Benito Fernández y Rana de Santa Ana (June 4, 1707 – March or April 1761) was a

Franciscan friar The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest contem ...

who served as president of the Texas missions of the

College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro The College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro was a Franciscan missionary college, or seminary, in New Spain. It was located in present-day Querétaro, Querétaro, Mexico, and was the second Roman Catholic missionary college in the New World to train mis ...

from 1734 to 1750 and played an important role in the early history of the

Alamo Mission in San Antonio The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event and military engagement in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alam ...

. Born in , on June 4, 1707, he joined the Franciscan order and was ordained in 1731. He was despatched later that year to the San Antonio de Valero Mission in Texas, later known as the Alamo. At San Antonio, he helped to resolve disputes within the local Spanish community and brokered a peace with the

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

, who had been repeatedly attacking the mission. Santa Ana was an opponent of the

enslavement Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

of the Apache and believed that they could be peacefully induced to settle in the missions. In 1745, he personally convinced Viceroy

Pedro Cebrián y Agustín Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for ''Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter. The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning ...

to rescind a decree permitting the employment of

mission Indians Mission Indians was a term used to refer to the Indigenous peoples of California who lived or grew up in the Spanish mission system in California. Today the term is used to refer to their descendants and to specific, contemporary tribal nations ...

by farms in San Antonio. Santa Ana fell ill in February 1750 and retired from the presidency of the missions. He died in March or April 1761.

References

1707 births 1761 deaths Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries Spanish Franciscans 18th-century Mexican people People from San Antonio People from O Ribeiro {{Texas-bio-stub