On Mission in San Antonio

It was Spain’s last throw of the colonial dice, a determined drift up through South America. Into the North American continent converting the local Native Americans to the Church of Rome along the way.

A Mission was a community, run by the Catholic priests and brothers, dispatched from Spain, blessed by Rome with the aim of ensuring the local population became Christian.  Included in the package was education, instruction in growing crops and tending livestock and protecting the Mission from marauders. All of which was centred on Christianity.

The Spanish Missions in Texas comprised a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholic Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans to spread the Catholic doctrine among area Native Americans, and with the added benefit of giving Spain a toehold in the frontier land. In all, twenty-six missions were maintained for different lengths of time within the boundaries of what became of the state of Texas.

Physically the Mission was built around a church with other buildings and accommodation close by and walls for protection.

I was lucky enough to visit one only a twenty-minute public bus ride away from the centre of San Antonio: The Mission Nuestra Señora De La Purisima Concepción De Acuña. This handsome stone church was dedicated in 1755, and I saw it very much as it was over two centuries ago. It stands proudly as the oldest unrestored stone church in America.

This is an extract from the National Parks website.  I include it for it's additional perspective on why the Missions were so attractive to the local people. 

A NEW GOD AND KING

After 10,000 years, the people of South Texas found their cultures, their very lives under attack. In the early 1700s Apache raided from the north, deadly diseases travelled from Mexico, and drought lingered. Survival lay in the missions. By entering a mission, they foreswore their traditional life to become Spanish, accepting a new religion and pledging fealty to a distant and unseen king.

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

And also https://www.nps.gov/saan/planyourvisit/concepcion.htm