A Minister to the Lowliest

By Emma Hildreth Adams
Excerpted from, "To and Fro in Southern California" by Emma H. Adams, originally copyrighted in 1887.

THE present Summer has witnessed a notable revival of interest in the early Spanish missions of Alta California. The feeling has been confined chiefly within the State, and particularly to the Catholic portion of the citizens, though some concern has been evinced beyond the border lines. The cause of this revival was the recurrence, on August 28th, of the one hundredth anniversary of their founder, the Rev. Junipero Serra, D.D.

For many weeks prior to that date the correspondents of the Pacific Coast newspapers were busy searching the archives and records of that early period; visiting the seats of the various missions; writing eloquent descriptions of their former wealth and present decay, and catechising the oldest living Spaniards, as well as the earliest pioneer Americans, for the purpose of bringing to light all the history of these stations and of their distinguished superintendent.

How much of permanent, practical good resulted from the labors of this man among the wild Indian tribes whom he and his assistants found peopling this coast, and whom they subjugated in the name of the gospel and of the king of Spain, only a careful and impartial consideration of his methods, and of their immediate and later fruits, can determine. Certain it is, that viewed from this distance of time, and in the light of the fact that the tribes began to waste away almost from the hour the effort was inaugurated, those fifty or sixty years of Catholic attempt at uplifting and Christianizing the untutored race, form not a very satisfactory chapter in the history of civilization.

Nevertheless, the entire history of the period attests the fact that the Padre Junipero Serra himself ardently desired to be a true missionary of the cross and messenger of blessing to the rude red man. And if his work failed at all of the ends he sought, it should be attributed most to the methods and the paralyzing genius of the ecclesiastical power to which he was responsible. The eminent man lacked neither love for the Indian nor devotion to his work. This, all Californians concede, regardless of sect or creed. And unquestionably it was in reference to him, as a man who desired the good of the lowest of his race, and not as a priest of the Catholic Church, that the citizens of the State, rather generally, were interested in the step to honor his memory. His name is inseparable from the early history of California, and in his personal record is the attraction of a spirit of great self-denial. For these reasons I take notice of this passing movement.

Junipero Serra was a native of the Island of Majorca, Spain, having been born November 24, 1713. He was small in stature, of feeble constitution, and "possessed a great love for books." Religiously inclined, he at the early age of seventeen applied to the order of Franciscans for membership. A year later he was admitted to full companionship in the fraternity, and addressed himself to the study of theology and philosophy, soon excelling as a teacher of these subjects. Immediately, also, he became celebrated as a pulpit orator, but, indifferent to the applause of city communities, he craved the privilege of preaching the gospel to the peasantry, especially desiring to minister to any who had never heard its conditions.

With this object in view he sailed for the New World, from Cadiz, August 28, 1749, and entered Mexico on New-Year's Day, 1750. Beginning missionary labors at once, and with great ardor, his name quickly became known in the Catholic Church of Mexico. After seventeen years of service in that part of the country, he was appointed president of the fifteen missions then existing in the Peninsula of California, and which had been founded by the Order of Jesuits, whom the government had just expelled. Here Serra found a field as needy, a people as abject, as he could wish for his training hand. It proved a territory far more difficult to cultivate than any the scholarly prelate had known, and in the course of time it was turned over to the Dominicans. Then, himself and sixteen subordinates set out on a missionary tour among the heathen tribes of Alta California.

Reaching the point on the coast where to-day stands the city of San Diego, seventeen miles north of the present frontier of Mexico, he there established, July 16, 1769, the first of the series of twenty-one missions embraced in what is now the State of California. The last of the series, that of San Francisco de Solano, was erected August 25, 1823. Ten years later this mission invoiced its possessions as follows: "Indian converts, fifteen hundred; cattle and horses, thirty-five hundred; goats and hogs, four thousand; fruits and grain, three thousand bushels. Nineteen years afterward, or in 1842, there were, it is said, but seventy Indians amenable to this mission.

From San Diego, whose mission church still stands, unroofed, with its walls crumbling to ruin, Father Serra moved northward to the lovely bay of Monterey. Here, June 3, 1770, he planted his second station, at the head of that sheet of water. Twelve months later the mission was transferred to the beautiful Carmelo Valley, some five miles down the coast from Monterey. Here, in time, rose a church edifice, a house for the priests, and barracks for the mission's handful of military protectors. These were all built of wood, and with the exception of the church, were covered with tules. The latter was roofed simply with earth.

From Carmelo it is claimed that Serra explored the coast as far northward as the fifty-fifth parallel, taking possession, "in the name of the Church and the King of Spain," of all the territory comprised in California, Oregon, and Washington. Returning to the mission on the Little Carmelo River, he there filled up the remainder of his days with self-denying labors among the surrounding Indian tribes; and there, greatly lamented by the simple-minded natives to whom he had faithfully ministered, he breathed his last, just one hundred years ago.

By his special request, his remains were interred "in the sanctuary of the church, on the gospel side of the altar." In the progress of years this building fell into decay, and was replaced by a structure of stone, erected on the same site, and covering the cherished remains of Junipero Serra. In turn this edifice also lapsed into ruin; and it is the question of its restoration which has this Summer drawn all Catholic eyes toward the little city of Monterey.

Recalling that the centennial of the great missionary's death was imminent, the pastor of the Catholic Church, at Monterey, "was moved early in the season to ask all Californians, irrespective of creed or color, to show respect to the man's memory, by handsomely restoring the ruin which had so long served as a monument over his grave." The newspapers took up his appeal; talked eloquently of the self-denying spirit of Padre Junipero Serra; of his manifold services to California and to its aboriginal tribes; of the fact that most of the missions he planted are well on the way to decay, and urged that the church at Carmelo should, out of gratitude, be preserved. The many Spaniards, Mexicans, and other Catholics of the coast were much aroused by these pleas, and contributed liberally to the object. Other citizens of the State also aided the cause generously.

Sufficient enthusiasm having been awakened to insure success, the work of renovation began, and in good time was completed. On the 28th of August, 1884, the old-new monument church was blessed with the customary Catholic ceremonial, many dignitaries of the Church being present, as were some State officials, and a large concourse of other persons. The ceremonies were of both a civic and religious character.

The renewal of the building was effected at a cost of sixteen thousand dollars, and now presents a curious mingling of ancient and modern architecture and decoration. The structure really serves the double purpose of a house of worship and a mausoleum. Upon the hearts of the Catholics the spot has a great hold. Through his whole life, I believe, Junipero Serra was a subject of great personal suffering, rendering his work all the more arduous. Certain it is that most of his days in California were passed in physical agony, which was partly the result of a frail constitution, and partly the fruit of exposure in founding the missions.

Of the twenty-one missions planted in Upper California, nine are said to have been established by Serra in person. These were, besides the two already named, that of San Juan Capistrano, the first station north of San Diego. The church is described as a splendid ruin. It was demolished by an earthquake one morning while mass was being celebrated, and the building was thronged with people. Thirty persons lost their lives, and many were injured. Services have always been held in one of its little chapels. "A priest resides there, and ekes out a scanty living by renting some of the crumbling rooms." That of San Gabriel, lying twelve miles east of Los Angeles, in one of the garden spots of Southern California; that of San Buena Ventura, near the sea-board, twenty-seven miles south of Santa Barbara; that of Santa Barbara itself, if I remember correctly, one of the richest of the series; that of San Antonio, located on the bank of a fine stream some miles from Soledad; that of San Luis Obispo, in the heart of the town of that name, and that of Santa Clara, three miles from San Jose. This church is a large structure, and "is the best preserved of the list." It once possessed a vast domain of productive acres.

Establishing the mission of San Buena Ventura was Padre Serra's last work in extending the realm of the Catholic Church. Twenty-eight months later, at Carmelo, he entered upon his final sleep. The Ventura mission was founded March 31, 1782, with jurisdiction over fifteen hundred square miles of territory. Before the sequestration of the missions it had acquired large possessions in flocks and herds also.

"The dominant idea in that really imposing missionary movement," said a gentleman yesterday, who, though not a Catholic, has through a long life been closely associated with members of that body, and has observed its methods of extending its power, "was, that within the period of one generation at most, whole tribes of the rude, idol-worshiping Indians could, under the teachings of the Church, the influence of the priests, and the restraints of the Spanish soldiery, be transformed into permanently civilized and Christianized societies. It was believed they could then be left to pursue works of piety and arts of peace under a civil administrator. The fatal defect in this reasoning was, to speak mildly, forgetfulness of the physiological fact that blood, which has been deteriorating through centuries of time, can not be restored to prime quality in the short space of forty or fifty years.

"As might have been foreseen, the whole scheme was a failure. And no person who has ever written upon the swift decadence of these Indian missions has touched the real cause. This, unquestionably, was their sequestration by the Mexican government. The moment the supreme control which the missionary fathers exercised over the neophytes of their respective stations was superseded by the rule of secular administrators, that moment the majority of the Indians left the missions and returned to the haunts of their ancestors, or sought employment on the ranchos of citizens friendly to them. Every attempt made between 1830 and 1840 to convert the neophytes into free and property-holding citizens, as was the case at the missions of San Diego, San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, and San Juan Baptiste, proved miserable failures. The Indians soon showed that they had not acquired the power to retain the property left in their hands, nor to obtain more. It was the purpose of the Mexican government to leave in the hands of the converts all the land and other property belonging to the missions, as an outfit at the beginning of their self-governing career. But in a brief time the immense wealth of the stations was irrevocably scattered."

Emma Hildreth Adams of Cleveland, Ohio, visited Southern California in 1884 and 1886. To and fro in Southern California (1887) is the book edition of Mrs. Adams's travel letters originally published in a Cleveland newspaper. She writes at length of her rail trips west and stops in New Mexico and Arizona. In California, she focuses her attention on Los Angeles, with visits to Downey, Anaheim, Pasadena, and San Pedro. She discusses area schools, agriculture, regional flower-growing, irrigation projects, the position of women, and schools; and reports an interview with Hubert H. Bancroft. OCThen.com has republished specific materials from this text for educational purposes.