Fray Francisco Casañas de Jesús María (1656?–1696) was born in Barcelona, Spain to a high class family. He joined the Franciscan Monks and was one of the first members of the College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro, the first school in the New World to train missionaries, which was located in Mexico. After returning to Querétaro for a short time, Casañas de Jesús María resumed his missionary activities in 1689, this time among the Hasinai Caddo Indians of the Nuevo León frontier. His work met with little success so he returned to Querétaro and later accompanied Alonso De León on his fifth expedition to Texas, in 1690. Casañas aided in the establishment of the first missions in East Texas and was left at San Francisco de los Tejas Mission, the first Spanish mission in East Texas, by Fray Damián Massanet. Fray Francisco Casañas de Jesús María was killed by Apaches in 1696.
Source:
The Fray Francisco Casañas de Jesús María Report, 1691, includes a manuscript and photostatic copy of report on the Hasinai Caddo Indians by Fray Francisco Casañas de Jesus María.
An English translation is available in the Reading Room: Hatcher, Mattie Austin, “Description of the Tejas or Asinai Indians, 1691-1722, I,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 30 (1926/27): 206.
This collection is open for research use.
Fray Francisco Casañas de Jesús María Report, 1691, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
Forms part of the Spanish Materials from Various Sources Collection.
Basic processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with funds from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for the Briscoe Center’s “History Revealed: Bringing Collections to Light project,” 2009-2011.