History of the College of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas
Published: 1952
Updated: August 4, 2020
The College of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas, a Franciscan missionary college, was established under the auspices of the College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro after several requests by the people of Zacatecas, some as early as 1686. The royal decree approving the college was issued on January 27, 1704, and arrived in Mexico in 1706. Antonio Margil de Jesús, president of the newly established college, arrived in Zacatecas to take charge of his assignment in January 1707. Missionaries from the college entered Texas for the first time with Domingo Ramón's expedition in 1716. In 1772 the college received the Texas missions previously administered by the College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro at the request of the latter. The final transfer papers of the mission field were in the hands of the viceroy on March 10, 1773. The Zacatecan missions founded in Texas were Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Ais, San Miguel de Linares de los Adaes, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches, Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga, Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Nuestra Señora del Refugio, Nuestra Señora de la Luz, and San José y San Miguel de Aguayo. The college also did the initial missionary work along the lower Rio Grande between Laredo and the Gulf of Mexico between 1749 and 1766.
Bibliography:
Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas (7 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1936–58; rpt., New York: Arno, 1976). Herbert Eugene Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1915; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970).
Time Periods:
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Anonymous, “College of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed May 19, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/college-of-nuestra-senora-de-guadalupe-de-zacatecas.
TID:
IWCDS
- 1952
- August 4, 2020
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