The Famous Missions of California
W >>
William Henry Hudson >> The Famous Missions of California
VIII.
After Junipero's death the supervision of the missions devolved for a
time upon Palou, under whose management, owing to difficulties with the
civil powers, no new foundations were undertaken, though satisfactory
progress was made in those already existing. In 1786, Palou was
appointed head of the College of San Fernando, and his place as mission
president was filled by Father Firmin Francisco de Lasuen, by whom the
mission of Santa Barbara was dedicated, on the festival day of that
virgin-martyr, before the close of the year[6]. Just twelve months
later, the third channel settlement was started, with the performance of
the usual rites, on the spot fixed for the Mission of La Purisima
Concepcion, at the western extremity of the bay; though some months
passed before real work there was begun. Thus the proposed scheme,
elaborated before Junipero's death, for the occupation of that portion
of the coast, was at length successfully carried out.
Hardly had this been accomplished before the viceroy and governor,
having resolved upon a further extension of the mission system, sent
orders to Father Lasuen to proceed with two fresh settlements, one of
which was to be dedicated to the Holy Cross, the other to Our Lady of
Solitude. Time was, as usual, consumed in making the necessary
preparations, and the two missions were finally founded within a few
weeks of each other - on the 28th of August and the 9th of October,
1791, respectively. The site selected for the Mission of Santa Cruz was
in the neighborhood already known by that name, and near the San Lorenzo
River; that of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, on the west side of the
Salinas River, in the vicinity of the present town of Soledad, and about
thirty miles from Monterey.
A glance at the map of California will help us to understand the policy
which had dictated the creation of the four missions founded since
Junipero's death. The enormous stretch of country between San Francisco
and San Diego, the northern and southern extremes of evangelical
enterprise, was as yet quite insufficiently occupied, and these new
settlements had been started with the object of to some extent filling
up the vast vacant spaces still left among those already existing. For
the efficient performance of missionary work something more was needed
than a number of separate establishments, no matter how well managed and
successful these in themselves might be. Systematic organization was
essential; for this it was requisite that the various missions should be
brought, by proximity, into vital relations with one another, that
communication might be kept up, companionship enjoyed, and, in case of
need, advice given and assistance rendered. The foundations of Santa
Barbara, La Purisima, Santa Cruz and Soledad, had done something, as
will be seen, towards the ultimate drawing together of the scattered
outposts of church and civilization. But with them a beginning had only
been made. Further developments of the same general plan which aimed, it
will be understood, not alone at the spiritual conquest, but also at the
proper control of the new kingdom - were now taken under consideration.
And, as a result, five fresh missions were presently resolved upon. One
of these was to be situated between San Francisco and Santa Clara; the
second, between Santa Clara and Monterey; the third, between San Antonio
and San Luis Obispo; the fourth, between San Buenaventura and San
Gabriel; and the fifth, between San Juan Capistrano and San Diego. The
importance of these proposed settlements as connecting links will be at
once apparent, if we observe that by reason of their carefully chosen
locations they served, as it were, to put the older missions into actual
touch. When at length the preliminary arrangements had been made, no
time was wasted in the carrying out of the programme, and in a little
over a year, all five missions were in operation. The mission San Jose
(a rather tardy recognition to the patron-saint of the whole
undertaking), was founded on the 11th June, 1797; San Juan Bautista
thirteen days later; San Miguel Arcángel on the 25th July, and San
Fernando Rey de España on the 8th September of the same year; and San
Luis Rey de Francia (commonly called San Luis Rey to distinguish it from
San Luis Obispo), on the 13th of the July following. The delay which had
not at all been anticipated in the establishment of this last-named
mission, was due to some difficulties in regard to site. With this ended
- so far as fresh foundations were concerned - the pious labours of
Lasuen as padre-presidente. He now returned to San Carlos to devote
himself during the remainder of his life to the arduous duties of
supervision and administration. There he died, in 1803, aged
eighty-three years.
His successor, Father Estevan Tapis, fourth president of the Upper
California missions, signalized his elevation to office by adding a
nineteenth to the establishments under his charge. Founded on the 17th
September, 1804, on a spot, eighteen miles from La Purisima and
twenty-two from Santa Barbara, to which Lasuen had already directed
attention, this was dedicated to the virgin-martyr, Santa Inez. It was
felt that a settlement somewhere in this region was still needed for the
completion of the mission system, since without it, a gap was left in
the line between the two missions first-named, which were some forty
miles apart. With the planting of Santa Inez thorough spiritual
occupation may be said to have been accomplished over the entire area
between San Francisco and San Diego, and from the Coast Range to the
ocean. The nineteen missions had been so distributed over the vast
country, that the Indians scattered through it could everywhere be
reached; while the distance from mission to mission had, at the same
time, been so reduced that it was in no case too great to be easily
covered in a single day's journey. The fathers of each establishment
could thus hold frequent intercourse with their next neighbors, and
occasional travelers moving to and fro on business could from day to day
be certain of finding a place for refreshment and repose[7].
[6] The original adobe church was injured by earthquakes in 1806 and
1812. The present edifice was begun in 1815 and finished in 1820.
[7] The table given by the French traveler, De Mofras, in his
authoritative Exploration du Territoire de L'Oregon, les Californies,
etc., shows us that the distance between mission and mission nowhere
exceeded nighteen leagues, and that it was often very much less.
IX.
Santa Inez carries us for the first time over into the nineteenth
century, and its establishment may in a sense be regarded as marking the
term of the period of expansion in California mission history. A pause
of more than a decade ensued, during which no effort was made towards
the further spread of the general system; and then, with the planting of
two relatively unimportant settlements in a district thentofore
unoccupied the tally was brought to a close.
The missions which thus represented a slight and temporary revival of
the old spirit of enterprise, were those of San Rafael Arcángel and San
Francisco Solano. The former, located near Mount Tamalpais, between San
Francisco de Assis and the Russian military station at Fort Ross, dates
from the 17th December, 1817; the latter, situated still further north,
in the Sonoma Valley, from the 4th July, 1823. Some little uncertainty
exists as to the true reasons and purposes of their foundation. The
commonly accepted version of the story connects them directly with
problems which arose out of the course of affairs at San Francisco. In
1817 a most serious epidemic caused great mortality among the Indians
there; a panic seemed inevitable; and on the advice of Lieutenant Sola,
a number of the sick neophytes were removed by the padres to the other
side of the bay. The change of climate proved highly beneficial; the
region of Mount Tamalpais was found singularly attractive; and a
decision to start a branch establishment, or asistencia, of the mission
at San Francisco was a natural result. The patronage of San Rafael was
selected in the hope that, as the name itself expresses the "healing of
God," that "most glorious prince" might be induced to care "for bodies
as well as souls." While considerable success attended this new venture,
the condition of things at San Francisco, on the other hand, continued
anything but satisfactory; and a proposal based on these two facts was
presently made, that the old mission should be removed entirely from the
peninsula, and refounded in a more favorable locality somewhere in the
healthy and fertile country beyond San Rafael. It was thus that the name
of San Francisco got attached from the outset to the new settlement at
Sonoma; and when later on (the old mission being left in its place) this
was made into an independent mission, the name was retained, though the
dedication was transferred, appropriately enough, from St. Francis of
Assisi to that other St. Francis who figures in the records as "the
great apostle of the Indies."
Such is the simpler explanation of the way in which the last two
missions came to be established. It has, however, been suggested that,
while all this may be true as far as it goes, other causes were at work
of a subtler character than those specified, and that these causes were
involved in the development of political affairs. It will have been
noted that, though the threatened encroachments of the Russians had been
one of the chief reasons for this Spanish occupation of Alta California,
there had hitherto been no attempt to meet their possible advances in
the very regions where they were most to be expected - that is, in the
country north of San Francisco. In course of time, however, always with
the ostensible purpose of hunting the seal and the otter, the Russians
were found to be creeping further and further south; and at length,
under instructions from St. Petersburg, they took possession of the
region of Bodega Bay, establishing there a trading post of their Fur
Company, and a strong military station which they called Fort Ross. As
this settlement was on the coast, and only sixty-five miles, as the crow
flies, from San Francisco, it will be seen that the Spanish authorities
had some genuine cause for alarm. And the mission movement north of San
Francisco is considered by some writers to have been initiated, less
from spiritual motives, than from the dread of continued Russian
aggression, and the hope of raising at least a slight barrier against
it. However this may be, the two missions were never employed for
defensive purposes; nor is it very clear that they could have been made
of much practical service in case of actual need.
X.
Such, in briefest outline, is the story of the planting of the
twenty-one missions of Alta California. This story, as we have seen,
brings us down to the year 1823. But by this time, as we follow the
chronicles, our attention has already begun to be diverted from the
forces which still made for growth and success to those which ere long
were to co-operate for the complete undoing of the mission system and
the ruin of all its work.
Perhaps it was in the nature of things (if one may venture here to
employ a phrase too often used out of mere idleness or ignorance) that
the undertaking which year by year had been carried forward with so much
energy and success, should after a while come to a standstill; and the
commonest observation of life will suffice to remind us that when
progress ceases, retrogression is almost certain to set in. The immense
zeal and unflagging enthusiasm of Junipero Serra and his immediate
followers could not be transmitted by any rite or formula to the men
upon whose shoulders their responsibilities came presently to rest. Men
they were, of course, of widely varying characters and capabilities -
some, unfortunately, altogether unworthy both morally and mentally, of
their high calling; many, on the contrary, genuine embodiments of the
great principles of their order - humane, benevolent, faithful in the
discharge of daily duty, patient alike in labour and trial, and careful
administrators of the practical affairs which lay within their charge.
But without injustice it may be said of them that for the most part they
possessed little of the tremendous personal force of their predecessors,
and a generous endowment of such personal force was as needful now as it
ever had been.
Not unless we wish to emulate Southey's learned friend, who wrote whole
volumes of hypothetical history in the subjunctive mood, it is hardly
necessary for present purposes to discuss the internal changes which,
had the missions been left to themselves, might in the long run have
brought about their decay. For as a matter of fact the missions were not
left to themselves. The closing chapter of their history, to which we
have now to turn, is mainly concerned, not with their spiritual
management, or with their success or failure in the work they had been
given to do, but with the general movement of political events, and the
upheavals which preceded the final conquest of California by the United
States.
In considering the attitude of the civil authorities towards the mission
system, and their dealings with it, we must remember that the Spanish
government had from the first anticipated the gradual transformation of
the missions into pueblos and parishes, and with this, the substitution
of the regular clergy for the Franciscan padres. This was part of the
general plan of colonization, of which the mission settlements were
regarded as forming only the beginning. Their work was to bring the
heathen into the fold of the church, to subdue them to the conditions of
civilization, to instruct them in the arts of peace, and thus to prepare
them for citizenship; and this done, it was purposed that they should be
straightway removed from the charge of the fathers and placed under
civil jurisdiction. No decisive step towards the accomplishment of this
design was, however, taken for many years; and meanwhile, the fathers
jealously resisted every effort of the government to interfere with
their prerogatives. At length, with little comprehension of the nature
of the materials out of which citizens were thus to be manufactured, and
with quite as little realization of the fact that the paternal methods
of education adopted by the padres were calculated, not to train their
neophytes to self-government, but to keep them in a state of perpetual
tutelage, the Spanish Cortes decreed that all missions which had then
been in existence ten years should at once be turned over to bishops,
and the Indians attached to them made subject to civil authority. Though
promulgated in 1813, this decree was not published in California till
1820, and even then was practically a dead letter. Two years later,
California became a province of the Mexican Empire, and in due course
the new government turned its attention to the missions, in 1833
ordering their complete secularization. The atrocious mishandling by
both Spain and Mexico of the funds by which they had been kept up, and
the large demands made later upon them for provisions and money, had by
this time made serious inroads upon their resources; notwithstanding
which they had faithfully persisted in their work. The new law now dealt
them a crushing blow. Ten years of great confusion followed, and then an
effort was made to save them from the complete ruin by which they were
threatened by a proclamation ordering that the more important of them,
twelve in number, should be restored to the padres. Nothing came of
this, however; the collapse continued; and in 1846, the sale of the
mission buildings was decreed by the Departmental Assembly. When in the
August of that year, the American flag was unfurled at Monterey,
everything connected with the missions - their lands, their priests,
their neophytes, their management - was in a state of seemingly hopeless
chaos. Finally General Kearney issued a declaration to the effect that
"the missions and their property should remain under the charge of the
Catholic priests . . . until the titles to the lands should be decided
by proper authority." But of whatever temporary service this measure may
have been, it was of course altogether powerless to breathe fresh life
into a system already in the last stages of decay. The mission-buildings
were crumbling into ruins. Their lands were neglected; their converts
for the most part dead or scattered. The rule of the padres was over.
The Spanish missions in Alta California were things of the past.
In these late days of a civilization so different in all its essential
elements from that which the Franciscans laboured so strenuously to
establish on the Pacific Coast, we may think of the fathers as we will,
and pass what judgment we see fit upon their work. But be that what it
may, our hearts cannot fail to be touched and stirred by the pitiful
story of those true servants of God who, in the hour of ultimate
disaster, firmly refused to be separated from their flocks.
Among the ruins of San Luis Obispo, in 1842, De Mofras found the oldest
Spanish priest then left in California, who, after sixty years of
unremitting toil, was then reduced to such abject poverty that he was
forced to sleep on a hide, drink from a horn, and feed upon strips of
meat dried in the sun. Yet this faithful creature still continued to
share the little he possessed with the children of the few Indians who
lingered in the huts about the deserted church; and when efforts were
made to induce him to seek some other spot where he might find refuge
and rest, his answer was that he meant to die at his post. The same
writer has recorded an even more tragic case from the annals of La
Soledad. Long after the settlement there had been abandoned, and when
the buildings were falling to pieces, an old priest, Father Sarría,
still remained to minister to the bodily and physical wants of a handful
of wretched natives who yet haunted the neighborhood, and whom he
absolutely refused to forsake. One Sunday morning in August, 1833, after
his habit, he gathered his neophytes together in what was once the
church, and began, according to his custom, the celebration of the mass.
But age, suffering, and privation had by this time told fatally upon
him. Hardly had he commenced the service, when his strength gave way. He
stumbled upon the crumbling altar, and died, literally of starvation, in
the arms of those to whom for thirty years he had given freely whatever
he had to give. Surely these simple records of Christ-like devotion will
live in the tender remembrance of all who revere the faith that, linked
with whatever creed, manifests itself in good works, the love that
spends itself in service, the quiet heroism that endures to the end.
XI.
The California missions, though greatly varying of course in regard to
size and economy, were constructed upon the same general plan, in the
striking and beautiful style of architecture, roughly known as Moorish,
which the fathers transplanted from Spain, but which rather seems by
reason of its singular appropriateness, a native growth of the new soil.
The edifices which now, whether in ruins or in restoration, still
testify to the skill and energy of their pious designers, were in all
cases later, in most cases much later, than the settlements themselves.
At the outset, a few rude buildings of wood or adobe were deemed
sufficient for the temporary accommodation of priests and converts, and
the celebration of religious services. Then, little by little,
substantial structures in brick or stone took the place of these, and
what we now think of as the mission came into being.
The best account left us of the mission establishment in its palmy days
is that given by De Mofras in his careful record of travel and
exploration along the Pacific Coast; and often quoted as this has been,
we still cannot do better here than to translate some portions of it
anew. The observant Frenchman wrote with his eye mainly upon what was
perhaps the most completely typical of all the missions - that of San
Luis Rey. But his description, though containing a number of merely
local particulars, was intended to be general; and for this reason may
the more properly be reproduced in this place.
"The edifice," he wrote, "is quadrilateral, and about one hundred and
fifty metres long in front. The church occupies one of the wings. The
façade is ornamented with a gallery [or arcade]. The building, a single
storey in height, is generally raised some feet above the ground. The
interior forms a court, adorned with flowers and planted with trees.
Opening on the gallery which runs round it are the rooms of the monks,
majordomos, and travelers, as well as the workshops, schoolrooms, and
storehouses. Hospitals for men and women are situated in the quietest
parts of the mission, where also are placed the schoolrooms. The young
Indian girls occupy apartments called the monastery (el moujerìo), and
they themselves are styled nuns (las moujas) . . . Placed under the care
of trustworthy Indian women, they are there taught to spin wool, flax,
and cotton, and do no leave their seclusion till they are old enough to
be married. The Indian children attend the same school as the children
of the white colonists. A certain number of them, chosen from those who
exhibit most intelligence, are taught music - plain-chant, violin,
flute, horn, violincello, and other instruments. Those who distinguish
themselves in the carpenter's shop, at the forge, or in the field, are
termed alcaldes, or chiefs, and given charge of a band of workmen. The
management of each mission is composed of two monks; the elder looks
after internal administration and religious instruction; the younger has
direction of agricultural work . . . For the sake of order and morals,
whites are employed only where strictly necessary, for the fathers know
their influence to be altogether harmful, and that they lead the Indians
to gambling and drunkenness, to which vices they are already too prone.
To encourage the natives in their tasks, the fathers themselves often
lend a hand, and everywhere furnish an example of industry. Necessity
has made them industrious. One is struck with astonishment on observing
that, with such meagre resources, often without European workmen or any
skilled help, but with the assistance only of savages, always
unintelligent and often hostile, they have yet succeeded in executing
such works of architecture and engineering as mills, machinery, bridges,
roads, and canals for irrigation. For the erection of nearly all the
mission buildings it was necessary to bring to the sites chosen, beams
cut on mountains eight or ten leagues away, and to teach the Indians to
burn lime, cut stone, and make bricks.
"Around the mission," De Mofras continues, "are the huts of the
neophytes, and the dwellings of some white colonists. Besides the
central establishment, there exists, for a space of thirty or forty
leagues, accessory farms to the number of fifteen or twenty, and branch
chapels (chapelles succursales). Opposite the mission is a guard-house
for an escort, composed of four cavalry soldiers and a sergeant. These
act as messengers, carrying orders from one mission to another, and in
the earlier days of conquest repelled the savages who would sometimes
attack the settlement."
Of the daily life and routine of a mission, accounts of travelers enable
us to form a pretty vivid picture; and though doubtless changes of
detail might be marked in passing from place to place, the larger and
more essential features would be found common to all the establishments.
At sunrise the little community was already astir, and then the Angelus
summoned all to the church, where mass was said, and a short time given
to the religious instruction of the neophytes. Breakfast followed,
composed mainly of the staple dish atole, or pottage of roasted barley.
This finished, the Indians repaired in squads, each under the
supervision of its alcalde, to their various tasks in workshop and
field. Between eleven and twelve o'clock, a wholesome and sufficiently
generous midday meal was served out. At two, work was resumed. An hour
or so before sunset, the bell again tolled for the Angelus; evening mass
was performed; and after supper had been eaten, the day closed with
dance, or music, or some simple games of chance. Thus week by week, and
month by month, with monotonous regularity, life ran its unbroken
course; and what with the labours directly connected with the management
of the mission itself, the tending of sheep and cattle in the
neighboring ranches, and the care of the gardens and orchards upon which
the population was largely dependent for subsistence, there was plenty
to occupy the attention of the padres, and quite enough work to be done
by the Indians under their charge. But all this does not exhaust the
list of mission activities. For in course of time, as existence became
more settled, and the children of the early converts shot up into boys
and girls, various industries were added to such first necessary
occupations, and the natives were taught to work at the forge and the
bench, to make saddles and shoes, to weave, and cut, and sew. In these
and similar acts, many of them acquired considerable proficiency.