In the vast panorama of colonial American government, Martín Enríquez de Almansa, Señor de Valderrábano, must be ranked among the most effective, intelligent, and conscientious governors sent to this hemisphere by Spanish monarchs. As fourth viceroy of Mexico (1568–1580) and sixth of Peru (1581–1583), Enríquez was of that distinguished official company—Mendoza, La Gasca, Toledo—which consolidated the loyalty of Spain’s Indies during a critical period of separatist pressures. Though often damned as a cantankerous character and handicapped by advanced age and poor health, Martín Enríquez firmly grasped and stubbornly held the reins of monarchical prestige, giving a restive Mexico twelve years of solid training in toeing the mark of viceregal authority. His twenty-two months in Lima, with death at his elbow, can be considered, at the least, a valuable “breather” which helped lessen irritations growing out of Toledo’s dynamic performance. And it was no small achievement that Martín Enríquez stayed in viceregal office so long during such critical years; this in itself points to an unusual personality, meriting investigation. But there is, of course, much more in the Enríquez story.

For early North America and particularly its first creative writers (to 1831), William Robertson (1721–1793) seems to have been the chief source for all things pertaining to the Spanish in the New World. King’s chaplain, principal of the University of Edinburgh, and historiographer-royal of Scotland, Robertson achieved world-wide fame with his histories of Scotland, the reign of Charles V, and with A History of America. Of this last, the first eight books, published in 1777, dealt with the discovery of the western hemisphere and the conquests of Mexico and Peru.

These eight books furnished North America’s nationalist and early romantic writers, the epic poets of the late eighteenth century, and the romantic poets, novelists, and dramatists, even historians, writing into the early nineteenth with facts to be developed into Hispanic themes. One is led to suspect, moreover, that Robertson not only provided facts but, what may be more important, guided North America’s interpretation of them and the themes in the light of the popular fancies of the heroic Columbus, the “black legend,” and the “noble savage.”

Fray Antonio Margil was not the leader of the first group of missionaries to enter Texas. The entrada of which he was a member did not occur until 1716. However, previous to this, there had been only one serious attempt at permanent occupation of Texas by missionaries. This had occurred in 1690. The Spanish claim to Texas antedates this attempt at occupation by almost a hundred and fifty years. In order to present the work of Fray Antonio Margil with’ greater clarity, it will be well to show its exact position in the history of the territory by summarizing here the history of the occupation of Texas previous to the work of Fray Antonio.

No tourist who visits central Mexico will fail to pay a visit to the world-famous lake of Pátzcuaro. This beautiful and placid lake, with the several islands which dot its surface and the surrounding hills that frame it, formed, in olden times, the hub of the Michoacán Kingdom. Even today, it is the main habitat of the peaceloving Tarascan Indians who cluster around it and, partly at least, live on its abundant fish. An ancient author tells us that the word Michoacán means “fishing place,” and that the main occupation of the early Indians was the mild art of fishing, so opposed to the war-like activities of their neighbors to the east, the cruel Aztecs.