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San
Juan Capistrano
Little Chapters
Chapter IX
Little Chapters About San Juan Capistrano
Chapter IX: The Beginning and the End
To one who visits the Mission and contemplates the majestic
and extensive buildings, measuring a third of a mile around,
and at the same time notes their ruined condition, two thoughts
naturally occur. The first is: How did the padres manage,
with their limited resources and untrained workmen, to accomplish
so wonderful results in the building of the Mission in so
short a time? And the second is: How did it come about that
the place was left to fall to ruin - the padres gone, and
the Indians for whom it had been built scattered to the four-winds
or gathered to their fathers?
The answer to these questions is a long story. The up-building
of the Missions was the result of the work of the Catholic
Church in fulfillment of the duty imposed upon her divine
Founder Jesus Christ, to "teach the gospel to every creature."
The immediate agents of that teaching were the Fathers of
the Franciscan Order, to whom had been committed the leadership
in the work of taking actual possession of California by Spain,
which up to the year 1869 had only nominal possession of the
country. To the unbounded enthusiasm, energy, genius, if you
please, of Fray Junípero Serra and his companions is
due the swiftness with which the peaceful conquest of the
savage tribes was carried on.
The ruin of San Juan Capistrano and of the other Missions
of California was due to the greed of the Mexican officials
who under the hypocritical pretense of alleviating the condition
of the Mission Indians brought about the confiscation of the
Mission property by the territorial government of California.
State officials replaced the padres and this resulted in a
short time in the most shameful squandering of the properties
and effects of the establishments, and in the scattering of
the Indians. The following is from Alfred Robinson's "Life
in California", published in 1846:
"For several years past a few evil minded persons
have sought the ruin of the Missions in California, by dividing
their possessions among the Indians. Various decrees had
passed the Mexican Congress relative to their secularization,
which were afterwards made null by counter resolutions.
The administration of Gomez Farias, as President of the
Republic, was favorable to the plan, and the powerful influence
of Padrés procured from His Excellency his sanction
to an act of the Mexican Congress, passed the 17th of August,
1833, entitled: 'An Act for the Secularization of the Missions
of the Californias, etc.'"
San Juan Capistrano was the very first at which this act was
put into effect. The administration of the mission passing from
the Fathers into the hands of salaried state officials, it was
only a short time before the lands and even the buildings themselves
were sold off, and the Indians sent adrift. Some years later,
1862, smallpox appeared among them and almost entirely wiped
them out of existence, so that to-day not half a dozen San Juaneños
remain in the vicinity of the Mission.
The Mission is in ruins; the Indians are no more; the pious
padres are long since gone to their reward. The world which
loves the flesh and the pride of life says and believes that
the work was a failure, but in a sense that the world does
not and can not understand, the things they wrought will one
day rise like a glorious sun over the ocean of eternity, while
the work of the worldling, which is now so proudly held up
for the admiration of his fellowman, will sink and disappear,
like the sorry wreck of a ship, pounded to pieces on the treacherous
rocks of time.
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