INDEX TO THE BAPTISMAL REGISTERS OF REVILLA 1751-1803

When the fall of 1750 was struggling to overtake the brutal summer of heat and drought, Don Miguel Martínes, experienced soldier and leader, guided his and thirteen other families to a ford on the Salado river near its confluence with "el Río del Norte." A few weeks after, the newly commissioned captain without pay, Don Vicente Guerra, guided his and twenty-five other families along with eight families of servants that were not officially listed to this pre-arranged location. This land had belonged to Guerra’s father, Juan Guerra Cañamar. The elder Guerra had started his illustrious military career as a young soldier in the company of Alonso de León during the great entrada into Texas in 1689. His good leadership and exemplary service to the crown was rewarded by various promotions. His career was eventually capped by serving as the alcalde mayor and capitan a guerra of the Villa de San Gregorio de Cerralvo beginning in the fall of 1705. At the time of his death in the winter of 1718, Captain Guerra had owned this land for an agostadero. This land as well as his other possessions were passed on to his descendents.

Perhaps because Captain Guerra’s children were still minors when he died, this agostadero remained unused. It was not until sometime between 1743 and 1745 that Guerra’s son-in-law, Nicolás de la Garza established a ranch there. Nearby, Don Bernabe Gutíerrez de Lara and "six or seven other vecinos" had moved there sometime between 1747 and 1748 to get away from the "tyranny of the alcabalas." About the same time, Don José Báez Benavides, a rancher from Sabinas, and his five brothers established a ranch nearby on the banks of the Rio Grande. When Nicolás de la Garza died in 1749, Antonio Tabares, a Tlaxcaltecan Indian originally from Queretaro, approached de la Garza’s widow, Doña Josefa Guerra, to ask permission to establish a ranch on their land. Tabares was granted permission and he established a small ranch with a "chinchorro" of goats and a small herd of sheep on the river ford known as El Paso de los Moros.

So that fall of 1750, forty families from the Nuevo Reyno de León trekked across parched lands with their few possessions and their herds to start a new life. They came without any aid from the crown, nor any other enticement than that of freedom of taxation for the next ten years. Their’s was the conquest that had begun in 1521 and was still going on. Through the years their character had been tempered by harsh weather and arid lands, disciplined by constant and serious indian hostilities. These pioneers composed of Spanish, mulato and mestizo stocks were hardy, self-reliant, foresighted and able to use ingenuity and expend vast energies.

Isolated by the mountain ranges and vast distances from central authority with an economy based on ranching and farming, the inhabitants of these northern provinces had indeed developed, by the mid-eighteenth century, a new character. This character, a truly American character, composed of individualism, self-reliance, honesty and ability to do hard work; accustomed to major privations and suffering and resentful of central authority was altogether the antithesis from that possessed by the people of the central valleys of Mexico. These northern pioneers would be described as "every citizen a worker, every worker a soldier, and every soldier a hero." It is with this kind of people that Revilla was settled.

Among these pioneers were the friars. They had come to convert the indigenous people of the land and at the same time administer to the spiritual needs of the pioneers. They were there to welcome the newborn into the community, they were there to give blessings to the departed ones. They were the scribes and keepers of the sacramental books. We owe them our unending gratitude for their record-keeping, for without their books we could not have this mirror into which we view to acquaint ourselves with our ancestors.

That fall of 1750, the settlers of Revilla were without benefit of priest. The ecclesiastical needs of the few families that had predated the founding of Revilla had been ministered by the Boca de Leones and Sabinas curate. A request was made to father fray Ignacio Antonio Ciprian, Guardian of the Apostolic College of Zacatecas for a missionary. The good father responded by assigning one of two missionaries previously assigned to Soto la Marina and Santander. In the summer of 1751, a summer that continued the drought of the past two years, a few of the settlers traveled to Camargo to greet their own pastor and guide him to Revilla. He was the elderly and hard-of-hearing father fray Buenaventura de Rivera. Father Buenaventura de Rivera originally had been with the proposed settlers of Vedoya—a still-born settlement on the Nueces River. With him he brought the necessary paper, quills and ink to start the sacramental registers of Villa de San Ignacio de Loyola de Revilla. On Thursday, July 22, 1751, father Buenaventura baptised his first child of this community. Of what was to become act one, in page one of book one of the baptismal register, he scratched on the paper with his quill and ink —"...baptisé solemnemente, y puse los santos oleos y chrisma a un ynfante...aquien puse por nombre Juan Silverio Galván..."An so began the spiritual record of the people of Revilla.

Sometime in 1752, the captain of the villa, Vicente Guerra, died. With his death and continued cycles of drought, high infant mortality and other hardships, the village was abandoned my many of Guerra's settlers and almost failed. The remaining villagers elected Miguel Martínes as interim captain. Captain Martínes and the good father were able to hold the village together until 1753 when a new infusion of settlers came to Revilla mostly from Cerralvo, Cadereyta and Sabinas. They had been recruited by Don José Báez Benavides who was subsequently made captain of the villa. In 1754, father Buenaventura was replaced by father fray Miguel de Santa Maria de los Dolores. Father Santa Maria de los Dolores would serve the people as pastor for the next thirteen years.

The good friars and secular priests that performed the baptismal rites for this period are listed below along with the period they served.

Fr. Buenaventura de Rivera Bernárdez	22 July 1751—Oct. 1754
Fr. Miguel de Sta Maria de los Dolores	17 Oct 1754—Feb 1767
Fr. Joseph Antonio Arratival	Feb 1767—Apr 1770
Fr. Francisco G. Perez	substituted during Nov 1768
Fr. Juan Manuel de la Parra	Apr 1770—Apr 1777
Fr. Francisco Antonio Rochel	Apr 1777—20 Aug 1779
Fr. Pedro Maldonado y Zapata	29 Sep 1779—2 Nov 1781
Fr. Juan Manuel de la Parra	Nov 1781—Nov 1788
Fr. José de Herrera	27 Nov 1788—Oct 1791
Br. José Leonardo Sanchez Navarro	substituted Jan, July, and Dec 1789
Fr. Manuel Tavares y Pinto	Oct 1791—Nov 1791
Br. José Leonardo Sanchez Navarro	assists Nov 1791 and takes over
	Dec 1791—Nov 1794
Br. José Antonio Zepeda	assists ailing Sanchez Navarro Oct 1794
Br. José Cayetano Gonzalez de Hermosillo	Dec 1794—1806

During this fifty-five year period there were three ecclesiastical visits to Revilla. In 1770, Licenciado Don Lino Nepomuceno Gomez, ecclesiastical judge for the Villa de San Esteban Panuco, Puerto de San Luis Tampico and Colonia del Nuevo Santander made the first visit to the village. On 3 February 1781, Dr. Antonio de Bustamante y Bustillo, governor of the new bishopric of Linares made his visit. The last visit during this period was accomplished by Fr. Gaspar Gonzalez de Candamo, governor and capitular vicar for the bishopric.

The Index