Felipe de Rábago checks for signs of Indians (DRAWING BY JACK JACKSON)
SINFUL CAPTAIN
In colonial Texas, presidios or forts played an important role in defending the province. Spanish soldiers and their captain were expected to work closely with Catholic missionaries to Christianize and civilize the Indians. However, in the 1740s one presidial captain came into serious conflict with the clergy because of his sinful behavior. Violence erupted. A missionary and a civilian were killed, and Captain Felipe de Rábago y Terán was accused of being involved in the murders. For many years he was deprived of his freedom. Searching his soul, the Spanish officer repented (regretted) his evil ways. When he was again put in command of a military post on the Texas frontier, the changed Rábago did his best to be an honorable man. Dying in his forties, he could hope to be judged for his good deeds—not for his sins.
The early life of Felipe de Rábago is largely unknown. He seems to have acquired a great deal of wealth from silver mines in Mexico. Success probably brought him to the attention of King Ferdinand VI of Spain, who named don Felipe as commander of a new presidio to be established in central Texas. The royal appointment, dated March 6, 1750, was carried to Mexico City by Rábago himself.
In the late 1740s, three missions had been founded on the San Gabriel River near present-day Rockdale, Texas. Their purpose was to convert Tonkawa, Orcoquiza, Bidai, Deadose, and Coco Indians. The Spanish wanted a fort to protect the San Xavier missions, as they were called, from Apache raids and to help discipline the mission Indians, called neophytes. In 1751 the viceroy of New Spain instructed Rábago to recruit at least fifty soldiers for the new presidio. Additionally, he was to find civilian settlers who would live near the missions.
At the time of his appointment, don Felipe was in his early thirties. He was handsome and conceited, and he proved to be a bad choice to command the fort.
On the way to his post, Rábago stopped at Querétaro to meet with officials of the Franciscan missionary college, who would provide additional priests for the San Xavier missions. Don Felipe asked the Franciscans to make an arrangement that they would later regret. The friars agreed that any disputes arising between missionaries and the military at San Xavier would be dealt with locally, rather than by authorities in Mexico City or Querétaro.
As he passed through village after village on his way to San Antonio, don Felipe revealed himself to be an immoral man. He had intimate relations with Indian and Hispanic women, whether married or single. The priests who were traveling with the captain were of course horrified at his behavior.
At San Antonio, Rábago recruited civilian settlers for the San Xavier enterprise. One was a tailor named Juan José Ceballos. The young man had an attractive wife, and trouble was not long in coming. When don Felipe began to behave improperly with Ceballos’s wife, the husband angrily objected. When he did so, don Felipe responded by putting the tailor in chains. Then, on reaching San Xavier, Rábago had Ceballos placed in a cell.
Captain Rábago was unhappy with what he found on the San Gabriel River. Only eighteen ragtag soldiers were present. The rest had deserted or been reassigned to other presidios. The missions were also in a pitiful state. One had 109 neophytes, another had 25, and the third had none! Don Felipe wanted to move the missions to a different location, but the priests refused. The commander reluctantly chose a location nearby for the new presidio, named San Francisco Xavier de Gigedo.
Because Rábago continued to have a sexual relationship with Ceballos’s wife, the priests wanted the woman returned to San Antonio. But don Felipe refused. Matters worsened during Christmas Eve celebrations at the presidio, when Ceballos broke free from his chains. The fugitive then ran to the chapel of Mission Candelaria. Rábago disgusted the missionaries by riding his horse into the chapel in pursuit of the escapee. There he seized Ceballos, returned the tailor to his cell, and beat him badly.
Father Miguel Pinilla, one of the missionaries, was outraged. He demanded a public apology from Rábago and the release of Ceballos. On December 27, the captain let Ceballos return to the mission but offered no apology. Father Pinilla and Captain Rábago were locked in a contest of wills.
Don Felipe sent a letter to Pinilla’s superior in San Antonio and asked that the missionary be replaced as chaplain, but Rábago’s request was denied. Not surprisingly, in mid-January 1752 the clergy at San Xavier broke their pledge to settle differences at the local level and appealed for help to their superiors at Querétaro. The Franciscans had many complaints, but above all the clergymen spoke out against “the malice [harmful intent] of this man [Rábago].”
With the captain as their role model, the soldiers at San Xavier also began to behave improperly with Indian women living at the missions. Neophyte men lost their wives and daughters to the soldiers and suffered insults “every moment of the day.” Some of the Christianized Indian women were troubled by their intimate contacts with Spaniards and confessed their sins to the mission fathers. The priests, who were working to civilize and Christianize the natives, were again horrified.
Father Miguel Pinilla decided to punish the captain and his entire garrison. In February 1752 he announced that Rábago and his soldiers had committed gross sins with Indian women and were excommunicated. This meant that all soldiers at the presidio were denied membership in the Catholic Church. They could not be forgiven until they repented and changed their ways. Rather than change their behavior, however, the soldiers tore up the excommunication decree (formal order) and burned it. In the end, however, Pinilla won this conflict. The soldiers soon became afraid for their souls. One by one they begged to be forgiven, and the priests accepted their pleas.
While the missionaries were objecting to Rábago’s sinful actions, he was complaining about them to the viceroy. Don Felipe charged that the priests neglected their religious duties, caused too much trouble, and encouraged the Indians to rebel.
Spanish officials in Mexico City were confused by the situation at San Xavier. They found fault with both Rábago for his behavior and Pinilla for his actions. To try to settle the matter, the viceroy ordered the head of the missionary college at Querétaro to look into affairs at San Xavier.
Before any action could be taken, tragedy struck at Mission Candelaria on the night of May 11, 1752. Juan José Ceballos and two priests, Miguel Pinilla and José Ganzabal, were eating their evening meal. Because the night was warm, the outside door was open to let the breeze in. A single candle provided light.
Suddenly there was the blast of a Spanish weapon called a blunderbuss. Its ball hit Ceballos in the chest and killed him instantly. Father Ganzabal grabbed the candle and rushed to the door to look out into the darkness. At that moment, a Coco Indian arrow struck the priest and entered his heart. As he fell dying, the candle went out. This probably saved the life of Father Pinilla. Firing another blunderbuss as they left, the murderers fled into the night.
The finger of suspicion pointed quickly at Captain Rábago. His affair with Ceballo’s wife and his dispute with Father Pinilla made him a likely suspect. Don Felipe knew that he was in trouble and tried to blame the Coco Indians for the murders.
Ten days before the murders, the Cocos as a group had deserted Mission Candelaria. There had been difficulties between these Indians and the missionaries. The natives were probably also upset over quarrels between the priests and the soldiers. And they had had a disagreement with Rábago. On May 1, 1752, two Cocos had entered Presidio San Xavier armed with bows and arrows. The captain had the Indians seized and beaten. This caused all of the Cocos to flee, and don Felipe did little to track them down and return them to the missions.
Juan José Ceballos was a resident at Candelaria at this time. Earlier, he had come upon two or three Cocos who had killed a mission cow without permission and were skinning it. Scolding them, he tried to take the butchered animal from the natives. A fight started, and Ceballos struck a Coco with the handle of his knife. This caused several more Indians to attack him. To protect himself, the tailor fired his blunderbuss and wounded a Coco chief in the thigh. Because of this incident, the Cocos had reason to dislike Ceballos.
There was also bad blood between Father José Ganzabal and a soldier named Martín Gutiérrez over a young Indian woman. Luisa was a twenty-two-year-old native who had been converted to Christianity. She was married to an Indian named Andrés. Because Luisa was an attractive woman, Martín Gutiérrez wanted her. The soldier made a deal with Andrés. He would loan the Indian a horse for “three moons” in return for sexual favors from Luisa. Luisa apparently told Father Ganzabal of the agreement between Andrés and Gutiérrez. The missionary, of course, disapproved strongly of the arrangement. He likely scolded both Luisa and her husband Andrés.
What is certain is that Gutiérrez was one of five assassins at Mission Candelaria on the night of May 11. And Andrés later admitted to having fired the arrow that took the life of Father Ganzabal.
After the murders, Andrés fled to San Antonio with his wife. There he was questioned about the events of May 11, and at first he claimed his innocence. He not only made conflicting statements that drew suspicion but also knew many details about the killings. Finally, he confessed, but Andrés placed the blame on Martín Gutiérrez and three other soldiers.
Andrés said that on the afternoon of May 11 he saw four Spaniards near a creek. Two had blunderbusses, and two had bows and arrows. The men were waiting to ambush Father Miguel Pinilla at his favorite fishing hole, but the priest did not come. Si) they decided to wait for night and use the cover of darkness to kill both priests and Ceballos. They offered Andrés a horse if he would be their bowman. Because he disliked Father Ganzabal, the Indian agreed.
According to Andrés, the Spaniards dressed themselves like Indians, and they crept to the house where the victims were dining. Gutiérrez fired the fatal ball into Ceballos’s chest, and Andrés let fly the arrow that killed Ganzabal. The five men then fled without killing Father Pinilla. Andrés and Luisa set out immediately for San Antonio, and the soldiers returned to the presidio.
Rábago later told his version of the events of May 11, 1752. He was dining with friends when he heard the sound of the blunderbusses firing. Don Felipe mounted a horse and galloped to Mission Candelaria, where he found the bodies of Ceballos and Ganzabal.
On May 14 Rábago sent word of the murders to the viceroy in Mexico City. The captain knew that he would be in trouble if any of his men had committed the murders. So he placed all blame on the Cocos and asked permission to make war on them. That request was denied.
When Andrés confessed at San Antonio, Rábago insisted that the Indian was lying about soldiers being involved in the murders. Don Felipe and others pressured Andrés to change his story, and the native finally said that he had lied. This was not enough, however, to clear Captain Rábago.
The truth of what happened in the double murder on May 11, 1752, is not clear. But Rábago bears at least some blame for those tragic events. Martín Gutiérrez had reason to be angry with Father Ganzabal. But why were the two other Spanish soldiers involved as assassins? They probably disliked Father Miguel Pinilla because of the long-standing disputes between the soldiers and the missionaries. This situation was also Rábago’s fault. And Ceballos and don Felipe were the bitterest of enemies. The fact that the tailor was also the target of the murderers certainly raises questions about the captain’s innocence.
It is doubtful that the Cocos played any role in the murders. These natives had little or no experience with firearms. One of the murder weapons, however, was a blunderbuss. How would Coco Indians get such a musket and learn to fire it accurately? And remember that the natives in question had been gone from Mission Candelaria for ten days. Even Rábago admitted that his soldiers could not find any trace of those Indians after they fled on May 1, 1752.
Overwhelming evidence pointed to the involvement of Felipe de Rábago y Terán in the double murder. He was removed from command at San Xavier and sent to a presidio in Coahuila, Mexico. Although he still held the title of captain, he was under house arrest for eight long years. Suspiciously, the Indian Andrés and his wife went with don Felipe and remained under his control for those eight years. The Spanish assassins disappear from the written record at this time. One died while in jail. The others somehow managed to escape.
As time passed, the events of May 11, 1752, began to fade in the memories of many people. However, the Franciscans never forgot the loss of one of their own—Father Ganzabal. In the future, they would have to deal with Captain Rábago again.
The desertion of the Coco Indians, combined with the murder of Ceballos and Ganzabal, helped doom the missions at San Xavier to failure. A long drought in 1753 made matters worse. By August 1755 the missionaries and the soldiers of the presidio moved to the San Marcos River. They also had little success there. In late 1756 they moved again to the Guadalupe River.
During these years, the missionaries were trying to get permission to work with the Lipan Apaches on the San Saba River to the northwest of San Antonio. These Indians were dangerous enemies of the settlers, and in the 1730s they had begun making raids on San Antonio. The Spanish sent expeditions against the Apaches but failed to end the raids. To the Franciscan Father Mariano de los Dolores, the best solution was to missionize the Lipans in their own lands.
Meanwhile, the Apaches were under increasing pressure from their arch enemies, the Comanches. This forced the Lipans to make peace with the Spaniards. In August 1749, four Apache chiefs with their followers buried a hatchet and other weapons of war in a peace ceremony at San Antonio. The Lipans appeared willing to accept Christianity. In reality, these natives wanted protection from the Comanches rather than religious conversion.
About the time that the San Xavier efforts ended, Father Alonso Giraldo de Terreros started the first mission for the Apaches. Mission San Lorenzo, set up in 1754, was south of the Río Grande, far from the natives’ own lands. In less than a year, the neophytes at San Lorenzo rebelled, burned the mission, and fled. The Franciscans, however, were not discouraged. They believed that the Lipans would cooperate with missionary efforts closer to Apachería, as their area was known.
The Franciscans needed permission and funding to enter Apache lands and establish a mission-presidio complex. Certainly, the government was interested in converting pagan Indians and claiming new lands. The lure of wealth, however, also influenced Spanish officials. Scouting expeditions brought reports of valuable minerals in Apachería. For all these reasons, soldiers, missionaries, and civilians were destined to move to the San Saba River in the late 1750s. Their efforts on the San Saba would be a disaster, but it would give Felipe de Rábago a chance to redeem his reputation.
After Mission San Lorenzo had been destroyed, Father Alonso Giraldo de Terreros went to Mexico City. His rich cousin, Pedro Romero de Terreros, was willing to finance missionary efforts among the Apaches in their own lands. This was on condition that Father Alonso be placed in charge of the enterprise, and the viceroy agreed to don Pedro’s terms. The government would pay the military costs of the San Sabá project. And everyone at San Sabá must report directly to the viceroy in Mexico City, rather than to the governor of Texas.
Colonel Diego Ortiz Parrilla was in command of the soldiers at San Sabá. This officer was an experienced and capable veteran, but he was arrogant. Don Diego never took advice or admitted mistakes. In this case, it was his misfortune to have “come at the wrong time to the wrong place.”
First, Ortiz Parrilla inspected his ragtag soldiers who had been at Presidio San Francisco Xavier de Gigedo. He was shocked by the condition of the men and moved them to San Antonio. Second, the colonel was concerned about the sincerity of the Apaches. He was not sure that they would peacefully cooperate with the Spanish, even if a mission were set up for them in Apachería.
There were problems among the clergy also. Father Mariano de los Dolores was angry. He felt unappreciated. After all, he had tried for years to get missions for the Lipans. Now Father Terreros would be in charge, just because he had a rich cousin.
Ortiz Parrilla’s expedition finally left San Antonio in the spring of 1757. It had tons of supplies, dozens of soldiers and their families, six missionaries, and many Indian allies. Also taken were hundreds of horses, mules, cattle, and sheep.
The expedition got to the San Saba River on April 17, 1757. After some exploration, Ortiz Parrilla was concerned. He had not seen a single Apache. The officer thought that all of the Spaniards should return to San Antonio, but the six Franciscans would not hear of it. Soon Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá and Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas took shape near present-day Menard, Texas.
Aware of the problems that had happened at San Xavier, the priests insisted that the presidio be located well away from the mission. They did not want the Indians exposed to bad influences on the part of the presidial soldiers. Having the two outposts about 3½ miles apart lessened contact between the soldiers and the neophytes, but it also made defending the mission more difficult.
During its short life of less than a year, Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá failed to attract even one Apache to live there. The Lipans did appear in large numbers from time to time, but they were always heading somewhere else. The Indians, however, were shrewd. They gave the Spaniards just enough hope to keep them from abandoning the enterprise. Even so, three of the priests became so discouraged that they returned to San Antonio. Plans for a second and third mission were dropped.
In the meantime, the Lipan Apaches were plotting to create conflict between their enemies, the Comanches, and the Spaniards. When the Apaches raided enemy camps to the north, they purposely left behind Spanish articles such as shoes. They wanted the Comanches to believe that the Europeans at San Sabá were at least partly to blame for the attacks. This tactic apparently worked.
The extremely cold winter of 1757–1758 brought misery to some four hundred people at the presidio. Weather was not their only problem, however. The Spaniards learned from scouts that hundreds of Comanches and their allies were drawing nearer to San Sabá.
Colonel Ortiz Parrilla felt that his major duty was to protect the 237 women and children at the presidio. He could spare only a few soldiers to guard the mission. He asked the three priests to move to the presidio for safety, but they refused. Fathers Terreros, Miguel de Molina, and José de Santiesteban chose to remain at the mission.
Early on the morning of March 16, 1758, a mission guard “heard an outburst of Indian yells resembling their war cries when going into battle.” Firing their muskets, hostile natives began to surround the mission. The attackers got into the fortified area of the mission by shouting that they did not wish “to fight with the Spaniards, but only to maintain friendship with them; that they only wanted to kill Apaches, for whom they were searching.”
Fathers Terreros and Molina confronted the Comanches and their allies inside the mission gate. Molina “saw nothing but Indians on every hand, armed with guns. … Besides the paint on their faces, red and black, they were adorned with the pelts and tails of wild beasts, wrapped around them or hanging down from their heads, as well as deer horns. … All were armed with muskets, swords, and lances, … and [he] noticed also that they had brought with them some youths armed with bows and arrows, to train … them in their cruel and bloody way of life.”
In a dispute over his favorite horse, Father Terreros was shot to death, but Father Molina escaped. A second priest, Father Santiesteban, died within the chapel, and at some point his head was cut off. The Indians looted everything of value and killed a total of eight people. Then they set fire to the buildings and left the ruined mission.
Two days later, Ortiz Parrilla visited the ruins. The sights he saw were shocking. The Indians had scalped some victims, cut the heads off others, and gouged out some people’s eyes. They had even killed the mission cats and oxen, sparing only a few sheep. Mission Santa Cruz was never rebuilt. It was unique in being the only Texas mission destroyed by outright Indian attack.
After the disaster at San Sabá, Spain felt it had to punish the natives who destroyed the mission. Colonel Ortiz Parrilla was chosen to prepare a military expedition against the Comanches and their allies. While arrangements were underway, Indians “all armed with guns” raided the horse herd at San Sabá on March 30, 1759. The attackers killed twenty soldiers and stole more than seven hundred horses and mules. All of the victims died from bullet wounds. Since the Spanish could not legally sell firearms to the Indians, the muskets were almost certainly supplied by the French. The deadly events of March 30 only increased the Spaniards’ desire to let even the Indians in remote areas know that “they would not be secure from the long arm of Spanish vengeance.”
Later in 1759, don Diego with more than five hundred troops went from the San Saba River to the Red River. On October 7, he and his men fought a heated battle with Indians that lasted for several hours. The results were far from satisfactory. At Spanish Fort, near present-day Nocona, Texas, Spanish troops suffered their worst defeat in Texas’s history. Including dead, wounded, and missing, the colonel’s losses totaled fifty-two. He also lost two cannons and other equipment.
When he returned to San Sabá, Ortiz Parrilla blamed the failed campaign on the poor quality of the troops he led. Don Diego insisted that he, however, had served with “zeal [and] valor … in inflicting punishment on the enemy.” But words alone could not turn defeat into victory. In 1760 Ortiz Parrilla was removed from command at San Sabá. The new commandant would be the sinful scoundrel and suspected murderer, Felipe de Rábago y Terán.
By this time, don Felipe had been under house arrest and imprisonment for eight years, but he was still determined to free himself. Rábago was in the Monclova public jail when he filed an appeal for his freedom in 1759. He claimed that he had serious illnesses and needed to “repair his broken health.” The captain insisted that he had been innocent of the deaths of Father José Ganzabal and Juan José Ceballos.
Once again, Rábago blamed the murders at San Xavier on the Coco Indians. His lawyer attacked the testimony of the Indian Andrés, which had placed blame on presidial soldiers. The lengthy appeal declared that the Cocos had been seeking revenge against Ceballos for wounding their chief. Don Felipe’s attorney also pointed out that the accused soldiers were no longer available for punishment. One had died and the others had escaped. So the charges against Captain Rábago should be dropped.
A new viceroy, the Marqués de Cruillas, had recently arrived in Mexico City. In the summer of 1760, he ordered don Felipe, the soldiers, and Andrés cleared of all charges. The viceroy also appointed Rábago as commander at San Sabá, because the San Xavier garrison that had been moved there was don Felipe’s old command.
The Franciscan clergy protested the appointment. They remembered Rábago for his “bad conduct in the time he had served as commander of San Xavier.” Nevertheless, the Marqués de Cruillas ignored their protests. He was determined that don Felipe be in charge at San Sabá. In fairness to the viceroy and Rábago, the choice proved to be not that bad.
During the eight years that Rábago was under house arrest on suspicion of murder, the sinful captain had “a great change of heart.” Perhaps his lack of freedom gave him time to search his soul and change his evil ways. At any rate, he became committed to “the conversion of the natives [to Christianity] and their reduction to mission life.”
Upon gaining his freedom, Rábago had the good sense to avoid contact with his Franciscan enemies at San Antonio. As he traveled to his new post on the San Saba River, the captain blazed a new trail. Arriving in late September 1760, he found depressing conditions. The presidio had exactly one hundred soldiers. Most were disabled veterans, elderly soldiers, raw recruits, and “boys too young for military service.” None had adequate clothing or equipment.
Rábago used some of his own money to get supplies, weapons, and ammunition for his command. He also acquired several hundred horses. With his men properly equipped, the new captain turned his attention to the presidio itself. The wooden walls of the stockade were replaced with stone and encircled with a moat. Don Felipe thought that the remodeled fort looked like a castle, and he gave it a new name—Real Presidio (Royal Presidio) de San Sabá.
The commander also sent expeditions into the plains separating Texas and New Mexico. These increased knowledge of the geography and of the Native Americans in the region.
Rábago showed impressive skills in dealing with the Lipan Apaches. Several chiefs visited the presidio regularly. Whenever possible, don Felipe talked to them of his desire to set up missions for the Lipans. Apparently the Spanish captain wanted to make up for his sins against the Catholic Church at San Xavier.
Despite Rábago’s apparent sincerity about converting the natives, his efforts with the Lipans were his undoing. Once again, these Indians used Spaniards to achieve their own goals. The Lipan chieftains said that another mission at San Sabá was out of the question. That location was too close to their enemies’ war parties, as proven by the earlier attack on San Sabá. The chiefs argued that a mission farther south in safer lands was needed.
For food, the Apaches relied in part on rancherías, or temporary campsites. There they scratched out small fields and crude gardens. When it was time to plant or harvest crops, the Lipans’ enemies, especially the Comanches, knew exactly where to find them.
The Apaches asked Rábago to build a mission halfway between San Sabá and the Río Grande, a favorite site for their rancherías. The Indians hoped that the presidial soldiers would protect not only the religious outpost but Apache crops as well. Don Felipe, however, did not have authority to found missions anywhere except San Sabá. When he agreed to the request of the Lipan chiefs, the captain made a serious mistake.
In seeking a priest for the new mission, Rábago was wise not to approach the clergy at San Antonio, because the Franciscans there disliked him so much. So he asked Father Diego Jiménez at San Juan Bautista, located just south of the Río Grande, to take charge of the new mission enterprise. The priest accepted.
The new mission, San Lorenzo de Santa Cruz, required a guard of twenty men. This mission was barely started when the Lipans asked for a second one about ten miles to the south. Rábago again agreed to the Indians’ request and established Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria del Cañón. This meant taking ten more soldiers and even more supplies from San Sabá. San Lorenzo and Candelaria did attract some Lipan neophytes, mostly women and children. But the drain of men and supplies to the El Cañón missions, as the two outposts came to be called, weakened San Sabá.
Worse, the Lipans continued to engage in deceitful practices. When the Apaches raided Comanche camps, they again purposely left behind Spanish articles. The Lipans also attacked Spanish settlements and left Comanche belongings. This double-dealing caused the Comanches to be angry at the Spaniards for supplying the Apaches. And the Spaniards wrongly blamed the Comanches for raids carried out in fact by the Lipans. The Apaches’ devious actions, however, did not go undetected for long. It added to many complaints against these plains Indians, which later targeted them to be killed or sent to foreign lands.
Felipe de Rábago checks for signs of Indians (DRAWING BY JACK JACKSON)
At this moment, however, it was Rábago and his men who paid a high price for being friends with the Lipans. In five years, don Felipe spent more than twelve thousand pesos (dollars) on supplies, clothing, and livestock for the presidio. To make matters worse, the Comanches and their allies robbed about half of the supply trains. These natives also attacked Presidio de San Sabá, with some of the attacks lasting for two months. When Rábago asked Mexico City for help, his pleas were denied, because the viceroy was angry with don Felipe for founding the El Cañón missions without his permission.
In the spring of 1769, the presidio at San Sabá was under almost constant threat of attack by Comanches. The soldiers and their families dared not leave the fort to plant crops. Lack of healthful foods caused the residents to suffer terribly from a disease called scurvy. Rábago himself was covered with sores and had failing health.
The sickly captain also faced discontent from his soldiers. He became so desperate that he abandoned his post and relocated it at the site of Mission San Lorenzo. When the viceroy learned of this move, made without his permission, he ordered don Felipe back to San Sabá. The commander refused. Instead, he traveled to Coahuila, probably to buy supplies for his troops and the others stationed at the mission.
In April 1769, Felipe de Rábago learned that the viceroy had replaced him as commander at San Sabá. Don Felipe set out for Mexico City. He hoped to be repaid for the money he had spent supporting the presidio at San Sabá for nine years. The captain never completed his journey. Still in his mid-forties, Rábago died at San Luis Potosí in 1769.
The life of Felipe de Rábago is hardly the tale of a good man. His evil conduct at San Xavier corrupted his command and created tensions. That he personally ordered Ceballos and Ganzabal to be killed is unlikely. That he played a role, perhaps a serious one, in those events is possible. He probably complained about “meddling priests” and “that damned Ceballos.” Maybe his soldiers carried out the unspoken wishes of their captain on the night of the murders. Guilty or not, don Felipe spent eight years under suspicion and in disgrace. He apparently realized the error of his ways, and he emerged from that experience a changed man.
When given a second chance, Rábago attempted to correct his ways. In his command at San Sabá, don Felipe revealed a good heart but bad judgment. Even his enemies, the Franciscans, could find little wrong with his personal sacrifices and devotion to the Lipan Apaches. Is it not in the nature of priests to forgive those who repent? Perhaps in the end, Felipe de Rábago deserves sympathy for trying so hard to do good works and make up for his earlier sins.
Materials used in preparing this chapter are described below. You can find more information about these sources in the Bibliography at the end of the book.
The best treatments of the San Xavier missions are Gary B. Starnes’s The San Gabriel Missions, 1746–1756 and Carlos E. Castañeda’s Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519–1936, volume 3. For Rábago’s service at San Sabá, see Robert S. Weddle’s The San Sabá Mission: Spanish Pivot in Texas. Donald E. Chipman and Harriett Denise Joseph’s Notable Men and Women of Spanish Texas has a more detailed biographical sketch of Rábago.
Quotes are from the following sources: Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519–1936, volume 3; Juan Agustín Morfi, History of Texas, 1673–1779, translated and edited by Carlos E. Castañeda, volume 2; Robert S. Weddle, The San Sabá Mission: Spanish Pivot in Texas; Depositions of Andrés de Villareal and Father Fray Miguel de Molina, in The San Sabá Papers: A Documentary Account of the Founding and Destruction of the San Sabá Mission, edited by Lesley B. Simpson; Statement of Diego Ortiz Parrilla, March 30, 1759, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, México 1933A; Henry E. Allen, “The Parrilla Expedition to the Red River in 1759,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 43 (July 1939): 61; Merits and Services of Diego Ortiz Parrilla (May 3, 1770), Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Guadalajara 515; Statements Concerning Don Felipe de Rábago y Terán, Captain of the Presidio of Santa Rosa del Sacramento in Coahuila, 1759, Center for American History, Austin, Dunn Transcripts; Proceedings of the fiscal, April 20, 1761, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Guadalajara 368; and Statement of Felipe de Rábago on Review of Seventy-seven Men, October 15, 1760, Center for American History, Austin, Dunn Transcripts.