Mission del Apostol Santiago
Presidio vicinity, Presidio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of nine missions established in the Big Bend country by Father Fray Nicolas Lopez, O.F.M., and Don Juan Dominguez de Mendoza in 1683-1684. Maintained by Franciscan missionaries for the civilizing and christianizing of the Jumano, Julimes and other Indians of this area. (1936)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1683–1684, Father Fray Nicolas Lopez and Juan Dominguez de Mendoza established this as one of nine Spanish missions across the Big Bend country. Franciscan missionaries maintained it to convert and settle the Jumano, Julimes, and other Native peoples of the region. It stood at the far frontier of Spanish colonial ambition in what is now West Texas.
Why it matters
These remote missions mark Spain's earliest reach into the Big Bend and the profound, often coercive encounter between Franciscan friars and the Indigenous nations of the borderlands.
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Related people
- · Fray Nicolas Lopez
- · Juan Dominguez de Mendoza
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Presidio del Norte
Presidio vicinity, TX
This stretch of the Rio Grande at the junction of rivers was a center of Spanish colonial activity for generations. Franciscan missionaries, beginning with an expedition under Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and Padre Nicolás López in the 1680s, founded a cluster of missions here to draw the region's Indigenous peoples into the Spanish colonial and Christian orbit. A presidio, the Presidio del Norte, was established nearby around 1759–60, and its name endures today in the present town and county.
Native Peoples of La Junta de los Rios
Presidio, TX
Where the Rio Conchos meets the Rio Grande lies La Junta, the finest farmland for hundreds of miles and a natural trading hub that Native peoples occupied for thousands of years. When Cabeza de Vaca passed through in 1536 he met the agricultural Patarabueye and the nomadic, trading Jumanos, who lived in jacal homes and pit-houses. Spanish missions, settlement, and enslavement over the following centuries steadily eroded the region's Indigenous character, though descendants remained.
Mission San Francisco de los Julimes
Presidio vicinity, TX
In 1683–1684, Franciscan father Nicolas Lopez and Juan Dominguez de Mendoza established a string of missions in the Big Bend country, of which San Francisco de los Julimes was one. The mission aimed to convert and settle the Jumano, Julimes, and other Native peoples of the Rio Grande region under Spanish colonial rule. It reflects the northern edge of Spain's missionary frontier in what is now far West Texas.
Here Milton Faver
Shafter, TX
In the 1850s Milton Faver established the first Anglo-American-owned ranch in the Big Bend country, an isolated empire of springs at Cibolo, Cienega, and La Morita. To hold this ground against Apache raids, he built three fortress-like quadrangular adobe compounds, ranching in a borderland far beyond the reach of law or army.