San Antonio remained a small, marginal settlement that subsisted on agriculture, ranching, and trade with the native peoples and merchants from other parts of New Spain. Lincoln Map Apache and Comanche raids hurt the settlement for years and prevented expansion.
Native hostilities continued until the Comanche peace of 1786 brought relative peace to the area and allowed for some expansion. The missions began secularization in the late eighteenth century, and most became parish churches. Another important mission field, presidio, and settlement in present-day Texas was at Goliad. In 1722, the Spanish founded the presidio Nuestra Se±ora de Loreto and mission Espritu Santo de Zu±iga, known as La Baha. The Spanish did not consider this area part of Texas, but it was the main entryway from Mexico to the Texas settlements.
The Spanish also tried but failed to establish missions and forts among Tonkawas in the 1740s and among the Lipn Apaches at the San Sab River in the 1750s. The Apaches would not stay at Mission Santa Cruz de San Sab, and within a year, in 1758, Comanches and other Apache enemies destroyed the mission. Meanwhile, the East Texas settlements were barely surviving. In 1773, the Crown ordered East Texas settlers to move to San Antonio. The settlers petitioned to move back to East Texas, and under Antonio Gil Ybarbo, they eventually settled Nacogdoches. The East Texas settlements continued to have close ties to Louisiana.
