Abstract: Historical surveys of religion in the United States rarely address the religious practice among Hispanics in what is now the U.S. Southwest during the Spanish colonial period. The very few that do typically note only Our Lady of Guadalupe and/or the Penitente confraternity. Neither of those stands out as most prominent in San Antonio during its first century. Known at that time as the joint settlement of the Presidio of San Antonio de Béxar and the Villa of San Fernando, the devotion of its inhabitants is traceable not only through the extant records of their San Fernando parish and their civilly recorded wills, but also through their continual frequenting of the San Antonio de Valero mission immediately across the river. Distinguishing between popular devotion and official religious patrons, the most prominent devotions centered upon the Passion of Jesus and Our Lady of Sorrows, followed by Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Other Marian devotions, including Our Lady of Guadalupe, were also present, but not as prominently, like in most of New Spain during this period.
Robert E. Wright (Thu,) studied this question.