Life in New Spain - the Missions of San Antonio
© Millard Carr
In the early 18th century, Spain sent priests into the Southwest of what would become the United States for three reasons: to secure the territory from the French, convert the local natives to Catholicism, and provide citizens for New Spain. The method of holding possession of a territory was to establish a mission with all of the services necessary to support a permanent settlement. The initial order of business of the priests in charge of these expeditions was to take care of the physical needs of the people. They first built a defendable fort-like mission with a relatively sophisticated irrigation system to grow crops. In the San Antonio area they constructed 27 miles of irrigation system, some of which are still functioning. They then established rancheros in the surrounding 1,500 acres to raise beef, sheep and goats.
Then they built churches to honor the God that had made it all possible and who had sent them to save the Indians souls. The elaborately decorated and painted chapels, several stories high with bells towers, were awe inspiring to the local natives. Finished with statuary and three-dimensional decorations, which have been carved by masons brought from Spain, the chapels were decorated with the conspicuous pomegranate motif, used to indicate the spread of catholic faith like the way a pomegranate burst open and spreads its seeds.
"Imagine the feelings of the Indians who had never seen a building beyond their temporary wikiup - coming into the compound at dusk to see the church building shining in the afternoon sun," says Ranger Dava D. McGehee, Managing Park Ranger at Mission San Jose. The San Jose Mission, the “Queen of San Antonio Missions,” and the center of the Historical Park contains the most extensive displays and restored buildings that allow the visitor to enter the 18th century.
