California Missions ~ Chapter Nine: Mission San Juan Capistrano

During one of my mini-vacations, back in 2004, I visited Mission San Juan Capistrano, located in the town with the same name, not far from a major interstate freeway. After you exit the freeway, you drive along a wall, find the parking lot, and enter the mission grounds. Once there, you are truly in another, more peaceful world. The above picture shows two of the original bells in the footprint of the 1812 earthquake (see below).

Founded on All Saints' Day, November 1, 1776, and named for the Italian theologian, Giovanni da Capistrano, this is perhaps the best known of the California Missions, with about half a million visitors, including 80,000 school children, each year. Traditionally, the return of the swallows to Mission San Juan Capistrano is celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day, March 19th, every year. This is a big event in Southern California, with media coverage and crowds gathering to see the swallows return. 

As you can see from my pictures, this is a beautiful place, with lovely flowers, plants, and the pond pictured below. 

The first Mission grape was planted at San Juan Capistrano in 1779, and in 1783, the first wine in California was produced here.

According to Wikipedia, Mission San Juan Capistrano is also home to the oldest building still in use in California, a chapel built in 1782, known as "Serra's Chapel" or "Father Serra's Church," it's the only structure where it has been documented that Padre Junipero Serra actually celebrated mass. Researching these posts, I'm learning so much about the missions I wish I had known back then, when I visited them. 

The Golden altar in Father Serra's Church.

At the mission's foundry, Indians were introduced to iron for the first time. The iron, which came to the mission via trade, was fashioned into all kinds of objects, such as nails, hinges, gates, crosses, and even a cannon for mission defense. Above is a view of the mission's Catalan forges, the oldest existing facilities of their kind in the State of California.

Finally, there is something special at Mission San Juan Capistrano: The ruins of The Great Stone Church, dubbed the American Acropolis by architects because of its classical Greco-Roman style. Work on building the church, the only chapel in the Alta California Mission system not built of adobe, began in 1797. The chapel was laid out in the shape of a cross with a 120 foot bell tower. Work on the church was completed in 1806. Imagine all this work done for nine years, the church blessed by the padres, only to fall victim to yet another Southern California earthquake. On the morning of December 8, 1812, the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, the 7.0 magnitude Wrightwood Earthquake, shook the church and pinned its doors shut. After the shaking ended, the bulk of the nave and the entire bell tower came crashing down. Forty Native Americans, who were attending mass, and two boys, who had been ringing the bells, were buried under the rubble and lost their lives. 

According to Wikipedia, the World Monuments Fund placed the Great Stone Church on its list of 100 Most Endangered Sites, in 2002. The most recent seismic retrofits of the mission were completed in 2004, at a cost of $7.5 million.

The memories I took away with me from my visit to Mission San Juan Capistrano are those of my photos above. I didn't feel the presence of ghosts here, just the beauty and peace of flowers, pond, and small birds.

Source: Wikipedia for information and the photos below mine. 


I will post Chapter 10 ~ Mission San Gabriel Arcángel two weeks from today. 

California Missions ~ Chapter Eight: Mission San Luis Rey de Francia

When I worked and lived in Los Angeles, I sometimes took off by myself on a mini-vacation. I would find a hotel along the coast and walk, read, go to the movies, shop, or just relax for a few days. I found this to be both invigorating and good for the soul. In 2004, I decided take some time and visit the two missions located between San Diego and Los Angeles, Mission San Luis Rey and Mission San Juan Capistrano.

Mission San Luis Rey, located in Oceanside, is the one you reach first when traveling from south to north. By 2004 I had a digital camera, so the pictures are mine. Looking at them, I see how I could have done a better job of capturing the special features of the mission. This is interesting because the pictures from San Juan Capistrano that I visited on the same trip are among my best. I wonder if it depends on your mood on a particular day.

Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, named after King Louis IX of France (1215-1270), was founded on June 13, 1798 and is the eighteenth of the Spanish missions built in California. According to Wikipedia, the current church was built in 1811 and is the third church built on this location. Today, it is a parish church in the Diocese of San Diego, as well as a National Historic Landmark and museum. At its prime, this mission covered over 950,000 acres and was one of the largest in the mission system. 

Mission San Luis Rey is impressive with its stark white buildings and large church built in the Moorish style mixed with Spanish Renaissance. Because of its large size the mission has been nicknamed "King of the Missions." 

I sat on an old stone bench here and took this picture. I found some small, enclosed gardens like this one within this this large and massive mission. 

Looking at this photo of the courtyard at mission San Luis Rey, I wish I had captured the entire text of that plaque. What is interesting here is that in the background, to the right, is the oldest Peruvian pepper tree planted in California. It was planted in 1830. I can't tell which tree it is, but there you have it. 

Next Sunday we will visit the beautiful Mission San Juan Capistrano.

California Missions~ Chapter Seven: Mission San Diego de Alcala

In my earlier posts: California Missions, Chapters One through Six, I wrote about the founding and history of the missions. For the next several Sundays, I want to share my personal stories and how the Southern missions came to play a part in my life. I first became familiar with the Spanish Missions when I lived in San Diego and found the first mission in the chain: Mission San Diego de Alcalá  founded by Father Serra on July 16, 1769.

San Diego, what can I say? I arrived in January 1972, my girlfriend picked me up at the bus station. I had traveled by Greyhound bus for the last leg of my cross country journey, having left my travel companion and his VW Bug in Barstow, California. I arrived at night and remember how pretty the city was with lights reflected on dark waters, as we crossed bridges and drove over islands to Pacific Beach where she lived. 

I'm not going to go into any details of my life in San Diego here, except to say it was definitely the worst year and a half of my life. I got a job in the Personnel office at UC San Diego, where I worked for the Public Employment Program. The purpose of the program was to find, hire, and train minorities, Vietnam Era veterans, and disabled people. In effect to integrate the campus staff population. In 1972, gaining acceptance for this in a very conservative city was no easy task and a lot of what I saw and heard at work devastated me. 

Many horrible things also happened in that short span of time: Several coworkers died tragically, including my girlfriend. While driving my car, I got stopped five times by policemen, who hassled me and then asked me for dates. And that was just some of it. A black cat that followed me home one night, became the best thing that happened to me in that beautiful, but troubled city.

Somewhere in all this mess, I discovered Mission San Diego and visited several times to sit quietly and exhale my troubles in the beautiful mission gardens. An active Catholic church, Mission San Diego de Alcalá was built in 1930 following the outlines of the 1813 mission. It is the fifth mission built on this site after earlier missions were destroyed by fire and earthquakes. 

It was here that I first learned about the terrible treatment of Indians at the missions. At the time, I could meditate upon the fact that present day Indians were also treated pretty badly. At a place of higher learning, no less, where I worked and felt responsible for not being able to change the minds and attitudes of some of the people. 

The above cross is a memorial in honor of Padre Luis Jayme who was killed during the Indian uprising of 1779 and marks the place where he died. 

Some California blogger friends, who knew what happened to the Indians, mentioned in comments that they felt uncomfortable when visiting the missions. If you are aware of the tremendous price paid by the Indians at the hands of the Spanish, you will feel their spirits, you will see their  graveyards and you will shiver. I have too, but that came later. My  life in San Diego was in turmoil and I felt at peace while sitting in the mission gardens, looking at the magnificent campanario, or bell wall, which rises above. I learned that the largest of the five bells, called Mater Dolorosa, was cast in San Diego in 1894 and weighs 1,200 pounds.

In the fall of 1973, I transferred to UCLA and moved to Los Angeles. My life soon returned to its normal, happy self and only once since then was I stopped by cop while driving, and rightfully so. 

Traveling north on El Camino Real, the next mission we will visit is Mission San Luis Rey. Should we also decide to travel inland a ways, we may visit San Antonio de Pala, a sub mission to San Luis Rey. Hopefully, that will come about next Sunday.


Note: It may be shocking for some to read this about a campus in the liberal state of California. I interacted mainly with staff employees, many of whom had never had a close interaction with a black person, for example. Many had never worked in an office with Latinos or Indians. Vietnam veterans were probably more welcome in San Diego than most places since it was a military town, however, they often came with such heavy burdens. The year was 1972, a lot was happening, and had I been more experienced, I'm sure I would have handled many situations differently and been able to help more. San Diego was still a relatively small town ~ it has grown up now and I'm sure attitudes have changed as people have learned to live together in that beautiful city by the Pacific Ocean.

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Since today is the first Sunday in Advent, let me finish with a picture from an earlier and better organized time. One of my Advent candle holders is in the middle. In Sweden, we light one candle on the first Sunday in Advent, two the next Sunday, until all four are lit and Christmas is near. 

Sources: Wikipedia and missiontour.org 

 

California Missions ~ Chapter Five

The Darker Side of Mission Life

Thinking back to the Spanish inquisition and other medieval horrors perpetrated on non-believers and recent converts in the name of the Catholic church, it seems that the Spanish padres of the late 18th century somehow still felt that cruelty was necessary to keep converts in line with their teachings.  

The presence of Indians in California dates back 8,000 to maybe as far back as 15,000 years. It is estimated that around 100 Indian nations, with a total population of about 300,000, lived in Alta California at the time the Spanish arrived. The Indian cultures were rich in spiritual traditions; they knew the moon, the tides and the earth. While they knew the way of the hunter, they also knew the importance of caring for the land, rivers and lakes. And of course they knew love of family and children. However, Indians were held in very low regard by both the padres and the Spanish military. 

Child, Adult, Sun ~ Chumash Rock Art

Among some Indian nations, there was initially a strong resistance to the Franciscans, expressed in attacks on both Spanish soldiers and Franciscan missionaries. As a result of Indian hostility, the work on building the missions was slowed and the Franciscans had to rely more and more on the military for protection.

As time went on and more settlers arrived, the life of the Indians became increasingly difficult. Missions spread over vast areas and rancheros sprung up across Indian lands. Cattle grazed the hills where Indians had lived for thousands of years, destroying their water supplies and native plants. This may have led some to join the missions, but many were also forced to live there.

Rafael, a Chumash Indian who communicated with anthropologists.

For example, the Chumash Indians of Central California, who came to live at the Santa Barbara missions, which included Missions Santa Inez and La Purisima, were mostly a friendly people. They were skilled at crafts and willing, at first, to work at the missions. 

But once an Indian agreed to become part of a mission, he was forbidden to leave without a padre's permission. As the years went by, Indians were allowed less and less freedom; they were cut off from their old way of life and forced to assimilate into Spanish culture. Indians were frequently subjected to corporal and other punishments, as determined by the padres. The cruelty of the military and some of the padres was often extreme as Indians were frequently beaten and sometimes killed.

Foreigners, who visited the missions, commented that they resembled slave plantations, in that the padres' control over the Indians seemed excessive, but necessary, due to the white men's isolation and numeric disadvantage. Indians were not paid wages nor considered free men.

As I noted in Chapter Four, the padres forced women to live separately from men in what were often abysmal conditions, resulting in very high rates of illness and death among the women. There was also an alarming rate of stillborn babies. In 1810, Padre Payeras at La Purisima mentioned in a letter that, "the majority of pregnant women have produced stillborn babies." And A.L. Kroeber, the noted anthropologist, observed "an alarming spread of the practice of abortions among the Indians." 

 Many Indians were also killed by European diseases unknown to them, such as smallpox and measles. During a three-month period in 1806, a quarter of the mission Indian population in the San Francisco Bay area died during a measles epidemic. Thousands of California Indians are buried in mission cemeteries.

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Sadly, a long chapter was needed to describe the darker side of mission life. I hope to finish this general overview of the California Missions next Sunday, with both the Indian revolts and the end of the mission period in California. After that, and I'm really looking forward to it, I plan to write about each individual mission. With some of my personal experiences added to those I have visited.  


Sources: Wikipedia, including all photos, and La Purisima State Historic Park booklet.

California Missions - Chapter Four

Mission Life

According to Wikipedia, the native population of California before the Spanish arrived, may have been as high as 300,000 divided into more 100 different tribes or nations. Their civilized and disciplined culture, developed over 8,000 years, was not considered by the Spanish, who followed a doctrine established in 1531. This doctrine based the Spanish state's rights over land and persons in the New World on a Papal charge to evangelize the native people.

Native Americans, who lived at a mission, had to learn Spanish and vocational skills, in addition to Christian teachings. Once baptized, they were labeled neophytes, or new believers, and were no longer free to leave the mission. They were strictly supervised by the padres who oversaw their labor and ensured they attended daily masses. Indians who decided to leave were considered runaways, and were searched for. In 1806, a total of 20,355 natives were attached to the  missions, the highest number recorded during the California mission period.

Young Indian women had to live in together under the supervision of an older trusted woman, who was responsible for their care and education. The padres felt this was necessary in order to protect the women from the men. Courtship between women and men took place on each side of a barred window, in accordance with Spanish custom. Women were only allowed to leave once they were getting married. Living in these cramped and unsanitary quarters, resulted in the spread of disease and many young women died.  

According to Wikipedia, on December 31, 1832, the mission padres had performed a total of 87,787 baptisms, 24, 528 marriages, and recorded 63,789 deaths. 

The ringing of the mission bells was a very important part of life at the missions. Novices were instructed in the ritual of ringing the bells, which were rung at mealtimes, to call for work, for church services, for baptisms and deaths, to signal the arrival of a ship, and so on. 

Each day began with sunrise Mass and morning prayers, followed by teachings in the Roman Catholic faith. After breakfast, men and women were assigned their daily tasks. Women's tasks consisted of dressmaking, weaving, knitting, embroidering, laundering and cooking. Some of the stronger women, ground flour or carried adobe bricks to the men who were assigned to building tasks. 

Lavanderia built by Chumash  Indians at Mission Santa Barbara around 1806.












A view of forges at Mission San Juan Capistrano, the oldest existing facilities, (circa 1790s) in California. A sign states it was part of Orange County's first industrial complex.

The missionaries introduced European fruits, vegetables, cattle and horses to the Pacific region. And they also taught the Indian men to farm, to build adobe houses, tan leather hides, shear sheep, weave rugs and clothing from wool, make ropes, soap, paint and so on.

As in other parts of America, the colonization of Alta California came at a heavy price for the native population. Next Sunday, I will write about some of the uprisings and revolts that occurred at the missions.

After that I want to write about my own impressions of the missions that I have visited from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Finally, I plan to use Wikipedia and other online sources to talk about the missions of central and northern California.

As I said in the beginning, I have always been interested in the Spanish Missions of California and I am enjoying learning more about them through this project.

California Missions ~ Chapter Three

The 21 California Missions

Between 1769 and 1823, the government of Spain, with the assistance of the Church, established a network of missions along what became known as El Camino Real. Mission San Diego de Alcala was the first of the 21 California missions founded by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order.  

The 21 California Missions and the Pala sub-mission. From a bookmark of mine.

Purpose of the Missions

The goal of the Spanish was to convert the indigenous peoples of Alta California to Christianity. This had worked reasonably well in their interactions with the native populations in Mexico and Central America. The Spanish realized that their numbers were not enough to successfully occupy and settle the vast land that was Alta California, so they planned to teach the native population Spanish and vocational skills, in order to make them into tax paying citizens. Several missions also served as military outposts that were instrumental in the colonization of the Pacific Coast region. 

The first baptisms in Alta California took place after two Fathers en route to Monterey, came across a native settlement where two young girls were dying.  They baptized a baby girl, Maria Magdalena, and the older child, Margarita.  The soldier on the expedition named the place

 Los Cristianos.

Building and Maintaining the Missions

Many procedures had to be followed before the founding of a mission was approved. Paperwork that involved months, even years, moved slowly through the Spanish bureaucracy. Once a mission was approved for a certain area, a specific site was chosen. A good water supply was of primary importance, as were wood for fires and building materials , and fields for grazing herds and raising crops. Once a site was chosen, it was blessed by the padres, who then, with the help of their military escorts, began to build temporary shelters that would eventually give way to stone and adobe buildings.

Exterior corridor at Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana.

Since it would have been impossible to import the quantity of building materials necessary to build a large mission complex, the fathers had no choice but to use locally available materials. Considering that there was also a lack of skilled laborers, both building methods and materials used had to be simple. The fathers primarily used five basic materials to construct the missions: adobe, timber, stone, brick, and tile. The adobes (mud bricks) were made from soil and water with chaff, straw, or manure added to bind the mixture together.

The three-bell campanario ("bell wall") at Mission San Juan Bautista. Two of the bells were salvaged from the original chime, which was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Quoting from Wikipedia: "The first priority when beginning a settlement was the location and construction of the church (iglesia). The majority of mission sanctuaries were oriented on a roughly east-west axis to take the best advantage of the sun's position for interior illumination.  Once the spot for the church had been selected, its position was marked and the remainder of the mission complex was laid out. The workshops, kitchens, living quarters, storerooms, and other ancillary chambers were usually grouped in the form a quadrangle, inside which religious celebrations and other festive events often took place."


As I mentioned in Chapter one, the missions were built approximately 30 miles apart along the California Mission Trail, a 600-mile route, which is usually referred to as El Camino Real (Spanish for the Royal Road, also known as The King's Highway). At the time the missions were built, the 30-mile distance represented a long one-day ride on horseback or a three-day hike on foot.

Franciscans of the California missions wore gray robes, not brown as is common today.

It was intended that each mission be turned over to a secular clergy* and that all mission lands be distributed among the native population within ten years after a mission was founded. This policy had worked fairly well for the Spanish in Mexico, Central America, and Peru where the native populations were more advanced than those in Alta California. As time went on, it became evident to Father Serra and other mission administrators that it would take much longer for the California missions to become self-sufficient. The missions never attained complete self-sufficiency and would continue to require financial support, albeit modest, from Spain.

The end of the mission period in California will be covered in a later chapter.

* In the Catholic Church, the secular clergy are ministers, such as deacons and priests, who do not belong to a religious institute. While regular clergy take religious vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and follow the rule of life of the institute to which they belong, secular clergy do not take vows, and they live in the world (saeculum). 



Click on this link to read about the building of the missions in more detail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_the_California_missions


Source: Information and all images, except the first, from Wikipedia. 

California Missions ~ Chapter Two

Father Junipero Serra 

Father Serra, who became the founder of the California Missions, was born in 1713 on the island of Majorca, Spain.  He joined the Franciscan Order and took the name Junipero after Saint Juniper, a companion of Saint Francis. Father Serra received a doctorate in theology from the Lullian University in Palma de Majorca, where he also occupied a chair in philosophy until he joined the missionary.

In 1749, Father Serra decided to become a missionary in the New World and traveled with several Franciscan monks to Mexico, where he joined a college in the capital. He arrived in Veracruz and was offered a mule for the journey to the capital, but Father Serra preferred to walk, so he refused the offer and set out on foot. Unfortunately, he was bitten by a snake while on this journey and would suffer serious pain and a crippled leg as a result. After teaching in the capital for several years, he transferred to the Sierra Gorda Indian Missions where he spent about nine years. During this time he learned the Pame language and translated the catechism to this language. Father Serra also spent some time in Baja California, where he founded that state's only Franciscan mission. 

Mission San Diego de Alcala 

Later, Father Serra was appointed to the post of presidente, with responsibility for establishing a chain of missions in Alta (upper) California, the present day state of California. In 1769, Father Serra joined an expedition to Alta California. When the expedition reached San Diego, Father Serra stayed on and founded Mission San Diego de Alcala, the first of the California missions.

Father Serra

Father Serra was a serious man, who lived a spartan religious life. It was not enough for him to turn away from earthly pleasures, he would often lash himself with ropes and beat his chest with stones. This also served as a means to move others to do penance for their sins.  

Father Serra spent the last three years of his life visiting the missions from San Diego to San Francisco, a journey of 600 miles, in order to confirm all who had been baptized there. Father Serra confirmed more than 5,000 people, mostly Indians, while on this journey. Throughout his travels, he endured severe pain from his crippled his leg, but refused remedies. Father Serra died at Mission San Carlos Borromeo, on August 28, 1784. He was 70 years old. He is buried under the sanctuary floor of the mission. Father Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25, 1988.

Mission San Carlos Borromeo ~ Source Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the source for much of the above information and all photos.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun%C3%ADpero_Serra

Next Sunday, Chapter Three will cover the purpose of the 21 California missions, building the missions, and maintaining them.

California Missions ~ Chapter One

When I first came to California, I lived in San Diego, which is home to the first Spanish mission built in California, the beautiful Mission San Diego de Acala. I visited the mission several times and found a place of beauty and peace, with a strong sense of the old, of history. I became very interested in the missions and their place in the history of California. And, as the years went by, I visited all but one of the Southern California missions. (I must apologize here: the accents will be missing on Spanish words; I just don't know how to add them. Please leave a note, if you know how it's done.)

I would have loved to travel the coast road, El Camino Real, a 600-mile long trail, now a highway, where the missions are situated approximately 30 miles apart. When the missions were built, this represented a long one-day ride on horseback or three-day hike on foot. But I never drove to Northern California alone, with the missions in mind, so I've not seen them all. There are 21 California missions and one sub-mission. Back in the late 1700s, additional outposts were built along El Camino Real, to provide much needed rest stops for travelers. Legend has it that the padres sprinkled bright yellow mustard flowers along the trail to mark it. 

I have wanted to revisit the missions, at least in my mind, for a while now. So I thought why not write about them here --  it may also be interesting for those of you who've never been to California to learn a little about their history in words and  and pictures. They're some of the oldest buildings in the state and they all have stories to tell. I know it will be fun for me to revisit them, so over the next several weeks, maybe even up to Christmas, I want to dedicate my Sunday posts to the Spanish missions of California. I will use Wikipedia to fact check my own memories of their history, but I will, for the most part, use my own words. I'll also use Wikipedia photos to supplement my own. 

Next Sunday, I'll begin with the purpose and organization of the missions. Then we'll see how far I get each week. After the historical overview, I want to share my personal impressions of each of the ten southern missions, going from south to north. I'll begin with Mission San Diego de Acala, which is the southernmost mission and also the first one to be built in California. 

I know I will learn much from revisiting the history of these magnificent places. I hope you will come along on this adventure and enjoy it with me.