About the start of the city of san antonio. We are at the entrance to mission san jose. This is part of the San Antonio MissionNational Historic park. This is a unit of the National Park service. There are more than 400 National Park sites around the country. Each of these 419plus units help to tell some part of the american story. The part of the american story that we tell here at the San Antonio Missions is the Spanish Colonial history of this area, of this part of the world. Mission san jose is one of four missions that make up the National Park. The National Park is comprised of mission conception, san juan and espata. We have a model of mission san jose. This is a model that exterior walls. The exterior walls were a series of rooms that served as a living quarters for the mission inhabita inhabitants. The Mission Compound also in the colonial period, anyway, would have included other buildings, workshops. Today we see remnants of foundations for some of those buildings. Of course, the mission would have included the church and the friary. What were going to do is were going to walk towards the church and talk a little bit more about what these missions were all about. So here were standing in the convento or friary. This is where the missionaries would have had their living quarters, offices, classrooms would have been here. So its a structure thats behind the church. And of course today its missing the roof and the second floor. This would have been a twostory structure. But you can still really see the artistry that went into these buildings. And the whole idea behind these missions was to claim this land for spain. And by doing that, or by establishing spanish colonies here, they are hoping to claim this land for spain. They had started to get nervous with the french that were showing up in what is today louisiana. And while spain had been in what is today mexico for 200 years prior to their establishing these missions here, they hadnt really had much interest in establishing these missions until they started to feel that pressure from france in what is today louisiana. They established some missions out there in what is today east texas and established these missions here to serve as a kind of rest stop for travelers that were going from the provintial capital in northern mexico. That was a long way to go to those east texas missions. They established these missions here to serve as a rest stop for travelers. The National Park service maintains the grounds, the other Historic Structures and the Visitors Center and so forth, but the Church Building itself, because it is still an active parish is maintained not by the National Park service but by the archdiocese. It is still an active church. Because today we do abide by the separation of park and church the National Park service does not maintain the Church Buildings. Another thing about the structure of the church, these walls would have been covered with these amazing frescos. If we come around the corner here, we can see a segment of that fresco that has been reproduced here on the wall. And this is a reproduction. Its done in the 1940s, 1950s the thereabouts. While it is not original, the design and the colors are original. So, if you can imagine, all of these walls here would have been covered with frescos. And a fresco is this wall decoration where the colors the pigments are applied to the plaster when the plaster is still wet, still fresh, still fresco. And so, it was that meant that they were working on just a small segment at a time. Apply the plaster, apply the pigment and go on to the next section. Yeah. So it was that had to have been something to see when all of these flat surfaces would have been covered with frescos like this. So here we are at the aqua duct for the mission esecia the irrigation canal. It was this whole system of bringing water from the San Antonio River to the farm fields at the different missions. The San Antonio River was a source, a plentiful source of good water that was really important, necessary, for the kind of farming that they were doing here. Theyre irrigating, and that farming was how they were going to provide food and resources for the mission inhabitants. And this particular structure carried the water for the Mission Espada canal across this creek. This creek is a low spot in the landscape and since these are built following the contours of the land, the way they could get water from one side of the creek to the other was by building this aquaduct. Theres evidence of human habitation in this area going back 10,000 years. And so, for most of that time the Indigenous People of this area were surviving. Were doing well. But there started to be some changes that affected their ability to make a living. When european arrived in north america, they brought with them horses. Other indigenous groups, the apache and the comanche and other groups took those horses and became some of the best horse people that the world had ever seen. What that meant for them was those groups the apache and comanche could expand their territory and could live in very large groups. They were also quite aggressive, much more aggressive than were the groups that were in this area. They eventually came into this area and so the apache caused some pretty serious problems. They were raiding and kidnapping and so forth. But much bigger problem than that was a problem of diseases. Diseases that had been brought by europeans that were devastating, that wiped out huge portions of the population. All over the americas for the groups that tended to live in pretty small groups, maybe they tended to live in really small groups a couple dozen or so at a time and so these for these groups that maybe at their peak would maybe have 20, 25, 30 people but then would get wiped out by disease, would get others would get kidnapped by apache and other groups. And so you might end up with just a handful of individuals. And into that situation come these strangers, the missionaries, who say you come with us and youll have enough to eat and well protect you from the apache. You come with us, youll survive, youll find salvation. And so the groups thought about that. And most of them said, no thanks. Well figure it out. Well figure it out for ourselves. But for some, coming into the missions was a means of survival. Coming into the missions was about surviving and maybe finding a way for their children and their offspring to survive and to persist. It was a difficult decision to come into the missions. But it was one that quite often was made from desperation. When were talking about the story of the missions, honestly its about this whole region of the country where the spanish influence today continues, where we see that not only in language and food and culture, but in the very persons who make up the population here. That spanish influence is something that continues to persist. That is really central to our identity, certainly here in san antonio. So these missions are our story and not just something from long ago. Our citys tour staff recently traveled to san antonio, texas, to learn about its rich history. To watch more video from san antonio and other stops on our tour, visit cspan. Org citiestour. Youre watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend on cspan3. Were featuring American History tv programs this week as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, from our lectures and history series, well do an academic tour of texas. Our Lone Star State night starts with gene allen smith a Texas Christian University history professor teaching about George Washingtons character. He examines how the first president interacted with his contemporaries. American history tv tonight starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Coming up on American History tv on cspan3, lectures from history professors. Up first a look at myths and legends about the white house. Then a conversation about William Randolph hearst. Malcolm xs views on africa. Later, Women Leaders of the 1960s civil rights movement. American history tv products are now available at the new cspan online store. Go to cspanstore. Org to see whats new for American History it have and check out all of the cspan products. Up next, American University lecturer Matthew Costello teaches a class on white house myths. The class looks at the truth of popular stories like a secret tunnel system a gift alligator, how decorating traditions began and Dolly Madison rescuing George Washingtons portrait. All right. So todays topic white house myths and popular culture. You probably have come across these things multiple times, whether youre researching things on the internet, maybe you even came across them as you were doing research for your papers in this class, but there are a number of stories that just continue to get circulated and circulated and perpetuated. What i like is you get to not only debungt these things but you get to try to figure out where they really started and why people grew so attached to them because that also tells you a little more about how people understand the past and how they use it or misuse. So remember earlier in the semester we talked about the jackson magnolia. In fact, i think a number of you went into detail aboute