THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: Spanish Texas, the Missions
INTERVIEW WITH: Father Marion Habig, OFM
DATE: August 16, 1982
PLACE: San Jose Mission
INTERVIEWER: Gilbert Cruz
C: Good morning, Father Habig. You have kindly allowed us to take a small bit of time from your busy schedule in order to have this interview with you with regards to your interest in the missions and your life in general as a Franciscan, as a writer, and as a scholar.
We would like to begin by asking you to give us some comments about your early life, that is, place of birth, education, your seminary, why did you decide to become a Franciscan father?
H: I was born in St. Louis, on June 28, 1901, so I’m an octogenarian now. My interest in the Franciscan order was a natural development. The parish where I was born, baptized, and went to school at St. Anthony’s church in St. Louis – it was a Franciscan parish. The Franciscans were in charge of it. And not only that, my older brothers all joined the Franciscan order. Father Frances Xavier was the oldest, Father Tom, then Barnabas – he was only a cleric when he died. And then I came, the fourth one. And then another brother of mine who was somewhat handicapped, he was Father Marion Habig 2
partially paralyzed, he became a Franciscan brother. So five of us joined the Franciscan order.
C: Was he ever stationed here? Your younger brother?
H: No, none of these brothers of mine were stationed here. I came down here to visit San Antonio way back in the ‘40’s already. But none of my brothers were stationed here.
C: What seminary did you attend, Father?
H: Well, I went to the Franciscan Seminary, the preparatory seminary at a town called Teutopolis, Illinois, just 100 miles from St. Louis. That was the first time I ever rode on the railroad. I thought that was a big journey – 100 miles!
I went to school there six years. That was a school of preparatory studies. High school plus junior college. Then I went into the novitiate.
C: What year was this, Father?
H: This was 1914 – let me see, yes 1914 I went to the seminary for the first time. In 1920, I went into the novitiate, six years later.
After the novitiate year, I continued my studies in a suburb of Cleveland, which is now part of West Park it was called. We had a seminary there for philosophy and the sciences.
Then I moved to St. Louis where we had our theological seminary. And after three years there I was ordained a priest. I had one more year of studies to go and by that Father Marion Habig 3
time the old school in Teutopolis had been converted into a theological seminary. I spent my last year there in Teutopolis.
C: You were ordained in what year and to what province of the Franciscan Fathers?
H: I was ordained in 1927. I belonged to the province of The Sacred Heart, which we also called the St. Louis, Chicago Province which comprises the whole area of the Mid-West and therefore also Texas.
After my ordination and the additional year of studies, I was appointed a teacher in the high school department of Quincey College. That’s in Illinois. From there – I was there a few years – I went on to Chicago to be an assistant to the editor of the Franciscan Herald. That’s a magazine that we were publishing at the time.
After that – that was the years of the Depression and the magazine didn’t require my help anymore; it was reduced to a minimum.
So I became a teacher in the new preparatory seminary near Chicago – St. Joseph’s Seminary, in Oak Brook.
From there I went to the Catholic University of America to begin some graduate studies. One year under Father Francis Borges Stech, a Franciscan historian.
C: Oh yes, I remember.
H: You remember. He was supposed to have written this history of Texas that was being sponsored by the Knights of Father Marion Habig 4
Columbus. But he gave up that job to become professor at the Catholic University. That’s how Dr. Castaneda got the job. I had only one year there and then I moved to the California to the University of California at Berkeley where Professor Bolton was at the time. That’s how I got to be Professor Bolton’s student.
C: You mentioned earlier that you went to Catholic University of America in Washington to do graduate studies. Was this in history, theology, or what discipline?
H: My major at the university was history; not only history but Spanish American history. That was the subject on which I wanted to get my degree, eventually.
C: You seemed inclined towards history at a very early age as a Franciscan. Did you not?
H: Oh yes. History was always a favorite topic of mine. I enjoyed reading history, especially, of course, Franciscan history. I was interested in the history of the Franciscan order mainly and that included a lot of Spanish America.
C: You went to Berkeley and there, did you find Dr. Bolton or did Dr. Bolton find you?
H: From the Catholic University I went to Berkeley because Bolton was there. I had heard a great deal about him and I admired the work he was doing. I was anxious to do some graduate work under his guidance. That’s how I came to California.
The sojourn in California only lasted about a year. I Father Marion Habig 5
didn’t go through for a doctorate. So I was there for a year but during that year, I learned a great deal.
I was called back to my province to teach at Quincey College. Besides, this switch from the Catholic University to the California University was not favorable because all the work I did before, practically, was annihilated in what we called – they wanted me to go through all kinds of preparatory studies at the University of California at the time.
But anyhow, it was Dr. Bolton who introduced me to the Queretaro archives.
C: Queretaro archives?
H: Yes. I spent my Christmas vacation there. He sent me down to Mexico to microfilm selected documents in the archives of the College of Queretaro, the college that sent missionaries to Texas and also to northern Mexico afterwards. The succeeded the Jesuits in northern Mexico after the Jesuits were expelled from northern Mexico and southern Arizona. The Santa Maria Rio Altar region. So that is how I got acquainted with the Queretaro archives for the first time. I did microfilm quite a number of select documents. They were hidden away in Celaya; nobody knew where they were except old ...
C: Aren’t they still at Celaya?
H: They are still at Celaya; in a room hidden away. In those days, that was in about 1940 – the church was being Father Marion Habig 6
persecuted in Mexico at that time. I had to go down there in disguise. I had to buy a gray suit; I had to buy a tie; had to wear that instead of a Roman collar. But I think those people knew I was a priest anyway. The fact is, in the archives in Mexico city, the National Archives, I went there once to have certain documents copied for Dr. Bolton and certain documents pertaining to this northern part of Mexico. The man in charge of the archives there, he called over to one of the girls, secretaries, and said to here, “This padre here wants these documents here from our archives.” He said, “This padre here” (laughter). I wasn’t dressed like a priest – how did he know?
Anyway I stayed there for about a month that time in Celaya. They had hidden them away in a room. Some of the documents had been lost when they transferred from Queretaro to Celaya. They were all mixed up. I tried to put them in order. The padre was very grateful for the work I did in the archives. I stayed there for about a month. That was an unauthorized friary where they were. It was just a little house near the church. In order to get to the church, we had to climb over a roof and then down a ladder into a little courtyard next to the sacristy. (laughter) The church bells were not robbed; they were not allowed to ring any church bells. ______________________ served the church at the time. That’s how I met the archives and that’s how I met Dr. Bolton.Father Marion Habig 7
I was very grateful to Dr. Bolton. He was very kind; a big, strong man, but he had a big heart, too.
C: Father, you said you did not complete your doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley but went on – when did you finally get your Ph.D?
H: I didn’t get any Ph.D.
C: You didn’t. You did graduate work.
H: No. I had previously gotten a master’s degree at Loyola University, in Chicago. That was during that period when I was associate editor of the magazine and they didn’t need much help anymore from me so before I went to the seminary in Oak Brook, I attended Loyola University and got a master’s degree in history.
C: But you did your post graduate, your doctoral work, under Dr. Bolton.
H: Under Dr. Bolton and in the Catholic University. That was after I got my master’s degree, I went to the Catholic University.
My master’s dissertation was on French missionaries in Illinois, (The Franciscan Recollects) who were with LaSalle; who came with LaSalle. Particularly my dissertation was on Father Zenobe Membre who was the chaplain of LaSalle’s expedition. Later went down to Alton, Mississippi, to a (?) and that’s when France claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for France. That was a separation between the East and the West of the Spanish borderlands. Spain had claimed that Father Marion Habig 8
territory, of course, but they were unable to stop the French from occupying the Mississippi Valley.
C: Father, what was the name of your thesis; the date in which it was completed, and from what university?
H: From Loyola University. The name was, “The Franciscan, Pere Marquette.” (laughter) See, the Jesuits were after – Father Marquette as ...
C: “Franciscan Pere Marquette...”
H: Their leading man in that area; so I called him The Franciscan Pere Marquette – Father Zenobe Membre, LaSalle’s chaplain. I think that was the exact ...
C: When was it published?
H: The manuscript was published as a book; it is out of print, of course; it was published at the time ...
C: What year was your dissertation completed?
H: I’m not sure now. I haven’t the exact dates with me – ’35, I think it was.
C: 1935.
H: Something like that. About 1935.
C: You said you went back East after your stay in California. Did you maintain your correspondence and your relationship with Dr. Bolton over the years?
H: No. There was no real opportunity, nor real need for correspondence. I did write to him after I left but I took with me some of those documents with his permission. I had planned to make use of them, you see. Some of those Father Marion Habig 9
documents from the College of Queretaro, but I never got around to do that.
While I was still in California, at that time, I was living over in San Francisco, and I used to cross the Bay on the ferry to get to the University. While I was there, I did write an article on the builders of San Xavier de Bae, the famous white doves of San Xavier de Bae. This article proved it was the Franciscans, not the Jesuits, that built this mission. See Father Eusebio Francisco Kino had the mission there – a primitive structure – and that occupied a different site, near by of course, at San Xavier de Bae, near Tuscon.
C: I’ve been there, Father.
H: You’ve been there. Anyhow, my article, the report of Father del _____________________ which showed that the Franciscans who succeeded the Jesuits, after they had been banished from that area and from all of New Spain, this document showed that the Franciscans built this new church, the present San Xavier de ____________.
C: These Franciscans that moved in after the expulsion of the Jesuits, from New Spain, what college were they from?
H: From Queretaro.
C: Queretaro. And the Franciscans who were working in California were from San Francisco Grande in Mexico City?
H: No, they were from San Fernando in Mexico City. Father Junpero Serra came from San Fernando. San Francisco el Father Marion Habig 10
Grande was the headquarters of the province; the province of Mexico of Santo Evangelio.
You see these colleges were established only later on. The first one was Queretaro, 1683. That was when Queretaro was established. The first of the colleges.
They had the specialized purpose to work on the frontier among the Indians as missionaries and also to send out men to form so-called parish missions and establish Christian communities and towns, etc. They went from town to town; they didn’t stay in one place. They stayed for a week or two and then moved on to other towns. That was the work of the colleges – the two-fold purpose they had. So the missions was just one part of their work.
Those missionaries of Queretaro, who were in Texas, moved. They left Texas in 1773 and moved to Santa Maria Rio de Altar; took over those missions that had been in the hands of the Jesuits. That’s all they got over there.
C: When the missionaries of the College of Queretaro left Texas, they left these missions in charge of the Franciscans of Zacatecas. Is this not true?
H: The Texas missions, of course, were in the hands of both colleges. Queretaro and Zacatecas; Zacatecas came first. But it was a cooperative work of two colleges – Queretaro and Zacatecas, which had been founded by Father Antonio Margil. It was a later college.
Their joint effort came in 1716 when they decided to Father Marion Habig 11
occupy the eastern part of Texas because the French had moved in there - to stop the advance of the French. So they established those missions in East Texas in 1716. Three missions were founded by the Queretaro College, three missions by the Zacatecas College.
The leader of the Queretarans was Father Espinoza.
C: Isidro Espinoza, yes.
H: They wrote a big poem you know. They called it Cronica ________________________. You know the book. Then Father Margil was the leader of the Zacatecan missionaries.
C: Antonio Margil.
H: Yes. So I did start working on Texas, not on Texas, but on the history of the College of Queretaro way back in 1940.
C: What moved you in the direction of the Texas missions? Gradually, I see as your knowledge of the Franciscan endeavor during the time of New Spain in the northern frontier begins to become more and more a part of you; become so familiarized with it that I see from what you’re saying that you begin to make all sorts of historical relationships as the Queretaran fathers moved from Texas and then the areas around Queretaro and then over in the direction of the Sinaloa, Sonora, and Baja, California. How did you begin to center in on Texas with so much devotion and knowledge and success, let us say?
H: When I was in Washington at the university, the Father Marion Habig 12
Catholic University, Father Francis Steck, my professor, was very much interested in the history of Texas so that was one subject that we talked about a great deal. And then in 1936, Dr. Castaneda’s first volume, the first of those seven volumes, came out. That, of course, was a book in which I was deeply interested.
As I said, there were other jobs I had during the period that followed. I was in the Quincey College; then in the seminary in Oak Brook. After my return from California, I was back in Quincey College and I was suddenly called away to New York City to be Secretary of the Franciscan General Delegation during World War II. So I lived in New York City during World War II. That was the headquarters for the Franciscans for all North America and it included Mexico and I became acquainted with the Franciscans in Mexico – the heads of the three Franciscan provinces down there. So I was in New York until – ’42 to ’46. And then I became Superior of the newly-established Academy of American Franciscan History in Washington, D.C. You know that Academy?
C: Oh yes.
H: I was there for one year to get the place started. I was not the Rector of the Academy, just the Religious Superior of the Academy. But I remained a member for another year and went back to California and began to transcribe the letters of Father Mariano del los Dolores y Father Marion Habig 13
Viana, a California missionary. The Commisario Perfecto and the President of the California missions, Father Mariano de los Viana. I spent the whole year out there in California, just writing those letters of Father Mariano de los Dolores y Viana. They are now in the Academy in Washington, D. C.
C: Have they been published, Father?
H: Not yet. They have to wait their turn. They have letters of other presidentes – Father Serra, of course, and Father Fermin de LaSuen. But it’s still up there in their hands.
C: Father, I’ve noticed that you’ve turned out to be quite a skillful paleographer and transcriber. How many languages do you know?
H: Well, I do not have the ability to speak fluently in many languages but I can read a lot of languages. I speak English, of course, German, I learned when I was a youngster. I can speak German. I can get along in Latin and a little bit in French and Spanish and Italian. I can read those languages. I have not much difficulty in reading of course with the aid of the dictionary. I can read those Spanish document quite well.
But unfortunately I never learned to speak Spanish; I never had to practice and you have to practice to speak Spanish.
C: That’s very interesting, Father. When did you decide to come back to Texas? How old were you when you started Father Marion Habig 14
carving out the Texas missions and San Antonio missions in particular. It’s much of your life’s work.
HP It all started in 1966 ...
C: How old were you then, Father?
H: 66. I’m always one year younger than the century. Born in 1901.
C: So you might say, at the gentle age of 66, you began ...
H: 65, it was.
I was appointed the historian of the Franciscan Province of St. Louis, Chicago, the entire mid-west, including Texas.
C: What year were you given that assignment?
H: That assignment? In ’54. Then in ’66 they had a big celebration here in San Antonio – the Knights of Columbus, the Order of the Alhambra – on a platform at the Arneson River Theater on the San Antonio River. They celebrated the 275th anniversary of the naming of San Antonio. You’ve seen that plaque in the Arneson River Theater?
I was called down to be, well, engaged to talk – the address – during the Mass. We celebrated right there in the theater. Our Provincial was there and I was with him at the altar. We celebrated the Mass. All the dignitaries were there in one of those boats in the river. A big crowd of people all around us there. And I gave the talk during the Mass – the homily – but it was really a historical talk thatFather Marion Habig 15
I gave.
The first governor of Texas, Teran de los Rios.
C: Domingo Teran de los Rios?
H: Father Massenet – Damian Massenet – how they came to the San Antonio River that year, 275 years earlier. That was in 1691. They were on their way to East Texas where Father Massenet had established a mission in East Texas the previous year. The first one in East Texas. San Francisco de los Tejas Mission, the first one; the one is still remembered at Weches. In the State Park there they have a church or chapel representing the original church.
Anyhow, in 1691 Teran de los Rios and Massenet came to the San Antonio river to an Indian village which had the name of Yanaguana, which means “refreshing waters.” This village was near the source of the San Antonio River – near the San Pedro Springs. There they paused on the Feast of Corpus Christi. And Father Massenet celebrated Mass there. And the Indians were there and they named the river. The governor called it San Antonio River. And Father Massenet called the place in honor of St. Anthony of Padua or of Lisbon. He came from Lisbon. In Portugal they call him St. Anthony of Lisbon. They named the place and the river in honor of St. Anthony.
The remark that Father made on that occasion, I think, was, “This is the place at some future date, we will have to erect missions.” He recognized the place as an ideal spot Father Marion Habig 16
for missions.
So I gave that talk and I realized at the time that there was a deep desire and hunger for more information and more accurate information about these missions here in San Antonio. This chain of five missions. So I got busy.
In ’68, two years later, appeared my history of San Jose Mission, entitled San Antonio’s Mission San Jose. There’s more than one San Jose you know in Spanish border missions. San Antonio’s San Jose Mission. While I was working on that history, I proceeded in gathering information about the other missions. And so in the same year came out this other book, the chain – The Alamo Chain of Missions.
C: The same year, Father?
H: The same year. Later on in the year.
C: What year was the year of publication?
H: 1968. That was two years after I came down for that talk in 1966. Two years later.
C: But now you had been doing a considerable amount of research before the talk and before the publication.
H: Oh yes. I had studied Castaneda’s volumes.
C: Quite thoroughly.
H: Oh yes. And in fact, my books are based to a great extent on Castaneda’s previous work. I gathered together what he had, into – scattered around in his volumes – put that together into one volume. San Jose and then the other Father Marion Habig 17
one, the five missions.
But I made additional researches and we shared – for instance, Father Ben Leutenniger came down here in 1970 and he began to collect documents and transcribed them. We got some documents from the Bejar Archives before my book was published.
After ’66, I came down here every year until ’76. Ten years. I came down here every year. For sometimes shorter periods, sometimes longer periods. Some as long as three months and devoted the time to research. I gathered my material for my first books right here in San Antonio for the most part.
C: Father, I understand you did quite a bit of research and a lot of it in traveling through Texas and through sectors of Mexico not only to gather documents but I have also been given the impression, because you wanted to see firsthand the places where many of these sites originally stood. Will you tell us something about that?
H: Yes. That was one of Dr. Bolton’s hobbies, to visit the sites. See the places where – about which he wrote. Well, I sort of inherited that desire.
And so in ’68 in the summer of ’68, September, it wasn’t so hot, and that was an ideal time – for three weeks Father, Pete, (DeVries) and I made expeditions from San Antonio to visit the sites of all the Spanish establishments in Texas. Not only the missions but also the presidios and Father Marion Habig 18
the villas, the towns of the Spanish settlers.
So briefly shall I tell you what we did?
C: Oh please. We’d like to know very much.
H: The first big expedition we made was from San Antonio to the Apache region.
C: The San Saba missions?
H: The San Saba and the later Apache missions in the 1760’s. Father Don (?) San Lorenzo Mission and the second (?) LaVilla Mission. There were three Apache missions. We visited them first.
And then we went on to El Paso and visited all the missions in the El Paso region. On our first trip, we didn’t get all the way to El Paso. But the next day we were in El Paso and visited those missions starting at the bottom with San Elizario, then Soccoro, Ysleta, and the sites of the others that were out there. There’s nothing left of them. In all we went to El Paso and stopped over night in the Seminary of the Franciscans in Mexico, the Province of San Evangelio. Mexico City had a seminary up in El Paso at that time. The friar I met there, an old friend of mine with whom I had been corresponding, Father Felipe Cueto, a famous historian from Mexico – he was there at the seminary at the time. We stayed there at the seminary over night; left the next day. We once more visited all those spots, those historic sites and missions and kept on going down to Presidio. At Presidio, we visited the sites of those Father Marion Habig 19
missions.
C: Did you go to Our Lady of Guadalupe parish in downtown Juarez?
H: Of course. We crossed the river and we visited Juarez when we were there in El Paso. The very first day before we went up to the seminary, we visited Juarez. Imagine, the Guadalupe church had been founded there in 16-something. And the church is still standing there next to the cathedral, the old Guadalupe mission. We crossed one bridge and came back on another.
From El Paso we went down to Presidio and then we took a little vacation trip. We stayed right along the Rio Grande and went down to the Big Bend National Park. Stayed there overnight. The next day, we headed for home, for San Antonio. On the way we made a detour down to Guerrero, Coahuila, the site of San Juan Bautista presidio and the mission down there.
C: Is that on the Mexican side? Nuevo Guerrero, isn’t it?
H: No, that’s another Guerrero. This is the Guerrero in Coahuila. The other Guerrero is down in Tamaulipas. That’s where they built the dam.
C: You’re talking about the one in Coahuila, not the one in Tamulipas.
H: We visited that one later on. So we visited the San Juan Bautista site, especially San Bernardo Mission where the church is standing. The church is part of the San Father Marion Habig 20
Bernardo Mission and is still standing there. But of the other establishments, there’s hardly anything left. But from there we went back to San Antonio. That was our first expedition.
C: How long did the trip take you, Father?
H: Four days.
C: All that in four days? You really moved.
H: The second expedition, we left San Antonio; traveled through Austin where those eastern missions were, later transferred to San Antonio. Were for a short period, 1730. Through Austin up to the San Xavier River, now called the San Gabriel River. We visited the sites of San Xavier Missions.
C: The ones that were built for the Apaches?
H: Right. Well, not just for the Apaches but for all kinds of tribes. Queretaro College started those missions. They didn’t last long. One of them died up there. One of the padres was murdered – Father Joseph Francisco de Ganzabal. He was murdered there. He had been a missionary here in Concepcion Mission.
Two of those missions were later transferred to, moved, to San Marcos. One of them to the Guadalupe River, the present New Braunfels. So they were at different sites. The one at New Braunfels, San Marcos, the one after, was San Xavier. Horcasitas. So we visited those: San Gabriel or San Xavier Missions and then on to East Texas. We visited Father Marion Habig 21
the sites of two early missions and then the subsequent missions, the three of the Queretaro College at those places. They’re north, northwest, of Nacogdoches. Then we reached Nacogdoches and stayed there overnight. We took the best of the vacant spots in one of those things there – overnight with a car?
C: Motel?
H: Motel. We stayed there overnight. Then the next day we went on and visited the sites of the three Zacatecas missions, in East Texas. There was one in Nacogdoches of course, the Guadalupe Mission there. Then the next one San Augustin, Texas. That’s where there was a mission.
And then we crossed the Sabine River over into Louisiana. Los Adaes, was the capitol of Texas for half a century.
C: Is there anything left of Los Adaes?
H: Nothing. But they have a little monument, marker, there near the town of Robeline, Louisiana. A little marker that Louisiana put up. No marker for the mission; it’s a shame. Later on, I wrote a letter to the governor of Texas, Governor Connally, and wrote a letter to the governor of Louisiana. I proposed to the two governors, let’s get together and put up a decent monument for the first capitol established there in Robeline, Louisiana.
Governor Connally was in favor of it but the other governor – I don’t think it got to the governor.Father Marion Habig 22
C: Too bad.
H: So then we had to get back into Texas. We went all the way down to the mouth of the Trinity River where there was this other mission. The place that the Indians called Orcoquisac. The Indians. And the place was called that. There was a presidio near the mouth of the Trinity River. We went to a place called Anahuac. That’s where the site was for the mission. They were not too far apart.
C: Did they have historical sites at both places? Oroquisac and Anahuac?
H: We found no markers. On our return from Anahuac, we went to Houston. Stayed there overnight at the home of Pete’s parents. We stayed there overnight.
On the way, we passed a place where there was a marker. We didn’t get out of the car; the traffic was too heavy.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1
TAPE I, SIDE 2
H: The Presidio and the mission was not far away on Garcitas Creek, according to Dr. Bolton.
So we wandered around in that area until we got to a place called LaSalle. That is as close as we got to the first site of the presidio. From there, we went on to the town called Bloomington, south of Victoria. In 1936 they had put up a monument there – a marker – as the second site of the mission and presidio of La Bahia. However, that has been questioned or denied. It is claimed that the second Father Marion Habig 23
site was in Mission Valley, north of Victoria. However, in my opinion – this is my idea – even after Oberste made a survey of all that area, even by airplane, he thinks Mission Valley was the second site. Mrs. O’Connor thinks Mission Valley was the second site. My idea is this: after the misfortune that the Indians were always up against the Spaniards at the first site, (one of the Indians was shaking out a blanket and one of the soldiers got mad and captured the Indian and there was an insurrection there at La Bahia), they moved away.
First, the mission. Then later on the presidio later on in that year, 1726, around that time – this mission was transferred and the presidio. Now, in the accounts it says that the missionary padre from the second site of the mission continued to take care of the soldiers at the presidio at the first site for half a year. If this second site had been there in Mission Valley, that would have been 80 miles and the padre surely didn’t travel 80 miles occasionally to visit the soldiers at the Presidio on Garcitas Creek. I think that’s a convincing argument. According to the accounts, too, it seems that the second site was much closer. They were near the Gulf; the reports speak of being near the Gulf. So my idea is that the second site was at Bloomington, as they called it in 1936, but only temporarily, for a short time. Then they moved up to Mission Valley; that became the third site. From Mission Father Marion Habig 24
Valley, the presidio and the mission were moved down to present Goliad. That’s my opinion.
So we visited all those places. Mission Valley to Victoria and then at Goliad. They have restored the presidio there. Mrs. O’Connor restored that. And there is a church and the mission which is supposed to be a sort of replica of the last church that they built at that mission.
Of the Rosarian missions, there are still some foundations left.
From Goliad, we went down to Refugio, which had three sites. Three different sites. In the present town, Refugio, there is a church built on the spot of the former presidio mission, when Monsignor William Herman Oberste was the priest in charge there at that church. He’s the one who wrote this history of Refugio Mission – a very good piece of work. And since then, in his old age as a retired priest down in Corpus Christi, he has produced another manuscript on these Gulf Coast missions. He got an award, the Bahia award, two years ago and I think that though he didn’t expect it, he’s going to get a publisher for the book.
So we visited these missions in the Gulf Coast area and then went back home to San Antonio. That was the end of the second expedition.
C: Was there a third expedition?
H: There was a third expedition. We visited the lower Rio Grande comparable to those in Texas. However, after the Father Marion Habig 25
establishment of Nueva Santander, there were four towns on the Mexican side of the river that were established. There were three missions; with each town there was a mission. In three of the towns there was a separate mission. And these towns, these villas, and the missions were in the charge of the padres from Zacatecas College, too. These towns – there was Guerrero, the old Guerrero, which originally was called Reynosa.
C: Reynosa was further down the river. There were about five towns on the south bank.
H: In 1749 there four towns established.
C: Reynosa, Camargo, Revilla, Meir. And the fifth one, on the north bank, was Laredo.
H: Yes, and there was Dolores, too.
C: The little ranch settlement of Dolores, right?
H: But those were on the Texas side. They were real Texas-Spanish settlements – Dolores and Laredo. But the others were in Mexico.
C: Revilla.
H: Revilla was the present Guerrero, or New Guerrero. Revilla, then Mier, then Camargo, then Reynosa.
We visited all those Mexican towns. The reason was ...
C: What was the Franciscan influence on those settlements, Father?
H: They took care of the spiritual needs of the settlers in all of those towns. And at the same time, they worked onFather Marion Habig 26
the Indians to make them Christians. The Indians in that area, see?
C: Well, the Franciscan father had two tasks: to take care of the civilian settlers and at the same time to try to Christianize the surrounding Indians.
H: That was by way of exception. The colleges ordinarily did not take care of the Spanish settlements. But incidentally, by way of exception, they did. Even in Texas the padres took care of the settlers in San Fernando occasionally, you see. They had a diocesan priest in charge but they helped out there in the parish church of San Fernando and in the presidio.
That one on Garcitas Creek, La Bahia, one of the missionaries was appointed the official chaplain of the presidio there. By way of exception.
But anyhow, the reason for our visits to those places was the fact that the Rio Grande was not a boundary at that time. Those towns really extended across the river into Texas. They had ranches and farms on the other side of the river. And so those Mexican towns actually went into Texas. These Texas establishments, these ranches, they were not real villas, but they were ranches on the Texas side and we can count them ‘visitas,’ places that were visited by the missionaries. They administered to the people living on those ranches and the Indians that were there, who worked on those ranches.Father Marion Habig 27
So we had those four towns with their extension on the Texas side plus the two villas farther up – Dolores and Laredo.
And there was a third villa, third town, Palafox, which was established in 1810. And did not last very long. It came to ruin because of the attacks of hostile Indians.
We tried to reach Palafox, the site – there are ruins still at Palafox. When we were at Laredo, we went up to Palafox but we couldn’t get in. The ranch there – the gates were locked and we couldn’t get in. Besides, we didn’t have permission to go in. But anyway, we got near the spot of Palafox. Later on we made further investigations and were able to get in there and take pictures and so on. Miss Carmen Perry wrote a beautiful book on – I suppose you know that – on the documents they found in Laredo, put together and translated them. The book was published by the university, St. Mary’s University.
C: Father, when did you return from your third trip? How long was this one?
H: That was just two days. We stayed overnight in Brownsville. And, of course, we went across to Matamoras. In Matamoras they had archives on the Texas missions. Monsignor Oberste found papers over in Matamoras.
C: Whereabouts in Matamoras?
H: I don’t know; but he did find in Matamoras, he found papers on the Refugio mission. The Gulf Coast mission. Father Marion Habig 28
Church records they found there. Some of them were removed over there.
C: Monsignor Oberste did not say whether they were at a church, or a convent or part of the civil records?
H: I don’t know. Maybe there is mention of it in his book, The History of the Refugio Mission. I think there is. Just where he found them, I don’t know. It’s an interesting thing that he found them over in Matamoras. Or someone found them or he got hold of them or learned about them.
C: Father, you made three trips through Texas, parts of Louisiana, and the northern Mexican frontier in acquainting yourself better with the Texas missions. All of this, of course, reinforced your own research and made it easier for you to write more convincingly in your own mind, I’m sure.
Let me ask you this before I go on: was there another expedition or were there just three?
H: There were a lot of shorter expeditions.
C: Why don’t you give us an account of number four.
H: Well, you could call it expedition number four and five. For instance, we went down to Las Cabras, the ranch.
C: Down by Floresville. Yes.
H: Mission Espada’s ranch. It has been proved now that it was really the ranch of Espada Mission. That was my idea that it was the Espada ranch. The other mission, San Juan Capistrano, had a ranch too, farther south. The Mora ranch.Father Marion Habig 29
We learned that from a diary that one of the missionaries wrote; the Narvaez diary. That’s the Narvaez attending Father Vasconcelos, wrote the diary; one of the Texas missionaries.
C: Whereabouts did you consider the location of La Mora ranch to be?
H: I made a map ...
C: Is it further south than Las Cabras, you said.
H: Just a little farther south, yes.
C: In that general direction?
H: Oh yes. It was on the road from San Antonio to Goliad, to La Bahia. It was on that road. There was a whole array of ranches. I made a map and it was published in the El Companario book. There were a lot o private ranches between San Antonio and Bahia in the latter part of the Spanish period. So that was one expedition.
Another one coincided with a meeting of TOMFRA – Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association – their bulletin is El Campanario. I contributed articles on all the missions of Texas; a whole series of articles appeared in the first nine volumes of El Campanario. These, by the way, are published in book form. All the first nine volumes of El Campanario. They had a meeting over in San Angelo. So we went up to San Angelo for the meeting. Bishop Levin was there. And he asked me about a mission here and I said, “No, you haven’t a mission here. That was just an Father Marion Habig 30
expedition that the Spaniards made in this area.”
Afterwards I got to thinking this over. Wait a minute. Maybe they did establish a mission. And when I got back home I found out there was a mission at San Angelo after all. One we had overlooked. We simply counted it among the expeditions of the Spaniards.
In 1632 – that was the first mission in Texas. The missionaries from New Mexico came all the way down to San Angelo to the confluence of the three Concho Rivers. There’s the middle Concho, and the north Concho and the Concho. And that’s where San Angelo is. And there was a mission there for six months. And the Indians there, they were the Jumanos. They were the ones that had been instructed by – they sent a delegation to Ysleta, oldest mission in New Mexico. In fact the missionaries had come down to their territory and established missions there. They were instructed in the Christian faith. Where did they get it? The story of Mary Agreda cannot be dismissed as a legend at all. The historical fact is too convincing.
Anyway, the missionaries did make two trips down to San Angelo. The second trip, one of the missionaries stayed there. And he stayed there for six months and then, it seems, he went back to New Mexico. It was too far away. Imagine that distance from Ysleta, New Mexico, to San Angelo, Texas, - five hundred miles or so?
C: The missionaries were coming out of the El Paso area, Father Marion Habig 31
not the Santa Fe area.
H: The missionaries from New Mexico belonged to the Provincia de Santo Evangelio, New Mexico – didn’t belong to the collegios at all.
C: As part of the New Mexico province, then?
H: Of the Mexico City Province. It had its dependent branch in New Mexico, which they called a custodial – custodial of New Mexico which included northern Arizona.
C: Was that during the administration of Father Nicolas Lopez?
H: Lopez? New Mexico?
C: In El Paso.
H: Oh, in El Paso. Lopez was there after they were driven out of New Mexico. And Lopez is the one who went down to the other territory, to Presidio, where there also were Jumano Indians. They called them ___________________Indians at the time. But they were Jumanos, too. The Jumano Indians were traders bison hunters, and moved around all over Texas. But their summer home was around San Angelo. And their winter home down in the Presidio area. They called it La Junta de los Rios. The confluence of the Mexican Concho and the Rio Grande.
C: That’s very interesting, Father, about San Angelo. Would you say the historical origins of the name of San Angelo, Texas, rests with that mission?
H: No. I suppose that name came later on. It had no Father Marion Habig 32
connection with the first mission. It didn’t even have a special name; it was just there for six months. We don’t know of any special name; we don’t know of any name that was given to it. We called it San Angelo Mission. You can put it in quotation marks, “San Anglo Mission.”
C: We’re not quite so sure where they got the name San Angelo?
H: No. I guess you could find out when the town was established. Later in the 19th century. It doesn’t mean that the mission had that name at all.
Did I mention that other? Jumano Mission? I think I forgot it. When they went down to Presidio and established those missions down there. From Presidio, they traveled all the way up to San Angelo region where they had been a half century earlier – the missionaries. At the confluence of the Colorado and the Concho rivers they had a little mission there for one and a half months. So there were two missions of the Jumanos in the San Angelo area. So we counted that one in our list, you see. That one and a half month mission. Now we found one that lasted six months; we certainly should add that one to the list. So instead of 36 missions, we had 37. 37 including the one in Louisiana.
And then we found another mission.
C: Where was this, Father?
H: The last; number 38. That is the mission of Santa Maria de los ____________ over in the El Paso region betweenFather Marion Habig 33
San Elizario and Soccorro. Between those two places. Santa Maria de los ___________ existed from 1730 until 1749, almost two decades. The man who discovered that mission is the Jesuit Father Espinoza in El Paso. The Jesuit historian, Father Ernest Purrus, he found that in the records. And this is the only mission in Texas that was not in the hands of the Franciscans. The Bishop appointed one of his own diocesan priests to take care of that new mission for Santa Maria de los ______________.
C: That’s very interesting, Father. Let me ask you one more thing; in your book you talk about the five missions – the Alamo Chain of Missions – and you talk about the five missions of San Antonio. In your other book, San Antonio’s San Jose Mission, you speak quite extensively and eloquently of San Jose Mission. What are your impressions of Mission San Xavier de Najara, Father? You don’t go into much of that. Maybe you can give us some of your thinking, orally.
H: I had put together what I could find about it in the Alamo chain of Missions.
When Aguayo came to re-conquer the East Texas missions which had been abandoned in 1719 when the French attacked Los Adaes mission and the Spaniards fled to San Antonio – so Aguayo went back and reestablished them in 1721. One of the leaders of the Aguayo expedition was an Indian. He was anxious that his people who occupied the territory somewhere between the East Texas missions and San Antonio – had their Father Marion Habig 34
rancherias there – he wanted the mission for his Indians, too. And Aguayo promised to establish that mission – bring them down to San Antonio to the San Antonio River to establish a mission for them. And he did. After he had been in the East, he came back and he did establish that mission. But it never got beyond the beginning stage. The Indians did – some of them came – but then they weren’t satisfied and they went back home to their rancherias farther east. They tried to persuade them to join the Indians in San Antonio de Valero but they wouldn’t do that either so San Xavier de Najara, as it was called, was abandoned.
Actually, I counted them off to 38 missions. San Xavier de Najara, because it was intended to be a full-fledged, independent mission. Actually it amounted to a visito, assistencia, because Father Gonzalez who was at San Antonio de la Valero took care of San Xavier de Najar as long as it existed. But he kept separate records for San Xavier de Najara.
C: So you call it more of a visita, then –
H: Assistencia.
C: Then you do an actual mission? Now if that was the case, Father, there’s two things that we could possibly speculate about San Xavier de Najara. One, that regarding the extent of foundations and structures of that mission and secondly, the site.Father Marion Habig 35
Let’s take the second part first. Where do you think it was located?
H: Well, in the sources, among the secondary sources that I consulted, we find that it was on, or near, the site where later on the Mission Concepcion was established. That’s as close as I could get.
C: What was the extent of construction that would be made for a visita, a training center of this lower type?
H: They were only primitive buildings they were able to put up in those days. They existed only for a few years. Primitive buildings. I don’t see how you could find – an archaeologist would be able to find the remnants of that establishment, San Xavier de Najara.
There is a marker on Mission Road for San Xavier de Najara, but that’s pretty far down, away from Concepcion. According to what I read, found out about, the mission was closer to Concepcion.
C: Father, one more thing I’d like to ask you is this. During the course of our visit, you have mentioned some people that demonstrated a certain amount of interest in the San Antonio missions. I know in my speaking to you on the occasion of the Mission Research Conference, you mentioned another one, namely John Francis Bannon. Here is the list of some of the people I’ve noted that you’ve been bringing to our attention – men, of course, of your caliber like Eugene Bolton, Dr. Castaneda from Austin, John Francis Father Marion Habig 36
Bannon. You talked about earlier, Monsignor Oberste, Corpus Christi area, Father Steck from Washington and our own Father Ben Leutenneger. You mentioned also, Carmen Perry.
Now, when we talk about these people, we’re talking about people who – some of course more than others – but certainly all of them had an intense interest in the Spanish Southwest, Spanish Texas and the Spanish missions. Could you by way of a kind of a “historiographical” resume – you know these people pretty well and I’m sure you know others as well – can you comment on these people as your friends, fellow scholars, as people who have worked alongside of you over this period of time? First of all, what sort of man was this Castaneda, Carlos Eduardo Castaneda?
H: Well, I met him only a few times but I got the impression that he was a very meticulous investigator. He certainly was able to read those Spanish documents well. His series of books, seven-volume history, in that work we find summaries of those various documents that he had which were available to him, and they are quote summaries. But we still sometimes have to go back to the original documents. There are some slight errors in his great work. That’s to be expected; you can’t expect a man who has gone through all those hundreds of documents not to make a single mistake. There is a mistake which says that Father Mariano de los Dolores y Viriana was at a meeting in 1769 here in San Antonio; the date was 1759. Probably a typographical error.Father Marion Habig 37
But it misled me. When I made a sketch of Father Mariano de los Dolores y Viriana, I said, darn it, he couldn’t have died in 1763 because he was at this meeting in 1769; how could he have died in 1763? Well, it was ’59; he did die in 1763. That’s a correction that I made in my revised edition of The Alamo Chain of Missions.
Then there is that famous report of Father Ortiz, Francisco Javier Ortiz, of the visitation he made to the San Antonio missions. Castaneda didn’t know about it; he couldn’t find it; he didn’t have the documents, the original documents. The original documents haven’t been found to the present date. But that report of his was printed in Mexico in the very year he made the visitations; was printed in Mexico. The Alamo Mission library have found that printed report of Father Ortiz in 1756, he visited the missions, the Queretaro missions, in 1756. And he is the one who tells us when the church of Concepcion was completed, dedicated.
Archbishop Lucy, on one occasion said, “Can you find out when that church was completed and dedicated?” I didn’t know at the time but I said, “I hope to find out something,” and I did in that report of Father Ortiz. Alamo Mission Library. And I owe it to that librarian at the Alamo Mission, who knew that that was there and put it in front of me. And she put it in front of me. She said, “Here is a report on the missions.” Carmen Perry translated that report, when she was at St. Mary’s University. The Father Marion Habig 38
translation hasn’t been published. It should be at St. Mary’s University. It should be published, I think – the report of Father Ortiz. It’s a facsimile of the original printed report – the old type they had at that time.
C: Father, would you say that any serious researcher on Spanish Texas must start off with Castaneda, to get himself oriented, you might say? Point him in the direction of his own specialty?
H: Yes, certainly. That is important. And you simply can’t go through the books and read. You’ve got to relate things and read over and over. I did. I read Castaneda many times; not just one time but many times. And every time I’d find something new or some connection with something else.
C: There was a man by the name of William Dunn who wrote papers, also, who was a protégé of Herbert Eugene Bolton. He was quite active in the University of Texas in transcripts and translations.
H: He made transcripts in Mexico and in Spain.
C: Did you ever run across him?
H: I never met the man.
C: But are aware of his works, aren’t you?
H: We are benefiting by his work; his transcripts, sure.
If I may add, you were talking about people who were interested in the Texas missions – there’s a young man here in San Antonio right now who is immensely interested. And Father Marion Habig 39
you know who I mean?
C: Richard Garray.
H: He’s been corresponding with me for some time. He is so anxious to do something. Richard has never had any higher education. He did go to high school to the seminary for awhile, with the Vincentians, in Houston for a year and then he was with the Irish Capuchins in California for three years. So he had a high school education but he never went to college. He is a very serious investigator. I was surprised; I was amazed. There’s possibilities that point somewhere.
C: That’s good. I’m interested to hear that. We have to know that for the missions, the National Park Service.
Let me ask you, Father. You mentioned the importance of William Dunn’s transcripts – those of us who have used them would have to concur with you – what sort of impression can you give us of Father John Francis Bannon who was (at Berkeley?) about the time that you were out there studying under Bolton.
H: Yes. There were two Jesuits there; I forget the name of the other one. The other one remained in California. We were good friends; we met just a few times. We traveled on the train between San Francisco and Berkeley several times. He is a man who was very capable, I think. He did a great deal of work; contributed a great deal of work to the history of the Spanish border lands.Father Marion Habig 40
C: You also know – you mentioned Monsignor Oberste several times.
H: Yes.
C: The historian of Spanish Texas and particularly of the missions in East Texas and close to Corpus Christi and also the Irish immigrants in Texas. Can you tell us something about Monsignor Oberste? What are some of your impressions of him?
H: He did this as a sort of hobby.
C: He was the diocesan priest for the diocese of Corpus Christi. He was raised to rank of Monsignor. He spent all his life as a priest. Not only as a priest but as a historian, too, I think. That was his occupation whenever he had some extra time; examining documents and trying to gather together the history of that area. What I called the Gulf coast missions; La Bahia, Rosario and Refugio. He also wrote a very excellent book - that history of the Refugio missions. An excellent history.
How about Father Steck?
H: Father Steck.
C: You seem to have a lot of pleasant memories of Father Steck.
H: Yes. He was a good confrere of mine. I worked with him for a while. But his attention, his interest, was divided. You see he was interested in Spanish America, very much so, but he also was interested in the New France. The Father Marion Habig 41
French area of North America. He carried on quite a controversy about Father Marquette. Did you know that? He claimed that Marquette was not a priest. He was only a cleric; that he never was ordained a priest; that there was no evidence that he was ordained a priest.
C: Jesuit Seminarian in major orders?
H: Minor orders, not major orders. The Jesuits did send such seminarians into the missions in those days. And at other times, too. So he may be right in that. He wrote all kinds of things on that question. Father Steck did.
Some of the publications were published in bibliography form. But he had quite a controversy with the Jesuit historians.
There was a Father Boris maybe that’s the same one in El Paso, I’m not sure. I just recall there was a Father Boris. He tried to refute or defend Father Marquette as a priest. Anyhow, he published a book, a special book, I forgot the exact title. You see after Father Steck had been at the University in Washington, he went back to Quincey College and was a teacher there for a while.
He had a wonderful library that he got together during his lifetime. Spanish American history, especially the Border lands.
C: Father, you mentioned that the Catholic hierarchy, the contact with him earlier, on the possibility of writing a history of the Catholic Church in Texas, the job that was Father Marion Habig 42
later given to Castaneda, resulting in seven volumes on Catholic Texas. Can you tell us something about when and why Father Steck was selected by the Bishops of Texas to write this book and what led to his almost taking the job?
H: Actually, he did start out on the job; on this project. He wrote some articles which were very good. He had the reputation at that time of being an authority on Spanish America. And that’s the reason that the people here in Texas – the Knights of Columbus commissioned, I think, engaged, his services. There was a Father Boyt (?) who was contributing to this project at the time. But they recognized him as an authority and so they thought this is a good man to write the history and I think he would have been, with the history of Texas, if he had continued.
But he got the offer of a professorship at the Catholic University. They were anxious to get him up there so he accepted that offer. He gave up the Texas project.
C: Father, one last question: what do you think is the future of the San Antonio missions as you see it now? Secondly, what areas of research do you recommend that we follow up? In other words, where are we going to take up where Castaneda, Bolton, and now you, and later on, us. What would be your advice to us as we come to the end of this tape? What would you tell us?
H: I would tell you – well, it would be a continuation of what we started, I think. You know, Father Ben as started Father Marion Habig 43
his documentary series.
C: Tell us about Father Ben; Father Ben and his work.
Father Ben is a modest man who works hard, diligently. We all know that. Tell us something about him, Father.
H: He was very much interested in the history, the story, the biography of Father Antonio Margil. He translated the work, the biography by Rios (?). It was written in Mexico; published in Mexico. He translated that into English. That was published by the Academy of History in Washington. Then he became the vice-postulator for the cause of Father Margul. The cause was revived; had become dormant, and he became the vice-postulator. He came to San Antonio in 1970. And then he became a corrector of documents and translator of documents. That’s his speciality – the translating of the documents. He is not drawing the conclusions from the documents or resetting the date of the documents but he is devoting himself entirely to just translating of those documents into English. Publishing them in the documentary series of which six have appeared now.
I cooperated with him as a historian; to make these documents understandable to research students, by writing introductions to the documents and notes to the documents.
C: The books are excellent, Father. We’re coming to the end of this tape. I want you to know we really appreciate your time; that we will take this tape – we’re going to deposit it in the special library of the National Park Father Marion Habig 44
Service here in San Antonio.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2.