| Archeologist
Jim Corbin let me play in the dirt when I took my Texas history graduate students
to San Augustine
to observe his class' summer "dig."
Their "mission" was to find, then investigate the remains of the "lost" Nuestra
Senora de los Dolores de los Ais Mission. They did so, and opened another window
into Spanish doings in East Texas.
Nuestra Senora
de los Dolores de los Ais was one of six missions established in 1717 by the Spanish
as a sign post to potential French competitors that Texas was off limits. Presidio
Los Adaes, located nearer the French settlement of Natchitoches, was regarded
briefly as the capital of Spanish Texas.
The missions faltered soon after they were founded but were reestablished in 1722.
Those farthest from the French were removed to San
Antonio by 1730 and the Peace of Paris of 1763 eliminated the French threat
to Spanish Texas. Even
while it existed, the mission was not a huge success. Corbin's diggers found broken
French pottery, evidence that mission folk violated prohibitions against any interaction
with Natchitoches. Records do not testify to a religious "great awakening" generated
by missionaries among the Caddo; indeed, mostly the Indians were indifferent to
the Spanish and their Christianity, except when it came to accepting and expecting
presents from them, and often they were negative about Spanish presidio garrisons.
When the French
went away, and Spaniards did not realize how rapidly the English-become-American
neighbors would advance westward to replace them as competitors for Texas, so
they simply moved all Spaniards in western Louisiana and eastern Texas to San
Antonio. Mission Dolores and other remaining missions were abandoned, and
in time lost. Corbin has located Dolores in San
Augustine, but no one knows the exact location of Nuestra Senora del Pilar
de Nacogdoches. The
citizens of San
Augustine, with help from federal and state tax dollars, have built an interpretive
center near the site of Mission Dolores, and a recreation vehicle facility across
the road so visitors can learn about the mission and stay the night. I don't think
they let you dig around, though. When
Corbin allowed me to dig I didn't find anything but dirt but I don't think I harmed
anything.
All Things Historical
March 4-9,
2001 column
Published by permission.
(Archie P. McDonald is Director
of the East Texas Historical Association and author or editor of over 20 books
on Texas) | 
