Franciscans Expel Jesuits in Baja
In 1769, Father Junipero Serra, his five feet and two inch frame astride a mule, led a packtrain along the shore of San Diego bay in present-day California. He had been chosen by his government to serve as head of the missions in Baja, California, which had recently been taken from the Jesuits and put under the charge of the Franciscans. This project was intended to Christianize the extensive Indian population in California and to prevent Russian explorations and possible claims to North America's Pacific coast. However, Serra's stay in Baja was shortened when he was ordered to found a new settlement in Alta California at San Diego.
Birth, Education, and Priesthood
Serra was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca in 1713. At age fifteen he enrolled in a Franciscan school in the city of Palma. The following year, 1730, he became a novice in the Franciscan order and soon after was ordained as a priest.
Because of the reputation he had gained as an outstanding theologian and philosopher it is assumed that he would likely have risen in the church's hierarchy. Instead, he chose the life of a missionary to the Indians in the New World.
Serra Founds San Diego Mission
Serra's San Diego mission was founded on July 16, 1769. There, this devoted Franciscan, already over fifty years old, who was far too thin as well as asthmatic, raised a cross on the site where the mission would be built. A few Indians watched from a distance with suspicion and caution as these men, some of whom had arrived in things resembling floating houses while others rode in on animals these native people had never seen, conducted ceremonies around this cross.
Father Serra was never a strong or robust man but it is noted that he had a constitution of iron. He had arrived in New Spain in 1749, then walked the distance of some two hundred miles from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. On this journey he was bitten on the leg by an insect. It was a wound that never quiet healed and left him a painful handicap for the rest of his life.
Self Mortification of the Flesh
In spite of the work that had to be done, while at San Diego Serra aided an expedition that was looking for San Francisco Bay. He also founded eight other missions in California, including his headquarters at the San Carlos Borromeo Mission at Carmel.
In time, his extreme efforts brought him to near-starvation and bouts of scurvy. He walked and rode a horse through dangerous country for hundreds of miles as he visited the various California missions he had established. Father Serra was also known for wearing shirts that were laced with sharp wires, the points bent inward. He whipped himself to the point of bleeding and used a candle to burn the flesh of his chest in acts of mortification of the flesh.
Settlement of San Francisco Established
Serra held a kind of political power because his missions not only served the believed religious needs of the Indians but also served New Spain's economic and political purposes. Because of his power, he convinced Mexico City authorities, in 1773, to increase their financial and military support for expanding his missions. He also gained official authority of the Franciscans over the army and the mission Indians that had been baptized. His urging helped to establish an overland route to Alta California. This suggestion led to the forming of colonizing expeditions from New Mexico that resulted in the establishing of civilian settlements at San Francisco in 1776, and at Los Angles in 1781.
Franciscans Cause Decline of California Native Population
In spite of Serra's accomplishments the Franciscans were the major factor of the population decline of California Indians. In 1769 there were about 300,000 Native Americans in California. That number had decreased to about 200,000 by 1821.
This decline was due in part to the Franciscans demanded that the Indians perform considerable strenuous work, and they were forced to live densely crowded within the missions. In these conditions disease, both of Indian and European origin, had perfect breeding grounds. The baptized Indians were completely under the authority of the Franciscans. This meant that they could be whipped, shackled or imprisoned for disobeying. If they attempted to run away from the mission grounds they were hunted down and punished. They were made virtual slaves, all in the name of saving their souls.
Under the Franciscans, the Indians were often forced at gunpoint to convert. The life expectancy of these Mission Indians was only about ten years.
Death of Father Serra
Father Junipero Serra, at the age of nearly 71, on August 28, 1784, died near Monterey, California. He was laid to rest in the sanctuary there, near the altar.
Sources:
Compton's, The Complete Reference Collection. CD Rom, 1997, The Learning Company, Inc.
Doyle, Bob, Editorial Director. The California Missions. Sunset Books, Menlo Park, California, 1979.
Drury, Aubrey. California: An Intimate Guide. Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, London, 1947.
Faragher, John Mack, General Editor. American Heritage Encyclopedia of American History. Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1998.
Salitore, Evelyn D. Editor-in-Chief. California: Past, Present, Future. California Almanac Company, 1973.
