Mission Espada was first founded in East Texas and was named San Francisco de los Tejas, in 1690. On March 5, 1731, it was relocated near the San Antonio River because of fevers, floods, enemies and limited supplies. It was then renamed San Francisco de la Espada. Members of this community strove to make life in the mission community to resemble life in the Spanish villages.
In order to keep their livestock and crops healthy, they needed to find a way to get enough water from the San Antonio River to their mission. To solve their problem, they created an acequia system. The acequias are the construction of seven gravity flow ditch systems. Mission Espada was known to have the best acequia system. Along the dam, they made trench gates every so often, so that if they wanted to water a certain field, all they had to do was close the trench gate that was closest to the field and wait for the water to rise up over the gate and the side of the dam and flood the field.
Today, the only standing buildings left at the mission site is the school and the chapel. There is still the outline of bricks and stones where the other buildings stood at one point. I had a great time while on the field trip to Mission Espada. It was very interesting to hear all the stories about the Native Americans living there and how much different their life was from ours today. Not only was it interesting to hear about all those stories, it was even more exciting to be able to be there at the exact spot where their everyday lives went on.
No comments:
Post a Comment