USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Because of the 500 mile journey from east Texas to the Rio Grande, the Spanish needed a settlement midway between New Spain and the missions. Spanish officials chose a site on the San Antonio River to build the presidio San Antonio de Bexar in 1718.

Detailed explanation-2: -A presidio protected a mission. Presidios were forts that offered safety from unfriendly American Indians. They also helped control the American Indians in the missions. Soldiers from the presidio caught American Indians who ran away from the mission.

Detailed explanation-3: -T or F San Juan Bautista’s location near the Rio Grande and important crossings into Louisiana made it a strategic location. False, San Juan Bautista’s location near the Rio Grande and important crossings into Texas made it a strategic location.

Detailed explanation-4: -Spain’s primary goals in establishing a settlement in San Antonio were to provide travelers “an intermediate point on the long route between… [the missions]…in eastern Texas and those on the Rio Grande” and to provide defense “against any further French designs on the Matagorda Bay region” (Hoffman 1935: 4).