12/5/1791: Spanish priests launch "peace offensive"
On this day in 1791, Fray Jose Francisco Garza found the Karankawa crossing to Matagorda Island, where the natives had kept horses stolen from the Spanish.
Garza's discovery marked the high point in the "peace offensive" launched by Garza and fellow Franciscan priest Manuel Julio de Silva. For decades the Spanish had attempted to missionize the Karankawas in order to subdue the hostile group and gain a foothold on the Texas Coast. Garza's access to Matagorda Island, then known as Toboso Island, which the Indians had used as a refuge, led to renewed interest in establishing a mission in the area. His associate Silva proposed the construction of a complex for the Karankawas at the mouth of the Guadalupe River as part of an ambitious plan to convert all Indians between the Mississippi and the Rio Grande. Construction began on Nuestra Senora del Refugio Mission, but ultimately the region proved to be unhealthful, and the mission site was relocated twice to settle eventually near the present town of Refugio. The Karankawas maintained their nomadic and hostile ways until American colonization and warfare rendered the tribe virtually extinct in the mid-nineteenth century.
12/5/1835: Texans assault Mexican garrison at Bexar
On this day in 1835, the Texas revolutionary army began its assault on the Mexican garrison at San Antonio de Bexar.
Ben Milam and William Gordon Cooke gathered more than 300 volunteers to attack the town in two columns, while Edward Burleson and another 400 men forced Mexican general Mart?n Perfecto de Cos to keep his 570 men divided between the town and the Alamo. The battle ended with the surrender of the Mexican army on December 9. Texas casualties numbered 30 to 35, while Mexican losses totaled about 150; the difference reflected in part the greater accuracy of the Texans' rifles. Most of the Texas volunteers went home after the battle, which left San Antonio and all of Texas under their control.
Topic: 12/05/2025 A Two Fer! (Read 19 times)