San Antonio Mission San Jose

© Christine Till... more

by Alexandra Till

Title

San Antonio Mission San Jose

Artist

Alexandra Till

Medium

Photograph - Photographs - Prints - Digital Images - Cards - Posters - Photo-calendars - Photo Art

Description

© Christine Till
Known as the "Queen of the Missions", the Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo is the largest of the 5 missions in San Antonio, TX.

Spanish missions were not churches, but communities, with the church the focus. Mission San José shows the visitor how all the missions might have looked over 250 years ago. Founded in 1720, the mission was built on the banks of the San Antonio river several miles to the south of the earlier mission, San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo). The mission was to acquaint the Indians with Christian teaching, European values, and vocational skills and to convert them to useful citizens of the empire. Many were glad to have the protection of the mission compounds. European-borne diseases, however, took a heavy toll on the native mission occupants.

In the closing years of the 18th-century, Spain’s military and economic interests in northern frontier waned, and support for the missions was withdrawn. In San Antonio, all five missions were secularized by the turn of the century. With the departure of the last Franciscan, Father José Antonio Díaz de Léon, in 1824, San José Mission was formally closed after more than a century of service. Beginning about 1813, troops were stationed intermittently at the mission. They caused considerable damage.

Much of what is visible today at Mission San José was reconstructed in the 1930s. The mission grounds were declared a national and state historical site in 1941 and operated by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department from 1941 to 1983. On November 10, 1978, San José Mission became part of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.

Uploaded

June 1st, 2014