0.11 3.1 sending the light: the organizing of texas baptist women  (Page 12/11)

Establishment of missionary baptists in texas.

During the period of exploration and settlement of Texas by both the Spaniards and the Mexicans, Roman Catholicism was the only religion whose establishment was permitted by the state. In fact, the permanent outposts developed by the Spaniards during their occupation of the territory from the 1680s to 1820 were primarily missions, founded by priests and devoted to evangelizing the indigenous Indian population. Not accidentally, these missions were located along or near the Mexican border and along the territorial boundary between Texas and French-owned Louisiana and served a military as well as religious function. Soldier and priest, mission and fort often existed side by side, sharing common facilities.

Because the Indians did not adopt Christianity in large numbers and few Spanish citizens colonized the area, religious activity in the missions waned as the eighteenth century progressed. The military aspect of the settlements took on more and more importance, however, as encroachment from the east threatened, heightened by the United States' purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. Official loyalty to the Catholic faith, however, did not diminish. When Mexico took possession of Texas from Spain in 1821, she adopted a similar policy of church/state co-existence. Not only did her constitution protect and support Catholicism, it forbade the exercise of any other religion. Ethel Z. Rather, "De Witt's Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, VIII, 2 (October, 1904), pp. 101, 173-75.

Since this was the prevailing law under which the first Baptists settled in the territory, their story can be described as, initially, one of civil disobedience. Stephen F. Austin and the other "impresarios" who contracted with Mexico to bring colonists into Texas agreed explicitly that the homeseekers under their grants would become Roman Catholics, and the government of Mexico implied that once churches were built, priests would be supplied to the new communities to administer spiritual rites and counsel. J. M. Carroll, A History of Texas Baptists (Dallas: Baptist Standard Publishing Co., 1923), P. 9. That neither party conformed to this agreement understates the case. When the Mexicans sought to stem the tide of immigration in 1830, the secretary of state used the fact that "not one among them, in Texas,... is a Catholic" to make his point. Edna Rowe, "The Disturbances at Anahuac in 1832," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, VI, 4 (April, 1903), p. 267. He exaggerated, but it was true that a negligible minority of the approximately 15,000 colonists who entered Texas during the decade of 1820-30 adhered to the religious qualifications of settlement. Anti-Catholic brushfires burst out in scattered communities, but indifference to religion was the primary form of resistance. The brutality and isolation of pioneer existence and the lack of spiritual leadership kept Protestant reaction from forming and gathering momentum. On the other hand, Mexico did little to proselytize the newcomers. The limited number of priests were unable to provide even a minimal level of pastoral care, leaving marriages and deaths unmarked by official ceremony for months or years.