 San Antonio, and in 1742, along with Toribio de Urrutia, he started a campaign against the Apache Indians.
1743 Ray Whitehouse
In 1743, a prominent Spanish priest living near present-day Mission Concepcion wrote a letter to the viceroy of New Spain. Father Benito Ferníçndez de Santa Ana wrote that his Apache informants had encountered a small group of Comanche Indians who were badly outnumbered but refused to surrender or retreat. The Apaches decided to kill all but one Comanche and sent him back as a warning to stay away from San Antonio. Led by the lone survivor, the Comanches returned to attack the village, successfully supplanting the Apaches as the most dominant tribe in the area.
1745 Joe Raymond Vega
1745 was the year that the historic Espada Acequia was completed, a canal system used to bring water from the San Antonio River to the Missions and irrigate crops. The construction and operation of the Acequias was supervised by the Franciscan Friars and labor was completed by native slaves and Spanish soldiers.
I wanted to create an interactive piece that reflects the trauma of genocide and forced labor. The audio samples I generated, as well as working in the key of D-flat Major, help the listener envision an eerie, foreboding environment. I was also inspired to include nostalgic Cicada songs, to give a glimpse of the outdoors in San Antonio in 1745, connecting Then to Now.
Lastly, for me, it is imperative that the viewer engage with my piece by directly communicating with the machines.
1746 Karen Mahaffy
.79 caliber hand-cast lead ball, 5.85 drams (160 grains) black gunpowder, hand-cut cotton shot patch, glass shell vial, custom brass bracket; archival inkjet prints: reproduction of letter dated March 11, 1746 by Manuel Ramírez de la Piszina, Bexar Archives, [identifier number: di_11170, di_11171], The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin; and translation; reclaimed longleaf pine.
½ arroba of gunpowder = 12.5 pounds
1 pound = 7000 grains = 256 drams
1 dram = 27 11/32 grains
Rifles use 1 to 2 grains per caliber of bore size.
Prior to the development of the Spanish M1752 musket, the Spanish arquebus (or harquebus) ranged in caliber between .79-.90.
.80 caliber rifle would use upwards of 160 grains or 5.85 drams
½ arroba = 87,500 grains = 546 shots
1747 Tyler Rutherford
The background image is a detail of the north side of the Espada Aqueduct and the foreground image is a map of the missions of San Antonio by Luis Antonio Menchaca published in 1764.
1748 Connie Swann
If you wanted the most vivid color of red in 1748, you had to harvest an insect that lived on only two species of cactus native to south Texas and the New World. The Aztecs called it nocheztli. The Spanish called it cochinilla.
Cochineal red was a highly desired export to the Old World, second to silver, for almost 300 years. It wasn’t until the fall of the Spanish empire in the Americas that cochineal started its decline while production began to flourish in the Canary Islands.
Inspired by the indigenous color of our region, locally sourced cochineal was utilized for this work.
1749 Joe Harjo
This performance print records a contemporary Native American Indian, myself, carrying out the act of standing, breathing and simply existing, creating a dialog between indigenous peoples, both past and present. The span of time described in the title references the millennia of Native habitation versus the relatively brief 300 years of forced assimilation including loss of language, religion, culture, identity, and life.
1750 Katie Pell
San Fernando cathedral, completed in 1750. Part of the history, not the beginning nor the end.
1751 Noël Bella Merriam
Our Lady of Candelaria is the patroness of the Canary Islands. It is said that her statue washed ashore on the island of Tenerife in 1392. The aboriginal Guanche people of the island associated this medieval sculpture of a beautiful, dark-sinned woman with their goddess Chaxiraxi and worshiped her in a cave. When the Spanish Isleños (Canary Islanders) built San Fernando Cathe