Unlikely Alliances: How the San Antonio Missions Supported the American Revolution

San Antonio Missions and the American Revolution

NPS Graphic / Elyse Reed

As part of Spain’s frontier economy, the missions in San Antonio made direct contributions to the American Revolution primarily through cochineal production and cattle ranching.

The missions were religious self-sustaining communities that were maintained daily by the labor of the Native converts.

For over 10,000 years, unique Native cultures flourished in the lands of present-day Northeastern Mexico and South Texas.¹ In the early 1700s, the Catholic Church of New Spain sent Franciscan friars to the Texan frontier to convert the Native population into citizens of the Spanish crown.²

The arrival of Europeans introduced diseases and conflict that threatened the survival of the Native Coahuiltecan people. Faced with the choice between life and death, many natives entered the missions in the hope of protection, exchanging their traditional culture for the Spaniards'. Along the San Antonio River, the priests established five settlements: Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña, Mission San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo), Mission San José de Aguayo, Mission San Juan de Capistrano, Mission San Fransico de la Espada. These missions were self-sustaining religious communities built and maintained daily by the labor of Native converts.

Daily life inside the missions

Harpers Ferry Center

I believe these people see and hear better and have keener senses than any other in the world. They are great in hunger, thirst, and cold, as if they were made for the endurance of these more than other men, by habit and nature.

—Cabeza de Vaca writing about an unspecified Coahuiltecan band [3]

While the priests handled administrative and religious tasks, the Native inhabitants constructed and sustained the mission system.⁴ They learned to farm, ranch, and build in the European style. Native Peoples also brought their own skills into the missions such as hunting animals, managing natural resources, and making pottery. The crops they grew and the cattle they raised fed the mission's inhabitants and allowed the communities to survive throughout the Spanish colonial period. Native peoples continued to live in and around the missions even after secularization. Mission descendants continue to tell their stories and those of their ancestors.

'The Auckward Squad', 1793

National Army Museum, London [7]

In 1776, American colonists cut their ties with Great Britain, signing the Declaration of Independence and establishing the United States of America.

Harsh taxes and restrictions placed by the British government caused outrage among the American colonies. The British refused to recognize their colonist’s attempts at self-governance and ignored serious complaints about their treatment. The American colonists decided that if Great Britain would not rule with their needs in mind, then Britain should not rule them at all.⁵

John Adams, a Continental Congressman from Massachusetts, addressed these shifts towards independence, writing that “The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people… This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”⁶

The American Colonists wrote the Declaration of Independence to document these complaints and officialize their rebellion against Great Britain. The declaration placed, “before mankind, the common sense of the subject [of American Independence], in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent”.⁸

They hoped that a clear explanation for the rebellion would encourage other nations to offer sympathy and aid. The Declaration of Independence changed history by serving as a model for revolution and democratic ideals which would be adapted by other revolutions across the world.⁹

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

—The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, 1776 [10]

Image credit: National Archives [11]

To protect their own colonies and support the war effort, Spain sold military supplies to the American Colonists and fought against the British along the Gulf Coast.

By 1776, both American and Spanish colonists shared a sense of anger with Great Britain's presence in North America.¹² Spain viewed the growth of British settlements as a threat to its territorial control.¹³

To protect their own colonies and support the war effort, Spain sold military supplies to the American Colonists and fought against the British along the Gulf Coast.

Handwritten letter from Gardoqui e Hijos to Arthur Lee, April 4, 1778

The Gilder Lehrman Institute [16]

General Bernardo de Galvez, Spanish governor of Louisiana and Cuba, authorized the sale of weapons, textiles, livestock, and other materials to the American colonists.¹⁴ The five missions of San Antonio contributed primarily by delivering cattle to Galvez's army in Louisiana. Records from the period indicate that the supplies and funds sent to the American colonists by Spain during the war totaled 166,980,000 reales de vellón^.15

Two years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Spanish colonial governor of Texas wrote to a Continental Congressman expressing Spain's support for the American Revolution. The letter provides updates on the amount of funds credited to the colonists, as well as the status of the blankets and uniforms sent by Spain. By supporting the American colonists, Spain protected its interests and replaced a strong rival with the less threatening, newly formed United States government.

Illustrations of cochineal production from Gomez de Cervantes’ Memorial and the Anonymous Pictorial Manuscript, 1599

The British Museum [17]

Cochineal, a Native-made dye, helped Spain support the American Colonists during the war through profits from its controlled, global trade.

Cochineal insects grow on prickly pear cacti, a plant abundant in South Texas, particularly along the San Antonio River, and Mexico.¹⁸ When mature, the bugs are scraped off, dried, and crushed into a fine red powder for use as a pigment in paints and dyes. Prior to the arrival of Spanish settlers in the 1500s, the Native Peoples of North America had been harvesting these insects for hundreds of years.

Realizing the value of such a vibrant red color to European traders, the Spaniards kept the source of Cochineal a secret from the rest of the world. It was so coveted that the Spanish government passed laws punishing anyone who tried to sneak it out of the colonies with death.¹⁹

This crimson is known in this land and there are great trade deals of it; it reaches even China and Turkey, almost everywhere it is valued and esteemed

—Spanish Franscian missionary Bernadino De Sahagún, 1585 [20]

The British redcoat of Lieutenant Ely Dagworthy of the British 44th Regiment and the Star-Spangled Banner at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

Museum of the American Revolution | Smithsonian's National Museum of American History [24][25]

After silver, this pigment became Spain's second-largest export. It built the wealth of the Spanish Empire, which financed, donated resources, and provided military supplies to the American Revolution.²¹ The popularity of the red dye is clear from its use by armies on both sides. British officers used the expensive cochineal to dye their uniforms a vibrant red, earning them the nickname ‘redcoats’.

Common British soldiers used cheaper dyes, so the officers' vivid uniforms made them easy targets for the American Army.²² Additionally, cochineal dye was used by American Colonists to create the original Star-Spangled Banner, landing its iconic status as a color of the American Revolution.²³

Coolidge, Dane. Mexican Vaquero Cutting a Cow and Her Calf out of the Herd on the La Osa Round Up. 1914

Western Horseman [26]

The Mission Natives were the first vaqueros and the cattle they tended fed both the American and Spanish forces during the Revolutionary War.

Native mission inhabitants tended cattle that provided meat, leather, and other resources to their communities. From their work on the ranches, the cowboy or vaquero culture was born. In 2001, the State of Texas House of Representatives officially recognized this contribution and declared the Coahuiltecan and other tribal mission inhabitants the first cowboys of Texas.²⁷

Illustrations of Spanish Mission Valero and Cattle Brand used by Mission Espada during the Spanish Colonial period

National Park Service | Texas Parks and Wildlife Department [30][31][34]

By 1762, records from the missions document the prosperity of the ranches of the San Antonio missions. A mission priest, Fr. Mariano Fransicso de los Dolores y Viana, noted that the mission Natives were caring for, “1,262 head of cattle, 4,000 sheep, 145 saddle horses, and 11 droves of mares and 9 donkeys."²⁸ During the Revolution, Spain used these resources from the San Antonio missions to supply the American colonists with the aid they had promised.²⁹

In 1779, Gálvez ordered cattle from the County of Bexar, Texas, to be sent to his army in Louisiana.³² The cattle raised by mission inhabitants fed his troops battling the British along the Gulf Coast. A writ and decree from 1781 states that over 400 head of cattle were sent from Rancho de las Cabras, the ranch associated with Mission Espada.³³ By lifting restrictions on cattle exports to neighboring regions, Galvez started the first cattle drive in Texas, creating a tradition which would continue into the late 1800s.

1779 letter from Commanding General of New Spain, Teodoro de Croix, to the Governor of Texas, Domingo Cabello y Robles, acknowledging the cattle sent from Texas to General Gálvez and his army in Louisiana

The Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin [35]

Mission Natives built structures and cultures that still exist today, and their labor was essential to the cause of American Independence.

The legacy of mission inhabitants carries on in the homes, ranches, and churches that still stand from the Spanish colonial era. The Native Coahuiltecan culture continues to be preserved by the missions’ living descendants. Artists still use the centuries-old cochineal method to dye fabric and create beautiful works of modern art. The cowboy, which began with the vaqueros at the missions, is an important part of the identity of Texas today and continues through the popularity of the rodeo across the United States.

The often-forgotten contributions of the mission Natives were essential to the success of early Texas and the fight for American independence. The reliable systems of cochineal cultivation and cattle ranching developed by the Native inhabitants of the San Antonio Missions were used to help the American Colonists fight for freedom from Great Britain, forever linking the people of Texas to the victory of the American Revolutionary War.

Credits

This article was researched and written by Ángel Diaz, Anna Surovic, and Elyse Reed and directed and reviewed by Darby Samoluk and Melissa Hurtado.

The PATH Program: Preserving Archives of Texas Heritage (PATH) is a collaborative initiative designed to build stewardship in cultural resource work while enhancing accessibility to archival and museum collections.

This joint effort is carried out in partnership with the Texas Heritage Project of American Indians of Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions (AIT-SCM), the University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio), through the Libraries’ Community Engaged Digital Scholarship Hub (CEDISH), and San Antonio Missions National Historical Park (SAAN).

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Tags: san antonio missions national historical park, san antonio missions, colonial spanish missions, american revolution, 250th anniversary, vaqueros, red coats, spanish colonial, new spain