Retrospection of the work of the Spanish Missionaries,
Explorers and Settlers and their place in California's
Appreciation
We have followed the venerable band of missionaries from their homes in
Spain, where fired with zeal for the conversion of the savage heathen of
the New World they set out for the comparatively newly discovered land
of Mexico, where Spain had already a few establishments and churches, an
archbishopric in the city of Mexico, and the Franciscan Fathers a well
equipped monastery and mission at San Fernando in the northern part of
the country. We have seen the Spanish Franciscans' zeal in the land of
the Aztec, and we have also seen the noble cooperation given them by the
government and civil authorities of Catholic Spain. We have traced
the missionaries' steps, followed by gallant Portola, and his fellow
officers and men, and have sympathized and rejoiced with them in their
hardships and joys. We have no doubt, often marveled at the stupendous
work of the Sons of Saint Francis in the conversion of the unenlightened
heathen, and have seen the Indian tribes turn from the worship of idols
to the altar of the one true God.
Let us now give a brief glance at the work so nobly done by the immortal
heroes which Catholic Spain sent to these shores. Many a time, winter
blasts of misunderstanding and wrong have been cast upon them, and many
a time have noble sympathizers fought just battles with prejudice in
their behalf, with the blessed result that the thickest clouds of errors
and "threadbare calumnies" have almost entirely disappeared, and with
them the remaining mists of wrong are fast vanishing at the powerful
approach of truth's sun, so that in relating the glories of that legion
of splendid characters whose names are so tenderly clasped about the
fondest memories of mission times, we shall not forget their friends and
champions of later years.
But first let us see what the brave Spanish pioneers did for California.
We will begin with the missionaries. To them we owe the conversion of
the heathen and savage Indians, which work was super-human in
itself, and which contrary to the statements of libelers, the fathers
accomplished with heroic patience and charity, teaching the Indians
besides religion, useful trades, civilizing them, and taking such
conscientious care of them that they made a nightly round of their
quarters, not with whip in hand to punish imaginary misdemeanor, but
to see that the spiritual and temporal welfare of their converts and
neophytes, was guarded, and so great was the attachment of the Indians
to the fathers that if a father was called on business from one mission
to another, the Indians would follow him a long distance weeping. Very
few of the Indians were taught the art of reading, not because the
fathers were in any way unwilling to teach it, but because for this one
art most of the Indians showed no desire or willingness to learn, yet
this has given the ever ready, unscrupulous writer food for saying
that "the fathers endeavored to keep the Indians in ignorance" and the
healthy rule of the fathers with its hours of prayer, labor, instruction
and recreation for the Indian families in the mission quarters, has been
distorted by erroneous histories, and statements have been made by
some writers to the effect that "the Indians were treated harshly and
oppressed." Whereas under what nation were Indians or unenlightened
natives christianized, allowed to remain in their lands or treated
with more humanity than under Spain or her missionaries, wherever they
explored and wherever they went?
"Harsh, oppressive, endeavoring to keep the Indians in ignorance," if
such actions mean all that these saintly missionaries accomplished, if
they mean their leaving refinement, christianity, fond home and kindred
in distant Spain to brave untold hardships, nay, martyrdom, to rescue
souls from paganism, and if such conduct as "harshness, oppression,
endeavoring to keep the Indians in ignorance" could be compatible with
the practice of heroic virtue and acts of mortification of mind and body
which to the spiritual man or woman appear beyond words of admiration,
to the scoffer and frivolous (but for this latter class we are not
writing) foolish and impossible. The missions too, with their honest
wealth and industry were California's first centers of enlightenment and
refinement. The Spanish missionaries were scholars as well as religious,
and their institutions were California's cradles of literature, music
and learning hand in hand with religion. To these early fathers we owe
the first paintings and statues brought to California, while their well
equipped missions, even contained medicine chests and medical books, to
them we also owe the first architecture in the building of the missions,
the first agricultural implements, even the first system of irrigation,
in the state; to these we may add the first stock of sheep, cattle,
horses, the first fruits, vineyards and teeming grain fields, yes, even
the first roses of California were brought here by them, and it was
from the missions that Dr. Robert Semple borrowed the printing type,
wherewith he printed the first newspaper in California, which appeared
in Monterey in 1846, making the letter "w" by joining two vs as the
Spanish alphabet contains twenty-five letters, "w" excepted.
And if the Spanish missionaries did so much what did the Spanish civil
and military authorities and settlers do? To Spanish explorers we
owe the discovery and exploration of California, as well as of South
America, Mexico and other portions of the New World, including the
Pacific Ocean; indeed is it not to Spain and her good Queen Isabella the
Catholic, to whom we really owe the discovery of America by Columbus?
But not to deviate from Spain's work in California, it was the early
Spanish governors who first framed laws and drew up a constitution in
California, and it was they who made the first land grants, it was by
Spanish explorers too that the first maps of California were drawn,
under Spanish rule were many of the present towns and cities founded,
from Spain came the first dawn of refinement and civilization, the first
army and navy, the first artists, musicians, physicians and skilled
workmen, in fine the first white child born in California was born of
Spanish parents settled in Monterey. And what was the record of Spain's
dominion in California? Setting aside unfounded calumnies as absurd as
the one which claims that Philip II passed a law sentencing to death any
foreigner who set foot on Spain's dominions in the New World,
relegating such lies to where they belong, Spain's rule in her New World
possessions, including California was marked by humanity as well as
energy. Cortes, Pizzaro, Vizcaino, Coronado, Menendez, Ponce de Leon,
Cabeza de Vaca, Balboa, as well as the later "pathfinders" governors
and viceroys of Catholic Spain, were men of honor, and sobriety to whose
names no "butcheries and cruelties" may be justly attached.
Perhaps one of the best proofs of Catholic Spanish humanity is the
fact of the preservation of the aborigines of the land wherever Spanish
conquests were made. Take for example, the statistics of the last
census of Mexico which reveal that of a population of 15,000,000 souls
7,000,000 are pure Indian 5,000,000 mestizos or of mixed Indian and
foreign extraction and only 3,000,000 foreigners or of Mexican birth but
of purely foreign extraction. Take, California, Arizona, New Mexico
and other former Spanish possessions of whom the same may be said in
proportion. In these places no Indian reservations are seen as where
the Puritans held sway. If Spain were guilty of the cruelties so
falsely imputed to her, Mexico in particular would be a Spanish or
Latin-American Republic, as it is, she may hardly be termed as such.
But Catholic Spain acted as explorer, civilizer and with her venerable
missionaries sponsor to the conversion of the heathen tribes of her
New World colonies, leaving in them the traces of her enlightenment and
christianity, yes, leaving them monuments of her humanity!
On the absurd and ludicrous application of the term "Spanish" in our
midst to many persons who have no claim to it by either birth or descent
we will not dwell, as we would not cheapen our sketch by stooping to
discuss such ignorance or insult our intelligent readers by writing on
such foolishness, we will only ask their permission to say that many
so-called intelligent people have no conception of the Spanish type,
race or character, but these we will leave "a la luna de Valencia" as an
ancient Spanish saying would express such cases. The California families
of Spanish descent are comparatively few, this being noted especially by
Spanish visitors to California.
But what of Spanish generosity at home, when the missionaries were
toiling for souls in the New World? Many a pious Spaniard in Spain and
in Mexico subscribed immense sums for the missions of California, both
for the Jesuit and the Franciscan missions. Thus we find the pious
Marquis de Villa Puente subscribing $200,000 for "missions, vessels
and other necessities of California." The Duchess of Gandia subscribed
$60,000 for the same purpose in 1767 and many others followed the same
example until the "Pius Fund of the Missions of California" amounted
to over two million dollars. At the time of the Secularization of the
Missions, the Mexican Government confiscated a large remaining portion
of this "Pious Fund." In 1853 the Spanish Archbishop Alemany, then
Bishop of Monterey and successor of Bishop Diego from whom the "Pious
Fund" had been taken, started a litigation which was continued in turn
by his worthy successor Archbishop Patrick Riordan of the archdiocese of
San Francisco, with the good result that Mexico was made to pay the sum
of $43,050 in Mexican currency annually as the interest at six per cent
on the sum of $1,460,682 of the "Pious Fund" which the national treasury
of Mexico had appropriated on the promise of Mexico to act as trustee of
the fund and pay an interest of six per cent which it had failed to pay
since its appropriation at the time of the Mexican regime in California.
Moreover, Mexico had agreed to pay this interest to the object intended
by the donors of the fund, namely, "to the church, for the conversion
of the natives of California, for the establishment, maintenance and
extension of the Catholic Church, her faith and worship, in said country
of Upper and Lower California." The litigation was won through the
intervention of the United States Government which Archbishop Riordan
invoked through his counsel, and decided by arbitrators under the Hague
Convention in 1899. The first payment was made on February 2, 1903.
Perhaps it is not amiss to quote here a small portion of the speech
delivered in Washington, D. C. by Hon. Joseph Scott of Los Angeles on
the occasion of a banquet following the unveiling ceremonies of the
memorial erected in honor of Christopher Columbus by Act of Congress.
Among the speakers present at the banquet were Ex-President William
Taft (then president), Cardinal Gibbons, Speaker Champ Clark, Ex-speaker
Joseph Cannon, Congressman Underwood, Judge Victor Dowling of the
Supreme Court of New York and many other notable men of the nation.
"It affords me unbounded pleasure to have an opportunity to deliver an
expression, feeble though it be, of the sentiments of the Knights of
Columbus of the great West, and particularly of California, regarding
the significance of this great day. Mr. John Barrett of the Pan-American
Union has already given you food for sober thought in the parallel
he has drawn of the marvelous activity and resourcefulness of the
Latin-American republics. Possibly I may be permitted at this time to
inject a suggestion that, despite the remarks of the previous speaker
about Boston as the modern Athens and the seat of universal learning,
"Modern Athens" has nothing in common with the memories aroused by
contemplation of the events which we celebrate today. It may be well to
tell our friends from New England that before the so-called Anglo-Saxon
had set foot as a colonist upon the American soil, the followers of
Columbus had penetrated into the heart of Kansas and gone down as far as
Buenos Ayres. I want to lay stress upon the fact that we have not noted
too emphatically today that it was the great Spanish race, with its
strong and sterling faith, which accomplished this wonderful mission of
civilization. Too long have we endured the stress of so-called history
written by Prescott and others, some of whom ought to have been put in
the Ananias club before they were born. For nearly three centuries
the Spanish race, with its indomitable faith, pursued almost alone its
mission of civilization and evangelization of the aborigines of America.
Before the Pilgrim Fathers had landed on Plymouth Rock, the Catholic
Spaniard had acquired a knowledge of the Indian language sufficient to
enable him to translate the Bible into the Aztec Indian language, so
that the new Indian neophyte could read the story of "God's greatest
Book" in his mother tongue."
The Courage of Catholic Spain
I wish to advise those of you who speak now of a burden of four days and
nights in luxurious Pullman cars to step out on the soil of California
as though you had performed a deed of heroism, that a Spanish soldier,
Cabeza de Vaca, with the courage of primitive Christianity, walked from
Florida to the Gulf of California, though it took him seven years to
accomplish his task; and the wonderfully brave Friar Marcos de Niza
pioneered his way on foot thirteen hundred miles into the heart of
Arizona through deserts and hordes of Apaches, in his efforts to plant
the cross of civilization among the children of the new world. Nay, the
Grand Canyon of Arizona, now one of the greatest natural wonders of the
world, was seen by a young Spanish lieutenant and his twenty soldiers
three hundred years before the Anglo-Saxon took a glimpse at its
wonderful and awe-inspiring beauty. These and other similar facts are
attested by the report of the Bureau of Ethnology of Washington, as well
as by many other reliable authorities, including that singularly gifted
and scholarly student of Spanish history and folk lore, Charles F.
Lummis of Los Angeles, himself a Puritan on both sides of his house for
several generations back. It was the fortitude of this Spanish race,
coupled by its strong devotion to the faith which you and I profess,
which enabled them to solve the Indian problem as it has never been
attempted since. While under our present system of the government of
this United States, the Indian has been an outcast and a derelict to
be robbed and cheated by his white brother, yet on the other hand the
Spanish missionary brought into the life of the simple native of the new
world the wholesome light of Christianity, which made him recognize in
the Red Man the same soul which was made in the image and likeness of
the common Creator of us all. In that spirit of brotherhood and charity
he obtained the confidence and good will of the Indians, almost without
exception, throughout the length and breadth of the countries that he
explored. And while his path was beset with dangers from the grim forces
of nature, and occasionally the crown of martyrdom was given to him by
an unthinking hand of those he was coming to evangelize, yet he faltered
not in his footsteps.
Today the memory of Columbus may be coupled with and attributed, on
our part, to the splendid heroism and Christian fortitude of the great
Spanish race which continued the work of Columbus with all that it
entailed for the betterment of humanity."
In compliance with our promise not to forget the friends of the
missionaries and of their compatriots, of today, we will first speak of
California's wonderful enthusiasm in the celebration of the Bi-centenary
of Junipero Serra's birth. Of the privileged thousands who visited
Monterey on November 23, 1913 and made a pilgrimage to Serra's tomb at
San Carlos Mission, how many will efface that sight from their minds in
years to come? But this awe-inspiring sight to which Reverend Raymond
Mestres and the Franciscan Fathers of San Francisco, contributed so
much, and in which the Third Order of Saint Francis so prominently
participated will be yearly renewed. Ecclesiastical and civil
authorities, towns and cities, individuals, all had the "right
spirit." The accounts of the press were glowing. Mr. Frank Powers of
Carmel-by-the-Sea was California's representative at the celebration
which Spain did not fail to hold in honor of her illustrious son;
and Mr. Powers indeed proved a worthy representative, returning to
California with renewed enthusiasm for the saintly Serra, and his
lectures have been listened to with keen delight. And can any praise
seem superfluous for California's apostles in particular for the saintly
Serra? At the civil exercises, held in Monterey on the occasion of the
celebration we are speaking of, Senator Reginaldo del Valle, of Los
Angeles, Mr. Michael Williams and Mr. Charles Phillips of San Francisco
each paid exquisite tributes to our hero whom the opening lines of Mr.
Phillips' beautiful ode described as:
"A young boy dreaming by the Spanish main:
Knee-high in waving grain
He halts at eve and dreams,
Where green Majorca fronts the cycling sea,
And far worlds ceaselessly
Beckon with passing sail and swinging tide,
And plunging galleons ride
Home from adventure, or away, away
To silken bright Cathay,
Or where dark India her golden treasure yields;
A young boy dreaming in his father's fields,
Who plucks a lily from the bending wheat
And stands with veiled gaze and searching eyes
Pale with some great emprise,
Beyond the homing waters of his isle,
Beyond Majorca's skies;--
And dreams and dreams the while!"
"And they who love him wonderingly ask:
"What lad is this of ours
Who dreams away the hours,
And when the windy night-tide running sings,
So strangely seems
Converse to hold with far compelling things?
Or what these spirit-smiling ecstasies,"
They reverent cry,
"That halt him at his task
And hold him tranced in bright reveries?
Is this our lad, indeed,
Who with such Heaven-given grace--
Ay, with the light of Heaven on his face!--
Makes question of the very world about?"
One of the sweetest features of this day was that hereafter by a
decree of Governor Hiram Johnson, who also did not fail to send a
representative to Monterey in the person of Judge Griffin, November
the twenty-fourth was declared a state holiday. May Serra day long
be welcomed by loyal Californians! We cannot close this chapter after
speaking of the bright constellation of the past which appeared in
California skies so many years ago, and whose traces we so cherish,
without saying a few words about that worthiest of worthy movements
to restore the dear old missions of El Camino Real according to their
traditional lines, here again Reverend Father Mestres of Monterey
deserves the greatest credit in this enterprise, and the Knights of
Columbus of the California councils have proved themselves great helpers
in the plan. King Alfonso, his minister, Senor Juan Riano, the Marquis
de la Vega y Inclan who will be King Alfonso's representative at the
Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, are hearty supporters and sponsors
of this movement, and with cooperation from faithful friends and the
sanction of the Bishop of the diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles, we
have no doubt that these glorious landmarks, some of which have alas too
long been allowed to go to "wreck and ruin" while others are still
more or less neglected, after the cruel years which extinguished their
sanctuary lamps, left their altars bare and their belfries silent save
for the hooting of the night owls, will ere long be in the proper repair
to hand down with pride to posterity; and to further repair these holy
temples and place them under their historical and original plans the
most fitting priests to whom we could entrust them (at least wherever
the necessary satisfactory arrangements are possible) are Spanish
priests, compatriots of their founders, this too would serve to continue
and strengthen the old friendly relations between Spain and California,
and as whatever Spanish priests would take charge of the missions, would
be scholarly men speaking both English and Spanish, the English speaking
congregations would be well served. About three of the old missions are
under Spanish priests now. Let us then not cease our efforts until every
mission cross gleams gloriously in the radiance of the California sun,
until the devotional chimes of mission bells peal forth again from every
silent belfry, until the altar light beams again before each tabernacle
enclosing the Eucharistic Presence, until the empty niches contain again
the images which decked them as of yore, until each tomb of sainted
missionary is restored, until mass is again daily said within these
consecrated walls, and finally until San Carlos of Carmelo is again
a worthier Carmel, "for the greater honor and glory of God" and the
praises of His Virgin Mother once more are sung about this smiling
valley where the Christian Indian children gathered the beautiful wild
flowers of the blooming meadows to adorn the hallowed shrines, ere
chimed the Angelus at evenings mellow glow.