San Antonio Missions
In our quest to visit all the National Parks and Monuments, we discovered one in our own back yard that also boasts a biking trail. The San Antonio Missions Historic Park is a string of Missions built in the early 1700s along the San Antonio river. These missions were built by the Spanish to manage the territory, convert the Indians to Catholicism, and provide a base for commerce and trade.
The park consists of five missions, counting the famous Alamo in downtown San Antonio. The other 4 follow the river downstream and are each about 5 miles apart. They are named Concepcion, San Jose, San Juan, and Espada. The missions are connected by a lovely bike trail that follows the river.
We biked to three of the connecting missions along the San Antonio River.
 |
| Mission San Jose |
 |
| Mission San Juan |
 |
| del la Espada Mission |
At the visitors center located at Mission San Jose we learned about the native people who lived in south Texas. One interesting fact about the Indian population in this area was that instead of one or two dominant tribes there were 30 or more small tribes. This made it very difficult for them to mount a defense against the Spaniards. When these missions were built, they brought in Indians from all these tribes to live and work within the missions.
We had a great time discovering and touring the sister missions of the Alamo and enjoyed a great biking trip as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment