A Reconsideration of the Survey of the Villa de San Fernando de Béxar in 1731

When the Villa de San Fernando de Bexar was founded next to the Presidio de San Antonio de Bexar in 1731, Juan Antonio Perez de Almazan prepared a clear narrative for laying out the plaza and streets, distributing town lots to the new residents, and surveying the lands of the villa. However, a comparison of this proposal with maps of San Antonio made thirty years later demonstrates that no trace Perez de Almazan's intentions can be seen in th actual plan of the villa. Here, Ivey examines the difference between the narrative and subsequent survey and the later actual plan of the town. Moreover, the available evidence demonstrates that islanders, for whom the new villa was to be established, elected to lay out their own plaza and principal lots within the already existing plan of the settlement rather than undertaking the laboritorous process of tearing down the old structures and building an entirely new town based on Almazan's plan. This means that the central area of modern San Antonio does not reflect of 1731, which was based on orders of the viceroy and the provisions of the Laws of the Indies, but rather on a modified version of the town plan that grew up around the presidio after it was moved to its final location in 1722.