Mission San Sabá

Following the initial discovery of the mission in September of 1993, Grant Hall, Kay Hindes, and Mark Wolf organized a testing program funded by the Texas Historical Foundation, the Lende Foundation, and Bob and Kathleen Gilmore. Testing of the site was done in late 1993 and early 1994 by Hall, with the assistance of students from Texas Tech University and various archeological colleagues. Spanish Colonial expert Anne Fox from the University of Texas at San Antonio lined up a group of metal detector operators, all members of the Southern Texas Archeological Association. Led by Tommy Tomesal, this group used the detectors very productively to locate a number of musketballs, nails, brass artifacts, and other Spanish artifacts across the mission site. The location of each item was carefully plotted on a map.

Test excavations scattered around the site revealed that much of the original soil deposits and land surface upon which the mission was built had been cut away or churned up by farming activities on the land from about 1900 up to the present. At first we feared that all signs of the mission had been completely destroyed by plowing. Fortunately, as testing progressed, we began to find stains representing the posts used to build the mission stockade, church, and other buildings. These stains, consisting of ash, charcoal, and burned soil, marked the spots where wooden posts had burned down into the ground. The wood itself was gone, but the ash and charcoal showed where each post had been, and gave us its approximate diameter.

The test excavations carried out in 1993 and 1994 verified that the site was indeed that of Mission San Sabá. Though heavily damaged by plowing, there was still buried evidence in Judge Lyckman's alfalfa field that could tell a good bit about the configuration of the mission. But this would require a major excavation and that meant we needed support. This is often the most difficult obstacle to overcome for archeologists undertaking pure research projects and it is something many people don't understand. Major archeological investigations, even if done with the assistance of volunteers and students, are time-consuming and costly. A proper investigation involves a lot more than digging. It takes specialists in many fields working before, during, and after the excavation. And the responsibility of the lead investigator is not completed until a full scientific report is published.

1997 Dig

In 1997, with funding from the Summerlee Foundation and other benefactors, Texas Tech archeologists returned to the mission for a full-scale excavation. Once again the team included a mix of professional archeologists, students, and volunteers. Realizing the upper soil deposits were churned by farming, the decision was made to use a small trackhoe to strip off the disturbed soil. Once this "plow zone" was removed, we quickly were able to locate and excavate the post stains and features lying beneath. This approach proved to be very effective in exposing roughly 100 post stains and about 30 archeological features. Along the south side of the field, a narrow strip of the original ground surface was preserved, protected by a fence line. There, careful hand excavations took place.

The post stains, when plotted out on a map, revealed a trapezoidal outline shape to the mission stockade, with the broad end to the west. This side was about 160 feet in length. The north wall, clearly visible, was about 130 feet in length. The east and south walls of the stockade were not as easy to make out. However, we speculate that the east wall was shorter than the west, and ran parallel to it. The south wall was probably the same length as the north wall.

Within the stockade, we found post stains that we think represent the church. These defined a building oriented with the long axis east-west, having dimensions of roughly 35 by 50 feet. The belief that this was the church is supported by the fact that it was out in front of the traces of other, smaller buildings. Lead musket balls were concentrated around it, consistent with the stand that Juan Leal and the other survivors made in the church. The Indians appear to have fired many musket shots at the defenders within the church. Another find was that of an empty grave at the west end of the stains representing the church. All that was found in this grave were a human finger bone, a couple of teeth, and a number of green-glass seed beads. We assume that the body the grave once contained was disinterred and removed to another location following the 1758 attack.

Along the south wall, on the inside of the stockade, were post stains representing at least five small buildings. The largest measured about 14 feet in width and 20 feet in length. These were probably the house of the priests and soldiers, storerooms, and kitchens. All in all, the archeological findings at the mission suggest that the depiction of the mission in the Terreros mural is fairly accurate.

In addition to the empty grave associated with the church, there was another particularly interesting feature found in what would have been the northwest corner of the stockade. This was a pit that contained quite a few oxen bones, horns, and horn cores. The survivors of the attack said that the Indians killed all of the livestock at the mission. Later, they roasted and ate the meat of the oxen. We think this pit containing the oxen bones was the barbeque pit where the Indians did their cooking to celebrate their victory.

Amid the bones in the barbeque pit, we made a most unexpected and unusual discovery—that of a small gold-plated brass pocket sundial bearing the date 1580, some 177 years before the sacking of the mission. This artifact is one of the earliest scientific instruments of its type—a universal equinoctial sundial. This sundial was once part of a two-part navigational instrument. The missing part is a compass upon which the sundial sat. How this specialized and rare item found its way to Mission San Sabá and into the pit with the cattle bones is a complete mystery. It was obviously a heirloom item, one that must have belonged to a well-to-do person. Given its striking appearance, it seems odd that the Indians didn't carry it off. Perhaps it was lost amid the celebration.

Another mystery remains concerning the mission. When the Spanish soldiers returned to the scene of death and destruction several days after the attack, they buried the two priests and several other men who had been killed and burned in the Holy Ground by the church. These graves still have not been found. A couple of explanations come to mind. Since the bodies were badly decomposed, the graves may have been dug quickly and were therefore shallow. They may well have been destroyed by farming in the twentieth century. A second possibility is that the bodies were later disinterred from the graves and taken to the San Sabá Presidio cemetery, or perhaps back to Mexico. This latter explanation is consistent with the finding of the emptied grave and seems the most likely.

The Indians who attacked the San Sabá Mission in 1758 were unusual for their time in that they were equipped with firearms, swords, armor and other European weapons. They obtained these from the French, who then occupied Louisiana and had hopes of taking over Spanish territory in Texas, in exchange for buffalo, deer, and other hides and furs. The French knew that the Indians would use the firearms against the Spaniards. When the Indians attacked the mission, it was the first time that the Spaniards had come up against a force of Native Americans armed with muskets. The many lead musket balls found at the mission were concentrated in the area of the site where the church had been. This was the building where Juan Leal and the other survivors had held out until nightfall, when they escaped the burning mission and made it to the safety of the presidio. It is easy to imagine the Indians circling the church (at a safe distance, because Juan Leal and the others were firing their muskets at the Indians) and firing musket shots into its walls in hopes of killing the Spaniards within.