Despite the meagerness of the Franciscan chronicles, the friars of this order are to be credited with making and recording one of the most noteworthy essays toward the subjugation of the Seri—an essay involving the first and last actual attempt to found a Caucasian establishment within Seriland proper. The ecclesiastical corps, sent out from Querétaro college under the presidency of Fray Mariano Antonio de Buena y Alcalde, reached Sonora early in 1768, and were distributed among the missions to which they were respectively assigned before the end of June; and Fray Mariano participated in the efforts to subdue the Seri ensconced in Cerro Prieto. After some months of apparently nominal siege, the hostiles straggled out of their retreat, whereupon “the governor, seeing them assembled and peaceful, besought the friar to instruct and baptize them”;[129] the friar promptly acquiesced, with the provision that he should be furnished with the requisite appurtenances of a mission, including not only a church and sacred ornaments, but a house and living for a resident minister. The requirements delayed procedure, but resulted in the appointment of Fray Juan Crisóstomo Gil de Bernabe (already designated by the Querétaro college as Fray Mariano’s successor) to take charge of the Seri mission. “The new president, desiring to gratify his proper zeal and the insistence of the governor as to the need of those miserable Indians for the bread of doctrinism”, obtained candles and wine from private benefactors, and, despite his inability to find even a hut for shelter, established a sanctuary in the Rancheria de los Seris (Pueblo Seri) on November 17, 1772: [129] Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica del Colegio de Propaganda Fide de la Santa Cruz de Querétaro en la Nueva España ... escrita por el Padre Fray Juan Domingo Arricivita, 2ª parte, Mexico, 1792, p. 426. It was impossible to satisfy the ambition of the missionaries to catechize all the Indians, because, although the whole nation was peaceable, no small portion of them were devoid of desire to hear doctrinism, as many of them had withdrawn to their ancient lurking haunts, principally on Isla Tiburon, whence they came to the Presidio Horcasitas, making false displays to the governor of great fidelity and obedience, petitioning that they should not be taken from the island, but should be given a minister to baptize them the same as those at Pitic; and they did not wish to join those nor to leave the rocky fastness of their libertinage and asylum of their crimes.... To conceal their purposes, they petitioned that a town for them should be established on the opposite coast, where they might assemble on leaving the island. Their request was embarrassing because on examination of the coast there was found only a single scanty spring in a carrizal in a playa-like country [toda la tierra como de playa], with little fuel and no timber.