highly colored, or else that the Bay of Monterey must, since his time,
have been filled up with silt or destroyed by some earthquake. At any
rate, the bay between Santa Cruz and the Point of Pines was the only
Monterey they could find. According to Washburn, Vizcaino's account
was far from a correct one. It was no fault of Portolá and Crespi
that, after spending a month on its shores, it never occurred to them
to recognize the bay.
On the Point of Pines they erected a large wooden cross, and carved on
it the words: "Dig at the foot of this and you will find a writing."
According to Crespi this is what was written:
"The overland expedition which left San Diego on the 14th of July,
1769, under the command of Don Gaspar de Portolá, Governor of
California, reached the channel of Santa Barbara on the 9th of August,
and passed Point Concepcion on the 27th of the same month. It arrived
at the Sierra de Santa Lucia on the 13th of September; entered that
range of mountains on the 17th of the same month, and emerged from it
on the 1st of October; on the same day caught sight of Point Pinos, and
the harbors on its north and south sides, without discovering any
indications or landmarks of the Bay of Monterey. We determined to push
on farther in search of it, and on the 30th of October got sight of
Point Reyes and the Farallones, at the Bay of San Francisco, which are
seven in number. The expedition strove to reach Point Reyes, but was
hindered by an immense arm of the sea, which, extending to a great
distance inland, compelled them to make an enormous circuit for that
purpose. In consequence of this and other difficulties--the greatest
of all being the absolute want of food,--the expedition was compelled
to turn back, believing that they must have passed the harbor of
Monterey without discovering it. We started on return from the Bay of
San Francisco on the 11th of November; passed Point Año Nuevo on the
19th, and reached this point and harbor of Pinos on the 27th of the
same month. From that date until the present 9th of December, we have
used every effort to find the Bay of Monterey, searching the coast,
notwithstanding its ruggedness, far and wide, but in vain. At last,
undeceived and despairing of finding it, after so many efforts,
sufferings, and labors, and having left of all our provisions but
fourteen small sacks of flour, we leave this place to-day for San
Diego. I beg of Almighty God to guide us; and for you, traveler, who
may read this, that He may guide you also, to the harbor of eternal
salvation.
"Done, in this harbor of Pinos, the 9th of December, 1769.
"If the commanders of the schooners, either the San José or the
Principe, should reach this place within a few days after this date, on
learning the accounts of this writing, and of the distressed condition
of this expedition, we beseech them to follow the coast down closely
toward San Diego, so that if we should be happy enough to catch sight
of them, we may be able to apprize them by signals, flags, and firearms
of the place where help and provisions may reach us."
The next day the whole party started back to San Diego, making the
journey fairly well, in spite of illness and lack of proper food.
Though disappointed at Portolá's failure, Serra had no idea of
abandoning his project of founding a mission at Monterey. He made
further preparations, and in about three months after Portolá's return
a newly organized expedition left San Diego. It consisted of two
divisions, one by land, again commanded by Portolá, and one by sea.
This time the good Father wisely chose for himself to go by sea, and
embarked on the San Antonio, which was the only ship he had in sailing
condition. In about a month Portolá's land party reached the Point of
Pines, and there they found their cross still standing. According to
Laura Bride Powers, "great festoons of abalone-shells hung around its
arms, with strings of fish and meat; feathers projected from the top,
and bundles of arrows and sticks lay at its base. All this was to
appease the stranger gods, and the Indians told them that at nightfall
the terrible cross would stretch its white arms into space, and grow
skyward higher and higher, till it would touch the stars, then it would
burst into a blaze and glow throughout the night."
Suddenly, as they came back through the forest from the Point of Pines,
the thought came both to Crespi and Portolá that here, after all, was
the lost bay of Vizcaino. In this thought they ran over the landmarks
of his description, and found all of them, though the harbor was less
important than Vizcaino had believed. Since that day no one has
doubted the existence of the Bay of Monterey.
A week later, the San Antonio arrived, coming in sight around the Point
of Pines, and was guided to its anchorage by bonfires along the beach.
The party landed at the mouth of the little brook which flows down a
rocky bank to the sea. On the 3rd of June, 1770, Father Serra and his
associates "took possession of the land in the name of the King of
Spain, hoisting the Spanish flag, pulling out some of the grass and
throwing stones here and there, making formal entry of the
proceedings." On the same day Serra began his mission by erecting a
cross, hanging bells from a tree, and saying mass under the venerable
oak where the Carmelite friars accompanying Vizcaino celebrated it in
1602. Around this landing grew up the town of Monterey.
At a point just back from the shore, near the old live-oak tree under
which the Padre rendered thanks, there has long stood a commemorative
cross. On the hill above where the Padre stood looking out over the
beautiful bay, there was placed one hundred and twenty years later, by
the kind interest of a good woman, a noble statue, in gray granite,
representing Father Serra as he stepped from his boat.
A fortress, or presidio, was built, and Monterey was made the capital
of Alta California. But the mission was not located at the town. It
was placed five miles farther south, where there were better pasturage
and shelter. This was on a beautiful slope of the hill, flanked by a
fertile valley opening out to the glittering sea, with the mountains of
Santa Lucia in front and a great pine forest behind. The valley was
named Carmelo, in honor of Vizcaino's Carmelite friars, and the mission
was named for San Carlos Borromeo.
The present church of Monterey was not a mission church, but the chapel
of the _presidio_, or barracks. It is now, according to Father
Casanova, the oldest building in California. The old Mission of San
Diego, first founded of all, was burned by the Indians. It was
afterwards rebuilt, but this took place after the chapel in Monterey
was finished. The mission in Carmelo was not completed until later, as
the Padre was obliged to secure authority from Mexico, that he might
place it on the pasture lands of Carmelo, instead of the sand-hills of
Monterey.
When the discoveries of Portolá and Ortega had been reported at San
Diego, the shores of this inland sea of San Francisco seemed a most
favorable station for another mission. Among the missions already
dedicated to the saints, none had yet been found for the great father
of the Franciscan order, St. Francis of Assisi, the beloved saint who
could call the birds and who knew the speech of all animals. Before
this, Father Serra had said to Governor Galvez, "And for our Father St.
Francis is there to be no mission?" And Galvez answered, "If St.
Francis wants a mission, let him show his port, and we will found the
mission there."
And now the lost port of St. Francis was found, and it was the most
beautiful of all, with the noblest of harbors, and the fairest of views
toward the hills and the sea. So the new mission was called for him,
the Mission San Francisco de los Dolores. For the Creek Dolores, the
"brook of sorrows," flowed by the mission, and gave it part of its
name. But Dolores stream is long since obliterated, forming part of
the sewage system of San Francisco.[3]
Thus was founded
"that wondrous city, now apostate to the creed,
O'er whose youthful walls the Padre saw the angel's golden reed."
Meanwhile, following San Diego de Alcalá and San Carlos Borromeo, a
long series of missions was established, each one bearing the sonorous
Spanish name of some saint or archangel, each in some beautiful sunny
valley, half-hidden by oaks, and each a day's ride distant from the
next. In the most charming nook of the Santa Lucia Mountains was built
San Antonio de Pádua; in the finest open pastures of the Coast Range,
San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. In the rich valley, above the city of the
Queen of the Angels, the beautiful church of San Gabriel Arcángel was
dedicated to the leader of the hosts of heaven. Later, came the
magnificent San Juan Capistrano, ruined by earthquakes in 1812. In its
garden still stands the largest pepper-tree in Southern California.
Then Santa Clara was built in the center of the fairest valley of the
State. Next came San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara, for the coast
Indians of the south, and Santa Cruz, for those to the north of
Monterey Bay. In the Salinas Valley, along the "_Camino real_," or
royal highway, from the south to the north, were built Nuestra Señora
de la Soledad and San Miguel Arcángel. A day's journey from Carmelo,
in the valley of the Pájaro, arose San Juan Bautista. In the charming
valley of Santa Ynez, still hidden from the tourist, a day's journey
apart, were Santa Ynez and La Purisima Concepcion. East of the Bay of
San Francisco, in a nook famous for vineyards, arose the Mission San
José.
[Illustration: Mission of San Antonio de Padua.]
In the broad, rocky pastures above Los Angeles, arose San Fernando Key
de Espana, while midway between San Diego and San Juan Capistrano was
placed the stateliest of all the missions, dedicated, with its rich
river valley, to the memory of San Luis Rey de Francia. Finally, to
the north of San Francisco Bay, was built San Rafael, small, but
charmingly situated, and then San Francisco Solano, still farther on in
Sonoma. This, the northernmost outpost of the saints, the last,
weakest, and smallest, was first to die. It was founded in 1823, fifty
years after the Mission San Diego.
Wherever you find in California a warm, sunny valley leading from the
ocean back to the purple mountains, with a clear stream in its midst,
and filled in summer with blue haze, around it steep slopes on which
grapes may grow, you have found a mission valley, and these grapes are
mission grapes. Somewhere in it you will see a cluster of large,
wide-spreading pepper-trees, with delicate light-green foliage, or a
grove of gnarled olives, looking like stunted willows, or, perhaps, a
cluster of old pear-trees, or sometimes a tall palm. Near these you
will find the ruins of old houses of adobe, wherein once dwelt the
Indian neophytes. These houses are clustered around the walls, now
almost in ruins, of the mission itself, which had its chapel,
refectory, and baptistry, and in all its details it resembled closely a
parish church of Italy of Spain.
The mission was usually laid out in the form of a hollow square,
inclosed by a wall of adobe, twelve feet high, the whole inclosure
being two or three hundred feet square. In the center of this square
was a chapel, also of adobe; for the sun of California is kind to
California's children, and a house of dried mud will withstand the
scanty rains of a century. Some of these old chapels are still used,
but the roofs of most of them have long since fallen in, and the
ornaments have been removed to decorate some other building. The
mission churches were built like mimic cathedrals, cathedrals of mud
instead of marble, and, like their great models, each had its altar,
with candles and crucifix, its vessels of holy water, and on the walls
the inevitable paintings of heaven and purgatory. Their most charming
feature was the arched cloister, a feature which has been retained and
beautified in the architecture of Leland Stanford Jr. University, at
Palo Alto.
Each church, too, had its little chime of bells, some of which were
partly of gold or silver, as well as of brass. During the early
enthusiasm, when the mission bells were cast, old heirlooms from Spain,
rings, vases, and ancestral goblets from which had been "drunk the red
wine of Tarragon," were thrown into the molten metal. And when these
consecrated bells chimed out the Angelas at the sunset hour, with the
sound of their voices all evil spirits were driven away, and no harm
could come to man or beast or growing grain.
"Bells of the past, whose long-forgotten music
Still fills the wide expanse,
Tingeing the sober twilight of the present
With color of romance;
I hear you call, and see the sun descending
On rock and wave and sand,
As down the coast the mission voices blending,
Girdle the heathen land.
"Within the circle of your incantation
No blight nor mildew falls,
Nor fierce unrest nor sordid low ambition
Passes those airy walls.
Borne on the swell of your long waves receding
I touch the farther past.
I see the dying glow of Spanish glory,
The sunset dream and last.
* * * * * *
"Your voices break and falter in the darkness,
Break, falter, and are still,
And veiled and mystic, like the Host descending,
The sun sinks from the hill." [4]
Around the church were built storehouses, workshops, granaries,
barracks for the soldiers,--in short, everything necessary for comfort
and security. Each mission was at once fortress, refuge, church, and
town. The little town grew in time more and more to resemble its
fellows in old Spain. Bull-fights and other festivals were held in the
_plaza_, or public square, in front of the _presidio_, or governor's
house, and the long, low, whitewashed _hacienda_, or tavern.
About the mission arose a great farm. Vines and olives were planted,
and often long avenues of shade-trees. The level lands were sown to
barley and oats; great herds of cattle and horses roamed over the
hills. The sale of wine, and especially of hides, brought in each year
an increasing revenue. The poor, struggling missions became rich. The
commanders kept up a dignity worthy of the representatives of the
Spanish king, though often they had little enough to command. It is
said that one of them, wishing to fire a salute in honor of some
foreign vessel, first sent on board to borrow powder. In the words of
Bret Harte, with the _comandante_ the days "slipped by in a delicious
monotony of simple duties, unbroken by incident or interruption. The
regularly recurring feasts and saint's days, the half-yearly courier
from San Diego, the rare transport ship, and rarer foreign vessels,
were the mere details of his patriarchal life. If there was no
achievement, there was certainly no failure. Abundant harvests and
patient industry amply supplied the wants of the _presidio_ and
mission. Isolated from the family of nations, the wars which shook the
world concerned them not so much as the last earthquake; the struggle
that emancipated their sister colonies on the other side of the
continent had to them no suggestiveness. It was that glorious Indian
summer of California history, that bland, indolent autumn of Spanish
rule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican
independence and the reviving spring of American conquest."
[Illustration: Mission of San Antonio de Padua--Interior of Chapel.]
The Indians were usually gathered about the mission by force or by
persuasion. Being baptized with holy water, they were taught to build
houses, raise grain, and take care of cattle. In place of their savage
rites, they learned to count their beads and say their prayers. They
learned also to work, and were pious and generally contented. But
these California Indians, at the best, were far inferior to those of
the East. "When attached to the mission," Mr. Soulé says, "they were
an industrious, contented, and numerous class, though, indeed, in
intelligence and manly spirit they were little better than the beasts,
after all."
The Jesuit Father, Venegas, remarks, discouragingly: "It is not easy
for Europeans who were never out of their own country to conceive an
adequate idea of these people. Even in the least frequented quarters
of the globe there is not a nation so stupid, of such contracted ideas,
and weak, both in body and in mind, as the unhappy Californians. Their
characteristics are stupidity and insensibility, want of knowledge and
reflection, inconstancy, impetuosity, and blindness of appetite,
excessive sloth, abhorrence of all fatigue of every kind, however
trifling or brutal,--in fine, a most wretched want of everything which
constitutes the real man and makes him rational, inventive, tractable,
and useful to himself and others." All of which goes to show that
climate is not everything, and that contact with other minds and other
people, with the sifting that rigorous conditions enforce, may outweigh
all the advantages of the fairest climate. The highest development
comes with the fewest barriers to migration, to competition, and to the
spread of ideas.
The destruction of the missions and the advent of our Anglo-Saxon
freedom has been for the Indian and his kind only loss and wrong. He
has become an alien and tramp, with his half-brother, the despised
Greaser.
The mission fathers left no place for idleness on the part of their
converts, or "neophytes"; nor did they make much provision for the
development of the individual. The Indians were to work, and to work
hard and steadily, for the glory of the church and the prosperity of
the nation. In return they were insured from all harm in this world
and in the world to come. The rule of the Padre was often severe,
sometimes cruel, but not demoralizing, and the Indians reached a higher
grade of industry and civilization than the same race has attained
otherwise before or since.
Believing that the use of the rod was necessary to the Indians'
salvation, the Padres were in no danger of sparing it, and thus
spoiling their children. The good Father Serra would as "soon have
doubted his right to breathe as his right to flog the Indian converts";
and meek and quiet though these converts usually were, there were not
wanting times when they turned about in sullen resistance. The annals
of some of the missions show a series of events that may well have
discouraged the most enthusiastic of missionaries. The unconverted
Indians, or "gentiles," of Southern California were heathens indeed,
and they made repeated attacks upon the missions by day, or stole their
stock or burned their houses by night. Volleys of arrows not
unfrequently greeted the priests on their return from morning mass.
In San Diego, faith in the power of gunpowder to hurt long preceded any
belief in the power of the cross to save. For a whole year after the
mission was founded, not a convert was made. The sole San Diego Indian
in Father Serra's service was a hired interpreter, who did not have a
particle of reverence for his employer's work. "In all these
missionary annals of the Northwest," says Bancroft, "there is no other
instance where paganism remained so long stubborn as in San Diego."
And the converts made at such cost of threats and promises were always
ready to backslide. It was hard to convert any unless they subjugated
all. The influence of the many outside would often stampede the few
within the fold.
In one of the numerous uprisings at San Diego the Fathers were
victorious over the Indians; the warriors were flogged, and thus
converted, and their four chiefs were condemned to death. The sentence
of death, according to Bancroft, read as follows:
"Deeming it useful to the service of God, the king, and the public
good, I sentence them to a violent death by musket shots, on the 11th
of April, at 9 A.M., the troops to be present at the execution, under
arms; and also all the Christian rancherias subject to the San Diego
Mission, that they may be warned to act righteously."
To the priests who were to assist at the last sacrament, the following
grim directions was given:
"You will co-operate for the good of their souls, in the understanding
that if they do not accept the salutary waters of holy baptism, they
die on Saturday morning; and if they do accept, they die all the same."
The character of the first great mission chief, Junípero Serra, is thus
summed up by Bancroft:
"All his energy and enthusiasm were directed to the performance of his
missionary duties as outlined in the regulations of his order and the
instruction of his superiors. Limping from mission to mission, with a
lame foot that must never be cured, fasting much and passing sleepless
nights, depriving himself of comfortable clothing and nutritious food,
he felt that he was imitating the saints and martyrs who were the
ideals of his sickly boyhood, and in recompense of abstinence he was
happy. He was kind-hearted and charitable to all, but most strict in
his enforcement of religious duties. It never occurred to him to doubt
his absolute right to flog his neophytes for any slight negligence in
matters of the faith. His holy desires trembled within him like
earthquake throbs. In his eyes there was but one object worth living
for--the performance of religious duty; and but one way to accomplish
that object--a strict and literal compliance with Franciscan rules. He
could never understand that there was anything beyond the narrow field
of his vision. He could apply religious enthusiasm to practical
affairs. Because he was a grand missionary, he was none the less a
money-maker and civilizer; but money-making and civilizing were
adjuncts only to mission work, and all not for his glory, but for the
glory of God."
After Junípero Serra came a saner and wiser, if not a better, man, the
Padre Fermin Lasuen. I need not go into details in regard to him or
his life. No miracles followed his path, and no saint made him the
object of spectacular intervention; but his gentle earnestness counted
for more in the development of Old California than that of any other
man. Of Lasuen, Bancroft says:
"In him were united the qualities that make up the ideal Padre, without
taint of hypocrisy or cant. He was a frank, kind-hearted old man, who
made friends of all he met. Of his fervent piety there are abundant
proofs, and his piety and humility were of an agreeable type,
unobtrusive, and blended with common sense. He overcame obstacles in
the way of duty, but he created no obstacles for the mere sake of
surmounting them. He was not a man to limp through life on a sore leg
if a cure could be found. . . . First among the Californian prelates
let us ever rank Fermin de Lasuen, as a friar who rose above his
environment and lived many years in advance of his times."
Thirteen years after the serene founding of the Mission San Francisco
came the first shock to the community, thus noticed in a letter from
the governor of the territory to the _comandante_ at San Francisco:
"Whenever there may arrive at the Port of San Francisco a ship named
the Columbia, said to belong to General Washington, of the American
States, commanded by John Kendrick, which sailed from Boston in
September, 1787, bound on a voyage of discovery to the Russian
establishments on the northern coast of this peninsula, you will cause
the said vessel to be examined with caution and delicacy, using for
this purpose a small boat which you have in your possession."