Key Words: Texas Pioneers, Texas colonial history, biography of Fray Margil de Jesus, founding of San Antonio Texas, the Franciscan Missions in America, San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo, Native Americans, Natchitoches, Nacogdoches, The Colleges for Missionaries

 

AGAPITO’S MISSION

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Legends and History of Fray Margil

Missionary and Texas Pioneer 

 

 

Xuan Quen Santos

 

 

 

Ediciones Escondidas

Paxil Tinamit

2023

AGAPITO’S MISSION: Legends and History of Fray Margil, Missionary and Texas Pioneer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Copyright reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, archived or copied by any means, physical or electronic, without the prior authorization of the publisher, except as provided in the laws and international agreements for the protection of intellectual rights.

EDICIONES ESCONDIDAS

       1415 S. Voss Road, Suite 110 No. 427, Houston, TX 77057                                                              XQS2021@gmail.com

AN INVITATION 

            This is not an academic history book of facts and famous people, although the information it contains is true. It is not a biography either, although it centers on the life of one person. It is not fiction, at least most of it. This is the story of a boy with a mission and how his choices and actions as a man of virtue shaped the future of many of us with his contributions to our own stories of today.

            The history of Texas and the Southwest of the United States does not begin with the English-speaking settlers that arrived in the XIX century. By then, three centuries of European culture had already infused the aboriginal groups with its institutions and left its imprint on the land with developed settlements.  Twenty of the fifty states of the United States of America have a significant trace to the Spanish expansion into the New World as part of their history.

            When the westward-moving English speaking settlers came to Texas in the 1800s they travelled through Louisiana, a territory bought at a bargain price from Napoleon, but that had been Spanish for the previous forty years. Most of what we see in the colonial part of New Orleans is from its Spanish days, not from its earlier French period. The newcomers travelled into the Texas heartland on the Spanish Camino Real, a road marked by the buffalo migrations at places they could ford the rivers that cut through the prairies. It had also been a major Indian trading route.  Parts of Texas Highway 21 follow it today through the Pineywoods and the plains. The new settlers had Spanish maps, titles or contracts to their land written in Spanish, and had made an oath to follow their ancient laws. Most of the places already had Spanish names. The newcomers were not pioneers in unexplored territory. Some of them were legal immigrants; many were illegal that had simply crossed the Red and Sabine rivers seeking a better life for them and their families, or just escaping from debts or the law.

Indians inhabited only the remote wilderness, barely touched by the Spanish colonial administration and who the recent settlers never bothered to understand. In the developed areas, they found towns, farms and large open range haciendas filled with cattle. They also found the missions; some abandoned and in ruins, others turned into active parish churches. They found few Spaniards from Spain. What they found was an ethnically mixed society they were not accustomed to. The Christianized Indians were not considered Indians anymore and came from many distant places; the former slaves who had escaped from the U. S. were free; people had come in all shades; a few were white.  How did all this come about? The Hispanic people of the northern borderlands of New Spain were the product of the “mestizaje” that was the end result of the Spanish contribution to the western hemisphere.  

The missions had been the force driving the change.  In fact, change was their mission. They had accepted the challenge of bringing the Christian faith to the aboriginal people of America in the areas where the Spanish civil and military authorities had little interest. This is how the story of Agapito begins. 

 

I 

INTRODUCTION  

The period of history after the discovery of the West Indies in 1492, is full of seafaring explorers, captains, conquistadors and “adelantados” whose adventures were full of excitement and danger.  The three centuries of Spanish colonial development that followed were dominated by viceroys, marquises, counts, governors, archbishops, bishops and a few university doctors. The excitement during this period came with the pirates, corsairs, buccaneers, filibusters, smugglers and a few rebels. All these were in search of fame and fortune in the vast new lands and wealth of the New World. They were also the writers of history as they wanted it told.

 These lists of historical characters do not include one category that was present from the beginning, but with no interest in glory or wealth. Nevertheless, their contribution to history was more profound and lasting than all the others.  The first of them arrived with Cristopher Columbus, not bearing swords, but holding high their wooden crosses. The missionaries were an ever present force in the history of the whole hemisphere since the monarchs of Spain assumed the duty to bring Christianity to the aboriginal peoples of America.

This is the story of Agapito Margil, a Spanish boy who heard about the mysterious natives of the New World, their ancient cultures and their needs and rights as creatures of God and subjects of the King. Under the laws and customs of the times, the baptized Indians who spoke Spanish and had a skill or trade to offer would be considered free subjects of the realm. Near the end of the XVII century, young Father Margil chose to become a missionary in the borderlands of the Spanish territories of North America. He devoted his life to convert to Christianity the most primitive and isolated groups of natives that were still living in the remote jungles, mountains, deserts and swamps of New Spain.

 His missionary activities took Friar Margil on trails and mountain paths, completely barefoot, a distance greater than the circumference of the Earth. The missions he founded are today cities, towns, universities, hospitals, schools and churches. In Texas, his accomplished mission is the Hispanic legacy that flows with the bloodlines of aboriginal ethnic groups, mixed with those of the many races of Spain and its empire.

Friar Margil left his imprint from Louisiana to Panama. He deserves a place among the founders of the United States of America, on equal standing with other pioneers, like his contemporary Father Eusebio Kino, Apostle of Arizona, and his follower from the college of missionaries, Saint Junipero Serra, Apostle of California. 

Fray Margil is without a doubt a Texas Pioneer.

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LESSON PLANS FOR TEXAS 4^TH AND 7^TH

SOCIAL STUDIES 

4.1 B, 4.1 C                          Regions, Indians and culture before Europeans

(7.1 A and B)

4.2 A, 4.2 B, 4.2 C              The Spanish Colony, the Missions, explorers

(7. 1 A and B)

4.7 A, 4.7 B, 4.7 C              Regions, landforms, resources and habitat

4.10 A                                    Economic activities of Indian groups

4.14 A                                    Government and beliefs of Caddo people 

ELAR AND READING

4. 9 A                                     Multiple genres, fiction, legend, anecdote, history

4. 10 A to D                          Author’s purpose and craft, imagery, voice, point of view, fact vs opinion

GEOGRAPHY:  Use maps of North America and Texas to follow the routes of Friar Margil establishing his missions.

EXTENSION:  Learn about Saint Junipero Serra and the California Missions. Serra was a fellow Franciscan and a disciple of Fr. Margil.  Many of the graduates of the Colleges of Queretaro and Zacatecas went on with Serra to establish the 21 missions of California, many are  important cities today.

VISIT:  San Antonio Missions National Historic Park:

https://www.nps.gov/saan/index.htm            General website

https://www.nps.gov/saan/learn/photosmultimedia/video-gallery.htm   Videos

 

    TEXAS TEACHERS:  REQUEST A COPY OF THE 102 PAGE ILLUSTRATED BOOK AT  XQS2021@gmail.com.  Limit: one per teacher. Offer valid until edition is exhausted.