[2] From an early age he worked with his father in the irrigation and repair of canals in Heredad of waters de Tenoya, in Gran Canaria.
[4] At age 18, when the Spanish Crown ordered sending of ten or eleven Canarian families to Texas in order to establish and populate a city in this territory, he decided to travel to the place and, with his girlfriend, Josefa de Niz, and her parents, they departed from the port of Las Palmas, in late February or early March 1730 in the sloop "San Telmo", captained by Juan Rodríguez Master, to the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The fact that he finished the first channel catering to the missions, caused him problems with the settlers, but also received special favors from the monks, who ceded Amerindians for that, as he directed the construction of the canal, they should work and look after their land, which made Rodriguez could engage in work that the rest of the colonists could not do and, while their neighbors to repent by treatment with him due to this special treatment for the missionaries.
[1][2] Because of the problems mentioned above, in June 1749, he was accused by neighbors and was imprisoned for abuse of power, but this was, apparently, a plan to discredit him because of the prestige that over time he had acquired in the villa.
According to a description that has come down to us, Antonio was of medium height, broad-shouldered, white, flat nose, gray eyes, brown hair and eyebrows, plump face pockmarked, and a hawthorn in the right cheek.