Mission Tejas State Park
French colonists settled on the Texas coast in 1685. In response, the Spaniards built Mission San Francisco de los Tejas in a village of Caddo Indians in 1690. It was the first mission in the province of Texas. The Caddo blamed a smallpox epidemic that winter on the Spaniards and plotted to overthrow them. When the Spaniards discovered the plot in 1693, they burned the mission and retreated to Mexico. Spanish friars tried to rebuild the mission in 1716. But conflict between France and Spain led them to abandon it a few years later.
