The site of San Antonio was long inhabited by the Coahuiltec Native American people and would later be a transition zone for the Plains peoples, including the Apache and the Comanche. Permanent European settlement began in 1718. In that year, Spaniards established the mission of San António de Valero and the presidio (a fortified community) of San António de Béjar on opposite banks of the upper San Antonio River. The mission of San José y San Miguel de Aguayo, now often referred to as Mission San José, was established nearby in 1720. By 1731 three other missions were operating in the river valley south of Mission San José. In that same year a group from the Canary Islands arrived, persuaded by the Spanish to move to the frontier, and established a community named Villa de San Fernando. Later this community was consolidated with the presidio and with the small settlement that had developed around the earliest mission to form the community of San Antonio.
During much of the 18th century, the San Antonio area was dominated by Mission San José, which flourished as one of the most prosperous and influential missions in Texas. Then, in 1793, nearly all the missions in Texas were secularized and most of the mission buildings in the San Antonio area were abandoned. However, the community of San Antonio remained the principal settlement in Texas during the years that Texas was under Spanish, and then Mexican, rule.
