CHAPTER 1:

Introduction to a Lineal Descent and Cultural Affiliation Study for
Mission San Juan Capistrano, Texas

Alston V. Thoms

Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1731 along the banks of the
San Antonio River and astride the Caminos Reales---Royal Roads---that
linked Mexico City with frontier posts and missions in east Texas and
Louisiana. By that time there were four other missions established
nearby along the San Antonio River: Missions Valero, Concepción, San
José, and Espada (Figure 1). These missions, their Franciscan clergy,
and their support staff, including artisans hired from interior Mexico,
functioned to transform Native Americans, mostly hunter-gatherers, into
productive Spanish citizens who served the Crown as farmers, skilled
laborers, and artisans and became practitioners of the Catholic faith
(Rock 1999).

Most of the San Antonio missions maintained their "missionization" role
through the early 1800s when final secularization occurred under the
auspices of a newly independent Mexican government. Mission San Antonio
de Valero---the Alamo---was secularized and closed in the late 1700s.
Missions San Juan, Concepción, San José, and Espada continued to
function in one fashion or another as Catholic churches, serving
increasingly ethnically diverse communities to the present day.

The National Park Service (NPS) now plays a key role in the management
of Mission San Juan in cooperation with the Catholic Archdiocese of San
Antonio. Their joint-management role began in 1978 when Missions San
Juan, Concepción, San José, and Espada became part of the new San
Antonio Missions National Historical Park (SAAN). The church owns the
mission compound itself and shares management responsibilities with
SAAN. Most of the adjacent property is now owned and managed solely by
SAAN, although the City of San Antonio owns and operates the public
streets and the San Antonio River Authority owns and manages the river
(Figure 2). To effectively manage cultural and natural resources under
its jurisdiction at Mission San Juan, NPS needed to understand the
values and concerns of Native Americans and other contemporary
communities traditionally associated with the mission (SAAN 1998).
Toward that end, several historical-research and interview projects have
been initiated in recent years (Rock 1999).

The present study focuses on Native American peoples who traditionally
lived and worked at Mission San Juan and in the surrounding community.
Its primary objective is to provide baseline information to the SAAN for
future consultation with Native American groups regarding implementation
of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990
(NAGPRA, Public Law, 101-601; Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs
1990). It is important to note from the outset that all Indian people
known to have been missionized at San Juan have long been grouped by
academic researchers under a Native American rubric of "Coahuiltecan"
(Campbell and Campbell 1996; Schuetz 1980a, 1980b).

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="6.186805555555556in"
height="3.7020833333333334in"}

Figure 1. Map showing the locations of Spanish Colonial missions, the
villa, presidio, and roads in the San Antonio area (after Ahlborn
1985:18).

NAGPRA's potential applicability to Mission San Juan stems from
archaeological excavations conducted within the mission compound in
1967, 1969, and 1971. Those investigations resulted in the removal,
study, and curation of skeletal remains and associated funerary objects
presumed to be those of aboriginal and/or missionized Coahuiltecans
(Schuetz 1968, 1974, 1980b). Until it can be demonstrated that Native
Americans of non-Coahuiltecan affiliation were present at Mission San
Juan and that their remains are potentially buried there, NAGPRA
inventories and related research at the mission probably need not look
very far beyond the native hunter-gatherer populations known
collectively as Coahuiltecans.

San Antonio Missions National Historical Park funded this project and
wrote its scope of work entitled "Lineal Descent and Cultural
Affiliation Study, San Juan Mission" (SAAN 1998). The study was carried
out by staff and consultants at the Center for Ecological Archaeology
(CEA), Texas A&M University, College Station. Initial work began in
February 1999, although most of the research was undertaken between June
1999 and June 2000. Draft versions of this report were submitted to SAAN
for review and comment in August 2000 and June 2001. The final report
was submitted in August 2001.

As noted, the study's primary objective is to provide baseline
information to SAAN for future consultation with Native American groups
regarding implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act. Importantly, this study also provides information that
enables other cultural groups whose roots may stem from Mission San Juan
to better establish their connected ancestry. Project results will be

![](media/image2.wmf)Figure 2. Map of Mission San Juan and vicinity
showing properties owned by SAAN, the Catholic Church, and other
entities (modified from property map provided by SAAN).

used to assist park management in understanding community values about
park resources, presenting accurate interpretative programs, and making
decisions about the park's culturally significant resources.

Scope of Work

As per the project's scope of work (SAAN 1998), CEA's proposal (Thoms
1998), and research strategies outlined in quarterly progress reports
submitted to SAAN, the project's research team was required to perform
the following duties:

-   Inventory potentially NAGPRA-related items from Mission San Juan
    that are held in collections at the University of Texas in San
    Antonio and at NPS headquarters in San Antonio (see Appendices A and
    B, respectively).

-   Conduct a lineal descent and cultural affiliation study for Mission
    San Juan that includes: (1) archaeological, historical,
    ethnographic/ethnohistoric, and linguistic overviews, especially
    pertaining to Coahuiltecans and other Indian groups (see Chapters 2,
    3, 7-10); (2) annotated bibliographies for San Juan covering
    archaeology, ethnography, ethnohistory, linguistics, missions,
    physical anthropology, and historical and census-related data (see
    Appendix C); (3) a detailed genealogy of at least one family with a
    strong potential as lineal descendants of a mission Indian family
    (see Chapter 6); (4) interviews to obtain oral history information
    with representatives of four families with a strong potential as
    lineal descendants (see Chapter 4 and Appendices D-G); and (5)
    photographs of individuals who were interviewed and their family
    members as appropriate (see Chapter 5).

-   Develop baseline research for Coahuiltecan groups, including: (1) an
    annotated bibliography of pertinent sources (Appendix C includes
    these and other bibliographic annotations for overall study); (2)
    summaries of the current status of research on Coahuiltecans and
    related issues of direct lineal descent and cultural affiliation
    (see all chapters and Appendix H).

-   Evaluate the study's findings for its utility in implementation of
    NAGPRA regulations for determining lineal descent and cultural
    affiliation, as per 43 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 10 Section
    10.14 (see Chapters 1 and 11).

-   Present the project's research methods and results in a final report
    (i.e., the present volume).

Project Personnel

The research team for this project included the report's four primary
authors (see below), as well as Patricia A. Clabaugh (CEA collections
manager), who inventoried the cultural materials from Mission San Juan
and prepared the tables presented in Appendices A and B. Charlotte E.
Donald and J. Bryan Mason, as well as Jennifer L. Logan and Adán
Benavides, Jr., prepared the annotated bibliography (Appendix C). In
addition, Mason assisted with computer-generated maps and charts. Julia
M. Gottshall assisted in proofreading the draft reports and making
editorial corrections. Final editing was undertaken by personnel at the
Texas Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University. During the course
of this project, Clabaugh, Donald, Gottshall, Logan, and Mason were
graduate students in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M
University and CEA staff members.

Alston V. Thoms, director of CEA and faculty member in the Department of
Anthropology, served as the project's principal investigator, wrote the
historical overview (Chapter 2) and synthesized the evidence for lineal
descent and cultural affiliation (Chapter 11). He first worked as an
archaeologist in south Texas in the mid-1970s when he led a survey team
at what would become Choke Canyon Reservoir on the Nueces River. His
work during the 1990s as director of a large-scale interdisciplinary
cultural resources project on the Medina River a few miles south of San
Antonio brought him into contact with members of several Native American
groups. These included the San Antonio Council of Native Americans, the
American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions, and the
Coahuiltecan Nation.

Adán Benavides, Jr. is the Assistant to the Head Librarian for Research
Programs for the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of
Texas in Austin. He also works as an historical research consultant and
translator of Spanish Colonial documents. He conducted the genealogical
research for this project (Chapter 6). His research verified lineal
descent between individuals interviewed for this project and Santiago
Díaz, an *alcalde* (chief justice or mayor of a villa) at Mission San
Juan. Benavides worked in the early 1970s as an historian for the San
Antonio Mission Parkway project. He is well known as the compiler and
editor of *The Béxar Archives, 1717-1836: A Name Guide* (1989) that
includes more than 8,000 names that appear in the calendar of the Béxar
Archives.

Jeffrey H. Cohen, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvania
State University (formerly at Texas A&M), served as the project's
cultural anthropologist. He conducted interviews with individuals who
trace their ancestry to mission Indians and he prepared the chapter on
oral-history narratives (Chapter 4). His research focus is on indigenous
populations in southern Mexico, especially their cultural resource
management programs and how, through migration, some groups have been
incorporated into global market systems. His recently published book is
entitled *Cooperation and Community: Economy and Society in Oaxaca*
(1999).

D. Gentry Steele, a well-known professional photographer and a professor
in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, served as the project's
photographer. For the present project, he photographed the 1999 San
Juan/Berg's Mill reunion as well as the individuals and family members
who participated in the interviews. His photographs and commentary are
presented in Chapter 5. His previous photographic works include *Land of
the Desert Sun: Texas' Big Bend Country* (1998). He also advised us on
bioarchaeological issues. As a bioarchaeologist at Texas A&M, he
conducts skeletal-biology studies of North American hunters and
gatherers, particularly the earliest Americans. His research includes an
overview of bioarchaeological studies in the central, south, and lower
Pecos regions of Texas (Steele and Olive 1989:93-114; Reinhard, Olive,
and Steele 1989:129-140; Hester and Steele 1989:141-142). He also
advised several graduate students whose master's theses entailed
analysis of skeletal remains from Mission San Juan.

Jennifer L. Logan, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology
and a CEA staff member, served as the project's primary research
assistant. She prepared the overviews on popular literature,
ethnohistory, linguistics, archaeology, and bioarchaeology (Chapters 3,
7, 8, 9, and 10, respectively). She also assisted in proofreading and
editing the first draft version of the present report. Her
archaeological experience includes field and laboratory work in south,
central, and east Texas. Ms. Logan's master's thesis is closely related
to many of the issues in the present project and is entitled *A Tangled
Web: The Role of Material and Ideational Definitions of Culture in
Evaluating Coahuiltecan Cultural Change.* Dr. Thoms served as her
committee chair and advisor.

Project Chronology and Contacts

SAAN notified CEA on September 4, 1998, that it had been selected to
conduct the lineal descent and cultural affiliation study for Mission
San Juan. On September 10, 1998, Alston V. Thoms, met with Rosalind Z.
Rock (Contracting Officer's Technical Representative) and other
representatives of SAAN to discuss CEA's proposed work plan. It was
agreed that CEA would obtain interview-based lineal descent and cultural
affiliation information from representatives of two groups, the American
Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions (AIT-SCM) and the San
Juan/Berg's Mill Catholic Men's Club. Other individuals and groups,
however, would be afforded opportunities to provide information as well.
CEA finalized and submitted its proposal to SAAN on September 17, 1998.
Following several months of negotiations concerning intellectual
property rights, access to collected data, and ownership of documents, a
contract to conduct the study was signed in January 1999 by Texas A&M
and SAAN.

In early February 1999, Thoms wrote to the presidents of AIT-SCM and the
Men's Club to request a meeting on February 20 with interested members
of each group, especially representatives of families likely to have
long histories at Mission San Juan and/or nearby Mission Espada. Dr.
Rock helped arrange a separate meeting with a representative of the
Catholic Church, Father Larry Brumer, a former parish priest at Mission
San Juan who was then serving at Mission Espada. We met with Father
Brumer as scheduled and briefed him on the study. We also held a
preliminary work session with Dr. Rock on February 19 to explain our
plans for the February 20 meeting at Slattery Hall (San Juan's parish
hall) and discuss the overall project.

About 20 representatives of AIT-SCM and the Men's Club decided to meet
together at Slattery Hall on February 20. As it turned out, both groups
recognized Mickey Killian as the community member most knowledgeable
about Native American ancestry issues. They jointly recommended him as
their liaison to identify individuals of Indian ancestry most likely to
have long histories at San Juan.

For the meetings on February 19 and 20, Thoms presented a project
overview and Cohen explained the protocol for conducting interviews with
four to six individuals who trace their ancestry to Indian people who
lived at the mission during the Spanish Colonial period. Benavides
discussed how he would review archives and conduct a detailed
genealogical study of an individual whose family is comparatively
well-documented in church and other historical records. Father Brumer
and representatives of AIT-SCM and the Men's Club were provided with:
(1) spiral-bound copies of selected documents, including CEA's proposal,
the contract summary; (2) copies of regulations for the Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act; and (3) a list of more than 90
bibliographic references pertaining to Indian people at Mission San Juan
and vicinity.

Our research team was well received by Father Brumer and all the San
Juan community members who attended the meeting at Slattery Hall. It
should be noted, however, that community members expressed several
concerns in particular: (1) over the last 30 years archaeological and
bioarchaeological studies were undertaken at the mission, but it is only
recently that copies of the final reports and theses were made available
to the community; (2) there had been too few open meetings with
community members to explain the needs for these projects or their
results; and (3) the "government" has a long history of forcing its will
on the community, including matters pertaining to the establishment of a
nearby air base in the 1940s, re-channeling the San Antonio River in the
1960s, and creation of SAAN in the 1970s (also see Chapter 4 and
Appendix E).

On April 15, 1999, Thoms met at Park headquarters in San Antonio with
Park Superintendent Stephen Whitesell, Contracting Officer Wayne Owens,
Chief of Professional Services Mark Chavez, and Dr. Rock to review and
discuss the project's draft methodological proposal, including a
procedural strategy for reviewing literature and conducting interviews.
At that time, we also submitted a draft letter for the superintendent's
signature that addressed the project's purposes and goals, and was
intended for receipt by potential affiliated communities, individuals,
and data sources. Park personnel, primarily Dr. Rock, reviewed the
submitted information and returned copies with SAAN's comments to us on
April 28, 1999. We revised the procedural-strategy document and
proceeded accordingly. Our project protocol was also reviewed and
approved by Texas A&M University's Institutional Review Board-Human
Subjects in Research.

Thoms, Cohen, Steele, Clabaugh, and Logan attended the Berg's Mill
Reunion at Mission San Juan Capistrano on April 18, 1999. The reunion
afforded an opportunity to visit with individuals we had met at Slattery
Hall in February and, in turn, they introduced us to other community
members who have historical roots at San Juan. We also made plans to
meet in June with individuals who might be interviewed.

On June 22, 1999, Cohen and Logan met with Mickey Killian, Enrique
Flores, Guadalupe Gaitán, Janie Garza, Rebecca Stuart, and other
community members at Slattery Hall. The purpose of the meeting was to
meet some of the people identified by Mr. Killian who trace their
ancestry to Indian people who lived at Mission San Juan. Plans were made
to begin formal interviews by early July.

Throughout the two and a half year course of this project, the research
team continued to discuss issues of lineal descent and cultural
affiliation among themselves, as well as with their colleagues, members
of the San Juan/Berg's Mill community, and other people with vested
interests in the project. This was necessary not only to establish good
working relationships, but it kept us apprised of community,
professional, and managerial politics that encompassed the project. In
doing so, we encountered individuals and groups likely to have important
information about the issues at hand, but whom we were unable to include
in the project in a meaningful fashion due to monetary limitations and
time constraints. Among those was Daniel Castro Romero, Jr., general
council chairman of the Lipan Apache Band of Texas, a group that filed a
Letter of Intent to Petition for federal acknowledgment with the BIA on
May 26, 1999 (*United States Department of Interior* 2000).

The first quarterly report submitted to NPS included a statement
expressing concerns that efforts to obtain detailed information about
family histories and oral traditions may be thwarted by an ongoing law
suit(s) between representatives of the Men's Club and the Catholic
Church. While details about the lawsuit remained unknown, we felt its
effects insofar as some community members seemed reluctant to talk
freely with our research team members because they mistakenly perceived
SAAN as being linked with the church in managing church-owned property
and resolving church issues. While researchers continued to operate
effectively within the community, it was under conditions that were less
than ideal.

Work carried out from July 1 through October 31, 1999, included: (1)
interviews with individuals who trace their family histories to Mission
San Juan and, in particular, to Indians known or suspected to be
affiliated with the mission in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries; (2) inventory of archaeological collections recovered from
Mission San Juan; (3) further review of studies carried out on skeletal
remains from church-floor burials at the mission; and (4) additional
documentation of the multicultural nature of the San Juan/Berg's Mill
community.

From November 1999 through February 2000 the following work was
accomplished: (1) transcription and synthesis of interview data from
four individuals who trace their family histories to Mission San Juan
and, in particular, to Native Americans; (2) initiation of genealogical
research to determine whether direct lineal descent can be demonstrated
from mission Indians in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries to
present-day community members; (3) review of archaeological literature
relevant to Mission San Juan; (4) compilation of additional ethnographic
information about Coahuiltecans and mission Indians in south Texas; and
(5) attendance of the reburial ceremony held at Mission San Juan in
November 1999.

Work conducted from March 2000 through August 2000 included: (1) copy
editing the transcriptions of interviews with four individuals who trace
their family histories to Mission San Juan; (2) completion of
genealogical research to determine whether direct lineal descent from
Santiago Díaz, a San Juan *alcalde* in 1817 can be demonstrated for
several families in the modern San Juan community; (3) transcription and
review of the hand-written archaeological report (Schuetz 1980b) on
excavation of the early mission's *convento* area in 1971; (4)
photographic documentation of four members of the San Juan/Berg's Mill
community who trace their ancestry to the community and who were
interviewed as part of the present project; (5) completion and
submission of the annotated bibliography pertaining to mission history
and especially Coahuiltecans and other mission Indians in south Texas;
and (6) in-house editing and revising the draft report.

A preliminary draft report was submitted to NPS for review and comment
in late August 2000. Written comments were received from NPS on October
30, 2000. Telephone discussions were subsequently held with the
reviewers at SAAN (Mr. Chavez and Dr. Rock) and with Alexa Roberts, NPS
Anthropologist with the Cultural Resources and National Register
Services Program in Santa Fe who also reviewed and commented on the
preliminary draft. Thoms met with SAAN personnel---Mr. Chavez, Dr. Rock,
and Susan Snow (the new Park Archaeologist)---in November to discuss
review comments and make plans for submission of the final draft report.
Telephone discussions about NAGPRA's applicability to skeletal remains
and funerary objects from Mission San Juan where held in December
between Thoms and Virginia Salazar (NPS NAGPRA specialist in Santa Fe)
and Jason Roberts (NPS lawyer and NAGPRA specialist in the Washington
D.C. office). Information derived from conversations with Ms. Salazar,
Ms. Roberts, and Mr. Roberts led to the concepts and interpretations
presented later in this chapter under the heading "NAGPRA's
Applicability to Mission San Juan" as well as in Chapter 11.

A revised final draft was submitted to SAAN in early June 2001 for a
second round of review and comments. CEA responded to comments and
modified the final draft accordingly. A final report was printed and
submitted to SAAN in November 2001.

Research Objectives and NAGPRA Compliance

Two closely related research objectives characterize the present
project: (1) provide information that assists the NPS in understanding
the values and concerns of American Indians associated with the mission;
and (2) provide baseline information for conducting NAGPRA-specific
consultations with Indian groups likely to have been associated with
Mission San Juan. The first objective is straightforward enough, but the
second one requires a basic understanding of the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, better known as NAGPRA.

Regulations for NAGPRA implementation include detailed definitions and
criteria for determining lineal descent and cultural affiliation (United
States Department of the Interior 1999). Elements of the following
discussions are expanded in the other chapters, but it is important to
provide a context about the diversity of opinions that exist concerning
the issues at hand.

NAGPRA Clauses and Definitions

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 is
intended to ensure that federally recognized tribes are afforded an
opportunity to have ownership and control of the remains of their
ancestors. The Act also ensures that recognized tribes are afforded an
opportunity to have ownership and control of associated and unassociated
funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.
NAGPRA affords protection for Indian gravesites and cemeteries on
federal and tribal lands. It contains provisions instructing public and
private museums, universities, and other institutions that receive
federal funding to undertake the following: (1) inventory their holdings
of Native American remains and NAGPRA-related objects; (2) consult with
Indian groups and representatives of museums and the scientific
community; and (3) based on findings of lineal descent or probable
cultural affiliation, repatriate human remains and funerary objects to
the appropriate lineal descendant(s) or culturally affiliated Indian
tribe (Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs 1990).

NAGPRA's requirements for an inventory of human remains and associated
funerary objects include the statement that:

Each Federal agency and each museum which has possession or control over
holdings or collections of Native American human remains and associated
funerary objects shall compile an inventory of such items and, to the
extent possible based on information possessed by such museum or Federal
agency, identify the geographical and cultural affiliation of such items
\[Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs 1990:3053\].

The Act further stipulates return or repatriation of remains and certain
objects held by federal agencies and museums:

if\...the cultural affiliation of Native American human remains and
associated funerary objects with a particular Indian tribe or Native
Hawaiian organization is established, then the Federal agency or museum,
upon request of a known lineal descendant of the Native American or of
the tribe or Native Hawaiian organization\...shall expeditiously return
such remains and funerary objects \[Committee on Interior and Insular
Affairs 1990:3051\].

There are also specific clauses in NAGPRA pertaining to ownership of
Native American human remains and objects found after 1990:

(a) **The ownership or control of Native American cultural items which
    are excavated or discovered on Federal or tribal lands after the
    date of enactment \[1990\] of this Act shall be (with priority given
    in the order listed)---**

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(1) **in the case of Native American human remains and associated
    funerary objects, in the lineal descendants of the Native American;
    or**

(2) **in any case in which such lineal descendants cannot be
    ascertained, and in the case of unassociated funerary objects,
    sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony---**

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(A) **in the Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization on whose
    tribal land such objects or remains were discovered;**

(B) **in the Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization which has the
    closest cultural affiliation with such remains or objects and which,
    upon notice, states a claim for such remains or objects; or**

(C) **if the cultural affiliation of the objects cannot be reasonably
    ascertained and if the objects were discovered on Federal land that
    is recognized by a final judgment of the Indian Claims Commission or
    the United States Court of Claims as the aboriginal land of some
    Indian tribe---**

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(1) **in the Indian tribe that is recognized as aboriginally occupying
    the area in which the objects were discovered, if upon notice, such
    tribe states a claim for such remains or objects, or**

(2) **if it can be shown by a preponderance of the evidence that a
    different tribe has a stronger cultural relationship with the
    remains or objects than the tribe or organization specified in
    paragraph (1), in the Indian tribe that has the strongest
    demonstrated relationship, if upon notice, such tribe states a claim
    for such remains or objects \[Committee on Interior and Insular
    Affairs 1990:3051\].**

NAGPRA also provides definitions to key terms used in the Act. Among the
definitions especially important to the present project are:

-   **"Federal agency" means any department, agency, or instrumentality
    of the United States. Such term does not include the Smithsonian
    Institution.**

-   **"Federal lands" means any land other than tribal lands which are
    controlled or owned by the United States, including lands selected
    by but not yet conveyed to Alaska Native Corporations and groups
    organized pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of
    1971.**

-   **"Indian tribe" means any tribe, band, nation, or other organized
    group or community of Indians, including any Alaska Native village
    (as defined in, or established pursuant to, the Alaska Native Claims
    Settlement Act), *which is recognized as eligible for the special
    programs and services provided by the United States to Indians
    because of their status as Indians* (emphasis added).**

-   **"Museum" means any institution or State or local government agency
    (including any institution of higher learning) that receives Federal
    funds and has possession of, or control over, Native American
    cultural items. Such term does not include the Smithsonian
    Institution or any other Federal agency.**

-   **"Native American" means of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or
    culture that is indigenous to the United States.**

-   **"Right of possession" means possession obtained with the voluntary
    consent of an individual or group that had authority of alienation.
    The original acquisition of a Native American unassociated funerary
    object, sacred object or object of cultural patrimony from an Indian
    tribe or Native Hawaiian organization with the voluntary consent of
    an individual or group with authority to alienate such object is
    deemed to give right of possession of that object, unless the phrase
    so defined would, as applied in section 7(c), result in a Fifth
    Amendment taking by the United States as determined by the United
    States Claims Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1491 in which event the
    "right of possession" shall be as provided under otherwise
    applicable property law. The original acquisition of Native American
    human remains and associated funerary objects which were excavated,
    exhumed, or otherwise obtained with full knowledge and consent of
    the next of kin or the official governing body of the appropriate
    culturally affiliated Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization
    is deemed to give right of possession to those remains \[Committee
    on Interior and Insular Affairs 1990:3049\].**

NAGPRA Regulations

Regulations for implementing NAGPRA are especially important for the
present study. They are formally listed and entitled as Code of Federal
Regulations (CFR), Title 43---Public Lands: Interior; Subtitle
A---Office of the Secretary of the Interior; Part 10---Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Regulations (U.S. Department of the
Interior 1999).

Section 10.2 of the NAGPRA regulations also contains definitions that
are especially pertinent to the present project.

-   **The term "possession" means having physical custody of human
    remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural
    patrimony with a sufficient legal interest to lawfully treat the
    objects as part of its collection for purposes of these regulations.
    *Generally, a museum or Federal agency would not be considered to
    have possession of human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects,
    or objects of cultural patrimony on loan from another individual,
    museum, or Federal agency* (emphasis added).**

-   **The term "control" means having a legal interest in human remains,
    funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony
    sufficient to lawfully permit the museum or Federal agency to treat
    the objects as part of its collection for purposes of these
    regulations whether or not the human remains, funerary objects,
    sacred objects or objects of cultural patrimony are in the physical
    custody of the museum or Federal agency. Generally, a museum or
    Federal agency that has loaned human remains, funerary objects,
    sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony to another
    individual, museum, or Federal agency is considered to retain
    control of those human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or
    objects of cultural patrimony for purposes of these regulations
    \[U.S. Department of the Interior 1999:195\].**

Subpart 10.14 of the regulations, entitled "Lineal descent and cultural
affiliation," addresses important procedural aspects for NAGPRA. It
reads in part:

\(a\) General. This section identifies procedures for determining lineal
descent and cultural affiliation between present‑day individuals and
Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations and human remains,
funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony in
museum or Federal agency collections or excavated intentionally or
discovered inadvertently from Federal lands. In respect to tribal lands,
Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations may also use them.

\(b\) Criteria for determining lineal descent. A lineal descendant is an
individual tracing his or her ancestry directly and without interruption
by means of the traditional kinship system of the appropriate Indian
tribe or Native Hawaiian organization or by the common law system of
descent to a known Native American individual whose remains, funerary
objects, or sacred objects are being requested under these regulations.
*This standard requires that the earlier person be identified as an
individual whose descendants can be traced* (emphasis added).

\(c\) Criteria for determining cultural affiliation. Cultural
affiliation means a relationship of shared group identity that may be
reasonably traced historically or prehistorically *between a present-day
Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and an identifiable earlier
group* (emphasis added). All of the following requirements must be met
to determine cultural affiliation between a present-day Indian tribe or
Native Hawaiian organization and the human remains, funerary objects,
sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony of an earlier group:

\(1\) Existence of an identifiable present‑day Indian tribe or Native
Hawaiian organization with standing under these regulations and the Act;
and

\(2\) Evidence of the existence of an identifiable earlier group.
Support for this requirement may include, but is not necessarily limited
to evidence sufficient to:

\(i\) Establish the identity and cultural characteristics of the earlier
group,

\(ii\) Document distinct patterns of material culture manufacture and
distribution methods for the earlier group, or

\(iii\) Establish the existence of the earlier group as a biologically
distinct population; and

> **(3) Evidence of the existence of a shared group identity that can be
> reasonably traced between the** **present‑day Indian tribe or Native
> Hawaiian organization and the earlier group. Evidence to** **support
> this requirement must establish that a present‑day Indian tribe or
> Native Hawaiian organization has been identified from prehistoric or
> historic times to the present as descending from the earlier group.**

\(d\) A finding of cultural affiliation should be based upon an overall
evaluation of the totality of the circumstances and evidence pertaining
to the connection between the claimant and the material being claimed
and should not be precluded solely because of some gaps in the record.

\(e\) Evidence. Evidence of a kin or cultural affiliation between a
present‑day individual, Indian tribe, or Native Hawaiian organization
and human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of
cultural patrimony must be established by using the following types of
evidence: geographical, kinship, biological, archeological,
anthropological, linguistic, folklore, oral tradition, historical, or
other relevant information or expert opinion.

\(f\) Standard of proof. Lineal descent of a present‑day individual from
an earlier individual and cultural affiliation of a present‑day Indian
tribe or Native Hawaiian organization to human remains, funerary
objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony *must be
established by a preponderance of the evidence. Claimants do not have to
establish cultural affiliation with scientific certainty* (emphasis
added) \[U.S. Department of the Interior 1999:214-215\].

NAGPRA's Applicability to Mission San Juan

NAGPRA's potential applicability to Mission San Juan stems from
archaeological investigations carried out there in 1967, 1969, and 1971
that resulted in the removal, study, and curation of skeletal remains
presumed to be those of aboriginal and/or missionized Coahuiltecans
(Schuetz 1968, 1974, 1980b). As noted, the NAGPRA-related opinions and
interpretations in this subsection, along with related discussions in
Chapter 11, are consistent with information by provided NPS personnel,
including Alexa Roberts and Virginia Salazar of the Santa Fe office and
Jason Roberts of the Washington D.C. office. This subsection also
provides information about how two Indian groups---American Indians in
Texas-Spanish Colonial Missions and the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan
Nation---have been recognized in the San Juan community, as well as by
the Catholic Church and the State of Texas.

Cultural Affiliation

At present, there does not appear to be a direct link to NAGPRA-related
repatriation under a claim of cultural affiliation (also see Chapter
11). This, in part, is because the Act applies specifically to
"federally recognized" tribes and Coahuiltecans are not among the tribes
and related organizations recognized by the U. S. Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA).

NAGPRA applies specifically to human remains and associated funerary
objects discovered on federal and tribal land after passage of the Act
in 1990. The Act also applies to any human remains of funerary objects
held in federally funded repositories prior to the Act, even if the
repository does not have right of possession. The remains and objects in
question here, however, were recovered from church-owned property.
Therefore, they are not necessarily covered by the Act due to their
non-federal and non-tribal origin. It is important to note here,
however, that the Act certainly applies to Native American remains or
NAGPRA-related items recovered from NPS-owned property around the
mission compound.

While Coahuiltecans are not presently among the federally recognized
tribes, a potentially affiliated group took the first step in 1997
towards a long and strictly regulated process to obtain federal
recognition. The current process was established by the BIA's Branch of
Acknowledgment and Research in 1978, revised in 1994, and became
effective on March 25, 1994 (Part 83 of Title 25 of the Code of Federal
Regulations; Gardner et al. 2000:33-35). On December 3, 1997, the Tap
Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation submitted a Letter of Intent to Petition to
the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs of the Department of the
Interior. As of April 2000, the group had not submitted supporting
documentation, without which the process cannot proceed (*United States
Department of the Interior* 2000). The Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation
maintains close ties and shares members with a San Antonio-based,
non-profit organization known as AIT-SCM.

In a recent study of cultural affiliation conducted for Fort Sam Houston
and Camp Bullis Training Site, both of which are located in the San
Antonio area, it was recommended that groups not currently recognized,
such as the Coahuiltecans, consult with federally recognized tribes and
seek their formal sponsorship. The intent of establishing such a
relationship is to afford a formal opportunity for unrecognized tribes
to address NAGPRA issues. A precedent for this approach is a Lipan
Apache group, not currently recognized as a separate tribe, that
established a formal working relationship with the federally recognized
Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico (Gardner et al. 2000:112).

The Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation recently requested and was granted a
formal sponsor relationship with the federally recognized Wichita and
Affiliated Tribes based in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Its request was based in
part on historical evidence that sometime in the late eighteenth century
the Wichita Tribe assimilated the Cantona, a Native American group
possibly affiliated with Coahuiltecans (Gardner et al. 2000:42-46). The
resolution noted "that the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes hereby sponsor
the participation of the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation in all official
and appropriate matters involving their traditional homeland to include
properties owned and controlled by the U.S. Government" (Wichita and
Affiliated Tribes 2000; Appendix H). This resolution may well open a
door, albeit indirectly, to NAGPRA's applicability to human remains and
funerary objects recovered from Mission San Juan.

Lineal Descent

Neither does there, as yet, appear to be a direct link to NAGPRA-related
repatriation under a claim of lineal descent. In this case, lack of a
direct link is due to the fact that none of the human remains recovered
during the excavations in question has been identified by name or as a
specific individual. Said differently, lineal descent, as per NAGPRA,
must be traced to a known Native American. All of the excavated human
remains from Mission San Juan, including those classified as Native
Americans, are as yet unidentified. Although some of the remains have
undergone DNA analysis (see Chapter 10), the results have not been
applied to issues of lineal descent.

As discussed later in the text (see Chapters 2, 9-11), skeletal remains
of many individuals were recovered from grave pits, none of which were
marked with headstones or other means of denoting whose body was
interred there. Moreover, none of the associated funerary items was
marked in such a fashion as to identify the interred individual by name.
In other words, the names of many individuals interred in the floors of
the mission churches are known from church records, but none of the
remains has been identified as belonging to a particular person buried
there. For the present time, all burials recovered from Mission San Juan
are considered to represent remains of unknown individuals to whom
lineal descent cannot be traced in accordance with NAGPRA.

It is important to note at this juncture, however, that research
conducted for the present study (see Chapters 3-7, 11) demonstrates a
likelihood that descendants of mission Indians and other members of San
Juan's eighteenth and early nineteenth century communities still live in
the area today. As such, it is likely that today there are de facto
lineal descendants of individuals buried at or near the mission during
Spanish Colonial times. Accordingly, there is substantial potential for
DNA or similar studies to identify individual Native Americans interred
at the mission, as well as their direct lineal descendants among today's
population. To the extent that such studies are successful, the door
would be open to NAGPRA-related repatriation under claim(s) of lineal
descent.

Museums and the Catholic Church

The Act applies in general to human remains, associated funerary
objects, and related items that are in the possession of most museums
and university facilities, including UTSA and SAAN. Skeletal remains and
related objects recovered from Mission San Juan indeed have been "held"
at facilities covered by the Act (i.e., UTSA and SAAN; see Appendices A
and B). However, the Catholic Church has maintained that these remains
and items are "on loan" from the church (see Chapter 11 and Appendix H).
As such, the Act does not appear to apply in this case because neither
UTSA nor SAAN can be said to be in "possession" of human remains and
funerary items that are on loan from another entity.

Community, American Indians in Texas-Spanish Colonial Missions, and the
Catholic Church

Regardless of NAGPRA's apparent non-applicability in this case at this
time, there are San Juan/Berg's Mill community members who trace their
biological and cultural ancestry to mission Indians and who have long
argued for the return and reburial of the excavated human remains
(Schuetz 1968; Thoms 1999). The Catholic Church came to recognize the
claims of these parishioners (see Chapters 2, 3, 11, and Appendix H). It
worked in cooperation with Native American organizations in 1986 to
ceremoniously rebury several archaeologically recovered skeletal remains
(Hall 1986; Perdue 1986). In November 1999, church officials and members
of the American Indians in Texas-Spanish Colonial Missions (AIT-SCM),
the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation, and other Native American groups,
participated in religious services for reburial for all of the six human
remains recovered from San Juan during archaeological excavations in
1967, 1969, and 1971 (Thoms 1999, 2000).

The Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation and the 77^th^ Session of the Texas
Legislature

During the 77^th^ regular session (2001) of the Texas Legislature, the
Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation sought public recognition through the
legislature. The House of Representatives passed (i.e., enrolled on
05/14/01) House Resolution 787 "recognizing the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan
Nation and its efforts to preserve its cultural and spiritual heritage
and traditions" (Turner 2001; Appendix H). This resolution also
acknowledged that although the United States government did not
recognize the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation, "the Coahuiltecan tribe's
distinguished history in the Lone Star State merits strong consideration
for official acknowledgement from the State of Texas and the United
States\..." It concluded as follows:

WHEREAS, Descendants of this intrepid tribe celebrate time-honored
occasions, such as Indian Decoration Day, and also use ceremonial music
and dress as ways of upholding tribal customs; in addition, renewed
efforts to ascertain more knowledge about their ancestry are on going;
and

WHEREAS, Throughout the years, the Coahuiltecans have played an integral
role in Texas' development, and the Native American tribes who were the
first Texans have greatly enriched our shared heritage with their
culture; and

WHEREAS, Given the tribe's justifiable pride in its distinct history and
culture, the Texas House of Representatives finds that it is indeed
appropriate to bestow such recognition as will encourage the
preservation of The Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan's unique cultural heritage
and to support those activities consistent with the state's interest in
preserving all of Texas' diverse cultural and natural resources for
future generations; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 77^th^ Texas
Legislature hereby recognize the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation for its
immeasurable contributions as an indigenous people of Texas and commend
the tribe's efforts to preserve its cultural and spiritual heritage and
traditions \[Turner 2001\].

The Texas Senate passed (i.e., enrolled on 05/11/2001) a similar, albeit
shorter, resolution (SR 1038) "commending the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan
Nation" (Zaffirini 2001; Appendix H). It resolved "that the Senate of
the State of Texas, 77^th^ Legislature, hereby commend the Tap
Pilam-Coahuiltecans for their exemplary preservation of their heritage
and their many contributions to the culture of our state and nation; and
be it further resolved that a copy of this Resolution be prepared for
the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation as an expression of esteem from the
Texas Senate" (Zaffirini 2001). The President of the Senate formally
presented members of Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation with the resolution
in the Senate chamber on May 18, 2001 (Raymond Hernández, personal
communication 2001).

Mission San Juan's Indian Occupants: Geographic Coahuiltecans

Although most Indian people who lived and worked at the San Antonio
missions during the eighteenth century have been grouped under the
Coahuiltecan rubric, they actually represented a diversity of
linguistically and ethnically distinctive hunter-gatherer groups whose
homelands were mainly in today's south Texas and northeast Mexico
(Campbell 1983). A few representatives of other Indians groups,
including Caddos from east Texas, Tonkawas from central Texas, and
Apaches and Comanches from areas to the west, also occupied several of
the San Antonio missions (Campbell and Campbell 1996). As averred
throughout this report, historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists
have consistently grouped all Indians listed in sacramental records at
Mission San Juan under a general Coahuiltecan rubric.

Over the last several decades, there has been considerable confusion and
a lively debate about the meaning of the term "Coahuiltecan" among
members of academic communities, as well as individuals and groups who
trace their ancestry to San Antonio's mission Indians. To avoid further
confusion, it is necessary to call the reader's special attention to
usage of the term Coahuiltecan in the present report. Coahuiltecan is
used here in a *geographic* sense to denote those groups of
hunter-gatherers whose homelands during the very late prehistoric and
early historic periods were in south Texas and northeast Mexico, from
the coast into the rugged hill country of the interior. This usage
conforms, in general, to the manner in which Coahuiltecan was described
in the 1907 *Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico*:

A name adopted by Powell \[1891\] from the tribal name Coahuilteco used
by Pimentel and Orozco y Berra \[1865\] to describe a group of small,
supposedly cognate tribes on both sides of the Rio Grande in Texas and
Coahuila. The family is founded on a slender basis, and the name is
geographic rather than ethnic, as it is not applied to any tribe of the
group, while most of the tribes included are therein extinct, only
meager remnants of some two or three dialects being preserved. Pimentel
(Lenguas, II, 409, 1865) says: "I call this language Tejano or
Coahuilteco, because according to the missionaries, it was the one most
in use in the provinces of Coahuila and Texas, being spoken from La
Candela to the Rio San Antonio." The tribes speaking this language were
known under the names of Pajalates, Orejones, Pacaos, Pacoas, Tilijayos,
Alasapas, Pausanes, Pacuaches, Mescales, Pampopas, Tacames, Venados,
Pamaques, Pihuiques, Borrados, Sanipaos, and Manos de Perro...\[Hodge
1907:314-315\].

During the 1700s, several thousand Indians came to live at Mission San
Juan, albeit never more than about 300 at any one time. Historical data
also indicate that many of the geographic Coahuiltecans who are listed
in the mission's records may not have lived on the grounds for very
long. Individuals, families, and groups undergoing missionization often
fled to places well beyond mission lands and renewed their
hunter-gatherer lifeways (Rock 1999). Nonetheless, church records
indicate that by the end of the eighteenth century more than 1,500
people had been buried in one of several cemetery areas at Mission San
Juan (Schuetz 1968, 1980a, 1980b, 1980c). Many other Coahuiltecans, of
course, were interred at other mission cemeteries or elsewhere in the
greater San Antonio community (De la Teja 1995; Poyo and Hinojosa 1991;
Schuetz 1980a). Still, other missionized Coahuiltecans, perhaps even
most as some have argued, fled from Old World civilization in general to
live out their lives in the less settled parts of the frontier
territories (cf. Hester 1989a, 1989b, 1998).

By the late 1770s, Mission San Juan was in decline, although as noted it
continued to function through the period of secularization (1794-1824)
when it was converted into a secular parish. Upon secularization, a
dozen geographic Coahuiltecan families were each granted a residential
space at the mission and a plot of their own farmland around the old
mission (Schuetz 1968). For more than a decade after secularization, the
mission operated under the jurisdiction of newly independent Mexico with
a secular clergy who served the community's mainly Hispanic and *ladino*
(Spanish-speaking Indian) citizens (Rock 1999).

After secularization was completed under Mexico in 1824, services at the
mission churches were intermittent at best. In 1841, after Texas
Independence, the legislative body recognized ownership of the churches
of the former missions by the Catholic Church, marking a return of its
full-time activity to the area. During the middle to late 1800s,
immigrants from other parts of the United States, Europe, and Africa
settled at San Juan and added substantially to its already ethnically
diverse but decidedly Catholic community. In 1879, the Berg family
opened a wool mill and soon thereafter the community became known as
Berg's Mill. Many of today's residents trace their ancestry back to the
mission Indians as well as to non-Indians who lived in the San
Juan/Berg's Mill community about 100 to 200 years ago (Rock 1999).

What complicates issues of assessing lineal descent and cultural
affiliation with mission-period Indians is a long-held contention among
some ethnographers and archaeologists that Coahuiltecans are extinct as
a cultural group (e.g., Hester 1989a, 1998). The issues are complex and,
in no small measure, dependent on just what kind of extinction is being
discussed (cf. Hester 2000). It is also worth noting that NAGPRA
implementation has been and continues to be a contentious issue in Texas
precisely because of a widely held belief that many of Texas' "original"
Indians were biologically or culturally extinct by the late nineteenth
century (cf. Thoms 1997).

Arguments for Extinction of Geographic Coahuiltecans

For more than 300 years, people have written about the extinction of
Coahuiltecan Indians. In the mid-1600s, during the early days of
missionization, Alonso de León, a Spanish military leader and historian
who lived in northeast Mexico, wrote of the pending extinction of the
"Indians of the north," the very groups who came to be known as
Coahuiltecans (Chapa 1997\[1690\]). More than a century later, in 1776,
Fray Pedro Ramírez, Father President of San Antonio's missions, averred
that if the mission Indians did not become healthier and procreate more
effectively, they would soon become extinct and the missions would close
(cited in Rock 1999:59-60). An 1836 history of Texas, written from a
decidedly Anglo-American perspective, included reports that although
Indians still lived in the new republic, they were "but remnants of
broken tribes" (Edwards 1990:93 \[1836\]).

James Mooney's (1928) anthropological study of Native American
demography reported that although as many as 15,000 Coahuiltecans may
have lived in south Texas and northeast Mexico at the time of European
contact, diseases, warfare, and missionization rendered them culturally
extinct by the early nineteenth century. Coahuiltecans by that or any
other name were not among the extant tribes in the 1890 U.S. Government
census reports on Indian tribes (Ewers 1973).

The best known, often reprinted (most recently in 1999), widely cited,
and still-used university-level textbook about Texas Indians is W. W.
Newcomb's *The Indians of Texas from Prehistoric to Modern Times*, first
published in 1961. It includes an assessment that "by 1800 most of the
south Texas Coahuiltecans had disappeared, having been destroyed by
disease or absorbed into the Mexican population, and many of the
missions had been abandoned or secularized. By the time Anglo-Americans
began to settle Texas the far-flung Coahuiltecans had dwindled almost to
nothingness. In northern Mexico, small acculturated groups persisted
longer, but by the end of the nineteenth century they had also
disappeared" (Newcomb1961:37). In the concluding chapter, entitled
"Extermination and Oblivion," it is said that "the Coahuiltecans just
seem to have faded away" (Newcomb 1961:335).

The type of extinction about which Newcomb and others write seems to be
in reference to hunter-gatherer populations and their lifeways per se.
For example, Thomas Hester, a well-known Texas archaeologist who has
conducted investigations at several Spanish Colonial mission sites,
writes that none of the Coahuiltecan hunter-gatherers "survived
culturally or biologically to be interviewed by early anthropologists"
(Hester 1989a:195). Elsewhere, however, he seems to open a door to
Coahuiltecan survival:

The missionization process in eighteenth-century Texas was only partly
successful. Many of the mission Indians were lost to Spanish diseases
(Hester 1986; Salinas 1986). Many fled back to their territories and did
not return to the missions (there, too, they died from diseases or from
attacks by Apaches), and only a small percentage (in my opinion)---and
this is difficult to quantify---were ever partially or fully
acculturated. The last lived on in identifiable Indian households in the
San Antonio (Schuetz 1980a) and Goliad (Mounger 1959) areas for two or
three decades into the nineteenth century. (Unfortunately, we do not yet
have any documentary evidence as to the nature of Indian households in
the Guerrero, Coahuila area after Missions San Bernardo and San Juan
Bautista were secularized). Even then, it would seem from the meager
evidence discussed in this chapter that certain precontact technologies
had continued \[Hester 1989b:225\].

Central to Schuetz's (1968) first archaeological investigations at San
Juan in 1967 is her assumption that Coahuiltecans effectively became
extinct soon after the Spanish Colonial period. She argued that studies
of the material culture and physical remains were the only pathways to
recovering detailed information, not otherwise represented in historical
records, about Coahuiltecan lifeways and health conditions. An important
goal for Schuetz's excavations, all of which were co-sponsored by the
San Antonio Archdiocese and the Witte Museum and overseen by the State
Archaeologist, was the recovery of skeletal remains representative of
aboriginal Coahuiltecans. She wrote "they \[Coahuiltecans\] were extinct
as far as racial identity goes in the early nineteenth century and there
was not a Coahuiltecan skeletal series in the county. We set ourselves
the goal of recovering 35 to 40 adult remains" (Schuetz 1968:1-2).

Arguments for Survival of Geographic Coahuiltecans

Thousands of travelers and tourists undoubtedly passed through the San
Juan/Berg's Mill community between about 1875 and 1975. Many of them
probably stopped for an hour or so, as I did with my family in the late
1950s, to visit the old Mission San Juan, see the nearby stone aqueduct
that dated to the Spanish Colonial period, or purchase something from a
community store. It is unlikely that they learned very much about the
mission Indians, unless they stayed long enough to visit with just the
right local folks or the parish priest. Had they asked questions of the
people living there at the time, it is likely that a number of those
residents would have informed them that many descendants of the mission
Indians still lived in the community.

Thomas N. Campbell (1983:347), the best known Coahuiltecan ethnographer,
once observed, "all surviving \[Coahuiltecan\] Indians passed into the
lower levels of Mexican society." He added, however, that as of 1981,
"descendants of some aboriginal groups still lived in various
communities of Mexico and Texas, although few attempts have been made to
discover individuals who can demonstrate this descent" (Campbell
1983:347). In discussing what are herein termed geographic Coahuiltecans
who resided at San Antonio's missions, Hester (2000) recently noted, "it
is likely that biological descendants of those native people from south
Texas and northeastern Mexico live on in San Antonio."

As discussed throughout the present volume, it is important to reiterate
that there are numerous families from the San Juan/Berg's Mill community
who acknowledge and identify with their Indian heritage. That these
families have done so for decades suggests they must have retained a
keen sense of their biological and cultural ties to the mission Indians
and perhaps to their aboriginal ancestors as well (Chapters 2-4).

Late twentieth century tourist literature pertaining to Mission San Juan
also avers, "Native American and Spanish descendants of the original
inhabitants still live near the mission grounds" (San Antonio Convention
and Visitors Bureau 1998). Another brochure notes, "San Antonio missions
today represent a virtually unbroken connection with the past. Bearing
the distinctive stamp of generations of Indian and Spanish craftsman,
they live still as active parishes" (San Antonio Missions National
Historical Park 1996).

When Mardith Schuetz's team of paid and volunteer archaeologists first
exposed human remains at Mission San Juan, it was immediately apparent
that some community members were not pleased with the excavation and
removal of burials for scientific study. The news media televised the
discovery of human remains in April 1967. Schuetz decided to hire two
local residents to guard one of the burials that could not be removed
the first day. She reported:

the guards were frightened away during the night by vandals who damaged
the skulls...This was the only trouble we had during the six months of
work. In learning that sex, age, disease, racial description and
forgotten customs might be learned from the work, the hostility toward
the excavators disappeared along with the local fear of the dead. By the
end of this phase of the excavation, we were able to leave burials
exposed and unguarded at night (Schuetz 1968:205-206).

One of the things that Schuetz learned during her first season of
archaeological work at San Juan was that strong ties linked the human
remains recovered from the mission to members of the local community.
The link is both cultural and biological, and it relates directly to the
spirit of NAGPRA, if not to the letter of the law: San Juan and San
Antonio's other missions are surrounded by families who claim their
descent from mission Indians. Recognizing a need to better document this
link, Schuetz went on to recommend that "a study be made immediately,
tracing the origins of these families, for only those who were born in
the nineteenth century remember the family names beyond the last two
generations" (Schuetz 1968:58). In arguing her point that descendants of
mission Indians still resided in San Antonio, she observed the
following:

an interesting fact reflected by this bit of social history \[a review
of the important people who had lived at San Juan\] is the evidence of
complete integration of Native Americans into the San Antonio
population. There is no evidence of prejudice. Soldiers married Indian
women. Indians fought side by side with Texans, and first families of
San Antonio had no qualms over living in the missions with Indians
(Schuetz 1968:60).

Schuetz's (1980a) dissertation on the history of San Antonio's mission
Indians followed up on her archaeological work at Mission San Juan. She
argued that mission Indian populations at first waned, but by the 1790s,
the numbers were again on the rise. Many Indians eventually moved
outside the missions' walls and were rapidly incorporated into the
regional labor force and "became as important to the makeup and
development of San Antonio and southern Texas as any other ethnic group"
(Schuetz 1980a:vi). Her contention was that the act of "being readily
absorbed into the Hispanic population was not the same as 'to become
extinct'"---rather, the Coahuiltecans were "converted" into
"Christianized citizens of the Spanish Crown with the same rights and
privileges as other Spanish subjects" (Schuetz 1980a:2, 5). Since that
time, other historians have come to similar conclusions (e.g., De la
Teja 1995; Poyo and Hinojosa 1991).

Organization of the Report

The present chapter establishes a research context for the study,
outlines the general nature of the debate surrounding Coahuiltecan
extinction and how it relates to NAGPRA issues of lineal descent and
cultural affiliation, and summarizes the project's own history. Chapter
2 establishes a historical context for reassessing Coahuiltecan
extinction. Chapter 3 documents how descendants of San Antonio's mission
Indians have been presented in popular and tourist-based literature
since the mid-nineteenth century. Interviews with four individuals who
trace their ancestry to mission Indians are summarized and analyzed in
Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 provides photographs of these individuals, as
well as descriptions of the project's photographic component.
Genealogical research, which hoped to link one of today's residents to
those who resided at the San Juan mission during the late Spanish
Colonial period, is discussed in Chapter 6. Overviews of ethnohistoric,
linguistic, archaeological, and bioarchaeological data pertaining to
Coahuiltecans are provided in Chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10, respectively.
Chapter 11 summarizes and evaluates the project's findings and their
potential to address NAGPRA issues of lineal descent and cultural
affiliation that may apply to Mission San Juan.

Appendices included at the back of this report are: (A) table listing
cultural materials from Mission San Juan that are or were (prior to the
reburial of human remains in November 1999) held at the Center for
Archaeological Research, the University of Texas at San Antonio; (B)
table listing the cultural materials from Mission San Juan that are or
were (prior to the reburial of human remains in November 1999) housed at
SAAN facilities; (C) annotated bibliography of sources pertaining to
Coahuiltecans and San Antonio's mission Indians; (D) sample
questionnaire used by Cohen as a guide for the interviews he conducted;
(E) relevant transcriptions of the interviews with four individuals who
trace their ancestry to mission Indians; (F) list of names and addresses
of individuals and groups consulted; (G) list of other individuals and
groups knowledgeable of traditional history and who are potentially
interested in being considered for future consultation by authorized
park personnel; and (H) copies of selected letters and documents
pertaining to potential NAGPRA issues and related recognition issues at
Mission San Juan.

Chapter 2:

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR REASSESSING COAHUILTECAN
EXTINCTION AT MISSION SAN JUAN

Alston V. Thoms

This chapter presents a review of historic data pertaining mainly to the
native peoples, primarily geographic Coahuiltecans, who underwent
missionization at the San Antonio missions in general and at Mission San
Juan in particular. It also provides information about other groups who
were incorporated into the mission community through the centuries and
who gave the mission a distinctive ethnically diverse and spiritually
Catholic character that persists to the present day (Rock 1999). In
keeping with the project's NAGPRA-related issues (SAAN 1998) and in
light of the nature of skeletal population and funerary objects
recovered at San Juan (Francis 1999; Humphreys 1971; Schuetz 1968),
emphasis is placed on the mission's inhabitants and cemeteries in use
prior to the early 1860s. Thereafter, deceased community members were
interred in the present-day San Juan/Berg's Mill cemetery located about
a quarter of a mile east of the mission (Schuetz 1968, 1980a).

The history of San Antonio's missions and communities is well known
through books, edited volumes, and articles written during the last 100
years or so. *Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519-1936* (Castañeda
1976\[1936\]) and *The Alamo Chain of Missions* (Habig 1976) have served
as standards for more than a quarter of a century. Among the more recent
and informative histories are *The San Antonio Missions and Their System
of Land Tenure* (Almaraz 1989), *San Antonio de Béxar: A Community of
New Spain's Northern Frontier* (De la Teja 1995) and *Tejano Origins in
Eighteenth-Century San Antonio* (Poyo and Hinojosa 1991). Almaraz (1992)
also prepared a two-volume study of San Antonio's mission's for SAAN:
*Faith Along a River: Franciscan Missions of Spanish Colonial San
Antonio, 1718-1836*. Especially noteworthy as a history of the
pre-mission era is Juan Bautista Chapa's *Historia del Nuevo Reino de
León*, originally written in the 1690s and recently published as *Texas
and Northeastern Mexico, 1630-1690* (Chapa 1997\[1690\]).

The most detailed history to date of the Indian people who lived at San
Antonio's missions during the Spanish Colonial era is Mardith K.
Schuetz's (1980b) dissertation entitled *The Indians of the San Antonio
Missions, 1718-1821*. Schuetz also compiled considerable historical
information about Mission San Juan in conjunction with archaeological
investigations she carried out at the mission site between 1967 and 1971
(Schuetz 1968, 1969, 1974, 1980a, 1980c). The most comprehensive history
of the mission and its inhabitants, however, is *Los Habitantes: A
History of Texas' Mission San Juan Capistrano and Its People* (Rock
1999), a detailed report recently written by Rosalind Z. Rock, park
historian for SAAN. For the present undertaking, Rock's invaluable
report was available to us in draft form and served as a mainstay for
our research.

The following sections review the history of the pre-mission, mission,
and post-mission eras. The chapter concludes, consistent with
anthropologist Schuetz (1980b:2) and historian Rock (1999:viii, 168),
that rather than becoming "extinct," mission Indians were effectively
integrated into the Hispanic population and, through the centuries,
their descendants continued to maintain a keen sense of their Native
American heritage. As noted in Chapter 1, Hester (1989b) at one time
argued that geographical Coahuiltecans were culturally and biologically
extinct, but recently modified his position to recognize the likelihood
that biological descents of these Native Americans continue to live in
San Antonio (Hester 2000). What became extinct---or, perhaps better
said, changed irrevocably---were the aboriginal hunter-gatherer
lifeways. However, elements of those lifeways live on, in part, as the
present study illustrates, in religious beliefs (e.g., Native American
Church), social behavior (e.g., shouting at or threatening the thunder),
and foodways (e.g., *nopalitos* and *tunas*) of descendants of mission
Indians and those with whom they have interacted.

San Antonio's Pre-Mission Era, 1528-1718

Native Americans have lived continuously in south Texas and northeastern
Mexico for more than 12,000 years (Hester 1980; Black 1989; see Chapter
9). Spanish presence in south Texas and across northern Mexico began in
1528 with the survivors of the Narváez expedition, notably Cabeza de
Vaca and others, who ended up shipwrecked on Galveston Island and
eventually traversed south Texas and northern Mexico on foot (Covey
1993). Responding in part to implied tales of treasure brought to Mexico
City by Cabeza de Vaca, the Coronado and de Soto expeditions were
undertaken. Both expeditions reached into parts of Texas in 1542
(Chipman 1992). Coronado traversed the American Southwest and visited
the Panhandle area. De Soto crossed much of the American Southeast.
Under the leadership of Luís de Moscoso after de Soto's death, the
expedition traversed east Texas and one contingent traveled southwest
along what would become the Camino Real, perhaps as far as today's city
of San Marcos on the Guadalupe River (Bruseth and Kenmotsu 1993). It
would be almost 150 years before the Spanish returned in significant
numbers and began a sustained presence in south Texas in 1689. They came
to oust La Salle's ill-fated French colony at Matagorda Bay on the Texas
coast, but the settlement had already been deserted with some of the few
survivors living among the Indians. Subsequently, the Spanish
established a series of presidios and missions intended to protect New
Spain's frontier from French Louisiana (Chapa 1997; Foster 1997a).

The earliest detailed record about the native people of south Texas and
northeast Mexico is Cabeza de Vaca's account of his 1528-1536
"adventures" along the coast and within the interior of south-central
North America (Covey 1993). Shipwrecked with the Narváez expedition on
Galveston Island in 1528, Cabeza de Vaca (treasurer and second in
command of the expedition) was the ranking leader of those who survived
the shipwreck and storms. Ultimately, he, two other Spaniards, and a
Moor of African descent were the only survivors who returned to
"civilization."

The four survivors lived apart for several years with different Indian
groups along the coast, primarily those who would later be called
Karankawas. They ultimately rejoined one another and walked across what
is today interior south Texas and northern Mexico to reach the Spanish
settlement of Culiacán and eventually Mexico City in 1536 (Covey 1993).
These Old World travelers encountered many different bands of hunters
and gatherers along the Texas coast, across south Texas, and in
northeast Mexico. Deer were a primary food source almost everywhere.
People along the coast relied heavily on fish and blackberries, while
those in the more interior parts of south Texas made extensive use of
prickly pear fruits and pads, as well as pecans (Chapter 7).

Descendants of the Indian people there and others who inhabited the
interior regions would come to be known collectively as Coahuiltecans.
They were so designated in the mid-1800s by linguists (Chapter 8) and,
later, by anthropologists, archaeologists, and physical archaeologists
applied this term broadly to the pre-contact inhabitants of the region
(Chapters 7, 9, and 10). The academic community first referred to a
subset of these native inhabitants as "Coahuiltecans" because they
reportedly spoke a common language, Coahuilteco, either as their first
language or perhaps as a *lingua franca* (Campbell 1983; Hester 1989a;
Schuetz 1980b:41, 44). Ethnographic and linguistic research over the
last few decades, however, has revealed that there were many different
dialects, if not languages, within what was once called Coahuilteco.
Moreover, recent research has shown that several language families,
among whom relationships remain unclear, were probably represented by
linguistically diverse, but culturally similar, hunter-gatherer groups
living in south Texas and northeast Mexico during the post-contact
period, if not earlier (Hester 1989a, 1989b, 1998; also see Chapters 7
and 8).

These hunter-gatherer groups inhabited a vast area that extended some
150 miles along either side of the Rio Grande, from its mouth more than
300 miles inland at least to Eagle Pass, Texas. Much of this region fell
within the Spanish Colonial provinces of Coahuila, Nuevo León, and
Tamaulipas, which border Texas today (Figure 3). At one time, Coahuila
extended north to the Medina River. Interestingly, the term
"*Coahuiltecano*" appears in some cases to have been used by Spanish
authorities during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in reference
to culturally and linguistically diverse native inhabitants of Coahuila
and other parts of today's northeast Mexico, and south Texas (Rock,
personal communication 2000). It is in this geographic sense that the
term Coahuiltecan is used throughout this chapter.

Profound changes in the very nature of the diverse Coahuiltecan lifeways
were set in motion by the arrival of the Spanish in the New World.
Cabeza de Vaca reported, for example, that during their stay on
Galveston Island, "half of the natives died from a disease of the bowel
and blamed us" (Covey 1993:60). Diseases may well have been spread anew
by members of the de Soto expedition in 1542. Over the next 300 years,
dozens of European-introduced epidemics spread north from central Mexico
into northeast Mexico and south Texas (Chapa 1997; Ewers 1973; Foster
1997a). Many of the epidemics, often smallpox or measles, reached the
San Antonio missions and caused widespread death among the native
inhabitants and immigrants (Rock 1999; Schuetz 1980b:161-170), including
those at San Juan.

According to Cabeza de Vaca, the Spanish living along and near the
Pacific coast in west-central Mexico were already "killing, enslaving,
and dispossessing the Indians" by 1536, when he and his shipmates
finally reached "civilization" near present-day Culiacán (Covey
1993:123). Widespread population decimation from diseases, slave
raiding, and warfare intensified in northeast Mexico with Spanish
colonization in the seventeenth century (Foster 1997a). Chapa (1997:100)
predicted in the 1690s that the native population of what was then Nuevo
León, a much larger area than the state occupies today, would become
extinct within a few decades.

Conflict with the native people of the region was an inevitable outcome
of Spanish expansion north, which either displaced them altogether or
"gathered" them into the missions. These "Coahuiltecans" responded by
raiding settlements, taking captives, horses, and other supplies; by
1624 some of the raids were carried out by mounted fighters (Chapa
1997:52; Foster 1997a:18). The first military expedition against the
"Indians of the North" began in 1665, in this case against the Cacaxtle
Indians.

Organized in Saltillo, the expedition came to include some 130 Spanish
soldiers and 300 Indian troops, mostly Bobole (identified as a
Coahuiltecan group from northeast Coahuila \[Campbell 1983; Hester
1980:42\]). The expedition encountered the Cacaxtle near the Nueces
River, some 100 miles south of San Antonio and killed one hundred of
them (Chapa 1997:56; Foster 1997a:3). In May 1693, a Spanish expedition
to east Texas encountered some of the presumably less hostile Cacaxtle
along the Rio Grande along with the Ocana (another group from northern
Coahuila); 18 days later other Cacaxtle were found encamped along the
Colorado River (Foster 1995:269, 280).

Uprisings were common among the Coahuiltecans of northeast Mexico during
the middle and late 1600s. Many Indians were killed outright and many
more were captured, enslaved, and forced to labor in the mines; others
were hanged for their roles in uprisings (Chapa 1997: 41-64). The
Borrados were among the groups who rebelled in the mid-1680s (Chapa
1997: 57, 62-63). They, along with dozens of other bands, some of whom
were loosely organized into confederacies, were missionized in northeast
Mexico (middle to late 1660s) and in the San Antonio missions (1731 to
late 1780s), including San Juan (Schuetz 1980a:51, 55-57). Several other
groups who interacted extensively with the Spanish in northeast Mexico
prior to 1690 came to be represented at the San Antonio missions after
1718. They included the Camasuqua, Pana, and Mescal (a Cotoname band),
the Coco (a Karankawa band), Sana (i.e., Tonkawa), Tejas (a Caddo
group), and Tlascaltecas, a Nahuatl-speaking people (Campbell and
Campbell 1996; Foster 1997b; Schuetz 1980b). The Tlascaltecans at the
missions were descendants of native people known by that name who were
brought originally by the Spanish from Tlaxcala (central Mexico) during
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to settle Coahuila
and Nuevo León (Rock, personal communication 2000).

In 1650, Captain Alonso de León (the younger), a Spanish military
official and historian, noted that although numerous missions had been
established, efforts to convert the Indians of Nuevo León to Catholicism
were unsuccessful, and that the wrath of God and the Spanish military
would ensure the Indians' eradication (Foster 1997a:18). Chapa
(1997:100) reported that in 1690 there were some 250 native groups, or
"nations," living in what is today south Texas and northeast Mexico. Of
those, some 90 had been "located and gathered" at various missions
during the preceding 25 years, but he added that "it will be necessary
to gather other tribes, for those here today will already have perished"
(Chapa 1997:100).

De León's and Chapa's histories clearly reveal that Indian communities
in northeast Mexico and south Texas suffered dramatically from rapid
depopulation during the century before the San Antonio missions were
established, and this of course had a profound effect on the region's
history (cf. Foster 1997a:18). Anthropologists have long argued that
sociopolitical and biological impacts primarily from epidemics and
warfare in Texas and northeast Mexico were of such magnitude that some
groups became extinct altogether, including the Coahuiltecans, and
missionized Indians in general (Ewers 1973:113; Hester 1989a:195). Ewers
(1973:113) notes:

Many Indian people sacrificed their tribal independence as their numbers
decreased but ensured their biological survival by combining with other
linguistically and culturally related tribes...New political groupings
emerged through the merging of remnant tribes. Even among the larger
tribes who continued to retain their tribal identity, endogamous taboos
may have been relaxed in the extensive band reorganizations necessitated
by severe losses in the most disastrous epidemics.

There can also be little doubt that many people who first came to San
Antonio's presidio, villa, and missions were representative of a
racially and ethnically mixed population characteristic of the Spanish
Colonial era. Enslaved Africans were brought to northeast Mexico during
the late 1500s to work in mines, and mulattos (i.e., people with mixed
African and Indian parentage) were among the region's early settlers
(Chapa 1997). Foster (1997a:11) points out that seventeenth and
eighteenth century documents

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="4.481944444444444in"
height="3.8472222222222223in"}

and census records demonstrate that mulattos and people of African
descent were prevalent in the regional population, and that by 1780 in
some parts of northern Mexico they outnumbered Spanish and Indians
combined. Of course, "pure" Indians, along with people classed as
mestizos (mixed Spanish and Indian parentage) and various others
representing "mixed" combinations of European, African, and Indian
genes, also constituted a major portion of the population (De la Teja
1995).

The foregoing review of pre-mission era history in the San Antonio
region leads to an inevitable conclusion: geographically defined
Coahuiltecans living in the region in 1718 must have been of a very
different character---ethnically, linguistically, and probably
racially---from the people met by Cabeza de Vaca almost 200 years
earlier. Moreover, San Antonio's mission Indians probably differed
ethnically, linguistically,

and racially from the Cacaxtle and other Coahuiltecans living in south
Texas and northeast Mexico in the mid-1600s. In other words, the precise
behavioral patterns and skeletal characteristics of geographic
Coahuiltecan Indians who came to be interred at Mission San Juan might
not be expected to closely match those of geographic Coahuiltecans
interred in the region during the pre-contact (i.e., prehistoric) era.
Nonetheless, there can be little doubt as to a continued presence of
strong cultural and biological ties that linked geographic Coahuiltecans
of the pre-contact past to those of the mission era (Chapters 7, 9, and
10).

San Antonio's Mission Era 1718-1824

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Spanish
founded several missions in east Texas and eventually across the Sabine
River in what became Spanish Louisiana (Chipman 1992; see Figure 3). As
the French threat waxed and waned during the early 1700s, the presidio
of San Antonio de Béxar and the mission of San Antonio de Valero were
established in 1718. Mission San José was soon added and, within a dozen
years, three of the east Texas missions were moved to the San Antonio
River, becoming Missions Concepción, San Juan, and Espada. They
continued to function as such until secularization occurred in 1794, and
to some degree until final secularization in 1824 (Schuetz 1980b; see
Figures 1 and 3). With the exception of Valero (the Alamo), the churches
at the missions have continued with few interruptions to serve the
surrounding communities. Mission San Juan's history is, in many ways, a
microcosm of the overall missionization process in south Texas and
northeast Mexico, although the process began more than a decade earlier
at some of the missions (cf. Rock 1999).

By the time San Antonio de Valero was established in 1718, numerous
loose, inter-band alliances or confederacies of Coahuiltecans whose
territories once extended to the San Antonio area, had already been
broken by decades of missionization in northeast Mexico, and new
confederacies had been established (Schuetz 1980b:59). One of the new
confederacies was the Xarame, which reportedly included not only the
Xarame proper, but also other Coahuiltecan bands, including the Siaban
and Payaya (Schuetz 1980b:48). In 1700, the Xarame and their allies were
"congregated" at Mission San Francisco Solano, one of three missions
established near the Rio Grande in what is today the Mexican state of
Coahuila (see Figure 3). This mission moved three times in Coahuila
before being relocated in 1718 along Texas' San Antonio River. Renamed
Mission San Antonio de Valero, it was first populated with some 70
Xarames, Siabanes, and miscellaneous allies, all of whom had close ties
with Coahuiltecan and Tonkawan groups north of the Rio Grande (Schuetz
1980b).

*Ranchería* *Grande*, also known as *Ranchería* *Grande* *de los
Ervipiames* in recognition of the prominent role played by that group
(i.e., Yerbipiames, synonymous with Chivipanes, Hierbipianes, Huvipanes,
and Yrbipia), was also among the reorganized Coahuiltecan confederacies
(Newcomb 1993; Schuetz 1980b:59-60). The Yerbipiames were known
initially for their hostility to the Spaniards but, in 1698, they
entered Mission San Francisco de Javier in Coahuila, which had been
established specifically for them. As will be discussed later in this
chapter, a large band of Yerbipiames was eventually incorporated into
Mission San Antonio de Valero (Schuetz 1980b:337). Other bands moved
north to near the Red River, allied themselves with Comanches and
Wichitas, and in the late 1700s were apparently "absorbed" into the
Tonkawa tribe (Newcomb 1993). During that same period, several soldiers
of Coahuiltecan and Tlaxcaltecan stock apparently joined with Apaches
and Choctaws in southeast Louisiana. Today, their descendants are part
of the Ebarb Choctaw-Apache Tribe, a state-recognized group (Gaillard
1998:176-179; Gregory 2001). Schuetz (1980b:126) argued almost all of
the surviving Coahuiltecans had been missionized by 1800.

Constituents of *Ranchería* *Grande* were first encountered by the
Spanish in Coahuila in 1670 and later, between 1707 and 1721, at various
places along or near the Caminos Reales, and elsewhere between the
Colorado and Trinity Rivers (see Figure 3). By the early 1700s, their
encampments often contained from 500 to 2,000 people, not only
Yerbipiame, but also Payaya, Xarame, and other groups from the lower Rio
Grande basin that included both gentiles and Christian apostates from
missions in northeast Mexico (Foster 1995; McGraw et al. 1991; Newcomb
1993). Also present were members of Tonkawa and Bedais groups from north
of the Colorado River and Caddoan representatives from east of the
Trinity River (Foik 1933:16; Forrestal 1935:35; Newcomb 1993:25-26).
This "consolidated group of remnant and refugee Indians" (Newcomb
1993:26) probably epitomizes loosely bound, multi-ethnic and
multi-linguistic "confederacies" that were undoubtedly characteristic of
south Texas and northeast Mexico during San Antonio's pre-mission and
mission eras.

Juan Rodríguez, a Yerbipiame, and his family are especially illustrative
of how the missionization process operated at an individual level and,
via acculturation, served to integrate Coahuiltecans and other racially
similar but ethnically different Indians into the local Hispanic culture
(Schuetz 1980b). He was considered to be one of the "most powerful
chiefs in Texas" due to his leadership of the diverse *Ranchería*
*Grande* group from 1716 to 1722 (Schuetz 1980b:337). Born about 1679,
Juan Rodríguez grew up in Coahuila, probably spent time at Mission San
Francisco de Javier where he may have been baptized at age eight or
nine. He appears to have been involved in an uprising in 1700 at the
Presidio de Coahuila, today's Monclova. By 1716, he had emerged as the
leader or Captain of *Ranchería* *Grande* (Schuetz 1980b:338).

In 1721, he served as a guide for one of the Spanish expeditions to the
Tejas (Caddoan) villages in east Texas. That same year he asked for, and
was granted, a mission (San Francisco Xavier de Nájera) in San Antonio.
In 1722, he arrived with 50 families at the selected site, between
Missions Valero and San José, which would become Mission Concepción (see
Figure 1). Mission San Francisco Xavier de Nájera was built but was
short-lived; it never progressed beyond the preliminary phase with
temporary structures (Rock, personal communication 2000). His band
eventually entered Valero (Newcomb 1993:26). Juan Rodríguez arrived in
San Antonio, accompanied by his wife who was from a separate band
(Iman), and their three children, who eventually married into other
south Texas and northeast Mexico bands represented at the missions, the
Ticmamar, Xarame, and Siaban. One of Rodríguez' sons also married a Sana
(Tonkawa) woman and eventually became an *alcalde* at Valero. A grandson
married an Apache-mulatta and another grandchild married an Española
from Villa San Fernando (Schuetz 1980a:339).

Mission San Juan

In 1730, officials of the Spanish government and Catholic missionaries
laid the foundation for the establishment of Missions San Juan,
Concepción, and Espada. Their initial intent was to recruit and
congregate some 1,000 Indians from three Coahuiltecan bands/groups, the
Pacaos, Pajalat, and Pilatos, who resided or "ranged throughout" south
Texas' Medina, Nueces, and Frio river basins (Rock 1999:5). The next
year, Mission San Juan was formally established, actually
re-established, along the banks of the San Antonio River, a few miles
south of Mission Valero and presidio of San Antonio de Béxar.

First established in 1716 as one of several east Texas missions, it was
known as Mission San José de los Nazonis (see Figure 3). Soon
thereafter, it was temporarily abandoned due to conflicts with the
French in Louisiana, and then reopened in 1721. The mission continued to
operate in Louisiana until 1730, when it was moved briefly to a site on
the Colorado River and finally to its present location in San Antonio.
There, it was renamed San Juan de Capistrano to avoid confusion with
Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo (i.e., San José), which was
located a few miles upstream (Rock 1999). Mission San Juan began
operation with some 300 residents and reportedly functioned well for the
first few decades.

In 1762, the Indian population at the mission was 203, and the mission
controlled a large ranch about 30 miles to the southeast with some 1,000
cattle, 3,500 sheep, and 500 horses. As of 1762 a total of 847 Indians
had been baptized and 645 had been given Christian burials at the
mission (Rock 1999; Schuetz 1980c:4-5). By the 1770s this and other
missions were in a general state of decline, although they all continued
to function for several more decades before being completely
secularized. By the close of the eighteenth century, representatives of
many different Coahuiltecan groups had resided at San Juan for varying
lengths of time. More than 1,500 people had died and been buried at the
mission. Most, but not all of them, were Indians. By 1770, Spaniards
(non-clergy), mestizos, and mulattos, were also living, dying, and
undoubtedly being buried there (Schuetz 1980c).

Church Structures and Burial Places at San Juan

Four churches were built and used at San Juan between 1731 and 1790.
Each structure was associated with at least two burial places, including
the church floor and an area outside the church walls (Figure 4). Table
1 summarizes available information on the periods of church and
burial-place usage, as well as selected demographic data from the
mission's sacramental records. The original church at Mission San Juan
was a *jacal* structure (i.e., wattle and daub or mud/stick) built in
1731 and used (with modifications) until at least 1746 and perhaps as
late as 1756. Exact locations of the *jacal* church and associated
burial places have not been determined, but they were probably somewhere
in the southwest part of the present-day mission compound, perhaps at or
near the first stone church (Schuetz 1980c).

Records indicate that a new stone church, often called the "first stone
church," had been completed and was in use by 1756 (Schuetz 1980c:3-4).
Archaeological excavations carried out in 1971 revealed walls and floors
of the first stone church. Associated buildings with underlying
structural remains and several pits were also encountered (Chapter 9).
Underlying features included, but were not limited to, a *jacal*
structure, post holes, numerous burials (identified and left in place),
empty grave pits, and possible storage pits, many of which may have been
associated with the original *jacal* church, *convento*, and cemetery
(Schuetz 1980a:30, 42). Schuetz (1980a:35) suggested the "entire plaza"
area for the first stone church may have been built over or around early
mission period graves (see Figure 4).

![](media/image4.jpeg){width="6.186111111111111in" height="3.20625in"}

Figure 4. Map showing the locations, identified rooms, approximate
periods of use for church structures, and burial places at Mission San
Juan (after Schuetz 1968: Figure 1; 1974, and 1980b).

The first stone church was in use by 1756 and continued at least until
1772 (the end of the construction period for the "unfinished church"),
and perhaps as late as 1790, by which time the extant (i.e., current)
church building was in use (see Figure 4). During its use period,
numerous individuals were interred below the floor of the first stone
church and perhaps in nearby rooms or just beyond them (Schuetz
1980a:43-46, 129). It remains unclear whether most of the burials and
empty grave pits found at and near the first stone church were
temporally associated with it or with the earlier *jacal* church.
Schuetz observed, however, that the types of glass trade beads found in
and near several gravesites, and probably buried with the deceased, were
used mainly between 1700 and 1740. Thus, at least some of the burials
occurred when the *jacal* church was in use. Several rectangular pits in
the floor of the first stone church and adjacent rooms were interpreted
as empty grave pits because they contained "loose scattered human bones,
primarily foot and hand bones" and glass beads (Schuetz 1980a:30-31).
The loose bones indicated to Schuetz that many burials from this church
were exhumed and reburied elsewhere, probably in the floor of the extant
church. It was from there as well as from the unfinished church that she
had already recovered numerous secondary burials (Schuetz 1974;
1980a:30-31, 42). In any case, exhumation and reburial probably occurred
in conjunction with the dismantling of the first stone church and
adjacent rooms and requisite de-sanctification of the church grounds
(Schuetz 1980a).

Construction began in the 1760s on what was to be the third church, a
new and larger stone structure located a short distance east of the
first stone church, in what would become the southeast corner of an
enlarged mission plaza (see Figure 4). The work apparently continued for
more than a decade, but the building was never fully completed, and in
1789 it was described as "about half finished," hence its designation as
the "unfinished church" (Schuetz 1968:233, 1974:49). The structure
apparently lacked the type of permanent roof that was typical of most
other Spanish Colonial missions in the region. Archaeological and
archival investigations, however, led to a conclusion that the structure
probably did function as a church, at least in a provisional way,
judging from the "details of interior finishing, the presence of
burials, and the 1779 will of one individual who requested to be buried
in that church" (Schuetz 1974:49).

Although the unfinished church may not have been used regularly for very
long as a chapel per se, its floor area served as a burial place for
several decades, from as early as 1762 through initial secularization in
1794 and into the early 1800s (Schuetz 1968:215; 1980b:43-44,129).
Schuetz (1969:101, 1980b:46) suggested in 1969 and again in her 1980
report on excavations of the first stone church that the area just south
of the unfinished church (i.e., southeast corner of the mission
compound) should be tested to determine whether it may have served as a
*camposanto* (i.e., cemetery) as well. None of the archaeological
reports examined for the present project followed up on this
recommendation.

When the gravesites in the unfinished church were excavated in 1967, it
was expected that the remains recovered from them would be
representative of a Coahuiltecan population. The rationale for the
expectation that the burials were those of Coahuiltecans was that none
of the records indicated that there were ever other non-Coahuiltecan
groups at the mission and no Europeans were known to have been buried in
the unfinished church (Schuetz 1968:2, 214). None of the individuals
interred there were buried in coffins, native artifacts were fairly
common, and most of the historic artifacts could be dated to the last
half of the eighteenth century. Results of the preliminary study of the
skeletal population indicated more variation than expected and suggested
that the burials were not representative of a "random sampling of
Coahuiltecans, but were a highly selected group" (Humphreys 1969:123).
All subsequent studies also have indicated that the skeletal remains
from the unfinished church represented a significantly more racially
mixed population, and hence probably more acculturated, than would be
anticipated for a late pre-contact or early protohistoric Coahuiltecan
population (Chapter 10).

The fourth church, still in use today (i.e., extant) is located along
the middle section of the west wall of today's mission compound (see
Figure 4). Archaeological, bioarchaeological, and archival evidence
indicate that it was in use as the mission church in 1789 and that its
floor probably served as a burial and reburial place until 1862. At that
time the present-day San Juan/Berg's Mill cemetery was established and
began to be used regularly by the parishioners (Schuetz 1974:49). A few
burials occurred in the late 1860s or soon thereafter, judging from a
visitor sometime after the American Civil War who commented on the
deteriorated state of the church and noted that the floor area was
disturbed recently for graves (Rock 1999:99).

Construction of the extant church building, however, dates to several
decades before the structure was used as church. It was built in part
over the foundation of a structure that was probably a granary. It was
remodeled and refloored several times during the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Another building, of as yet undetermined function
and with a different alignment, underlies the extant church and may be
temporally associated with the first stone church. Human remains were
recovered from primary and secondary burial pits below the floor of the
extant church (Schuetz 1969).

Clothing remnants, coffin remains, and other items spatially associated
with the grave pits in the church floor clearly dated the burials from
the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. As such, the
burials as a group were considered to be "post-mission, but still
Colonial," and they represented acculturated Indians and an evermore
ethnically diverse mission community (Schuetz 1974:49, 1980a:129). Of
the skeletal remains complete enough for racial identification, most
were identified in the preliminary studies as Indian or probable Indian,
but at least one Caucasoid was present, and racial identification was
uncertain for several of the individuals.

Schuetz (1974:31) considered this skeletal population to be consistent
with census data indicating that San Juan's inhabitants were racially
mixed by the time of initial secularization in 1793 and throughout the
late Colonial period.

Residents at Mission San Juan

A formal Act of Possession for Mission San Juan was issued on March 5,
1731, for about 300 Benados (Venados) and Toloujaas (Teloja, Teloxa),
bands of hunter-gatherers who today are usually considered to be
culturally, if not linguistically, Coahuiltecan (Chapter 7). Soon
thereafter, other geographically Coahuiltecan groups were recruited and
became prominent there, including the Olojas (also known as Pitalaques),
Pacoas, Pajalat, Chayopines (Sayopoine, Chaiopin), and Orejones (Rock
1999:2-10; Schuetz 1980b:57). By 1753, Pamaques, Paguacanes, and
Piguiques were living at the mission, along with at least one Viayan who
had married into a Pamaque family (Rock 1999:31).

During the 1760s, representatives of other geographically Coahuiltecan
groups, including Borrados, Manos de Perro, and Sanipas, arrived at
Mission San Juan. In the 1770s, still others, not always identified as
to group name, were recruited from the gulf coast, offshore islands and
elsewhere in the wilderness. Among the identified groups were the
Guanbrauta, Aiaguia, and Malaquita. As noted earlier, San Antonio's
missions were already in decline by the 1770s, signaling their pending
secularization, but recruitment continued nonetheless (Rock 1999;
Schuetz 1980a). In spite of an ongoing Apache threat in the 1780s and
1790s, some of the mission Indians still fled and mixed with gentile and
apostate groups. Recruitment also continued, sometimes forced (Rock
1999:30-31, 47-53). New group names continued to appear in the mission
records through the early nineteenth century, including the Salcedo in
1809 and the Vallejo in 1815 (Schuetz 1980c:11-12). Many of the Indian
groups represented at San Juan at one time or another during the
eighteenth century were also found at one or more of the other San
Antonio missions, as well as at missions along the Rio Grande (Schuetz
1980b:49-57).

Schuetz (1980b:126) argued that the 150-year-long reduction effort or
in-gathering (i.e., "missionization") of Coahuiltecans was virtually
complete by 1800 and that many of these Indians and their more
acculturated descendants had been incorporated into San Antonio's
growing non-mission community. By then, thousands had died and been
buried at the San Antonio missions. More than 1,150 were laid to rest at
Mission San Juan alone (Schuetz 1980c:10). As the reduction process
continued through the mid-1700s and the number of Coahuiltecans living
at the missions declined in the late 1700s, more and more people of
mixed Indian and non-Indian ancestry were incorporated into the mission
communities. Even so, as late as 1783, the mission Indians are reported
to have spoken an "almost uniform language," presumably some version of
Coahuilteco, as well as "slightly imperfect Castillian" (Rock 1999:56).
Nahuatl was used as a *lingua franca* in some areas, although relatively
few people in the San Antonio area probably knew it (Schuetz 1980b:16).

Table 1. Summary information for periods of church and burial-place
usages and associated sacramental records (data from Ewers 1973; Schuetz
1968, 1974, 1980a, 1980b, 1980c; Rock 1999:16).

<table style="width:100%;">
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 35%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 14%" />
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>Church (approximate dates in use)</p>
<p>--- Burial places/cemeteries (approximate dates in use)</p></td>
<td>1731-1740</td>
<td>1741-1745</td>
<td>1746-1756</td>
<td>1757-1762</td>
<td>1763-1772</td>
<td>1773-1798</td>
<td>1799-1862</td>
<td>1863-2000</td>
<td>Comments</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p><em>Jacal</em> Church, ca. 1731-1745/1756</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Church floor</p></li>
<li><p>Surrounding buildings/plaza area</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td colspan="8"><p>----------------------</p>
<p>----------------------</p></td>
<td>Located near first stone church (Room 31)?</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>First Stone Church, ca. 1745/56-1772/1792</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Church floor</p></li>
<li><p>Surrounding buildings/areas (?)</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td colspan="8"><p>-----------------------------------</p>
<p>-----------------------------------</p></td>
<td>Location of <em>campo santo</em> unknown</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p>Unfinished Church, construction 1762-1779/93</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Church floor (from 1760s to early 1800s)</p></li>
<li><p><em>Camposanto</em> may be south of church</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td colspan="8"><p>---------------------------?</p>
<p>?????????????????????????????????????????????</p></td>
<td>Primary use of structure for burials</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>Extant Church, ca. 1780/1793-2000</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Church floor</p></li>
<li><p><em>Camposanto</em> (south of unfinished church?)</p></li>
<li><p>Extant San Juan/Berg’s Mill Cemetery</p></li>
</ul></td>
<td colspan="8"><p>----------------------------------?</p>
<p>??????????????????????????</p>
<p>---------</p></td>
<td>Burials in extant cemetery since 1862</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><strong>Sacramental Records for Mission San Juan</strong></td>
<td><strong>1731-1740</strong></td>
<td><strong>1741-1745</strong></td>
<td><strong>1746-1756</strong></td>
<td><strong>1757-1762</strong></td>
<td><strong>1763-1772</strong></td>
<td><strong>1773-1798</strong></td>
<td><strong>1799-1862</strong></td>
<td><strong>1863-2000</strong></td>
<td>All records incomplete</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Baptisms</td>
<td>278</td>
<td>237</td>
<td>323</td>
<td>55+</td>
<td>144</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Marriages: 85 [1731-1756], 87 [1756-1772]</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td>?</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Deaths/Burials</td>
<td>147<sup>*</sup></td>
<td>94</td>
<td>251<sup>*</sup></td>
<td>153</td>
<td>147<sup>*</sup></td>
<td>364<sup>*</sup></td>
<td>?<sup>*</sup></td>
<td>?<sup>*</sup></td>
<td><sup>*</sup>Epidemics</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

At Valero, and presumably at the other San Antonio missions as well,
there appears to have been relatively little "mixing of the races" until
the mid-1700s when an increasing number of mulattos appear in the
census. By the late 1770s when the missions as a whole were in decline,
townspeople of various ethnic affiliations were renting rooms at Mission
San Juan and the names of retired soldiers show up on mission rolls
(Rock 1999:29). In 1820, approximately 1,800 people were living in San
Antonio de Béxar, 57.5 percent of whom were classified as Spaniards and
42.3 percent as Indians, mestizo, and other designations that denoted
Indian ancestry (Schuetz 1980a:182). These "racial" classifications,
however, were more social than biological. With successful completion of
the missionization process, Indians were considered to be *gente de
razón* (a person of reason qualified to be a citizen) and sometimes they
were even referred to as being Español. Archival records show clearly
that former mestizos often became Spaniards, as did some former Indians,
and others once listed as Indian came to be listed as mulattos or
mestizos (Rock 1999:79-80; Schuetz 1980b:182, 200, 204-205).

The 1792 census for San Juan Capistrano Mission \[Census-San Juan
Capistrano (C-SJC) 1792\] illustrates the decidedly multi-racial and
multi-ethnic character of the mission's residents (ca. 60). Twenty-six
people listed as Indians were members of several geographically
Coahuiltecan groups, but not necessarily native Coahuilteco speakers,
including Malaquita, Pamaque-Piguiques, and Borrado (cf. Campbell and
Campbell 1996) all of whom had been associated with the mission for
several decades. Also present were three Tlascaltecans who were
referenced as being from the Boca de León community in Nuevo León. As
noted earlier, these Tlascaltecans were derived from a native group
originally from central Mexico, members of which were resettled in
Coahuila and Nuevo León. Two other Indians listed in the 1792 census
were married to "mulattos," one from Los Adaes (east Texas) and another
listed as from both Reynosa and Béxar. Another Indian was listed as
married to a "mestizo" from the presidio of San Antonio de Béxar.

Among 13 other "mulatto" residents listed in the 1792 census were people
from Los Adaes, Reynosa (south of the Rio Grande), San Francisco de
Patos, Hacienda de Mamulique, Presidios Rio Grande and San Antonio de
Béxar, and Mission Espada. Two people were listed as mestizo, one from
Nacogdoches and one from Reynosa. Three others were listed as being
"natives" or *naturales* of Reynosa, Lampazos, and San Francisco de
Patos. Only five people (less than 10 percent) are listed as being
Spanish. It should be remembered, however, that in some censuses an
individual may be designated as both an Español as well as a "native" of
a mission. As Rock (1999:798-80) points out, however, there were very
few Spaniards who were truly native to the missions. A listing as a
native possibly could denote an Indian who had become a *gente de razón*
and accordingly came to be referred to as "Español" by virtue of having
completed the missionization process.

With the initial secularization of Mission San Juan in 1794, 12 Indian
families, all of those still residing within the compound, were granted
small tracts of land and officially became tax-paying Spanish citizens.
Included were individuals identified as being Orejón, Pamaque-Pehuique,
Malaquita, Chaiopin, and Venado, all groups who had been part of the
mission community for decades (Schuetz 1980c:10). Other geographic
Coahuiltecans were living there at the time, including José Cayetano
Valle who was serving as Indian governor; he was Guanbrauta-Aiaguia and
his wife was either Orejón or Chaiopin. Schuetz (1980c:10) traced him
through 1817 in the census records.

During the early 1800s, less and less attention was given to listing
specific band names in the census record, although people often
continued to be listed as Indians (Rock 1999:78). Others were listed as
"natives" of a particular area. For example, two people in the 1815
census are said to be natives of New Mexico. Salvador Flores, a
30-year-old man, was listed as being a mission Indian in 1815, but
neither he nor others who had once been listed as such were so
designated in the 1823 census (Rock 1999:78, 80). San Juan's *alcalde*
in 1815 was Santiago Díaz, a man whose family is noted in mission
archives under a variety of ethnic/racial rubrics, including, Indian,
mestizo, Spaniard, and *nativo* de Béxar (Rock 1999:142). Three of his
descendants were interviewed for the present project (Chapters 4, 5, and
6). By the time secularization was completed under Mexican rule in 1824,
it was no longer important to list an individual's racial affiliation or
mixture thereof. Apparently, concepts of citizen equality were
increasingly well developed following the Enlightenment period of the
late 1700s and early 1800s (see Benavides, this volume, Chapter 6). What
this suggests is that many Indians "disappeared" from the records simply
because officials chose to reclassify or unclassify them, not
necessarily because they had become racially or culturally
indistinguishable from Hispanic citizens per se.

Recruitment Issues and Population Maintenance

From the outset in the 1730s, trouble brewed at Mission San Juan,
although the mission continued to carry out its role of training Indians
to be farmers, skilled laborers, and productive "Spanish" citizens and
converting them to Catholicism (Rock 1999:11-17). Spanish settlers from
the Canary Islands arrived at Presidio San Antonio de Béxar on March 9,
1731, only four days after Mission San Juan Capistrano was formally
established. These settlers formed the nucleus of the villa of San
Fernando de Béxar. Soon thereafter, they found themselves in conflict
with the missions over land use and the use of Indians as day laborers.
There were also struggles between the civil government and the church
over how the mission should be managed.

The mission Indians also complained to the civil authorities about
mistreatment by the missionaries. Apaches routinely raided the area,
stole livestock, and killed and kidnapped mission Indians. Smallpox and
other epidemics caused many deaths. Historical records indicate that it
was always difficult to maintain enough Indians at the mission to meet
labor needs (Rock 1999). The Indians regularly fled their mission homes
to seek what they must have considered a better way of life in the
wilderness. Table 2 presents population figures for Indians residing at
the mission during the mission period.

The most persistent problem for the missionaries was with "runaways." In
1737, for example, some 180 people---Olojas, Venados, Orejones, and
Chayopoines (Saiopines)---fled the mission for the wilderness, leaving
only 23 Indians in residence. The following year, soldiers and the
mission priest were sent to retrieve them. They returned with some 120
Chayopines (Rock 1999:12; Schuetz 1980c:4), undoubtedly including new
recruits. Fifteen years later, in 1753, Pamaques, Paguacanes, and
Piguiques who had arrived there sometime during the interim fled San
Juan and went to Mission San Francisco de Vizarrón near the Rio Grande
in Coahuila (Rock 1999: 31-39).

These particular San Juan Coahuiltecans had relatives at Vizarrón and,
once together, they incorporated new members, including gentiles
(non-mission Indians from related bands) and at least one *coyote*
(Indian-mestizo). The San Juan priest argued for their return to San
Antonio, but the group was reluctant to leave and threatened to flee to
the wilderness (Rock 1999:33). No clear resolution was reached in the
heated debate between the two missions about which one had jurisdiction
over these groups (Rock 1999; Schuetz 1980c:4). Several marriages had
taken place between some of the San Juan people and Vizarrón *ladinos*
(Spanish-speaking, Christianized Indians), including several Viayans, a
group whose first language may have been something other than
Coahuilteco, which further complicated the situation (Campbell and
Campbell 1996; Rock 1999:40).

Through the decades, many groups fled from Mission San Juan; sometimes
they returned, other times they did not (Rock 1999).
Expeditions---soldiers accompanied by missionaries---were mounted and
sent to the "wilderness," including the gulf coast and offshore islands,
to bring back the runaways. They often returned with new Indian recruits
instead. San Juan's runaways are known to have joined with other
apostates, sometimes even with the Apache, and raided settlements south
of the Rio Grande. Others fled to the coast, or elsewhere in the
"wilderness" and sometimes joined with gentile groups (Rock 1999:30-32,
57). Documents from the era indicate that on one occasion in 1776, an
expedition from San Juan "separated out and tied up" women and young
girls from a *ranchería* (Indian encampment). Seemingly this was a
necessary precaution to ensure that they would not escape and that the
men would follow them to the mission (Rock 1999:59). As late as 1795,
officials reported that San Juan's Indians sought to flee and mix with
gentile Indians (Rock 1999:70). Recruitment from among the gentile
Indians for purposes of "in-gathering" or *reducción* was necessary to
accomplish the goals of training and converting the Indians to
Catholicism. Of course, the practice also served to maintain sufficient
populations to ensure the upkeep of the mission's compound, *labores*
(fertile fields), *acequias* (irrigation ditches), and various workshop
enterprises.

Judging solely from available, albeit limited, census data (see Table
2), it appears that San Juan's mission Indian population remained fairly
constant through to the 1770s, at which time the numbers were reduced by
about half. Thereafter, the population remained fairly stable until
1790. The same demographic pattern also holds for the San Antonio
missions as a group (Schuetz 1980b:128-129). An overall population of
some 1,000 Indians resided there between 1720 and 1772, but was followed
by a marked decline and then relative stability for several decades.
Another drop followed in 1790, but thereafter the numbers held for some
time. Given mortality and flight patterns, the periods of "nominal
stability" are best explained by "continuous recruiting" (Schuetz
1980b:128-129). The marked population decline in 1790 (see Table 2)
appears at the other missions as well and is explained by Schuetz as
follows:

Beginning in 1790 the government, perhaps in recognition of the growing
complexity of the larger mission communities, changed their census
forms...Since more and more Indians were moving outside the missions,
and presumably were self-supporting, these were probably now subject to
taxation and the differentiation between mission Indians who were tax
exempt, and non-mission Indians would have been called for. Therefore,
the populations presented as before...appear to reflect only those
actually dwelling within the mission walls and explain the apparent drop
of those populations from the previous year \[Schuetz 1980b:191\].

Table 2. Summary census and other historical information for Indian
populations at Mission San Juan (data from Schuetz 1980a:128;
supplemented by Rock 1999 and Schuetz 1980c).

  ----------- ------------- -------------- ----------- ------------- --------------
  **Date of   **Indian      **Comments**   **Date of   **Indian      **Comments**
  Census**    Residents**                  Census**    Residents**   

  1731        300?          Act of         1789        80            
                            Possession                               

  1737        23-203        180 flee to    1790        24            Excludes those
                            wilderness                               outside

  1740        66-218        Reflects       1791        43            Excludes those
                            recruitment                              outside

  1745        163-173       Authors'       1792        29            Excludes those
                            counts differ                            outside

  1754        120+          120 fled to    1794        Ca. 30+?      12 adult males
                            Vizarrón                                 

  1756        265                          1805        21            

  1759        226-267                      1808        19            

  1762        203           Recruitment in 1809        20            
                            1760s                                    

  1772        202           107 recruited  1810        19            
                            in 1771                                  

  1777        156           Recruitment in 1815        15            
                            1776                                     

  1783        99            Indians flee   1819        9+            
                            in 1780s                                 

  1784        103                          1827        4             

  1785        112                          1835        1+            Fought with
                                                                     "Texans"

  1786        110                                                    
  ----------- ------------- -------------- ----------- ------------- --------------

In 1772, the Franciscans from Querétaro transferred admission of their
missions in Texas to the Franciscans from Zacatecas. This was due to
three essential factors: (1) the expulsion of the Jesuits from the
Spanish empire forced a realignment of all of their missions to other
missionaries like the Franciscans; (2) the friars from Querétaro assumed
control of many former Jesuit missions in western and northern New Spain
and they had to leave their Texas missions due to staffing problems; and
(3) the Spanish crown had long tried to get out of the "mission
business" during the last half of the eighteenth century. It succeeded
by simply withdrawing financial support. Thus there were political and
economic underpinnings to the decline in mission Indian population 1772
and again after the early 1790s (Rosalind Rock, personal communication
2000).

As part of her dissertation research, Schuetz compiled and assessed
demographic data pertaining to the San Antonio missions in general, and
to Mission Valero in particular. She examined birthrates, fertility
issues, life spans, and causes of mortality. She also traced 13 families
through missionization during the 1700s and into the post-secularization
San Antonio community. One of her important conclusions was that "the
gradual stabilization of the population through lowered death rates of
both adults and children and an increasing birth rate by 1792 assured
the survival of the Coahuiltecans" (Schuetz 1980b:19). This conclusion
is especially important in light of the present project's goal of
assessing the assertion that some members of today's San Juan community
are lineal descendants of its mission Indians.

Post-Mission Era, 1824-Present

Anglo-American colonization of Texas began under Spanish rule, continued
through Mexico's independence from Spain, and accelerated greatly under
the Texas Republic and into statehood. Indians continued to live at
Mission San Juan after final secularization (1824), but they were
notably fewer in number, undoubtedly due in part to the trend not to
list racial makeup in the sacramental records. In the wake of
secularization and Mexico's independence from Spain, there were no
longer communal lands at Mission San Juan and a secular clergy
ministered to the parishioners. Only four property owners living there
in 1827 were listed as Indians; at that time, the mission community was
considered part of the jurisdiction of the growing city of San Antonio
de Béxar (Rock 1999:86, 95). By the time of Texas' own fight for
independence from Mexico, 1835-1836, there was at least one Indian
resident of San Juan, Salvador Flores, who participated on the Texas
side of the revolution (Schuetz 1968c:13).

Within a few years after the Texas Revolution, several Anglo and
Hispanic veterans had petitioned for and received land in the San Juan
community as compensation for their service during war. Representatives
of the new republic soon began to debate issues about ownership of lands
adjoining the mission churches and, in 1841, they restored the churches,
outbuildings, and adjacent lots to the Roman Catholic Church (Rock
1999:96-97). The community remained predominately Hispanic for several
decades, but Anglo surnames had already begun to replace Spanish names
(Rock 1999:112). During the 1840s, there was a marked increase in the
number of European and Anglo-American landowners at the old mission. By
1850, R. J. Higginbotham and the heirs of Hendrick Arnold, a well-known
free Black who had participated in the Texas Revolution, were joint
owners of a sawmill in the community. Later, a wool scouring mill was
added.

Although Anglos and African-Americans owned land and made investments in
San Juan prior to the Civil War, the literature reviewed for the present
study does not reveal how many of them actually lived in the community
or were buried there. It is worth noting, however, that Anglos
historically cast the community's darker-skinned residents as "poor
Mexicans" who lived in conditions of squalor and whose church was in a
condition of decay (Rock 1999:99-100). Given that perspective, it does
not seem likely that very many of the non-Indian/non-Hispanic residents
would have been buried in the floor of the extant church that had been
in use since the 1780s. Nonetheless, at least one Caucasoid was among
the remains exhumed from the church floor (Schuetz 1974) and a few
individuals are reported to have been interred in the church floor until
a short time after the Civil War (Rock 1999). Most of the community
members who died during and after the Civil War, however, were probably
interred in the new cemetery located a few hundred yards east of the
mission (see Figure 4; Schuetz 1968).

In 1879, Henry and Louis Berg established a wool mill that gave the
community a new name, Berg's Mill (Rock 1999:116-117).

As the community took on more of an Anglo flair in the late nineteenth
century, so too did its land use patterns. Management and ownership of
the all-important *acequias* had long been a community affair but, as
the adjacent farmland was purchased and consolidated into larger plots,
control of the irrigation became a private matter. One of the larger
landowners was Celestine Villemain; as a child he emigrated from France
with his family and settled in Castroville, an Alsatian French colony
about 40 miles west of San Antonio. He began to secure legal rights to
the main *acequia* in the late 1880s and soon thereafter Anglo
landowners gained control of other parts of the irrigation system. By
1895, most of the land was no longer held by people with Spanish
surnames. In 1900, the San Juan Ditch Company was incorporated and
provided water to a growing truck farm industry that, by that time,
included Italian immigrants as well (Rock 1999: 106-111).

By the 1920s, the San Juan/Berg's Mill community included people of
German and Polish ancestry, along with Italians, descendants of earlier
French settlers, Anglo-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans (Rock
1999:129). "Inter-racial" marriages were not at all uncommon. A case in
point is Mickey Killian's family who descended on his mother's side from
Santiago Díaz, the mission's *alcalde* in 1815, as well as from one of
the original Canary Island families. Mr. Killian's father came from the
state of Georgia in the 1930s and traced his ancestry back to Ireland
(Rock 1999:142-44, also see Chapters 4 and 6).

J. Gilberto Quezada, an historian, oral-history interviewer, and
educator, conducted detailed interviews in 1998 with nine San Juan
residents, including Mickey Killian. Rock summarized these interviews in
her recent report on the history of Mission San Juan. "Indians" and
other ethnic groups were among the recurring themes that emerged from
the interviews. Henry Devora, an interviewee who moved to the community
about 1970, was among those who commented about Indian issues. He
reported that as he came to know his neighbors and learned about the
mission's history, he became convinced that "the majority of the older
people belonged to various Indian tribes, if not them their forefathers"
(cited in Rock 1999:141). As a community leader and one-time member of
the San Antonio Missions Advisory Board, Devora played a key role in
renaming a local street Camino Coahuilteco. He was also keenly aware of
Schuetz's archaeological studies and the opposition by some community
members to the excavations of the burials, as well as their desire for
the remains to be reburied. Devora became sympathetic to these issues
and, in the days before the National Park Service played a role in the
management of the old mission grounds, he helped bring about the removal
of several human bones from a museum display at the mission. He was also
instrumental in bringing about a symbolic reburial at Mission San Juan
in 1986 (Rock 1999:142).

The reburial, which took place on August 2, 1986, in the floor of the
extant church, was termed a "symbolic" ceremony by Father Balthasar
Janacek (known as Father Balty) who performed the funeral ceremony. Its
symbolic nature stemmed from the fact that only a few human bones,
rather than all of the archaeologically recovered remains, were
reburied. In June 1986, the Archdiocese had requested that THC return
for reburial all the human remains recovered during Schuetz's
excavations in 1967 and 1969. THC responded that the request was
unacceptable because the remains had considerable scientific value and
needed to be studied further before considering the question of final
disposition (Mallouf 1986; see Appendix H). Discussions about ownership
and control of human remains and artifacts recovered during the
excavations are well represented in correspondences between the
Archdiocese and THC, which was part of the State Building Commission in
the late 1960s (e.g., Grahmann 1969; Tunnell 1967; see Appendix H).
These discussions led to the decision in the summer of 1986 to rebury a
symbolic sample of the human remains in the floor of the extant church.

Immediately following the symbolic reburial service, Father Balty spoke
to about 70 people gathered outside the chapel, including community
members, along with representatives of San Antonio Missions National
Historical Park and the San Antonio Council of Native Americans (Hall
1986; Perdue 1986). In the preface to her history of Mission San Juan,
Rock (1999:vi) wrote, "this act signaled a time for the mission natives
to begin coming home." One reporter noted at the time, however, that the
ceremony was not expected to end the "years-old dispute about the fate
of boxes full of other mission Indian bones now in the custody of the
UTSA Center for Archaeological Research" (Perdue 1986:6).

Within a few years, other Indian groups were actively working for
reburial of the all the remains recovered during excavations at Mission
San Juan, as well as for protection of other Indian burial places,
including those at the Alamo (Guerra 1994; England 1995:36). Among those
groups was AIT-SCM that formed in 1993 and included several members who
trace their ancestry to San Juan, including Killian and Raymond
Hernández (Chapter 3). A City of San Antonio oversight committee
formally approved a resolution in 1995 endorsing this group, also known
as the Coahuiltecan Nation, as "an important player in the city's
Mission Trails Project" (Anderson 1995).

AIT-SCM requested assistance from THC in repatriating the human remains
and funerary objects recovered from Mission San Juan pursuant to NAGPRA
provisions. THC responded that until AIT-SCM achieved federal
recognition, it would not be eligible under NAGPRA to carry out
repatriation of Native American remains and funerary objects (Tunnell
1994; see Appendix H). SAAN responded to a similar request from AIT-SCM
by noting that the issues at hand must be resolved between AIT-SCM and
the Catholic Church, which was the entity with legal standing (Amdor
1995; see Appendix H). In other words, SAAN did not consider
repatriation and/or reburial of the San Juan remains to be a NAGPRA
issue or an issue for NPS resolution.

Archbishop Flores of the San Antonio Archdiocese also responded to a
request for repatriation from AIT-SCM. He noted the church's support for
preservation efforts and for establishing themselves as descendants of
mission Indians, but emphasized:

The Archdiocese will not surrender any rights or responsibilities it may
have with respect to the remains of those who were originally interred
in consecrated ground. Legally, only the Archdiocese has standing to
seek the return of the remains from San Juan Capistrano and it will
continue to seek their return \[i.e., from the Center for Archaeological
Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio\]. When recovered,
they will be reinterred in consecrated ground (Flores 1995a; see
Appendix H).

In a separate letter to the San Juan parish priest in 1995, Reverend
Jorge Baistra, Archbishop Flores noted specifically that NAGPRA "is not
applicable to San Juan Capistrano" (Flores 1995b; see Appendix H).

In a 1995 interview, Father Balty, by then Monsignor Janacek, commented
on the church's challenge to incorporate the descendants of the San
Antonio mission Indians (Torres 1997). His perspective is especially
pertinent, given his long-term representation of the Archdiocese of San
Antonio on matters of the "Old Spanish Missions" in its dealings with
the City of San Antonio, the State of Texas, and the National Park
Service. Janacek attested:

Every time I can, I try to reiterate that the missions represent not
only the Hispanic presence in the area but the Hispanic and indigenous
presence, because the Native Americans were the ones who really built
those missions, whose intelligence was put in visible form at these
places. They must have been amazing people to have learned as much as
they did and to have learned it so quickly. And their work has continued
to be with us as a tribute to them.

As far as the future is concerned, the challenge for us is going to be
how to integrate the idea of the participation of the Native American in
these Old Spanish Missions. In reality, we have worked ourselves into a
linguistic trap by the name commonly applied to them. We thought that
was a clever way of integrating the missions into the community, but one
heritage has tended to obscure the other in that name \[Torres
1997:187\].

Father Balty continued to be involved at Mission San Juan while Native
American groups, including AIT-SCM and the newly formed Pamaque Band of
San Juan Mission Indians, maintained pressure to rebury all of the human
remains removed during excavations in 1967 and 1971. He and Hernández, a
co-founder of the AIT-SCM group, played key roles in working out a 1999
agreement to rebury the remains. Representatives of the National Park
Service, the Archdiocese of San Antonio, the Texas Historical
Commission, and the University of Texas at San Antonio reached the
agreement (Barrios 1999a; Rosalind Rock, personal communication 1999).

Formal reburial ceremonies were held on Saturday, November 29, 1999,
when the remains of more than 100 individuals were re-interred in the
floor of the unfinished church where many of the individuals were first
buried more than 200 years earlier (Barrios 1999a, 1999b; Thoms 2000).
Two Native American church services were held the night before the
reburial to help prepare the Indian contingents for the morning
ceremonies (Figure 5; also see cover photos). Saturday morning,
Archbishop Patrick Flores performed a funeral mass with assistance from
Father Balty (Figure 6). In his homily, Archbishop Flores noted that it
had been a mistake for the church to grant permission for the exhumation
and protracted study of the remains of its parishioners (Figure 7). He
also acknowledged and thanked the Indian descendants for their role in
maintaining the pressure for reburial (as principal investigator of the
present project, I was among the 100 or so people who attended the
ceremonies). Hernández led the Native American reburial ceremony on
behalf of AIT-SCM and the Coahuiltecan Nation. In a newspaper article
entitled "Indian Remains' Reburial Today," Hernández said, "We're trying
basically to honor the past with respect and dignity...The first time
they were being buried as Catholics. This time they're being buried as
Coahuiltecans" (Barrios 1999b). The Sunday newspaper included a
photograph of the funeral mass, entitled "Laid to Rest Again," with the
following caption:

Archbishop Patrick Flores gives communion to members of the Coahuiltecan
Nation during reburial ceremonies at Mission San Juan Capistrano. The
remains of more than 100 American Indians and Mexican Americans that
were removed from the site in 1967 and 1968 were reburied there
Saturday. The reburial service included Indian and Catholic ceremonies
(San Antonio Express-News \[SAEN\] 1999).

![](media/image5.png){width="5.864583333333333in"
height="4.136111111111111in"}

![](media/image6.png){width="5.7972222222222225in"
height="4.051388888888889in"}

![](media/image7.png){width="6.493055555555555in"
height="4.361111111111111in"}

Figure 7. Photograph of Archbishop Patrick Flores delivering the homily
at the funeral mass that preceded the Native American reburial ceremony
on Saturday morning, November 27, 1999; also depicted are Father James
Galvin (leaning forward, center foreground), San Juan's parish priest;
and Monsignor Bathasar Janacek (seated to the right), the parish liaison
between state/federal agencies and Indian groups on matters of old
Spanish missions (photograph by Alston V. Thoms).

Summary and Concluding Comments

A key component of the historical context for Mission San Juan is that
the earliest Indian residents and their progenitors---native inhabitants
of south Texas and northeastern Mexico known today as
Coahuiltecans---had been interacting regularly with the Spanish for more
than 100 years. Apocalyptic depopulation from diseases, slave raiding,
and warfare had resulted in significant social reorganization. Entirely
new groups formed of survivors from what in pre-contact times were
probably linguistically and perhaps ethnically distinctive
hunter-gatherer bands (cf. Ewers 1973). It seems likely that non-Indian
genes---mostly Spanish and African---would have been incorporated into
the aboriginal population as well (cf. Chapa 1997).

During the early part of the eighteenth century, a diversity of Native
Americans came to reside at Mission San Juan Capistrano and four other
Spanish missions located nearby along the San Antonio River. A few of
San Antonio's mission Indians were from agricultural tribes whose home
territories were originally as far as way as central Mexico (e.g.,
Tlaxcalan, a Nahuatl group) and east Texas (e.g., Tejas, a Caddoan
group). Others who came there, including Apaches, Tonkawas, and
Comanches, represented hunter-gatherer groups whose homelands were north
and west of San Antonio (Campbell and Campbell 1996). The majority,
however, represented linguistically diverse hunting and gathering
groups, known collectively today as Coahuiltecans; their homelands were
in south Texas, including the coastal areas, and in northeast Mexico
(Hester 1980, 1998; Rock 1999; Schuetz 1969, 1980a).

Ethnic complexity at the San Antonio missions mirrors their placement on
the regional landscape at an intersection, or ecotonal setting, of
several distinctive and expansive ecological zones. Mission San Juan and
the other missions lie within the southernmost part of the Blackland
Prairie ecological zone, but there are three other zones within a few
miles of the missions (Frye et al. 1984). To the west is the Edwards
Plateau or Hill Country of central Texas; to the east is the more wooded
Post Oak Savannah; to the south, just across the San Antonio River, is
the brush country of the South Texas Plains. Ethnic diversity was also
enhanced by proximity to the Caminos Reales, a major travel corridor
that linked more settled territory of northeast Mexico with the outer
edge of the Spanish frontier in east Texas. Undoubtedly Indian people
traveling within and between these same areas had used this corridor for
many millennia (McGraw et al. 1991; Thoms 1993).

By the time Mission San Juan was established in 1731, Presidio San
Antonio de Béxar was already a dozen years old and was being maintained
by Spaniards, *criollos* (American-born Spaniards), *ladinos*
(Christianized, Spanish-speaking Indians), mulattos, and mestizos (De la
Teja 1995). Cultural and biological diversity increased with Spanish
colonization, beginning with the arrival in March 1731 of Spaniards from
the Canary Islands. Initial secularization of the missions during the
waning period of Spanish rule in the mid-1790s and final secularization
in 1824 under Mexican rule were accompanied by new sets of landowners
and inhabitants of the mission communities. From the 1820s through the
1870s, full-scale colonization and settlement, under the auspices of
Mexican, Texan, and American governments, brought a variety of European
and African-American immigrants to the mission area and the region as a
whole (Rock 1999).

The historical literature clearly indicates that the San Antonio area
has been ethnically diverse for centuries, and that pattern continues to
the present day. Assuming that biological and cultural mixing has been
more or less continuous in this region, and probably at a more rapid
pace than it was in coastal or inland regions, we might well expect
considerable cultural change as well. In any case, a "snapshot" of the
local culture at one period in time might not be all that similar to an
earlier or later snapshot taken in the same area. Nonetheless, there
must have been a substantial measure of continuity, embedded in cycles
of acculturation and assimilation that linked contact-period native
peoples of south Texas and northeast Mexico from the coast to the rugged
interior country to their present-day descendants. In various ways and
for varying reasons Spanish officials, linguists, anthropologists,
historians, archaeologists, the public, the media, and the descendants
themselves came to refer to these diverse native peoples as
Coahuiltecans.

From historical and cultural evolution perspectives, Coahuiltecans
arguably epitomize the concept of cultural survival. As Old World
immigrants came to control this vast area, the aboriginal Coahuiltecan
(hunter-gatherers in the relatively dry country of south-central Texas)
suffered apocalyptic depopulation and sociocultural reorganization. But
biological and cultural ties to the past were surely maintained, albeit
with considerable metamorphoses. These processes of change resulted in
the emergence of neo-organized Coahuiltecans during the post-contact
era, most of who were "gathered" into the missions by soldiers and
priests representing the Spanish crown. Once there, a new round of
metamorphoses occurred as a result of missionization and miscegenation
processes (Schuetz 1980a). *Ladino* Coahuiltecans emerged. They
assimilated with and became increasingly known as Mexicans, Hispanics,
or Tejanos (cf. De la Teja 1995). During the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, *Ladino* Coahuiltecans were incorporated into the
greater San Antonio community to the point that their native heritage
became almost invisible to much of the outside world. More accurately,
they veiled their biological and cultural affiliations. They adapted in
what, from a human ecological perspective, would be a cryptic fashion in
that they tended to conceal or camouflage their presence.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a segment of the San
Juan community---veiled Coahuiltecans---retained elements of its Indian
heritage. As historian Rock noted, "residents of the San Juan/Berg's
Mill community are increasingly committed to a renewal of their links to
their forebears and to the preservation of the historic fabric" (Rock
1999:16). Archaeological excavations at Mission San Juan in 1967 served
to spark and revitalize the community's veiled Coahuiltecans. These
sparks caught fire with the ongoing civil rights movement, passage of
the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and
especially the controversy that surrounded reburial issues in San
Antonio during the late twentieth century. In the end, people with
mission Indian heritage once again became readily visible as resurgent
Coahuiltecans.

Chapter 3:

POPULAR LITERATURE

Jennifer L. Logan

This chapter consists of an overview of non-anthropological literature
on San Antonio to provide baseline information about the Native American
peoples who have traditionally lived and worked in the Mission San Juan
community. The information garnered from the literature review will be
used by the SAAN for future consultation with Native American groups on
issues pertaining to the cultural resources of the mission.

Non-anthropological literature attests to the existence of active
communities of mission Indian descendants at Missions San Juan and
Espada from the 1850s (and, from one woman's reminiscence, the 1830s) to
the present day. Tourist brochures for the San Antonio mission system
published in the 1990s (San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau 1998;
SAAN 1996; Tezel 1997) point out that many San Juan parishioners trace
their ancestry to Indians that lived on mission grounds during the
nineteenth century. *Gente de Razón: People of the Missions* (1998), a
video commemorating the park's twentieth anniversary, attests that the
San Antonio mission Indians became a part of San Antonio's Hispanic
population.

San Antonio Missions NHP's interest in working with today's mission
Indian communities is notable. It represents a recent manifestation of a
long tradition in which city tourism was promoted in non-anthropological
literature by emphasizing the living presence of indigenous communities
around the missions. That Native American peoples live in the mission
areas has been emphasized from the 1850s to the 1990s in
non-anthropological literature promoting San Antonio for tourism and
industry. The park followed suit in its brochures. Significantly, the
"Indianness" of the missions continues, in the opinion of one member of
AIT-SCM, to be promoted because of its potential to increase tourism to
San Antonio.

Professional anthropologists do not generally valorize
non-anthropological literature as a source of information. Thoms (1997)
recognized that, while much of the anthropological literature asserts
that the Coahuiltecan Indians are extinct (Chapter 7),
non-anthropological literature is filled with references to mission
Indian descendants still living near the San Antonio Missions. In
particular, authors continually direct readers' attention to Mission San
Juan and Mission Espada as the last two places in Texas where one could
observe Indian peoples and come away with a sense of what life at the
missions was like during the Spanish Colonial period (Table 3). One of
the earliest indications that the former mission Indians still lived
throughout the once-San Antonio mission system comes from a survivor of
the Battle of the Alamo. When asked why the besiegers of the Alamo did
not simply end the siege by cutting off the mission's water supply, the
interviewee answered that "the Indians at the Missions would not have
allowed this!" (Corner 1890:118). Toward the turn of the twentieth
century, Corner noted:

a number of Mexican families live here \[at Mission San Juan\], some of
the members of which possess marked Indian features. In the neighborhood
of San Juan there are more traces of the Indian in faces and
characteristics than anywhere else in Texas (Corner 1890:20).

Table 3. Non-anthropological references to descendants of Indian
neophytes at Mission San Juan Capistrano and other places in San
Antonio.

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Reference**                     | **Commentary**                    |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| John Gilmary Shea                 | "a few scattered Indians alone    |
|                                   | remain of the thousands once      |
| 1855 *History of the Catholic     | gathered around the mission       |
| Missions among the Indian Tribes  | altars"                           |
| of the United States, 1529-1854.* |                                   |
| Edward Dunigan & Brother, New     | (p. 87).                          |
| York.                             |                                   |
|                                   | ---speaking of Texas (San         |
|                                   | Antonio) missions in general      |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| L'Abbé E. Domenech                | Of Mission San José: "Aujourd'hui |
|                                   | leurs descendants se sont         |
| 1857 *Journal d'un Missionnaire   | transportés à San-Antonio ou sur  |
| au Texas et au Mexique.*          | d'autres points de la rivière; il |
| Librairie de Gaume Frères, Paris. | ne reste plus à San-José que      |
|                                   | quelques pauvres familles         |
|                                   | indo-Mexicaines" (p. 90).         |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | "Today their \[neophytes'\]       |
|                                   | descendants have moved to San     |
|                                   | Antonio or on other points of the |
|                                   | river; they no longer exist at    |
|                                   | San José except for some poor     |
|                                   | indo-Mexican families" (p. 90).   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Robin W. Doughty                  | "according to Galveston,          |
|                                   | Harrisburg, and San Antonio       |
| 1987 *At Home In Texas: Early     | Railway Company brochures . . .   |
| Views of the Land*. College       | The idler could watch Indian      |
| Station: Texas A&M University     | women dress subtropical 'leopard' |
| Press. \[Citing Galveston,        | and ocelot skins with the         |
| Harrisburg, and San Antonio       | animals' brains to keep them      |
| Railway Co. (1876) *Immigrants    | supple"                           |
| Guide to Western Texas: Sunset    |                                   |
| Route*. Lawrence, Boston.\]       | (p. 87).                          |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| William Corner                    | "A number of Mexican families     |
|                                   | live here, some of the members of |
| 1890 *San Antonio de Béxar.*      | which possess marked Indian       |
| Bainbridge and Corner, San        | features. In the neighborhood of  |
| Antonio.                          | San Juan there are more traces of |
|                                   | the Indian in faces and           |
|                                   | characteristics than anywhere     |
|                                   | else in Texas" (p. 20).           |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | Sra. Andrea Candelaria,           |
|                                   | interviewed by William Corner:    |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | "I naturally asked why the        |
|                                   | besiegers \[of the Alamo\] did    |
|                                   | not cut off the water or divert   |
|                                   | it and so distress those within?  |
|                                   | She said the Indians at the       |
|                                   | Missions would not have allowed   |
|                                   | this!" (p. 118).                  |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Nora Franklin McCormick           | "It is claimed that in the        |
|                                   | neighborhood of this mission      |
| 1909 *San Antonio: Historical and | \[San Juan\] among the Mexicans   |
| Modern.* Passing Show Publishing  | are to be found more distinct     |
| Co., San Antonio.                 | traces of the Indian in faces and |
|                                   | characteristics than anywhere     |
|                                   | else in Texas" (p. 21).           |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Adina de Zavala                   | "It is said that in the vicinity  |
|                                   | of San Juan Mission there are     |
| 1917 *History and Legends of the  | more traces of the Indian in      |
| Alamo and Other Missions in and   | features and characteristics than |
| around San Antonio.* Adina de     | anywhere else in the interior of  |
| Zavala, San Antonio.              | Texas" (p. 120).                  |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| W. Frances Scarborough            | "Little San Juan still hovers     |
|                                   | over a straggling group of        |
| 1929 Old Spanish Missions in      | Indians" (p. 255).                |
| Texas: V. San Juan Capistrano.    |                                   |
| *Southwest Review* 14(2):         |                                   |
| 237-255.                          |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

Table 3. Continued.

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Reference**                     | **Commentary**                    |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Peyton Green                      | "Two of the missions are still    |
|                                   | inhabited by descendants of the   |
| 1946 *San Antonio, City in the    | Indians who built them" (p. 204). |
| Sun.* McGraw-Hill Book Co., New   |                                   |
| York.                             | "Some of what this mission        |
|                                   | community was like can be         |
|                                   | glimpsed, though obscurely, at    |
|                                   | San Francisco de la Espada or at  |
|                                   | San Juan Capistrano. Both are     |
|                                   | isolated missions, surrounded by  |
|                                   | descendants of their Indian       |
|                                   | founders" (p. 208).               |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Leah Carter Johnston              | "Perhaps a few of the farmers     |
|                                   | working the land in the           |
| 1947 *San Antonio, St. Anthony's  | neighborhood of the old missions  |
| Town.* Librarians' Council, San   | today are descendants of those    |
| Antonio.                          | families among whom the lands     |
|                                   | were divided" (p. 15).            |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Charles Ramsdell                  | "San Juan and Espada are in       |
|                                   | ruins. But people live here. And, |
| 1959 *San Antonio, a Historical   | what is more, with all the        |
| and Pictorial Guide.* University  | inevitable mutations and          |
| of Texas Press, Austin.           | admixtures, they are descendants  |
|                                   | of the same people, Indians and   |
|                                   | Spaniards, who lived here more    |
|                                   | than two centuries ago" (p. 142). |
|                                   |                                   |
|                                   | "It \[Guadalupe Church\] is the   |
|                                   | mainstay of the very Mexican (or  |
|                                   | very Indian) Catholic" (p. 166).  |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Ben Procter                       | "For more than one hundred years  |
|                                   | after secularization. . the       |
| 1965 San Juan Capistrano. In *Six | descendants of the twelve         |
| Missions of Texas*, pp. 169-194.  | neophytes continued to live in    |
| Texian Press, Waco.               | the area" (p. 193).               |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Mardith K. Schuetz                | "Today the old missions are       |
|                                   | surrounded by families who claim  |
| 1968 *The History and Archaeology | their descent from mission        |
| of Mission San Juan Capistrano,   | Indians" (p. 58).                 |
| San Antonio, Texas*, Vol. 1.      |                                   |
| Report 10, State Building         |                                   |
| Commission Archeological Program, |                                   |
| Austin.                           |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Mardith K. Schuetz                | "Around the three lower missions  |
|                                   | today there are still many        |
| 1980 *The Indians of the San      | residents who proudly proclaim    |
| Antonio Missions 1718-1821.*      | their descent from mission        |
| Ph.D. dissertation, University of | Indians" (p. 321).                |
| Texas, Austin. University         |                                   |
| Microfilms, Ann Arbor.            |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Eddie Nickens                     | "...many families in the vicinity |
|                                   | \[of Mission San Juan and         |
| 1992 Legacies of Faith. *Historic | Espada\] trace their ancestors    |
| Preservation* 44(2):16-16-20.     | directly to the mission neophytes |
|                                   | and Spanish workers" (p. 20).     |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| San Antonio Missions National     | "The San Antonio missions today   |
| Historical Park                   | represent a virtually unbroken    |
|                                   | connection with the past. Bearing |
| 1996 *San Antonio Missions        | the distinctive stamp of          |
| Official Map and Guide*.          | generations of Indian and Spanish |
| Brochure, GPO:                    | craftsmen, they live still as     |
| 1996---404-952/40005. Reprint     | active parishes."                 |
| 1996. San Antonio Missions        |                                   |
| National Historical Park, San     |                                   |
| Antonio.                          |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Mark Tezel                        | "Mission San Juan may seem quiet  |
|                                   | today, yet it still is the center |
| 1997 *San Antonio Missions:       | of a vibrant community            |
| Mission San Juan*. Brochure. San  |                                   |
| Antonio Missions National         | ...Many of these parishioners     |
| Historical Park, San Antonio.     | trace their roots back to the     |
|                                   | original inhabitants of Mission   |
|                                   | San Juan. . . They still come to  |
|                                   | worship at the mission, just as   |
|                                   | their ancestors did centuries     |
|                                   | ago."                             |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| San Antonio Convention and        | "Native American and Spanish      |
| Visitors Bureau                   | descendants of the original       |
|                                   | inhabitants still live near the   |
| 1998 *Guide to Historic San       | Mission grounds."                 |
| Antonio Mission Trails*.          |                                   |
| Brochure. San Antonio: San        |                                   |
| Antonio Convention and Visitors   |                                   |
| Bureau.                           |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

Corner's observation was echoed by other early authors (e.g., de Zavala
1917:120; McCormick 1909:21), who perceived Missions San Juan and Espada
as the last remaining places in Texas where visitors could see Indian
peoples. While McCormick's and de Zavala's almost word-for-word
repetition of Corner's original statement suggests that local knowledge
had passed into oral history, the observations of other authors imply
that this oral history had some basis in reality. The
Indians-still-at-the-missions concept is voiced with more diversity by
later authors. For example, Scarborough's (1929:255) historical overview
of San Juan, part of a series on the Spanish missions in Texas,
describes a "straggling group of Indians" still residing on mission
grounds. Green (1946:208) characterized Missions San Juan and Espada as
isolated communities of mission Indian descendants that were rooted in
an aboriginal antiquity that overshadowed the Spanish Colonial period.
And in *San Antonio: A Historical and Pictorial Guide*, published by the
University of Texas through the San Antonio Conservation Society,
Ramsdell celebrated the members of the San Juan and Espada communities
who, "with all the inevitable mutations and admixtures...are descendants
of the same people, Indians and Spaniards, who lived here more than two
centuries ago" (Ramsdell 1959:142).

As with most large cities, a great deal of tourist literature about the
city of San Antonio has been published, including descriptive histories,
scenic guidebooks, and combinations of these. As diverse as these
writings are, virtually all authors agreed that the nature and character
of San Antonio is multifaceted. More specifically, writers described the
city as unique in its ethnic diversity and contrast between old and new,
past and future.

One author summarized these features of San Antonio:

San Antonio is like no other city in Texas. It is like no other city
anywhere. Though it incorporates some of the essence of a dozen
dissimilar places, it resembles none of them. . . San Antonio is
indigenous to its own soil. It draws its character from all the diverse
elements, which have helped to build it (Green 1946:7).

Another remarked:

San Antonio...is, and has been always, a meeting place, on the verge,
between France and Spain, between Spain and England, between the Indian
and the white, between the South and the West, the old and the new. What
fascinates the visitor---and the long-time resident as well---is the
amazing variety of the place, its startling contrasts...Youth is
everywhere...But this remains an old town\...any way you turn there are
vestiges of the past (Ramsdell 1959:3, 6-7).

These concepts were thought to be embodied in both the architecture and
the people---especially those of Mexican identity---of San Antonio.

Architecture

The potential for architectural features to attract tourists was
recognized by early writers such as William Corner (1890:2). Corner, who
published one of the first well-circulated tourist guidebooks for San
Antonio, noted:

although the modern business blocks and fine residences\...so largely
predominate, yet the ancient looking house here and there\...the relics
of an older and altogether different dynasty---lend the city a venerable
air that is pleasing to the visitor's eye.

Corner (1890:2) directed visitors to the missions---"the venerable
Missions, at once the pride, glory and regret of San Antonio"---as the
primary means by which visitors could understand the uniqueness of the
city. His tour guide for San Antonio set a precedent for tourist
guidebooks for at least the next 30 years, especially regarding the
importance of the missions in general to the collective consciousness of
San Antonians. He noted that, for visitors to San Antonio, "all four
Missions have different points of interest and will repay a thousand
times in pleasure any difficulty getting to them," and concludes that
"how can I get to see the Missions? is the anxious inquiry of almost
every traveling sightseer that comes to San Antonio . . . There is
nothing of the kind of equal interest on this continent" (Corner
1890:7,13).

Ethnic Diversity

The belief that "many different nations and races have helped to make
the San Antonio of today" (Johnston 1947:42) is a sentiment voiced by
many authors since Corner's 1890 guide to San Antonio was published. In
1879, the first city directory was published for San Antonio. It
revealed a population consisting of Americans, English, Irish, Germans,
Alsatians, Mexicans, Spaniards, Italians, French, Swiss, Hungarians,
Dutch, Belgians, Swedes, Poles, Chinese, and African-Americans (Johnston
1947:42). A brochure published by the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San
Antonio Railway Company informed visitors that, while in the city, they
could witness Indian women tanning skins with animal brains (Doughty
1987:87). Early writers describing the ethnic diversity of San Antonio
often equated the city's multiculturalism with cosmopolitanism. Again,
Corner set the precedent when he stated, "San Antonio is now probably
the most cosmopolitan spot on the face of the globe. Representatives of
every race of the earth have been counted here" (1890:2).

These statements were not without racial bias. At the same time that San
Antonio's ethnic diversity was celebrated, members of these ethnic
groups were described in the most racist terms. For instance, one author
commented:

San Antonio...stands today the oldest, the most historic, the most
beautiful, and most cosmopolitan city of the southwest. A stroll upon
the plaza will demonstrate its cosmopolitan character. The Mexican peon
walks along soberly and quietly; the jovial German beams; the Frenchman
bows; the Italian gesticulates; the Negroes discuss of 'possum and
taters' and the glory of 'Juneteenth;' the Chinaman and Jap patter along
in sandaled feet with 'washee muchee for Melican man,' while the Turk
nods his turbaned head. Truly, San Antonio welcomes all \[King
1909:11\].

Although no mention of Native Americans is made in the above passage,
they are mentioned later in the volume by a different author (McCormick
1909:21). Indian contributions to the city's non-Anglo ethnic population
are discussed primarily in terms of adding local color. This
marginalization of non-Anglo peoples in writing as well as in practice
served to aggrandize Anglo-American affairs in the city.

Ramsdell (1959:39) observed with disdain the ethnocentric attitudes of
Anglo-Americans in Texas from the mid-1800s on:

The notion was widespread, a century ago, even among educated people,
that the Anglo-Saxon race, so-called, was vastly superior to any other
race. It was destined to carry its blessings to the dark corners of the
earth. And if those blessings had to be rammed down the throats of the
benighted natives, it was, after all, for their own good.

This was the viewpoint of many Anglo-Americans who came to Texas both
before and after the war with Mexico (1846). They glowed with a sense of
'manifest destiny.' And they were inclined to belittle the civilization
which had preceded them...\[Ramsdell 1959:39\].

Mexican culture was frequently described in lengthy anecdotes by early
authors in the context of promoting the ethnic diversity of San Antonio.
Anglo-American authors brought together the dichotomies of old/new and
familiar/foreign as they depicted Mexican lifeways, as illustrated
below:

Among the many attractive features of San Antonio, there is none that
appeals more to the lover of the picturesque, than the impress of the
Mexican element. And not alone is this true of the more salient
features, but of the little homely details...things which are so full of
interest to tourists ...It is the frequent occurrence of such pictures
as this that gives to San Antonio her distinctive charm, and air of
'difference'...It is all very picturesque and very foreign, and yet so
familiar and intimate, so much our very own...despite the destroying
hand of 'progress' and 'improvement'...our Mexicans 'are always with us'
\[Chaney 1909:33-35\].

While not explicitly stated, the missions and mission communities seem
to have embodied the architectural and ethnic uniqueness of San Antonio.
Early authors wrote about the San Antonio missions to promote the
interests of the dominant society; namely, to increase tourism to the
city. Mission San Juan and Mission Espada, especially, were rarely
written about without mention of Mexican or Indian families that
continued to live there (Table 3).

In the 1960s, anthropologist Mardith Schuetz brought commentary about
contemporary mission Indian descendants to another level. Her
statements, both in 1967 and in 1980, are among the few cases wherein
anthropologists report that the descendants of native peoples of south
Texas were not extinct, but had merged into the predominantly Hispanic
communities and continued to live around the missions. Continuation of
this oral tradition is illustrated in the tourist brochures circulated
by the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park and the San Antonio
Convention Center/Visitors Bureau that draw attention to the presence of
community members tracing their ancestry to the original mission Indians
of Mission San Juan.

Reemergence of Mission Indian Identity

From 1890 to 1980, the fact that descendants of the mission Indians
continued to live around Mission San Juan was mentioned in tourist
literature every decade except for the 1930s and the 1970s. Some of
those descendants are now members of the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation,
also known as Pueblo San Juan Capistrano Yanaguana, or simply Los
Coahuiltecos. Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation is a private organization,
representing descendants of the Coahuiltecan Indians in Mexico and
Texas, organized as a membership group in the early 1990s. A statement
of purpose formally transcribed in the *Resolution of the Coahuiltecan
Nation* (1995:1) defines repatriation as one of their primary concerns.
Among other goals expressed by Coahuiltecan Nation council members is
the passing on of knowledge of their traditions and native medicines to
their children and grandchildren (Martínez 1998:48).

The San Antonio-based American Indians in Texas-Spanish Colonial
Missions (AIT-SCM) was formed by Raymond Hernández, Joel Silva, and
Richard Garay in 1993 (England 1995:36) as a non-profit organization
affiliated with the Coahuiltecan Nation. AIT-SCM acts as the business
arm of the Tap Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nation. While membership in AIT-SCM is
open to all, membership in the Tap Pilam- Coahuiltecan Nation is
predicated on demonstrable mission Indian ancestry (Raymond Hernández,
personal communication 1999). Nevertheless, the members of AIT-SCM, many
of whom have a mixed tribal background, identify primarily with their
Coahuiltecan heritage. AIT-SCM first drew public attention in 1994 when
members requested the city close a street, in front of the Alamo, that
covers Native American graves (Guerra 1994:A11). In 1996, AIT-SCM
published a bilingual account of its history called *Coahuiltecan
Journal: A Voice of Indigenous Peoples*.

AIT-SCM is not alone as an organization promoting Indian heritage. Other
San Antonio-based indigenous organizations pursue repatriation
initiatives directed toward Mission San Juan as well. The Pamaque Clan
of San Juan Mission Indians is a Native American group formed by Rick
Mendoza (Chapter 4) to promote the cultural roots of individuals
acknowledging the Pamaque band of Coahuiltecan Indians among their
ancestors. Mendoza has compiled a brief family history demonstrating his
lineal descent ties to families living at Mission San Juan as long ago
as the late 1700s and early 1800s. Members of the Pamaque Clan of San
Juan Mission Indians have played prominent activist roles in the
community. Many of their activities bring them into direct opposition
with AIT-SCM. For instance, Mendoza disagreed with the way in which
members of AIT-SCM planned to reinter the human remains and brought an
injunction against them that almost stopped the 1999 reburial (Barrios
1999a). The Lipan Apache Band of Texas, headed by Daniel Castro Romero,
is geared toward recruiting the membership of individuals descended from
the Lipan Apache (Romero 2000). Romero (personal communication 2000)
maintains that one of his ancestors is buried at the mission. Like
Mendoza, Romero has written a lengthy account of his family's activities
in Texas based on primary source documents containing firsthand accounts
of interactions between the Castro family and early settlers. *The
Castro Family History of the Lipan Apache Band of Texas* (Romero 2000)
documents a period spanning the early eighteenth century to the present.

AIT-SCM was formed largely in response to reburial issues stemming from
archaeological investigations sponsored by the Catholic Church at
Mission San Juan during the late 1960s \[San Antonio Light (SAL), 7 June
1967\] (Chapter 9). Archaeologists responding to the Catholic Church's
need to restore areas of the San Juan Mission complex in the late 1960s
excavated over 150 human burials from church floors, which were
traditionally used as burial places. Schuetz (1968:205-206) reports that
local community members displayed "hostility toward the excavators" but
were reassured that scientific study of the human remains could reveal
information about the "sex, age, disease, racial description and
forgotten customs" of the deceased individuals. A museum later built on
mission grounds included for display two bones taken from the burials,
and in 1986, those bones were symbolically reburied at the foot of the
sanctuary. Father Balthasar Janacek, who presided over the ceremony,
stated that "This really is a symbolic burial . . It is a pledge to keep
trying to see to the burial of the others" (Perdue 1986:F6). Once the
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was passed in
1991, local community members' efforts to regain possession of the human
remains intensified. The Catholic Church and members of AIT-SCM worked
together to achieve the return and reburial of these remains in 1999
(Barrios 1999b, Thoms 1999:20-21). As of August 2000, however, reburial
issues focusing on these graves have not been settled because funerary
objects accompanying the burials have yet to be returned from
archaeological collections facilities at the University of Texas at San
Antonio to the Church (Raymond Hernández, personal communication 1999;
Thoms 2000:4).

Concluding Comments

From the mid-1800s on, San Antonio's non-anthropological literature
demonstrates that tourism was an important feature of San Antonio's
economy from the time administration of the city fell into
Anglo-American hands. The San Antonio missions, through their
architecture and their purpose, are brought together in
non-anthropological literature to tie tourism to Indian peoples. The
tourist potential of San Antonio's Native American heritage has long
been recognized. Early writers clearly focused their attention on
promoting the Native American features of San Antonio's ethnic diversity
that was concentrated around the missions. Written by a generation
raised on doctrines of Manifest Destiny during a time that saw the
closing of the frontier and end of westward expansion, early tourist
literature reveals San Antonio authors' fascination with the Mexican and
Indian features of the city, which were characterized as quaint,
timeless, relict, and peripheral to the workings of Anglo society.
Anecdotal descriptions of curious traditions rooted in foreign and
ancient practices served as a means by which the latest newcomers could
articulate their differences and construct their own distinct identity.

The promotion of the San Antonio missions using references to the
enduring existence of mission Indian descendants at Mission San Juan has
persisted through the present day. Since its inception in 1978, SAAN
promoted the concept that descendants of the mission's Indian groups are
still living. Earlier archaeologists surveying the proposed Mission
Parkway noted an 1819 observation that the missions no longer housed
Indian residents. That the archaeologists were not entirely convinced of
the supposed extinction of the mission Indians is implied in their
statement that the extent of intermarriage between mission Indians and
non-indigenous settlers would be "a most interesting potential field for
future research" (Scurlock et al. 1976:41-42). In the early 1980s,
Gilberto Cruz (1983:21), park historian, proposed "evaluating the
contemporary populations and parishioners living around the four
missions" with the objective to "recognize the values and customs of the
mission area residents as a cultural resource of the Park." A 1998 video
commemorating the park's twentieth anniversary points to the Hispanic
population of San Antonio as descendants of the mission Indians. Most
recently, Rock's (2000) history of Mission San Juan and the present
project address the issues raised by Cruz almost 20 years ago.

> Architectural interest also encouraged archaeological investigations
> that focused on Mission San Juan's layout and the excavation of human
> remains interred therein (Chapters 9 and 10). Excavation and study of
> the burials recovered in 1967 and 1969 served as a rallying point for
> community members. The re-emergence of mission Indian identity and
> tradition in the San Juan community can be traced back to this time
> period, when protesters secretly vandalized the graves of two
> individuals and community members showed open hostility toward the
> excavations (Schuetz 1968:205-206). In her dissertation, written on
> the topic of the San Antonio mission Indians, Schuetz (1980:321)
> states emphatically that the descendants of those people still
> identified strongly with their Native American heritage. The
> ceremonial reburial of the two human bones formerly on display at San
> Juan in 1986 was performed in response to community members' concerns.
> In the 1990s, the formation of several indigenous groups including
> AIT-SCM, the Pamaque Clan of San Juan Mission Indians, and the Lipan
> Apache Band of Texas served as focal points for community activism on
> repatriation of the San Juan human remains (Coahuiltecan Nation 1995;
> Romero 1999). Finally, in 1999 the Catholic Church sponsored reburial
> of the remains of over 150 individuals removed from their graves in
> the late 1960s.

A community of mission Indian descendants has been acknowledged to
persist at Mission San Juan by authors of non-anthropological
literature, the Catholic Church, the National Park Service, and by
anthropologist Mardith Schuetz in 1968 and 1980. These varied sources of
information indicate that, contrary to what is documented in scientific
literature, descendants of the indigenous peoples commonly referred to
as Coahuiltecans are still in the

San Antonio area.