, rather, the mission­aries
themselves, who recognizing political, eco­nomic,
and demographic realities, breathed new life
into the secularization process in 1793. In fact, mis­sionaries
had on previous occasions considered
secularization in response to their ongoing conflicts
with local ranchers and officials. In 1759, for
example, Fray Mariano de los Dolores y Viana had
offered to withdraw from the region iflocal author­ities
did not cooperate with them. While it is likely
that at this early date his offer was more tactical
than serious, it did reveal the depth of frustration
the priests felt in their constant disputes with the
civil community. In 1781, a similar otTer from the
Franciscan center in Zacatecas led to a Royal
request for information on the state of mission
affairs in Texas.21 The response was a 1786 report
by Fray Jose Francisco LOpez, of Valero Mission
that described the difficult conditions in the mis-
• 22 slons.
On the whole, the missions had held their own
through the 1760s, but after that local conditions
slowly eroded their position vis-a.-vis the civil
settlers. While trends in immigration strengthened
17
Bexar, other forces led to a demographic and
economic weakening of the missions that in time
transformed them from thriving farming and
ranching enterprises to mere shadows of their
fornler selves.
Total population figures for the early years are
sketchy, but about 814 Indians lived in the five
missions in 1740. The census of 1777 reported 709.
It is probably safe to assume that the population
did not fall below the latter figure during the inter­vening
years. The prosperous ranching and farming
activities and the efforts by Bexar's residents to hire
labor suggests that the mission Indian population
was abundant. In comparison, Bexar's population
in 1750 probably did not exceed 600 individuals and
stood at just under 900 twenty years later. Thus,
until the 1770s, a demographic balance existed, but
this disappeared with the dramatic growth of
Bexar's population and simultaneous decline in the
missions during the next decade. While the town
grew to 1500 by 1790, the missions declined to
213.23
The missions' economic fortunes followed the
demographic trend. With fewer Indians available
to ranch and farm, mission productivity declined.
In 1772, for example, inventories revealed that
Valero's La Mora ranch had some 5,000 head of
cattle, although this was already a reduction from
earlier times. By 1780 La Mora owned less than
1500.24 Since ranching at this time was a function
of how many cattle could be rounded up, the
availability of Indian vaqueros was crucial. Similar
trends affected mission farms, which operated
productively in the 1740s and 1750s but by the late
1770s had lost most of their vitality. Despite the
fact that the loss of Indian population probably
played the decisive role in the missions' economic
decline, the missionaries preferred to blame their
woes on the Crown. The fundamental reason for
their crisis, noted Lopez in his report to Spain, was
Croix's appropriation of the province's cattle
resources for the King. Actually, signs of decline
had already set in by 1778 when Croix visited
Bexar. Perhaps the friar hoped his report would
lead to changes in local regulations, but it did not,
and economic conditions did not improve.
Beside demographic and economic decline, the
friars also faced the relentless process of cultural
adaptation among their mission charges. Tradition-
ally the priests had discouraged interactions be­tween
townspeople and Indians, arguing that they
would be exploited, but, in fact, by the 1770s and
1780s many ofthemission residents interacted regu­larly
with the town's inhabitants, and according the
friars themselves, demanded greater freedom in this
regard. This process of Indian and town resident
interaction increased dramatically with the arrival
of the Adaesanos in the early 1770s. Until this
time, the priests had hired only a handful of town
residents to work in the missions, but with the
declining number of Indians and the arrival of a
large group of unemployed refugees, the missionar­ies
immediately offered them work as farmers,
charging them half their crop for use of the land or
paying them a daily wage.
In 1778 at least twenty Adaesanos worked at the
missions. They included one at Concepcion, four at
San Juan, five at Espada, and ten at Valero. Proba­bly
unaware of the already existing mission­Adaesano
relationship, Comandant Croix asked the
friars' to help the Adaesanos pending the final
decision of their case. Anxious to revive their
economic fortunes, the missionaries complied. Fray
Pedro Ramirez de Arellano of Mission San Jose
offered all the refugees as much rent-free land as
they needed, or outright employment if that was
their preference. Fearful that a formal acceptance of
such an arrangement would stall their efforts to
acquire lands outright, the Adaesanos delicately
refused the priest's offer, but those already at work
apparently continued. In their reply to the Gov­ernor,
the Adaesanos argued that they did not see
any reason to improve the lands at San Jose when
they expected to receive their own shortly. They
said: "we will remain as day laborers or as God
determines, in order not to regret building houses,
cultivating land, or making other improvements at
mission San Jose, only to give them up, as hap­pened
at Los Adaes, when the Sr. General deter­mines
our destiny with his superior resolution."
Obv~ousll' they expected that a solution was forth­commg.
The presence of Adaesanos and others at the mis­sions
led inevitably to increased contacts with the
Indians and in time differences among the settlers
faded. In fact, many of the settlers from east Texas
were of mixed Indian and Spanish backgrounds and
mingled easily with the local Indians. The ex peri-
18
ence of Anselmo Cuebas is perhaps illustrative of
the cultural integration and changing identities of
the mission Indians. A Lipan Apache, Cuebas
arrived at Valero when he was four years of age. In
1758 he married a muiata, Maria Rosa de los
Reyes, and they had seven children. After the death
of his first wife, he married an Indian of unknown
tribal affiliation. They had two daughters. Finally,
Cuebas married Manuela de Luna, a muiata,
originally from Saltillo. They also had a daughter.
Eventually, Cuebas moved into the town, later lived
at Mission Espada, and finally returned to Valero.
As this case demonstrates, the opening up of the
missions to outsiders led to the social integration of
the Indians with the broader community. Despite
the fact that the Cuevas were no longer Indians, but
more precisely castas, they were entered in the
Valero census of 1792 as Indian families. 26
The demographic and economic weakening of the
missions during the 1770s and 1780s resulted in a
process of cultural integration between the remain­ing
mission Indians and the encroaching communi­ty.
Few new Indians entered the missions during
this time to reinvigorate indigenous cultures and
those there increasingly demanded greater freedom
of movement and independence of action. By the
1790s, the Indians in Valero were probably not very
different from most castasin Bexar. A cultural and
racial integration erased the distinctions that the
friars had originally attempted to maintain.27 In
fact this was confirmed by Father President Fray
Jose Francisco Lopez in 1791 when he noted that
"most of them [the Indians], being children of
marriages between Indians and white women, are
mulattoes or half-breeds .. .it can therefore be in­ferred
that this mission cannot be called a mission
ofIndians but a gathering of white people.,,28 No
longer serving a function as missions, San Anton­io's
religious establishments, with the full blessing
of their friars, commenced down the road toward
full integration with Bexar. Fifteen years after their
original petition to Commandant Croix, Bexar's
Adaesano settlers finally received their lands.29
Conclusion
Valero's secularization was a complex process that
included political, economic, and social forces
emanating from Crown interests, developments
within Bexar's Hispanic society, and within the
-
Indian communities themselves. Over a twenty-five
year period, these forces interacted and eventually
brought about the mission's official demise. By the
la te 18th cen tury the emerging ref onn measures and
secular vision of Crown bureaucrats tipped the
ideological balance against the missions. While
there was no immediate wholesale rejection of the
mission ' system, and missions continued to be
founded as others were secularized, Crown bureau­crats
viewed the missionaries with a certain skepti­cism,
which over the long-run undennined the in­fluence
of the friars. Those missions located close
to civilian population' groups also had to contend
with a natural process of competition over local
resources. The case of Bexar reveals the intensity of
conflict and bitterness that worked against the
missions as the civil populations grew. Finally, it is
evident that certain demographic and cultural
processes evolved within the missions themselves
that at specific moments dictated secularization.
While it is likely that most secularizations included
the cross-currents of forces apparent in the Valero
example, it must also be recognized that the partic­ular
mix of forces at work varied from region to
region, and perhaps mission to mission. Kessell
tells us that as early as 1767 (when the Jesuits were
expelled) "the mission on the Arizona-Sonora
frontier was a threatened institution." Nevertheless,
Kessell notes, "[the mission] survived [until 1842],
through the reign of enlightened despotism, the
confusion and changing constitutions of the N apo­leonic
era, and the welter of Mexican independence,
primarily because the bureaucrats failed to come up
with a practical alternative.,,30 In this case, the main
agent of secularization was the Spanish Crown, and
later the Mexican government, which simply did
not act. In Bexar, a similar lack of action by the
Governor allowed Valero to survive a decade or
more after Croix's secularization decree, but in the
end local forces, including demographic crisis in the
missions themselves and the growth of the civilian
population, eventually detennined the mission's
fate.
19
NOTES
1. Oakah L. Jones, Jr. Nueya Yizcaya: Heartland
of the Spanish Frontier (Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press, 1988),176.
2. David J. Weber, The Mexican Frontier. 1821-
1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1982), 50. Important works on secularization
during the Mexican period include: Gerald J.
Geary, The Secularization of the California Mis­sions
(18110-1846) (Washington, D.C., 1934); John
L. Kessell, "Friars versus Bureaucrats: The Mission
as a Threatened Institution on the Arizona-Sonora
Frontier," Western Historical Quarterly, V (April
1974), pp.151-160; Manuel P. Servin, "The Secular­ization
of the California Missions: A Reappraisal,"
Southern California Quarterly XLVII (June 1965),
pp.133-149; C. Alan Hutchinson, "The Mexican
Government and the Mission Indians of Upper
California," The Americas, XXI (April 1965),
pp.335-362; Paul H. Walters, "Secularization of the
La Bahia Missions," Southwestern Historical
Quarterly, LIV (January 1951).
3. Carlos E. Castaneda; Our Catholic Heritage in
Texas, 1519-1936. 7 vols. (Austin: Von
Boeckmann-Jones Co., 1936-1958).
4. Jesus F. de la Teja, "Land and Society in 18th
Century San Antonio de Bexar: A Community on
New Spain's Northern Frontier," (ph. D. diss.,
University of Texas at Austin, 1988), 194-202.
5. Felix D. Almaraz, Jr. The San Antonio Missions
and Their System of Land Tenure (Austin: Univer­sity
of Texas Press, 1989).
6. Gilberto M. Hinojosa, "The Religious-Indian
Communities: The Goals of the Friars," in Gerald
E. Poyo and Gilberto M. Hinojosa, eds. Tejano
Ori2ins in Eighteenth Century San Antonio de
~(University of Texas Press for The University
of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Anto­nio,
1991).
7. For an overview of Bourbon policies in America,
see John Lynch, Bourbon Spain. 1700-1808 (Ox­ford,
England: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1989),329-370.
8. Kessell, "Friars versus Bureaucrats," 152.
9. Fray Juan Agustin Modi, History of Texas,
1673-1779 (trans. by Carlos Eduardo Castaneda),
Albuquerque: The Quivira Society, 1935),446.
10. "El Comandante General de Provincias Inter­nas
de Nueva Espana: da quenta de las causas que
Ie han obligado al establecirniento de vecinos
espanoles que estaban dispersos en la mision de San
Antonio de Valero," Archivo General de Indias,
Audiencia de Guadalajara, 1777-1778, Legajo 103,
in Box 2Q141, vol. 48, Dunn Transcripts, Barker
Texas History Center, University of Texas at
Austin.
11. "El Comandante General de Pro vinci as Inter­nas
de Nueva Espana. Informa sobre algunos
desordenes, que ha advertido en las misiones de
Nueva Vizcaya, Coaguila, y Texas; propone los
medios de corregirlos, y espresa los que ha tornado,
y piensa tomar para ellogro de este fm," Archivo
General de Indias, Audiencia de Guadalajara,
Legajo 270 (at Our Lady of the Lake, Old San
Antonio Missions Historical Research Library,
AGI Reel #2, document 38). I want to express
appreciation to Adan Benavides for bringing this
document to my attention.
12. "EI Comandante General de Provincias Inter­nas
de Nueva Espana: da cuenta."
13. Early disputes over land and water between
Canary Islanders, missionaries, and soldier-settlers
are reflected in Mexico, Archivo General de la
Nacion, Provincias Internas, Vols. 32 and 163.
14. For examples of these conflicts, see the follow­ing:
Benedict Leutenegger, ed. and trans. Letters
and Memorials of the Father Presidente Fray
Benito Fernandez de Santa Ana, 1736-1754: Docu­ments
on the Missions of Texas from the Archiyes
of the College of Queretaro. (San Antonio: Old
Spanish Missions Historical Research Library at
Our Lady of the Lake University, 1981), 21-27,
31-47,79-86; Benedict Leutenegger and Marion A.
Habig, eds. and trans. Letters and Memodals of
Fray Mariano de los Dolores Y Viana, 1737-1762:
Documents on the Missions of Texas from the
Archiyes of the College of Queretaro. (San Anto­nio:
Old Spanish Missions Historical Research
20
Library at Our Lady of the Lake University, 1981),
1-5,20-35,204-205,211-223; Benedict Leutenegger
and Marion A. Habig, and Barnabas Diekemper,
eds. and trans. "Memorial of Father Benito
Fernandez Concerning the Canary Islanders, 1741,"
Southwestern Historical Quarterly, v. 82:3 (January
1979); "Tanto y testimonio de una escritura de
concordia entre los senores Yslenos y l'ls misiones,
1745" in Box 2Q237, Spanish Materials From
Various Sources, Dunn Transcripts, Barker Texas
History Collection, University of Texas at Austin;
"Testimonio de las diligencias que a pedimiento del
R.P.Pte. fr. Assis de los Valverde se practicaion en
e1 Real Presidio de Bejar el ano de 1772," Archivo
del Con vento de Guadalupe, Zacatecas. Old San
Antonio Mission Historical Research Collection at
Our Lady of the Lake, Reel #3, f.3600-3628; "Pro­test
of Don Vicente Alvarez Travieso and Don Juan
Andres Alvarez Travieso Against Claims of the
Missions of San Antonio to Lands, 1771-1783," in
Box 2R340, History of Grazing in Texas Collection,
Barker Texas History Collection, University of
Texas at Austin.
15. De La Teja, "Land and Society in 18th Century
San Antonio de Bexar"
16. Documents of Bexar's original land distri­butions
are found in Archivo General de la Nacion,
Provincias Internas, Vol. 163 (January 1734).
17. Competition for land in Bexar became increas­ingly
intense during the century. See the following
examples: "Certified Copy of the Proceedings
Relative to the Visitamade by Martos y Navarrete
to the Administration of San Fernando," Bexar
Archives Translations (BAT), Vol. 36, 1756-1762,
186-187; "Documents Concerning Distribution of
Water and New Irrigation Canal at San Fernando,"
BAT, vol. 37, 1762, 27-39; Andres Ramon to
Governor, August 31, 1762, Bexar County Ar­chives,
LGS-550; "Documents Concerning the Civil
Distrubances Caused by Vicente Alvarez Travieso
and Francisco de Arocha," September 6-15, BAT,
Vol. 37,40-47. In addition, a survey ofland grants
in San Fernando reveals that after the 1750s, a
shortage of available land forced the cabildo to
begin issuing grants for solares west of San Pedro
Creek, a very undesirable area according to several
petitioners who complained.
-
18. See Jack Jackson's, Los Mestei'los: Spanish
Ranchin~ in Texas. 1718-1821 (College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 1986), for excellent
descriptions of the ranching environment around
Bexar.
19. "E1 Comandante General de Provincias Inter­nas
de Nueva Espana: da quenta"
20. Jackson, Los Mestenos. See chapter 5 for a
detailed discussion of Croix's decree and its conse­quences.
21. See Jackson, Los Mestenos, pp.99-100; 295
22. See J. Autry Dabbs, trans. "The Texas Missions
in 1785," Mid-America, 22, no.1 (January 1940).
23. For population estimates, see the following: De
la Teja, "Land and Society in 18th Century San
Antonio de Bexar", 78-87; Mardith Keithly
Schuetz, "The Indians of the San Antonio Missions,
1718-1821," (ph.D. diss., University of Texas at
- Austin, 1979); Cannela Leal, ed. Residents of
Texas. 1782-18363 vols. (San Antonio: The Univer­sity
of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures, 1984). See
vol. 1. Reasons for mission demographic decline are
numerous. For a discussion of this phenomenon,
see Hinojosa, "The Religious-Indian Communities: -
-
The Goals of the Friars."
24. Jackson, Los Mestenos, pp. 113, 221.
25. "EI Comandante General de Provincias Inter­nas
de Nueva Espana: da cuenta."
26. Mardith K. Schuetz, "The Indians of the San
Antonio Missions, 1718-1821," (ph.D diss., Univer­sity
of Texas at Austin, 1979), 349-352. See also
census materials in Leal, ed. Residents of Texas,
1782-1836, vol. 1.
27. For a discussion of the friars' separatist atti­tudes
in the San Antonio missions, see Hinojosa,
"The Religious-Indian Communities: The Goals of
the Friars."
28. Benedict Leutenegger and Marion A. Habig,
trans. and eds. "Report on the San Antonio Mis­sions
in 1792," Southwestern Historical Quarterly,
77:4 (April 1974),490.
21
29. For a discussion of the secularization process,
see Carlos E. Castaneda, Our CathoIic Heritage in
Thxa.s., vA, 344-356; v.5, 35-66.
30. Kessell, "Friars versus Bureaucrats," 161.
,lr ....... fn'r""" .
'. ~ .. . ".,. ' . . !f
l_.,....... ~~ .. ,._ ."
h •
...
Figure 1. Labels in Italian Exhibit at the Institute of Texan Cultures
22
WHAT'S IN A LABEL?
Laurie Gudzikowski
Not long ago, I had the opportunity to take my
grandchild on his first museum visit. He's a bit
young to get much out of it, but I always like to
have a reason to visit yet another museum. As we
left, I said to my daughter, "That was an excellent
museum, the labels were very good." And she said,
"You sure see different things in museums than I
do!"
Most people don't think much about interpretive
labels in museum exhibits. They glance at them,
skim through them -- occasionally they get interest­ed
and read the whole way through. But to muse­um
professionals, labels are very important indeed.
Researchers and curators agonize over how best to
condense the results of weeks, months, years of
study into a few inches of type. Educators advise
on vocabulary, editors on style and designers on
appearance, and they all hope that somebody out
there will actually read them.
Emotions run high over labels. I once witnessed a
curator and a designer, toe to toe, bellowing at each
other. The curator felt that his carefully crafted
labels had been ruined by the designer's choice of
type face. The designer was appalled by the visual
illiteracy of the curator.
A museum may have thousands of labels. Some of
them may have been on the wall or in the case for
decades. Even if they had all been perfect when
installed, they need periodic replacement and
updating.
oColors fade: once brilliant red lettering has
become illegible pink.
oFacts need updating: In 1991, Pola Negri
is no longer "living" in San Antonio. She
died in 1987.
oThere ~ errors. For example, the word
"Doulcimer" was discovered on a label. This
is not the correct spelling for a stringed
23
instrument of trapezoidal shape played with
'ligh t mmmers, and never was.
Each time a label needs to be replaced it is an
opportunity not merely to exchange, but to im­prove.
Labels exist to communicate. The curator,
researcher, editor, and designer, all working togeth­er,
can facilitate that communication. Arminta
Neal, former Curator of Graphic Design at the
Denver Museum of Natural History, states: "The
value of an exhibit is in direct proportion to what it
communicates to a viewer. Without meaningful
labels, effectively presented, an exhibit cannot hope
to achieve its purpose."l
In an article titled "Why Johnny Can't Read La­bels,"
George Weiner, former Supervising Editor at
the Smithsonian, described a good label as being "A
form as short as the complexity of the subject
matter permits, stripped of elevated language in so
far as possible, and fitted into a typographical
format that makes reading easy.,,2 His goal was no
more than seventy five words for a general text
label, less for individual specimen labels. I fmd it
difficult to use less than one hundred and fifty
words in a general label; it takes real skill to write a
meaningful label in seventy five words.
Accuracy is the minimum requirement of a good
label. Grant W. Sharpe says, "If visitors notice the
slightest error, their confidence in the whole
message will be shaken.,,3 Perhaps Mr. Sharpe's
visitors are lacking in confidence to begin with. I
love to find mistakes in someone else's labels.
Museum visitors seem to get a certain satisfaction
in pointing out errors. Even ifit's an ego booster to
feel "smarter than the museum," when I'm writing
the labels, I prefer to have the last laugh and be able
to document all my facts .
Do museum visitors actually read labels? Yes, they
do. People come to museums to learn, and our
culture conditions us to learn from the written
word. The object that "speaks for itself," will speak
more clearly to the knowledgeable individual. In a
study on the behavior of museum visitors, Paulette
McManus concluded: "Visitors need words to
know why museum people show them the things
they collect and know about and what they, as
visitors are re9uired to attend to when they consider
these things."
Compared to exhibit reVISIOn, label reVlSIOn is
simple and inexpensive. New labels can offer the
visitor a whole new way to think about an exhibit
or artifact. A program of periodic label review is a
good investment for a museum.
Last spring at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I
watched a large crowd. They stood in front of a
blank wall, carefully reading the text of a small
label. It told them, in three languages, that
Rembrandt's Ni~ht Watch had been vandalized,
was being conserved, would be back on display
soon. The visitors looked from the label to the wall
and back again, as if somehow, if they read them
often enough, the words might make the painting
appear. The object was unavailable. The label had
become the experience.
24
NOTES
1. Arminta Neal, "Gallery and Case Exhibit
Design," Curator, VI (1963), 78.
2. George Weiner, "Why Johnny Can't Read
Labels," Curator, VI (1963), 144.
3. Grant W. Sharpe, Interpreting the Environment
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1976),220.
4. Paulette McManus, "Oh, Yes, They Do: How
Museum Visitors Read Labels and Interact with
Exhibit Texts," Curator, 32/2 (1989), 186.
-
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MUTABILITY
Leah Hill Lewis
Last. fall the Institute of Texan Cultures re­ceived
a new Brown Bess musket on loan for
exhibition. While doing research into careful
handling procedures for firearms, this arresting
comment caught my attention: "There is a
good chance tha t man y 0 f the muzzle-loaders in
your collection will have one or more live
charges in them. Powder flasks and powder
horns may contain black powder, just as potent
today as the day it was made, and much more
sensitive to friction .... "l
Researching requirements for a new storage
space for artifacts and preparing a disaster plan
for collections has provided me with plenty of
exposure to what can go wrong in a museum.
And, thanks to Murphy, we already know
whatever can, will.
Often we mistakenly endow inanimate objects
with the quality of immutability: that is, the
quality of not being susceptible to change,
invariable, unalterable. All matter is constantly
in a process of deterioration. In this respect
animals and objects have a lot in common. So,
get ready to think about the agents of deteriora­tion
at work on absolutely everything and
prepare yourself for the collections curator's
favorite neurosis, paranoia.
Handling
The first agent of destruction is physical ne­glect,
or as one conservator terms it, "the ravag­es
of man." The word "neglect" usually brings
to mind something stuck away on a shelf some­where,
forgotten, dusty, uncared for, unloved.
However, while being lost and dirty is an unde­sirable
condition, ironically most ravages of
mankind occur when an object is being han­dled.
The up side of this kind of destruction is
that no malice is intended. Unfortunately
sometimes the best intentions can produce the
worst results. For example, one lady cleaned
Grandfather's portrait with BAB-O until his
27
mustache disappeared. A simple benevolent
touch can leave oils and salts from the toucher's
fingers on the object. Rusty fingerprints on
gunbarrels displayed in locked cases bear wit­ness
to improper installation handling without
the benefit of cotton gloves. Objects do tell,
even if it takes a little time. Handling always
causes a portion of deterioration and for that
reason objects should be handled as little as
possible. No turning it over to see the other
side, no testing to see if it "works", no fondling,
no trying it on for size.
In this respect museum people who interpret,
preserve, exhibit, or otherwise do the most good
with artifacts can also do the most harm to
them through negligence. Or, to paraphrase
Pogo: "we have seen the enemy and he is us."
Ih.ef.t
The most overt enemy of the collection is the
thief or vandal. And this is where issues of
security of the building as a whole arise. Locks
on doors, closed-circuit cameras, motion detec­tion
devices and the presence of uniformed
guards are all valid means of tightening overall
security and reducing the opportunity for theft
and vandalism. Exhibit cases themselves can be
designed to protect particularly vulnerable
objects. Firearms, knives, and shiny metals are
favorite targets of thieves and need to be under
glass or plastic, fastened with security screws.
One security consultant notes: "so-called psy­chological
barriers are, as a rule, effective only
with the class of people who would not dream
of touching or picking up objects anyway".2
.Eire
Fire is an elemental agent of deterioration.
There is a veritable Chinese menu of damage
from which you can choose: heat, smoke, water
and ultimately consumption. The National
Fire Prevention Association 1991 Technical
Committee Reports makes for exciting reading
on this subject:
Louisiana State Museum (The Cabj) do).
New Orleans. May 11. 1988.
During exterior renovation work on one
of this country's most historic buildings,
it is believed a torch being used to solder
a copper downspout ignited the com­bustible
felt paper or wood in the roof.
The fIre apparently entered the attic and
burned unnoticed for some time before
being detected by smoke detectors on
the floor below. NotifIcation to the fIre
department was not automatic and was
fmally made by a passerby on the street
who noticed the smoke. Despite heroic
efforts by the fIre department, the attic,
third floor (which was used for collec­tion
storage) and the roof were lost to
fIre, and there was signifIcant smoke
and water damage to the floors below.
An estimated 500,000 gallons of water
were used to control this fIre. The fIre
chiefin charge stated that had the muse­um
been protected by a sprinkler sys­tem,
only two sprinkler heads would
have probably been necessary to control
or extinguish this fIre.
Loss: $5.3 million 3
Doubtless that fIre chief didn't endear himself
to the Cabildo's chief of security, but these
things have to be considered. Known causes of
museum fIres include defective electrical equip­ment,
careless smoking, spontaneous ignition of
paint rags and polishing cloths, exposure of
cellulosic materials to steam pipes or other hot
items, defective heaters, misuse of extension
cords, plumber's torches, and cutting torches to
mention a few. Even the artifacts themselves
can pose a fIre hazard. Old nitrate-based movie
fIlm can deteriorate to the point that it is as
sensitive and explosive as nitroglycerine.
Liquid
Following close on the heels of fIre as an agent
of deterioration is liquid: floods, spills, leaks.
The Institute's artifact room has flooded in the
28
recent past due to a sheet of construction plastic
floating over, and then sealing, the storm drain
at the back door. DehumidifIers overflow
(speaking of irony ... ). When overhead pipes in
storage areas sway noticeably, it's time to think
about water damage. Spills are the reason cups
of coffee, cans of Coke or food and drink of
any kind shouldn't be allowed in artifact
rooms. In fact, most museums do not allow
food and drink in their galleries. When food
and drink do appear in exhibit areas, the costs
for security and cleanup inevitably rise.
Light and Heat
Light and heat are agents of deterioration that
have an opposite effect on inanimate objects
than they do on people, animals and plants,
which need both light and heat to survive.
Objects however need only enough light to
provide minimum illumination. Heat dries and
embrittles objects. The damage light and heat
do is cumulative and irreversible. Objects,
particularly textiles and works on paper, can be
faded by either one short blast of intense light
or years of exhibition at relative low light levels.
Flood lights used in record photography are
turned on only at the last moment before shoot­ing
the picture. While the lights in an artifact
room are kept turned off when no one is in the
room this period of "rest" does not provide
rejuvenation for the objects. It simply slows
down the fading process. Nothing restores
pigmentation once it is gone. Both ultraviolet
and infrared rays cause permanent physical and
chemical damage. Fluorescent tubes in the
artifact room are covered with plastic sleeves
which substantially reduce the ultraviolet ema­nation.
Incandescent spotlights can generate
tremendous heat. Fluorescent lights with rela­tively
low heat levels have ballasts that operate
at a temperature of190 degrees heating up cases
and even "melting-down" on occasion. Exhibit
cases with internal lights need some form of
ven tila tio n.
Temperature and Humidity
When confronting the dual threats of tempera­ture
and relative humidity, consistency is the
magic word. Even if it's too hot or cold, too
-
-
dry or damp, rapid fluctuations can do more
damage than a less desirable but consistent
environment. Ideal tem~rature and relative
humidity ranges are 70-75° F and 50-55% RH.
In a climate such as that in South Texas, which
has temperatures in the single digits in the
winter and triple digits in the summer, artifacts
are totally at the mercy of the climate control
system. Luckily, people are responsive to this
kind of misery as well, so while environmental
control in a museum is for the protection of the
objects rather than the convenience of the staff,
the stafTappreciates moderate temperature and
humidity as well and tends to complain when
denied it. I have become more sensitive to
relative humidity since working in the artifact
room and have learned that the days that my
hair is frizzy are the days I will probably need
to empty the dehumidifiers.
Air Pollution
Agents of deterioration are lurking in the air in
the form of chemical contamination, acid gases
and ozone. Proximity to freeways and down­town
traffic increases the collections' exposure
to auto emissions otherwise know as smog.
Whatever is polluting the air outside usually
manages to fmd its way inside. Internal pollu­tion
is caused by smoking, solvents, and formal­dehyde
in carpets and wood. Hydrogen sulfide
is another powerful contaminant compound
with the characteristic odor of rotten eggs.
Combined with moisture, this gas forms a de­structive
acid that attacks organic and inor­ganic
materials. Anyone who has been in the
vicinity of a darkroom on a day when photos
are being sepia-toned knows this smell. And as
one conservator likes to say, if you can smell it,
it's not your friend. An enclosed and separate
air conditioning system or, at least, an efficient
dry ftltering system to remove air pollutants is
of prime importance in planning new artifact
storage.
Biodeterioration
Biodeterioration refers to microorganisms and
also furry friends who consider artifacts either
"home" or "lunch." Both flora and fauna pests
ranging from mold and fungi to rats and bats,
29
work their depredation on a variety of objects.
There is a bacteria with a taste for metal the
results of which is called "bronze disease." This
malady affects some of the most valuable an­cient
Oriental art in museums today. Certain
wood borers can only be knocked out by treat­ment
with cyanide in a decompression chamber,
a facility not readily available in most towns.
In many cases the treatment for infestations can
be as damaging or more damaging to the ob­jects
and the people working with them as the
infestation itself. Bugs in exhibit cases are an
endless mystery to the docents who do the
housecleaning chores in the exhibit cases each
week. The only explanation for some of the
intruders is that they simply ride in on the
clothing of the visitors.
Inherent Vice
Finally itis necessary to remember that artifacts
themselves can be lethal for those working with
them. As in the case of the warning about
antique firearms at the beginning of this report,
lots of old things no longer in common use or
no longer made may merely 1QQk harmless.
Caution is in order when handling picturesque
old bottles and jars, old chemicals, old tools,
old surgical instruments, and doctors' "little
black bags" which may still contain goodies
such as strychnine, opium, and morphine.
Rather than losing strength through the years,
some medicines and chemicals may have dis­tilled
and intensified. Surgical equipment from
old medical kits may still be contaminated with
living micro-organisms. Antique bottles labeled
with quaint names may contain some nasty
fluids. "Oil of Vitriol" is the same as sulfuric
acid and "Aqua Fortis" is the same as nitric
acid. Objects that are sharp and pointed, or
heavy and round, should not be shelved at eye
level or above. Inappropriate lifting can result
in harm to the object as well as the lifter.
When considering the mutability of all things it
is a good rule of thumb to treat everything,
animate or inanimate, gently, and with respect.
NOTES
1. Guldbeck, Per E. The Care of Historical
Collections (Nashville, Tenn.: AASLH, 1972),
p.5.
2. MacLeish; Bruce A. The Care of Antiques
and Historical Collections (Nashville, Tenn.:
AASLH, 1985), p.44.
3. 1991 Annual Meetin~Technical Commjttee
Reports (Quincy, Mass.: NFPA, 1990), p.817.
30
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IWONSKI IN TEXAS
A FIFfEEN YEAR CATALOGUE RAISONNE UPDATE
1976-1991
James Patrick McGuire
Since the 1976 publication of Iwonski in Texas:
Painter and Citizen (San Antonio: San Antonio
Museum Association with The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures) as an exhibition cata­logue
containing a biography of the Texas German
pioneer artist CARL G. VON IWONSKI (1830-
1912), and a catalogue raisonne of his extant works,
a number of corrections have been noted and
additional examples of his work have been located.
This paper attempts to provide accurate informa­tion
to the original book and to add all recently
discovered works to that catalogue raisonne.
The author will use the same plate or item number
for corrections to the original text. Newly discov­ered
items will then be listed, using the original
format of "Part I Oil Paintings" and "Part II Water­colors,
Drawings, Engravings, Lithographs, Photo­graphs,
Pastels." Because of sequential numbering
of the plates and items in the original texts of Parts
I and II, new items will be listed chronologically
where this information is known.
In some cases, negatives of the original art works
have been made by the Institute of Texan Cultures
and a reproduction will be provided with this paper.
Primary data, correspondence and research notes
concerning the items will be maintained in the files
of the Iwonski research materials at the Institute of
Texan Cultures.
The deaths of many owners have resulted in chang­es
in registrations of ownership of various pieces.
Others have been donated to or purchased by
museums seeking to build their Texas and regional
art collections. The most significant single discovery
of previously unknown or unlocated works were
four Homeographs (photographed pencil drawings)
of political cartoons relating to Reconstruction in
San Antonio and Texas which were in the Sir
Swante Palm Collection at the Harry Ransom
33
Humanities Research Center, The University of
Texas at Austin.
#2. Plucking the Rabbit
Present owner: Mrs. Edwin Alley, Jr., Austin.
#3. Hulda and Thekla Moureau, 1857
Present owner: Ann Maria Watson, San Antonio.
#4. Carl Roth, 1857
Size: 4 3/4 x 4 114 inches
Signed: 1. r.: "e. G. Iw[onski]11857"
Present owner: Daughters of the Republic of Texas
Library at the Alamo, San Antonio.
#20. El ise Hase1off, 1869
Present owner: Mrs. James E. Powers, Cincinatti,
Ohio.
#21 . Johanna and Lena Schenck (The Schenck
Sisters, 1870)
Present owner: Mrs. Edwin Alley, Jr., Austin.
#23. Prussian Council of War, 1870 (German
War Council: Germany's Dictation of Terms
After the Franco-Pruss ian War: The Capitula­tion
of Paris), 1871
Medium: Oil on cotton muslin.
Size 8 x 10 feet
Present owner: Sophienburg Museum & Archives,
Inc., New Braunfels.
#24. and #25. Johanna Steves (Mrs. Edward
Steyes), 1872 and Edward Steves, 1873
Present owner: On loan to the San Antonio
Museum Association.
-
-
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#26. Meta KJappenbacb (Mrs. Julius Alexan­der
Mittmann), ca. 1877
Present owner: On loan to the Sophienburg
Musewn & Archives, Inc., New Braunfels.
#29. Samuel Augustus Maverick, 1873
Present owner: San Antonio Musewn Association.
#31, #32, #33. Ernst Ludwig von Schramm, ca.
18M,
Adelheid yon Wyscbetzka Schramm, ca. 1888,
and
Hedwig Schramm (Mrs. John Elgin), ca. 1888
Present owner: Former owner deceased; location
unknown.
#1. Herman Theodor and Clara Anna Laura
Wupperman in Texas, 1857
Medium: oil
Size: 7 x 7 inches
Signed: Inscribed on verso in German script was
the information that this double portrait ofthe Otto
Wupperman children, Herman (b. December 5,
1852) and Clara (b. August 5, 1851), was painted by
Iwonski at the Wupperman home at Twin Sisters
on the Blanco River forty miles from New Braun­fels,
in May, 1857.
Present owner: Herman Th. Wupperman,
Pinneberg, Germany.
#2. Don Jose Fermin Cassiano, 1862
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 26 x 20 inches
Signed: 1.l.: "C. G. Iwonskill862"
The measurements differ slightly and are larger
than the posthumous portrait of Cassiano, 1862,
which was reproduced in McGuire, Iwonski in
Thxas, (1976) from the plate opposite page 207 in
Frederick Chabot's With the Makers of San Anto­ni.
Q (San Antonio, 1937). Also, the placement of the
artist's signature is moved from lower right to lower
left. In all likelihood, this is a second copy of
Iwonski's portrait of Cassia no which was painted
from a daguerreotype. It was given to the Alamo
Musewn by Mrs. Rita R. Mendiola, San Antonio,
35
in 1987.
Present Owner: The Alamo Museum, San Antonio.
#3. Caroline Bonnett Kampmann, 1872
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 33 x 24 7/8 inches
Signed: 1.r.: "c. Iwonski, Fet., 1872"
References: Frederick C. Chabot, With the Makers
of San Antonio (San Antonio: privately published,
1937), pp. 386-88.
Present owner: Dr. and Mrs .. William G. Kennon,
Jr., Nashville, Tennessee.
#4. James H. Kampmann
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 33 x 24 7/8 inches
Signed: no signature
References: Chabot, With the Makers of San
Antonio.
Present owner: Dr. and Mrs. William G. Kennon,
Jr., Nashville, Tennessee.
#5. Josephine Gross Horner, 1873
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 33 x 25 inches
Signed: l.r.: "c. IwonskilI873"
Although not included in McGuire's Iwonski in
Thxas" this pain ting was discovered and exhibited in
the December, 1976 exhibit of Iwonski's art at the
Witte Musewn, San Antonio.
Josephine Gross was born June 17, 1830 in Friesen,
Haut Rhin, France, and died at San Antonio on
May 29,1900. She was married to Jacob Klaus and
then to George Horner (1826-1885), a native of
Wertheim, Baden, Gem1any, who was a barkeeper.
Josephine Horner had fifteen children.
Present owner: Mrs. W. R. Thomas, San Antonio.
#6. Portrait of an Un known Lady
Mediwn: Oil on Canvas
Descended in the Moreau/Groos family of New
Braunfels and San Antonio, the subject of this small
portrait may have been one of the ladies of the
family.
Present owner: Ann Maria Watson, San Antonio.
-
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-
#37. Ferdinand Scholing, ca. 1848
Present owner: Josephine Simmang Jones, San
Antonio.
#51. Thomas Wigg Grayson, 1869
Signed: I.r.: "e. Iwonski, fert.l1869"
Present owner: Mrs. H. W. Anthony, Jr., San
Antonio.
#52. Tabitha Childress Grayson, 1869
Signed: I.r.: "e. I wonski, fert.l1869"
Present owner: Mrs. H. W. Anthony, Jr., San
Antonio.
#53. Der Unyermeidliche, ca. 1855
Present owner: location unknown.
#76. Main Plaza, San Antonio, 1858 [Figure 2.]
Inscribed: I.c.: "Main Plaza;" 1.1.: "Printed at
DeRyee' Ambrotyp[e] Gallery/ on 1st August
1858;" l.r.:
"Engrav[ed] by C. G. I[wonski]"
Present owner: Virginia von Rosenberg Lane,
Austin.
#81. The Main Plaza, San Antonio As Held by
theITexas volunteers Under Col. Ben Mc­Culloch
on the Morning of the 16th February
llil
Present owner: Daughters of the Republic of Texas
Library at the Alamo, San Antonio; Josephine
Simmang Jones, San Antonio; Virginia von Rosen­berg
Lane, Austin.
#87. F. Moureau Store, New Braunfels, ) 863
Present owner: Ann Maria Watson, San Antonio.
#88. young Stieren, 1863
Present owner: San Antonio Museum Association.
#91. Fritz, Arthur, and Hilmar Guenther, ) 864
Present owner: Hilmar G. Moore, Richmond,
Texas.
#95. Pas de Deux, 1867
Medium: Homeograph (photographed pencil
drawing)
37
Size: 3 1/8 x 4 5/8 inches on 3/7/8 x 4 7/8 inch
mounting
Inscribed: left edge: "Negro, ring the Alamo Bel!."
lower center: "Judge Rosenheimer--Mayor Lyons
(the Druggist), Editor Siemering fiddling, Passing
off is Gen!. Knox."
right edge: "Presented by Hon[orable] E[dward]
Degener to Swante Palm.
Pasted to the lower left front corner is the following
newsprint copy: "Pas de Deux: The Express thinks
it would be a funny sight to see Mayor Lyons and
Judge Rosenheimer make their exit from the Court­house
building dancing together a pas de deux. We
feel assured that the wishes of the Express will be
gratified in this particular if the senior publisher of
that sheet whose grace and talent in that line have
been a source of much admiration, will but conde­scend
to teach them the step! If such an event
happens perhaps the band will play."
Present owner: Sir Swante Palm Collection,
79.338.2, Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, The University of Texas at Austin; James
Patrick McGuire, San Antonio (This copy of the
cartoon does not include the figure of a man with
walking stick which is seen in the Palm Collection
copy.)
#100. Our Platform, ) 868
Medium: Homeograph (photographed pencil
drawing)
Size: 3 lI8 x 4 5/8 inches on 3 7/8 x 4 7/8 inch
mounting
Inscribed: front: "Our Platform. Presented to
Swante Palm by Hon[orable] E[dward] Degener."
reverse: "Democratic Party. Political Carr. San
Antonio 1868 -- seen from left side A. S. Maverick­carrying
flag -Mayor Lyons Playing flute, Judge
Rosenheimer ("the Bullfrog") is drumming. Judge
Devine with flag -- Platform borne [sli;] by Gen!.
Knox, City Engineer Friesleben, Dr. Howard. On
Platform Watchmaker Fisher (Candidate for the
Legislature) on the platform is standing rather
unsteady."
Present owner: Sir Swante Palm Collection,
79.338 .3, Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
#103. Baron Alexander yon Humboldt, 1869
Present owner: Location unknown; photograph
from Wupperrnan-Kuechler Collection, Austin
History Center, Austin Public Library.
The San Antonio Freie Presse fuer Texas, June 14,
1870, reported that Iwonski had been given a
diploma by the local Arbeiter Yerein for his sculp­ture
and oil painting. The sculpture was presumably
that of Humboldt.
#1. Maria Eimke, 1855 [Figure 1.]
Medium: pencil with brown and black ink wash
Size: 13 x 8 3/4 inches
Signed: I.r.: "gez_(?) C. G. Iwonski 1855"
One ofIwonski's first-known portraits executed at
New Braunfels, the seventeen-year-old subject,
Maria Eimke, soon married Robert Julius Bod­emann
and moved to Comfort, Texas, where she
lived for the remainder of her life. A descendant,
Mrs. Hertha Brinkmann Graham, gave the portrait
to the San Antonio Museum Association in 1979.
Present owner: San Antonio Museum Association.
#2. Alfred Kapp, 1862 [Figure 3.]
Medium: pencil on paper
Size: 8 3/4 x 6 5/8 inches
Signed: I.r.: "e. G. Iwonski fet.lJuly 18, 1862"
Iwonski's portrait of Alfred Kapp (d. 1873), a son
of the Sisterdale pioneer water cure spa owner, Dr.
Ernst Kapp, was drawn by the artist during a visit
during the Civil War.
Present owner: Roy Perkins, Comfort, Texas.
#3 The West js Kicking and Braking Her
Traces
Medium: Homeograph (photographed pencil
drawing)
Size: 9 x 12 ern.
Inscribed: reverse: "Gen1. 'Jack Hamilton' drives
three abreast the old state of Texas. The East and
38
Middle draws well enough but the West is kicking
and braking her traces! 'Middle' rears and neighs at
the West for her unruly behavior. Political carri­cature
during the session of the Legislature of Texas
1868. by Ivonski [sk] of San Anto[nio] by [as]
planed [sk] by Hon[orable] E[dward] Degener?"
front lower edge: "R. Roadeway (?) the bond (?) to
hold Texas together."
right edge: "Presented by Hon. E. Degener to
Swante Palm."
Present owner: Sir Swante Palm Collection,
79.388.4, Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
#4. The Proposed New State of Cajuta
(Coyote?)
Medium: Homeograph (photographed pencil
drawing)
Size: 7.4 x 10.2 cm.
Inscribed: reverse: "Political Carricature [sk] by
Ivonski [sk] designed by Hon[orable] E[dward]
Degener of San Antonio. The Proposed new state
of Western Texas is bound down by chains by the
'Austin Ring' -- and Cajuta (?) feels uncomfort­able."
(Cajuta being the name given to that New
State by Genl. Jack [Andrew Jackson] Hamilton.)
Present owner: Sir Swante Palm Collection,
79.338.1, Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
#5. Tabitha Childress Grayson and her Chil­dren,
ca. 1869
Medium: pencil on paper
This portrait of Tabitha Grayson and her two small
children was probably drawn by the artist at the
same time as his single portraits of Mrs. Grayson
and her husband, Thomas Wigg Grayson, in 1869.
Present owner: Mrs. H. W. Anthony, Jr., San
Antonio.
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