THE MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA AND THE OLD SOUTHWEST
SANTA CLARA
SANTA CLARA was founded in the following year, 1777. Padre Tomas de la Pena officiated at the ceremonies, seven years before the death of Junipero Serra. This Mission is in Santa Clara County, three miles from San Jose, the county seat. The two places are connected by an old boulevard made by the padres, and lined on each side by a triple row of trees, planted in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, equidistant from each other, on opposite sides of the roadway. They are now of great height, shading the entire route. An old legend says that they were intended as a hedge to protect the traveler from the wild cattle. The boulevard is one hundred feet wide, and in the days of the padres the surface was kept clean and smooth as a promenade. It was called “Alameda” – the pleasant way. The location of the Mission affords another example of the excellent judgment and taste of the old padres in the selection of sites for their Mission homes. There is no more enchanting valley on earth then this one in Santa Clara County. On the sixth of January, Padre Tomas and Lieutenant Moraga, with ten soldiers, selected the site; another padre, Jose Murguia, with a party soon came from San Carlos with provisions and supplies for the little colony, but Padre Tomas de la Pena with becoming ceremony founded the Mission; and the buildings were completed in due course. Here again the trained heathen’s hand and brain were utilized in the construction of this, as they were in that of all the Missions, except for the first few that were built, before the necessary educational process and experience had prepared the Indian for the work. Conversion and baptism went on apace, and the padres were made happy by the salvation of many native souls.
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The Mission thrived from the beginning until the spring of 1779, when excessive rains and floods caused by the melting of the heavy snows in the mountains destroyed their buildings and improvements, causing great loss. In consequence, other buildings, including a very beautiful church on more elevated ground, were constructed, and President Serra, with Padre Pena and his old friend and biographer, Padre Palou, led in the ceremonies of dedication. The architect, Father Murguia, died after the completion of the structure, and now lies buried under its walls. An earthquake wrecked these buildings in 1818, but the Mission was restored by erections on a more generous scale in 1825 and 1826. All now lie in moss-grown ruins, which stir mournful memories and regretful thoughts in the minds of those who visit them in these latter days. Santa Clara Mission had an exciting experience with its Indian converts not realized to any extent by the other Missions. Yoscolo, who was educated at the Mission, a strong character, was named the alcaide, or chief of the Indians, controlled by the Mission, but rebelled against the authority of the Padres; with a thousand Indians, armed with bows and arrows, he attacked the Mission and robbed it of such stores and supplies as the rebels cared for and could take with them. Meeting with no serious opposition, they invaded the convent where the Indian girls lived, and ignoring the padres system, which allowed the girls to select for them if they inclined to matrimony, they adopted the method of the Romans who seized the Sabine women, and captured more then three hundred of them, many of whom may have been willing victims. Then herding three thousand head of cattle and five hundred horses, they fled to the mountains near Mariposa, afterwards General John C. Fremont’s noted ranch claim. About the same time Stanislaus, another Indian leader, deserted from the Mission of San Jose, gathered some three thousand Indians at Mariposa, and united his forces with those of Yoscolo, who was chief of the native armies. General Vallejo of the Mexican army, and resident commander, with about three hundred soldiers, started after the rebels, but was outwitted by them, and they escaped into the hidden recesses of the mountains, and were lost to the Mexicans.
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Later, Yoscolo, who seems to have been something of a strategist and fighter, and doubtless encouraged by his good fortune, made another raid on the Santa Clara Mission, and was again successful in looting and carrying away large quantities of stores and valuable goods. He returned to the Santa Cruz Mountains, near Los Gatos, at the mouth of the great canyon leading through these mountains. The locality of Los Gatos (“The Home of the Cats”) appears to have been the rendezvous and breeding place of innumerable wild cats, dangerous even to the hunter. Still later Yoscolo, exalted by his good fortune, and destitute of gratitude towards the Mission fathers for their former kindness, made another raid. This last adventure awoke the sleeping and peaceful energies of the Mission and the native Californians, so that Juan Prado Mesa, the commander of the Mission, organized a force and followed the rebels to the mountains. A battle ensued; with the true tactics of a good soldier, Yoscolo formed a square, ordered his Indians to fight lying down, and behind rocks and trees. A fierce conflict resulted, but bows and arrows could not compete with the flintlock arms of the time. A day’s battle, in which the Indians evinced great courage and tenacity of purpose, until their rude weapons were exhausted, ended in surrender to the Mission forces. Yoscolo was wounded and taken, and according to the usage those times, he and the leading members of his army were at once beheaded; the others were taken to the Mission to undergo anew the process of conversion after due punishment of their sins. Yoscolo’s head was set on top of a pole planted near the front door of Santa Clara Church, to terrorize other Indians inclined to evil doing and rebellion against the Mission authority. In 1839, in execution of the decree of secularization, issued some years prior to this time, Don Jose Ramon Estrada, the legally constituted commissioner, gave away, or sold to his friends and followers, the rich lands and other property of the Mission.
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The Padres voluntarily abandoned their homes in most instances when they saw their work destroyed and their opportunity gone. The Indians, vainly protesting, were driven away to encounter poverty, suffering, and ultimate extinction. Decay and speedy ruin came to the Mission. This, in brief, was the end of all the heroic, sublime, and unselfish labors of the Franciscan fathers to redeem and civilize the savage tribes of California. The bitter experience of the Santa Clara Mission with the rebels was without doubt due to the fact that the greater portion of the converts were mountain-bred Indians, whose nature and habits were more savage, cruel, and warlike then those of tribes living in other localities, more favorable by nature to their support. The modern Santa Clara has, within sight of the old Mission ruins, a Catholic College, with extensive grounds and magnificent buildings, and a faculty famed for its piety and learning. Within its boundary lines are many acres adorned with statuary, and planted with trees shading pleasant walks; fountains refreshing the air and pleasing the eye; flowers everywhere lending their fragrance to the breath of life; vines laden with the nectar of the gods; rare plants and beautiful shrubbery; while here and there, standing in stately height and native vigor, widely spreading its branches, is the antique oak, whose length of days extends to centuries. This picture of beauty, power, and progress represents the Mother Church of our times; the old ruins near by represent the same Church more then a hundred years ago; this, the loss of a rude but precious civilization; that, the achievements of a living race with a splendid civilization alike precious and, we trust, far more enduring. The Church has made her record in each.
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SAN BUENAVENTURA
IN 1779 Serra after many political changes in the officials and plans for California, in which Governor Portola was displaced by Don Theodore de Croix as Governor-General, with residence in Sonora and his good friend, Viceroy Bucarelidead, received orders to found three Missions on the Channel of Santa Barbara. Captain Rivera recruited eighty men for that purpose, and to help Serra in locating and building the Missions. San Buenaventura was so situated as to form a link in the original chain of Missions which Serra ardently desired along the two hundred leagues of coast from Mexico northward, so as to meet the necessities of all the Indians living there, who he learned were more readily reclaimed then inland tribes and mountain Indians. Governor Portola, on his return from Monterey, reported to Serra very favorably of the Channel Indians, as being peaceable, some of them advanced in stonework and quite skilful in woodwork, living in decent houses, and expert with canoes. They had informed him, by tracing in the sand, of Vizcaino’s visit nearly one hundred and seventy-five years before. Serra was greatly interested, but he did not finally get permission to build until Governor Nave informed him in February, 1783, that he would help in founding the Missions of San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara. He proceeded to the former place, and on the twenty-ninth of March, 1783, with imposing ceremony and a great attendance of Soldiers and Indians, and Padre Cambon from the Philippine Islands, he dedicated San Buenaventura Mission to God and St. Joseph. In 1802 this Mission had greater and finer herds, fields of grain, gardens, and orchards then any other. Fathers Dumertz and Vicente de Santa Maria were in control, and for many years they made the enterprise a success and the Mission rapidly increased in wealth and importance.
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They were on the seacoast in the midst of a country most prolific in all the products of the soil. They controlled the great Santa Clara Valley; they likewise controlled other rice valleys between the Santa Inez Mountains and the ocean, and from the Newhall to Monticello. San Buenaventura Mission has suffered from fire and earthquake, the former during the life of Padre Senan, when the buildings were all but completely destroyed; and the latter during the general disturbance in 1812, when so many of the Missions experienced serious damage. For a time the Padres dared not trust their lives beneath the shattered walls, and in the end the church and tower were razed and built anew. These walls were so massive that they resisted the cannon shots with hardly a scar, in the battle between Carrillo and Alvarado in the spring of 1838. The beautiful alter in the chapel was the envy of all the Missions. The buildings are now in good state of preservation. The church is finally decorated and painted outside and in, but the decorations have so modernized it that the mediaeval character of the structure is lost except in the doorways, confessional, baptistery, and bell vaults in the tower. Services are held here regularly as of old. The place is a glorious relic, recalled from the past to bless with its memories the present and the future.
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SANTA BARBARA
IN April,1782, Governor Nave, with sixty soldiers, arrived at Santa Barbara, thirty miles west by north of the new Ventura, so named, and built a Presidio for the military protection of the Mission near the beach, which here curves to form a small bay. The site selected was not far from the old Indian mound, on a high mesa, upwards of a mile from the coast, commanding a view of the Santa Inez Mountains on the north, and the ocean in other directions for more then a hundred miles on a clear day. An electric railway now extends from the coast to the Mission. Monticello, to the east, is as sunny and romantic an incline of foothills as the eye rests upon in a thousand leagues of coast land. April 29, 1782, the Governor and soldiers and a great mass of wondering Indians looked on, while Padre Serra celebrated the usual mass and preached a sermon; and then the Governor to possession of the country in the names of God and the King, the poor natives not realizing that they had so lost the hunting and fishing grounds possessed by them for ages. Serra expected the immediate building of the Mission, but the Governor determined that the Presidio should first be built, to insure protection against the possibility that the aboriginal owners, when their wonderment had ceased, would raise the question of title. Serra, sad and grieved at the Governor’s decision submitted, called for a priest from San Juan Capistrano, and departed for Monterey. Once again he visited the site of the Mission, and even then no steps had been taken towards building. He shed many tears and in great earnestness prayed the Lord to “send forthwith laborers to his vineyard.” Again he departed on foot, his usual mode of traveling through out his missionary life.
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He was never able to see the seed planted by him in Santa Barbara bear blossom and fruitage, for he died on the twenty-eighth of August 1784, yielding up to God a glorious life, which was never less full of bitterness and disappointment. Father Palou, the biographer and dearest friend of Serra, was most fittingly appointed President of the Missions, but not until December 15, 1786, after Padre Fermin Francisco de Lasuen succeeded Palou, was the Mission of Santa Barbara in reality founded. In the ensuing year the buildings were erected, a chapel a kitchen, a servants’ room, a granary, a house for the Padres, and a house for unmarried women. All walls were three feet thick, of adobe, with heavy pole rafters and thatched roofs. Then many Indians were converted and joined the Mission. In 1788 the buildings were tiled, others erected, and three hundred and ten Indians were entered upon the register of the Mission. For Several years the process of erection continued, until 1794, when a large church, in which were several small chapels of elaborate construction and decorative design, completed the Mission buildings. Eight years later a massive stone reservoir of sufficient capacity for storing water for the gardens and the orchards was built, receiving its supply of water from an aqueduct leading from the reservoir to the confluence of the east and west Mission creeks, having their sources high upon the Santa Inez Mountains, about two and a half miles distant, and supposed to form what the Spaniards at the time called the Pedragosa Creek. Some time later a dam was constructed across the creek a mile away, to hold water for operating a mill erected on a hill east of the Mission, and conducted there through the aqueduct. The reservoir used for irrigating the gardens and orchards was in front of the Mission buildings across the roadway, running past them to the mountains and east to Monticello and west to the old Mission of San Miguel, two leagues away, and to various points along the coast westward. The dam and conduits as much of them as is not in ruins are now used to furnish water for the city. The work served well the original purpose, and suggested to the future generations the most advantageous lines upon which to draw their waters from the clouds and snows of the mountains.
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The quarters occupied by the Indians were in the rear and west of the main buildings, surrounded by adobe and stone walls, enclosing several acres, with comfortable houses suited to their use. All these are now represented by lines of decayed rubbish and ruin, the last vestiges of the homes of the poor natives. The principal structures are still in good and habitable condition. Regular religious services are held there, and an excellent school is maintained for common and advanced instruction, open to all classes without distinction of creed. The Mission is no longer a ruin, but restored to a Semblance of its ancient usefulness, when hundreds of God’s primitive children clustered around it begging for shelter, food, and blessing. Its former prosperity was great, and tempted the avarice of both Spain and Mexico, until the claims became so extortionate and burdensome that the Padres were often driven to the brink of despair, and the Indians brought to poverty. Spain plundered; but Mexico ruined. The wolves of the Government ravaged and devoured until the lambs of the Church became extinct. In 1853, by an order from Rome, the Mission was changed into a hospice, to become later an apostolic college for novitiates; but having no ecclesiastical fund for support, the college made on progress. In 1885 it was annexed to the order of the United States, officially centralized in the city of St. Louis, and is a beneficiary of the province of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The city of Santa Barbara is the favorite residence of the old Mexican aristocracy in Southern California. The fertile plains and valleys and pastures around it, its even balmy climate, and its location by the sea made it the attractive centre and practically the capital of the state during Mexican occupation succeeding the Mission days, though nominally the seat of the Government was at Monterey.
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LA PURISIMA CONCEPCION
LA PURISIMA CONCEPCION Mission was designed by Serra as one of the Channel series, but was not founded until December 8, 1787, three years after his death; and it was built not upon the coast but upon the Santa Inez River, north and beyond the mountains. The river is about one hundred miles long, rising in the mountains to the eastward, a sort of nucleus, or hub of the mountains at Newhall, into which run the Tehachapi Range from the Sierra Nevada, the San Gabriel Range from the eastward, the San Fernando Range from the south, the Cuyahoga Range from the southeast, the Santa Inez Range from the west, and the Santa Lucia Range from the northwest, near Monterey. This mountain center is the wildest and most rugged portion of the state outside of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It seems to be the breeding place of all the lesser ranges. The Santa Inez Valley, through which runs the river, is like an immensely wide and most hideously savage canyon until it approaches ‘Las Barros, on the river, the site of the Mission, a much wider part of the valley and a more open country. Many canyons and smaller valleys enter the Santa Inez along its route from the eastern end to its mouth, where the valley and the river reach the ocean. Along the western half of the Santa Inez valley a wide stretch of open country unfolds to view, embracing many thousands of acres, consisting of the valley, flat, rolling, and hill lands, exceedingly fertile, adapted to cultivation and pasturage, and extending to San Luis Obispo and beyond. Such, approximately, is the southwestern part of California available to the Missions for resources and Indian Converts; but it is impossible to define clearly and accurately the trend of the ranges and localities of the intervening lands without the aid of the contour map.
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In the region near the Santa Inez, are the Lompoc Colony and lands, one of the finest and most productive portions of the State. The first buildings erected were both crude and small, but in 1802 more extensive ones of adobe, tile-roofed, were completed and dedicated. The earthquake of 1812 rent and tore the Mission and Indian houses to pieces, and to this were added the destructive forces of a great flood from the river, which completed the ruin. Padre Mariano Payeras was the supervising priest and a man of great energy; with the abiding faith of his Order in the results of indomitable labor, he entered on the work of reconstruction. He soon had provided warehouses for grain, which was in the process of harvesting when the disaster occurred, enclosures for several thousand head of cattle and sheep and horses, and dwellings for his Indians, numbering fifteen hundred or more. He also finished a stone structure, which was dedicated five years later, in 1817, and used as a chapel, as a padres’ house, and for other Mission purposes. It was in style, dimensions, and decoration the most modest of the Mission chapels in California. La Purisima prospered in amassing wealth and in making converts, and its location made it indispensable to the line of Missions, as they were projected and afterwards established. Doubtless its misfortunes from natural causes had much to do in subordinating its fortunes to those of the other Missions, while in time it became, like the others, a victim to the act of confiscation. In 1844Governor Pio Pico was ordered by the home Governor to restore the lands to the Indians, whose number was at that time reduced to about one hundred. But, without faith or hope in the future, the Indians declined the benefit of this belated act of conscience, and the lands were sold and rented. The United States Commissioners in 1856 restored the Mission buildings to the Church. They are now partially reconstructed and used for Mission purposes. The old Mission is reached from the south by the San Marco and the Goleta Passes through the Santa Inez Mountains, the one being ten and the other forty miles west of Santa Barbara.
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SANTA CRUZ
SANTA CRUZ, on the Bay of Monterey, was inspired and planned by President Lasuen in his house in the San Francisco Mission. It was founded in the Autumn of 1791, with the accustomed ceremony of a mass, chanting by neophytes from another Mission, and the raising of a cross on the spot over which the alter was designed to rest. Chief Sugert and a large following of his tribe attended, themselves representing the very people from which the good padres planned to recruit the company of their converts. The church was dedicated in May, 1794, in the presence of these same Indians, who on this occasion came as devotees. The Mission reached its zenith of influence five years after its founding, although it continued to acquire property in cattle and herds. Settlers encroached upon the lands of the Mission, and the padres retaliated upon the authorities who had permitted such a condition, until, eventually, in the Bouchard rising in 1818, the Mission was robbed of every removable effect. A padre was murdered here in 1812 by neophytes who pleaded having been most cruelly punished, but their claims were never established. In 1835 Ignacio Del Valle was commissioned to dispose of the property under the act of confiscation. The personal property inventoried fifty thousand dollars, of which it was agreed that ten thousand dollars should be given to the Indians. It is said that this amount was actually divided among them; but it is usually added, ironically, that the only apparent evidence of the division was to be found in their wretched condition. The tower fell in 1840, eleven years later the walls were wrecked, and since then the Mission has dropped into utter obscurity, and none so poor to do it reverence.
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LA SOLEDAD
LA SOLEDAD, Our Lady of Solitude, was founded on the ninth of October, 1791, midway between the Mission of San Antonio de Padua and Santa Clara. The site was located in a region of arid plains, which depended largely upon irrigation to make them fruitful. Padre Lasuen, who chose the site and later instituted the Mission, had abundant confidence in the possibilities of the region to produce good pasturage and crops when the padres and their Indian neophytes should have introduced a system of irrigation to supplement the insufficient rainfall, On the day when the Mission was founded a company of perhaps twelve earnest men gathered about a cross and altar, set upon the bare and deserted plain, the sole human creatures in the vast barren waste which stretched away in all directions league upon league. Their faith must indeed have been large, that they chose this dear spot as the point at which to create a centre of usefulness and about which to gather the wretched and impoverished savages, who new no joy, no hope, no comfort, as civilized man knows such. At once the work of erecting adobe buildings was begun, and the padres proved indefatigable in their efforts to increase the holdings upon which the temporal welfare of the Mission depended. They found the pasturage for cattle and sheep fairly good, and well-nigh limitless in extent. Either the soil was not so good, or they were unable to introduce sufficient water for irrigating, for their crops seem not to have flourished as did those of other Missions. Surely there is no question concerning the faithful, persistent work of the padres and their Indian converts, who gathered about the Mission and threw in their destinies with it. Of those the number steadily grew larger, in spite of an epidemic which made great ravages among them.
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As years went on the flocks and herds increased, until La Soledad reached a place among the prosperous Missions, proving the padres most excellent men of business. From its zenith of wealth and influence, about the year 1820, the Mission fell into decline, owing to the Political chicanery which succeeded the just and gentle rule of the padres. When the decree of secularization took effect, in 1835, little or no property remained, and La Soledad Mission passed into the hands of the Soberanes family. Padre Serra, who had made his home at La Soledad during the years of its decline, and his own as well, for he had quit the high place that he held and had grown aged and feeble, fell dead before the alter while upon his knees in prayer. Truly, the Mission house of our lady of Solitude had become desolate! The ruins of La Soledad Mission lie about four miles from the town of that name. The roof of the Church has fallen in, and but a solitary arch remains of the once fine colonnade. Little remains but heaps of debris to tell its story to the visitor; but ruins have ever been eloquent to speak to the imagination of the active life which once stirred within walls now enclosing naught but empty solitude.
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SAN JOSE
SAN JOSE Mission was dedicated to St. Joseph, the spouse of the Holy Virgin, June 11, 1797, by direct order from the Apostolic College at San Francisco. Padre Lasuen founded it, and appointed Padre Isadore Barcenilla and Augustine Morino as Priests in control of the Mission. It was the sister to Santa Clara, and situated three miles away, on the foothills of the Coast Range, where the beautiful city of San Jose is now located, and fifty miles south of San Francisco. The region is noted for its immense stretch of fertile and well-watered lands, upon which the flocks and herds could graze and wander in native pastures without limit, summer and winter. These were the resources from which the Missions prospered and amassed their wealth. Here Nature again, but with little care, yielded bountifully her products to minister to the comfort and luxury of man. This Mission at an early day led many others in riches and in the influence these bestowed upon it. Hunting in the mountains around the open country tempered the climate and promoted health and vigor, while they stirred the soul with their awe-inspiring scenery. Stanislaus, the renegade leader, like Yoscolo of the Santa Clara Mission, was educated here. But he too, like his ingrate associate, turned on the hands that nurtured him, and in 1825, with a band of about one hundred Indians, raided the ranches and drove away hundreds of cattle and horses. The animals were some days afterwards recovered as a result of a battle between the robbers and a small force of twenty men led by Guillermo Castro, who subsequently became a Mexican General, and commanded the Mexican army against General John C. Fremont in his famous bear campaign for the conquest of that part of California.
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It was a species of guerilla warfare in which Castro excelled by reason of his ability to hide in the mountain recesses beyond the reach of Fremont, who at last turned away to pursue his campaign more effectively in Southern California. San Jose Mission was originally a small wooden erection, roofed with mats made by the Indians, of strands of woven grasses stitched together; but about the year 1800 a new building was constructed. These ruins, although the Mission was simple and modest, and in no sense comparable with some others in size, cost, number, or magnificence of structure, have received more attention and been described in more glowing colors by writers and visitors then many another more extensive Mission. General Vallejo, the Comisionado, took possession of the Mission property in 1834, and found ten thousand head of cattle, four thousand horses, and twelve thousand sheep; there were also about two thousand converted Indians, a most remarkable showing for a small Mission in thirty-seven years of existence.
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SAN JUAN, BAUTISTA
SAN JUAN, Bautista, was founded in June, 1797. Its Church, now in ruins, was built in 1800. Its site is at San Benito, in a beautiful locality in that county, and on the road from Castroville to Gilroy. President Lasuen and Padre Martianena performed the usual ceremony of dedication. The original buildings were of wood, with pole roofs; but in the beginning of the next century erections of adobe, stone, and mortar, with massive walls and tile roofs; were substituted. The charming feature of this Mission was its numerous bells, with there sweetness and Varity of tone, from treble of light weight to bass of several thousand pounds. Some old master, skilled in the art of music and the manufacture of bells, had so contrived the relation and intermingling of tones that they resulted in composing a chime of incomparable sweetness. The bells were cast in Peru, nine of them in the series. Subsequently some of the bells were recast, but the secret of the relation of metals, temper, and tones was lost, and the charm was broken. The fame of these bells was greater then that of the Mission. The bells have disappeared, and the ruins only remain.
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SAN MIGUEL
NEARLY forty leagues north of Santa Barbara the Mission of San Miguel was founded on the twenty-fifth of July, 1797, in honor of the “Prince of the Heavenly Militia.” The ceremonies were performed by President Lasuen and Padre Sitjar, and baptism was administered to fifteen children at the time. The Indians did not respond generally to the invitations of the padres; so Padre Martin went to the Chief Guchapa and begged him to send his Indians to the Mission, but met prompt refusal. Thereupon Commander de la Guerra sent a file of his soldiers and took the old Chief prisoner. Then he came to terms, and promised to send his people, leaving his son as a hostage. But this method of forced conversion did not succeed well: the Mission made but little progress in its spiritual labors, and in truth not much in the acquisition of wealth. The country available was good, and extensive for sheep-pasturing, and a proper attention to this industry would have proven a sure road to riches. Yet the padres gave to much labor to raising grapes and making wine, and their section and climate were not well adapted to this fruit and this industry. In consequence, they were unable to pay their annual tribute to Mexico. They owned, in time, large flocks of sheep, but never pushed the industries of wool-raising and weaving, which would have produced their fortunes. San Miguel played a humble part in Mission life, but its reputation was spotless.
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SAN FERNANDO, REY DE ESPAGNA
SAN FERNANDO was founded September 8, 1797. President Lasuen was in harmony with the plans of Serra to establish a series of Missions from the Mexican border to Monterey, and he dedicated this Mission to the King of Spain. The ruins of the adobe building now seen date back to 1806, when the erection thereof was completed. They stand in the valley as fertile and sunny as any in the State, a valley that is very great in extent and susceptible to cultivation throughout. Enclosed mainly by the San Fernando and Cuyhengo Ranges, its opens eastward through La Canada Pass to Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley, and southward through Glendale Valley to Los Angeles. As a grain and fruit region it compares favorably with the other great valleys in the State. Thus it may be seen that the old Mission had exhaustless natural resources in soil, climate, and expansive lands to draw on in the development of its object, and for raising supplies for the padres and the native converts. The buildings, like many others, were badly shaken or destroyed by the earthquake of 1812. The Mission was restored; and, as in some others of the first class, a magnificent corridor was attached like a wing to the principal building, which enclosed the Chapel. The corridor was arched, and under its shade the padres were protected from the sun; here, too, they spent the cool evening hours in repose. The courtyard was refreshed by running water and a fine stone fountain. Shade trees of every description, indigenous to the soil and climate, and such as could be transplanted in verity and perfume allured the vision and gave exquisite pleasure to the senses. Fruits of every kind were plentiful as the native grasses. Indeed, this was one of the great Missions in all that nature and art could contribute to its growth and maturity. Founded in honor of the King who had been canonized by the pope, it could not be permitted to degenerate into inferiority and obscurity. It flourished and gathered property in flocks, herds, grain, wine, money, and other effects, until, in 1825; it was estimated to rank almost without a rival in wealth among its sister Missions. Its treasury held from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand dollars in cash and assets. The site of the Mission commands a view of nearly the entire valley, and to the ocean, and the islands from forty to eighty miles away. In 1846 the Mission was sold by Governor Pio Pico to Don Eulogio Celis for about twenty thousand dollars, and the sale was confirmed ultimately by the United States Commissioners, closing out the Mission forever. Its lands are now owned by many different people, and the entire valley is modernized by all the improvements of a higher civilization. Its location is about fifteen miles north of Los Angeles, and near the mountains. There is an old tradition that the padres found gold in these mountains; their mines are sometimes pointed out, but no one cares to work them. Yet it is no doubt true that the Mexicans discovered gold here in considerable quantities before it was revealed in Sutter’s Creek in 1848. However authentic the traditions may be, the pursuit of gold in these localities has long since been abandoned.
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SAN LUIS, REY DE FRANCIA
SAN LUIS, Rey de Francia, was founded June 13, 1798. This was the greatest, richest, and grandest of the old Missions, located in a most picturesque section, upon a beautiful site, not far from the ocean, at Oceanside, now a little gem of a modern city. In the day of its glory and wealth it was the pride of all the Missions. Father Peyri during his long service of more then thirty years made it his home. The Mission possessed more then two hundred thousand acres, and as much more became subject to its control as its energies expanded. It owned and pastured upon its lands an annual average of twenty thousand head of cattle, and nearly as many sheep, with three thousand Indians to perform the various kinds of work needful to a self-supporting colony. All Missions once well started were expected to produce from their lands and industries all the comforts and as many of the luxuries as such primitive conditions of life made possible. In these respects all were successful. No Mission lived upon the charity of another, though their hospitality was proverbial. The annual crops of wheat, oats, barley and corn, potatoes, beans, and other products of the soil, were very many thousand bushels. In the year 1834, the Mission had thirty-five hundred Indians to support, and, as an old record shows, more then twenty-five thousand head of cattle, then thousand horses, and ninety thousand sheep. It raised and harvested from its arable lands annually, in the zenith of its prosperity, more then sixty thousand bushels of grain, and two hundred and fifty barrels of wine from its vineyards. The grand and imposing structure was the Church, one hundred and sixty feet long, fifty feet wide, and sixty feet in height, with walls four to five feet thick. The great tower in front had three stories, the upper two each containing four bells in a square room formed by the walls of the tower, where archways were cut in all sides; and a bell hung back of these openings and vibrating in the air, could be heard for many miles.
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These bells performed all kinds of service in Mission work and worship, and were indispensable to the padres. The ornaments of the Church in gold and silver were many and beautiful. In the chancel and behind the alter, stood the cross, and upon it the image of Christ, of life size, modeled in wood, exquisitely painted and fashioned, to make the resemblance to life nearly perfect. The alter was approached by steps made to resemble red granite. An old pulpit of wood, curiously made, said to have been used in a Church in Constantinople during the Middle Ages, and occupied at different times by several of the most learned and pious of the Priesthood that has since been canonized by the Popes, hung upon the wall to the right of the alter, facing the Indians. It was entered by a stairway from the space at the end of the alter. It was revered as a most precious relic, and richly trimmed in gold. The walls and ceiling of the structure were adorned with many and various images, mottoes, and precepts illustrating the creed, ceremonies, and history of the Church. On one side of the structure extended a corridor of two hundred and fifty arches. This alone certainly indicates the vast space covered by the buildings. In the rear of the Church was a great square containing several acres, enclosed by a row of buildings on each side. The front and rear lines were constructed in the form of corridors with superb arches. The ground enclosed was used as one of the gardens of the Mission, and entered from the corridors, a favorite resort of the padres. The air therein was moistened by the waters of an immense stone fountain in the centre, -water brought through a conduit from the mountains. San Luis Rey was known as the” kingly Mission.” Its boundless possessions of land, great number of the converts, vast riches in almost every kind of personal property, great influence in the councils of the Church, and perhaps its wonderful success in the management of its resources, spiritually and otherwise, gave it a celebrity surpassing that of all other Missions.
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When the order of secularization was about to be carried into effect, and notice was sent to Padre Peyri, he determined at once to leave his home of thirty years, with all its loved and bitter memories. Dreading the parting with his Indians, who had become to him as dear as children, he started away in the night for San Diego, forty-five miles distant, unknown to them, and hoped thus to escape the agony of separation. The secret of his flight was soon known, and several hundred of them rushed to their horses and hastened in pursuit. They reached the Bay of San Diego in time to see Father Peyri on board the ship, then weighing anchor for Spain. From the deck he blessed them, and bade them farewell in tears and lamentations. Some of them swam to the ship, and were taken on board; they went to Rome, never to Return again. None but Serra in this entire noble band endeared himself to the poor Indian like Peyri. The process of restoration of the Mission began in 1892. Father O’Keefe, the popular priest who long presided over the reviving fortunes of Santa Barbara Mission, and was so kindly known to tourists, became the manager at San Luis Rey in the period of reconstruction. The work advanced so rapidly that on the twelfth of May, 1894, the Mission was again dedicated, and title thereto delivered to the Franciscan Order. It is stated that some old Indian women were there who had been present at the dedication ceremonies nearly one hundred years before. The old Moorish dome over the chancel in the Church has been restored, and such other buildings added as would serve the new purpose of the Mission, all resembling as nearly as possible the original designs in the arrangement of grounds and erections. The brown mountains, the lovely valley, and the pure snow waters of the river flowing around the elevation upon which the white-domed and tile-roofed homes of the old Padres in far-off days rested, will remain in their beauty and grandeur until the end of time, but will not outlive the pious memories and pathetic fate of San Luis, which was destroyed while nourishing a civilization that promised to much to pagan races.
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SAN JOSE DE GUADALUPE
SAN JOSE DE GUADALUPE Mission was founded June 11, 1797. It was situated about twenty miles northeast of what is now the city of San Jose, in the foothills. The first building was of wood, with a thatched roof; the adobe Church was not completed and dedicated until 1809. The number of converts promised success from the first, and steadily increased until, in 1824, the population settled about the Mission amounted to nearly two thousand souls, In 1805 a Padre and a small escort of soldiers and Indians, were attacked, one soldier being killed. This was the first overt act of hostility on the part of the Indians, and swift retaliation was meted out to the offenders. Although situated in a territory continually embroiled in petty warfare between the Indians and settlers, San Jose enjoyed great prosperity. Little remains of the old structures, but many fine old olive-trees of the Padres’ planting still yield a considerable income to local institions belong to the Church.
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SANTA INEZ
THE Santa Inez Mission was not comprehended in the original plan of the Padres, but nearly thirty years after the founding of the first three Missions, a colony of several families that had years before located on the lands in the valley of the Santa Inez, about forty miles northwest of Santa Barbara, and beyond the mountains, appealed to the President of the Missions for the founding of one in their vicinity. They argued that they, being baptized families, were entitled to the rites of divine worship without undergoing the hardship and inconvenience of frequent trips to Santa Barbara, or La Purisima, each of which was many miles away from them. The petition was granted, and on September 17, 1804, the new Mission of Santa Inez was founded in that valley, and dedicated to St. Agnes. One hundred and fifty persons were entered on the records, and a Church was immediately started. The new colony flourished, but the earthquake of 1812 so shattered the walls of their buildings that they had to be rebuilt. The Mission prospered in flocks and herds for about fifteen years, when it appeared by one record that it had accumulated twenty-five thousand head of cattle, and fifteen thousand sheep, and twenty-five hundred horses, and a great deal of other personal property, the flocks and herds and lands at all times constituting the basis of its wealth. The Indians in 1824 became discontented and troublesome, and many of them left the Mission. The buildings were burned and otherwise destroyed to a great extent and never fully restored. Many Indians left and never returned. The work of conversion languished, but the riches of the Mission grew in magnitude until the day of secularization.
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SAN RAFAEL, ARCANGEL
SAN RAFAEL, founded December 17, 1817, by Father Luis Taboada, was intended to be but a temporary abiding-place, on the north side of the bay, in a nook sheltered from the rough ocean winds by the mountains around it. At the time a great Pestilence prevailed among the Indian converts at Yerba Buena, - the old Spanish name for San Francisco,- and the sick were removed to San Rafael to be refreshed by its balmy breezes. It was designed to be a part – an asistencia- of San Francisco Mission, or the Mission Dolores, across the bay. Although no written evidence remains that it ever was raised to the status of a Mission, it was so occupied for seventeen years, and then became a parish of the first class. General John C. Fremont spent a week here in 1846. The buildings were never pretentious, and have ill withstood neglect and the passage of years. Only a part of the Pear orchard planted by the padres remains of the old Mission property. The former site of San Rafael is now a beautiful city, the home of many persons who are engaged in business across the bay.
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CHAPELS
OUTLYING among the Missions, stations among the far-distant ones, or on the frontiers, were chapels, or asistencias, such as were not organized as Missions. The principal ones were as follows: San Antonio de Pala was an off shoot of San Luis Rey, built in 1816 by Father Payri as a chapel for the Indians who lived in the mountains twenty miles away. Bells were hung in the tower to call them to worship. It had none of the buildings necessary to a Mission, nor ever made pretensions to the name. It remains there still, kept in habitable condition for service by a few families of natives living in a neighboring village. Old paintings are hanging on the walls, and there is an image of Antonio Pala, the soldier-priest, its patron saint; also a statue in olivewood made in Spain, of St. Louis, the French king of pious fame and memory in earlier centuries. There are still left old copper, brass, iron, and wood mementos of the past, some of which do not indicate their use, but are precious to the Indian worshippers. The building is long, narrow, and dark within, but serves for the purpose of divine worship. Now after the lapse of a hundred years, the few descendants of the old Mission converts gather there on Sundays and fete days to do reverence and to rehearse the joys and glories that are gone. San Francisco Solano, dedicated to the patron saint of the Indies, April 4, 1824, was from its birth under the shadow of those events which doomed all the Missions. Its life was blameless, and not without beneficent results. Its ruins are scarcely traceable, and only dim memory holds record of its former existence. San Miguel Chapel, some six miles from Santa Barbara, was built in 1803. San Miguelito Chapel, built in 1809, was one of several asistencias appertaining to San Luis Obispo. Santa Isabel, forty miles from San Diego, was built in 1822. At the Indian village of Mesa Grande is a Chapel dedicated to Santo Domingo. Los Angeles Chapel was never a Mission, but a chapel designed for the veteran soldiers of the King as a place of worship. The first movement in their behalf was made in 1811, and in August, 1814, the corner-stone was laid and blessed. Years passed, nothing occurring but agitation from time to time. At last a chapel was built, and dedicated on the eight of December, 1822. Los Angeles was a small village of less then one thousand inhabitants.
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San Bernardino, or Politana, Chapel was established by the padres from San Gabriel Mission as a stopping place and supply station for travelers overland across the desert. In 1810 the buildings and cultivated lands were destroyed and laid waste by Fanatical Indians, incited to revolt by the medicine men of a mountain tribe Ten years later a new site, eight miles from the old, was chosen, and new buildings were erected. For eleven years this establishment prospered, when the fate which had fallen its predecessor swept it alike to ruin. It was rebuilt directly and in such a manner and with walls of such strength that it became the proud boast of its constructors that it would never again need to fear an attack, ever so fierce, from its Indian foes. But a force of unheard of strength for that day and country came against it in 1834, and destroyed the buildings and put their defenders to fight. No further attempt has ever been made to rebuild or rehabilitate the old Chapel, and even the ruins are fast disappearing. One more of these old Chapels was built, in the Santa Margarita Valley, in San Luis Obispo County. The Sierra Santa Lucia encircles the valley, which presents a rural landscape lovely beyond comparison. This Chapel probably consisted of several buildings, erected solely for the Indians who lived far from the Mission of that region.
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THE MISSIONS OF LOWER CALIFORNIA
LOWER California was the field of the greatest and most patient efforts of the Jesuit missionaries for nearly a century. Their work was very systematic, and more successful then that of other Missions in the Southwest, except in some portions of central Mexico, where greater enlightenment prevailed among the natives. The country is a waste of mountains, sand plains, canyons, gulches, valleys, and broken surfaces, with but few, small and scanty streams, and rivers oftentimes waterless. One hundred degrees in a common temperature in summer, and much of the time it is higher. The tribes that peopled this hideous wilderness were as degraded as the reptile-eaters among the wilds of the Amazon. Their religion was a crude necromancy, and they had no rational ideas of a supreme being. In 1683 an expedition consisting of one hundred settlers of the poorer classes, led by three Jesuit priests, sailed for the peninsula. They found fresh water- a rarity and a safe harbor. The natives, who looked like starved wolves, soon became hostile, and collisions occurred in which several were killed. The colonists deserted the fort and made another settlement sixty miles up the gulf. The natives here gathered daily for instruction, and some five hundred desired to be Christians. But the exploring parties which went into the outer districts found desolation everywhere, and the colony was abandoned. Thus the heroic and loyal Jesuits met their first defeat on the desert peninsula. About 1688, Spain succeeded in effecting the colonization of the peninsula. Mission work was carried on for nearly a hundred years, under the control of the Jesuits, or until their removal by Charles III, in 1767.
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Mission work continued five years under the Franciscans, but its energies were steadily ebbing away. Thereafter, under the authority of the Dominicans in a brief and troublous period, it ceased to exist. Under the Jesuits the Missions were triumph against nature. Father Kuehn was the master spirit that accomplished the result. He was daring to the utmost of his convictions. In zeal, ability, and practical energy he was perhaps without a peer among the missionaries. He wandered alone, or with a few docile Indians, in the wilds of northern Mexico, and mapped out regions never before trodden by the foot of white man, and that with an accuracy not questioned in modern geography. He only knew that souls there were perishing for the bread of life. To save them was his inspiring motive. During three generations many Missions were planted, and they prospered beyond measure; then a spirit of unrest came, and culminated in a general war against civilization. The Apaches were raiding everywhere; many Missions were destroyed, and the reclaiming influences of a century were obliterated. Thereafter Father Salvatierra, who was experienced by previous mission work, promptly assumed the responsibility of carrying on the work of the Mission in the peninsula. Father Kuehn, who had been removed to the opposite side of the gulf, labored unceasingly, became the supreme leader among white men and the Indians, translated languages of several tribes, founded villages and churches, and within a few years had converted more then fifty thousand savages and reduced them to orderly life. Even the fierce Apaches esteemed him as their good and trusted friend. All this time Salvatierra was fruitlessly working to obtain authority and help for his Mission movement. The superiors were against it; the Government detested it. At last the General of the order directed the Provincial in Mexico to allow Salvatierra to found the Missions, and after a long and tedious struggle, the Father raised donations from pious individuals, and converted them into a fund for the support of the Missions.
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This was called the Pious Fund of California, a fund that has been subject to many vicissitudes during two hundred years. It had increased in 1842 to about $1,700,000, when it was confiscated for the Mexican Government. Later, when the terms of peace between Mexico and the United States were being adjusted, the former held that the United States had become liable for the fund, and should account for it to the Catholic Church of California. A few years ago the question of liability was submitted to the Hague Tribunal, which decided that payment must be made by the Government of Mexico, and such payment to the Church was accordingly made. Salvatierra had builded better then he knew with the Pious Fund. The Viceroy and council were prevailed upon to issue the license, and at last the heathen of the peninsula were know the white man’s God. In 1697 Salvatierra, with another Priest, Father Piccolo, selected a Mission site on a small bay at Carmen, near an island of that name. There was a spring of fresh water here, and quite a growth of vegetation indigenous to the locality. Salvatierra gave his settlement the name f Loretto, in honor of Our Lady of Loretto, whose special blessing he had invoked to aid him in his mission work. By irrigation from the spring he could have a little garden and a fruit orchard. His colony consisted of himself, Piccolo, six men, and three Mission Indians, each of a different race or tribe. Salvatierra supervised everything and joined in all labors but bearing arms for defense. A big tent was used as a Chapel, where Salvatierra said mass. The natives made on demonstration of friendship or hostility. Salvatierra tried to talk with the Indians, explaining his own language and acquiring theirs. They often made sport of him, which he bore with patience. When the conversation was closed, he would feed them with boiled corn. This was ever the substantial food of the Missions and always in use, like our wheat and bread, but was grown on lands across the gulf. The natives after the meal was over would steal whatever they could reach, and escape with it.
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Several hundred natives who attacked the settlement were driven off; and a vessel arrived a few days afterwards with more men and a supply of provisions. This increased the colony to twenty-five men. Some pious citizen gave the Mission a small schooner for permanent use. The most serious obstacle to prosperous Mission labor was the nature and poverty of this wild country. Practically, the support of these Missions came from the Mexican provinces east of the gulf, at all times the supplies were scanty, and when the Pious Fund was not sufficient to meet emergencies, dependence was solely upon donations. Yet the Fund accumulated in the course of years; it was so carefully managed by the Jesuit commission that, with occasional gifts, it supplied Palou, the Franciscan, to the extent of fifteen thousand dollars yearly. But the Missions were crippled for means of support and extension. The daily experience at Loretto was somewhat monotonous. The Indians came there to be taught. Piccolo took care of the children for instruction within the walls, for he seemed most adapted to this work, being gentle and affectionate towards the little ones; while Salvatierra discoursed outside with the adult natives about the doctrine of Christ and the customs of civilized life. Mass was recited on certain days, and everyone could take part in the orderly way. After the exercises were over, boiled corn was given to the natives, and the hungry creatures probably relished this more then they did the services; but in time they appeared interested and desired to be accepted as converts. Religious progress was slow. When early summer came cactus berries were ripe; this was the most exuberant and delicious crop in these vast fields of desolation. No inducement could withhold the natives from the harvest. They were heedless of the salvation of their souls, and even of boiled corn, until they had feasted to repletion upon the food of their gods.
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When this happy season was ended, they would turn their attention to the missionaries and listen to instruction, and the mission work again advanced. Loretto had become the spiritual luminary, and the only one in that benighted wilderness, but it could not enlighten the entire peninsula. Distant territory was therefore explored with a view to the founding of other Missions. Water was discovered about forty miles from Loretto sufficient to irrigate several acres, and it was utilized at once. Salvatierra had a house built for the Priests’ home and a chapel. He likewise opened a road from the locality to Loretto. Father Piccolo took possession and began work among the natives. In 1700 Father Ugarte, who had been a prominent factor in Jesuit life in the city of Mexico, joined the Loretto Mission, and to his energy was attributed largely the creation of the Pious Fund. He was, like every member of his Order who was intended for important service, a finished scholar. Of gigantic build and incredible strength and daring, he was a terror to unruly natives; yet kind of heart and of gentle manners. It is said that, unable to find the Mission vessel after wandering on the coast for several hundred miles on foot, he procured a castaway boat, repaired it, and made the trip across the gulf to Loretto Bay, amid adverse currents, diverse winds, and perilous waters. Loretto was but a humble village at the time, with a storehouse and barracks, cottages for the workmen, and an adobe house for the Priest. A few cattle and sheep from Sonora fed upon natural herbage near the springs and coast; but the land would yield to tillage. Such was the condition of these Missions at the close of the third year of their existence. When Ugarte arrived at the new Mission with soldiers and men, the natives fled to the hills. They were afraid, for they deserved punishment, and kept away until Ugarte quieted their fears and feasted them with boiled corn. He soon learned their Language by the assistance of the children, who were ever ready to help him. Then he began to instruct them in his doctrines in a
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plain manner and how to form good habits, finishing each discourse with the toothsome boiled corn. Indeed, this was about the only food he had for his own use. He dug ditches for irrigation with his own hands, and taught the natives how to use the tools. This was fun to them for a time; and thus several acres were watered and cultivated. He bore their caprices with patience, treating them as wayward children. The founding of San Jose de Comondu, about sixty miles from Loretto, took place at this time. Water was available here; and Father Mayorga, who was in control, cleared land, made a farm with a vineyard, and built schools and hospital. He established other settlements in the region, and visited them twice a week, with great benefits to the natives. After nearly thirty years of faithful work he died and was buried here among his Christian converts. About this time the old Mission hero, Father Kuehn, passed away. He is said to have converted more then fifty thousand Indians, traveled over twenty-five thousand miles in the wilderness of the southwest, generally on foot, often alone, at all times shelter less but for the heavens above him. The schools at Loretto educated natives for the work of teaching, because there were not enough Priests for the duty. The tribes of the North were most inclined to Christian instruction; those of the extreme South were disposed to be hostile. Through illness, Salvatierra could not visit these tribes, and while on his sick – bed he was called to Mexico by the Viceroy for consultation and full information of California. The Brave old man, at seventy-two years of age, rose from his bed and started for the capital of Mexico, more then a thousand miles away. He made the journey on horseback and in a litter until he arrived at Guadalajara, but could go no farther. He sent Father Bravo to the Viceroy with full instructions in regard to his Missions, and then his spirit departed to god, who had inspired him with devotion to his cause in California for twenty years. This was in 1718.
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Father Ugarte was left as Superior. He built a brig at Mulege, which lasted many years and was the best and safest on the gulf. This made it practicable to found a Mission at La Paz, one hundred miles south of Loretto. Father Bravo was placed in charge. He converted over one thousand there in a few years, until he was called to Loretto to relieve Father Piccolo. Another Mission was founded at this time on the Pacific coast, west of Mulege one hundred miles,- San Purisima Concepcion. Father Tamaral presided over its fortunes. He opened a road between these Missions, and the natives responded from every adjoing Rancheria and from long distances into the north to their influence. In truth, Christianity seemed to be in the atmosphere everywhere, and the Missions prospered greatly for many years. Like Ugarte, Tamaral laid out farms and made the old desert fruitful. At Huasiuipi Everard Heleu settled and, and with his men built a Church and house. This became the Mission of San Guadalupe. The Governor (former Ensign Lorenzo) left five soldiers for protection because of the wildness and remoteness of the country where it was located. During the eight years Father Heleu labored he converted many hundred natives. At that time Father Guilen founded a Mission settlement between Malabat and La Paz and named it Dolores. The Indians were hostile, but Governor Lorenzo subdued them by burning their canoes. Many years afterwards almost every native had been converted, and defended Father Guilen and the Mission loyally in the war against the Pericus. Father Napoli was directed to found the Mission Santa Rosa at the Bay of Palms among the Pericus. They were belligerent, against the new faith. They were likewise Polygamists, though Polygamy was not general on the peninsula. The Father had entered a sterile field for souls, and in several years converted less then a hundred Pericus.
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New Missions were now formed by the Marquis de Villa and the Mexican Luyando, who joined the Society of Jesus and devoted his life to the Mission his family had endowed. Ugarte removed his headquarters two hundred miles to the north and founded the Mission of San Ignacio, near Kada Kaaman. This became the Mission of Father Luyando. He was received in joy by hundreds of the natives, and some partook of the sacrament. There were however, some who practiced necromancy, and were in deadly enmity with the Missions, which they told the Indians would destroy the faith of their fathers and had already made the country accursed by driving away the game. The Jesuits in time rooted these superstitions from the minds of the natives in a great degree. Water in abundance was found here and the soil was cultivated broadly; wheat, fruits, flocks, and herds blessed the Mission and gave food to the converts in plenty. There were several stations connected with the Mission, and fair roads led out to them. The Indians built adobe houses for their families and learned to clothe themselves. One more great soul departed to his reward. In 1730, Ugarte, worn out, died at Loretto in his seventy-first year. The heroic triumvirate, Kuehn, Salvatierra, and Ugarte, founders of the Missions of Lower California rested from their labors at about the same age. They were of different races, but the warmest friends, very much alike in temperament, in leading traits of character, and united in the single purpose of redeeming California. Some months after Ugarte’s death, Father Eechevarri, in charge of the Missions as Visitor, began a Mission at Cape St. Lucas, which he called San Jose del Cabo; this was among the Pericue, the most warlike and degraded of all the tribes. Father Tamaral conducted the Mission. During many years he accumulated facts upon which the most complete history of the Peninsula was long afterwards written.
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About this time Father Guilin was appointed Superior of the Missions in succession to Ugarte. The Pericus gathered in hundreds and destroyed the Santa Rosa Mission, the Santiago, the La Paz, and the Del Cabo, and the whole south coast region was involved in turmoil and peril from petty wars that ensued. But as evidence that Indian nature was not entirely depraved, the first assurance of better days came from the heathen themselves. Converts and those friendly to mission work arrived at Loreto in great numbers, informing the Priests that they were still loyal, and loved the cause of Christ. Only a trifling punishment was awarded the hostiles. At the time of Ugarte’s death there were fifteen Missions on the peninsula, some prosperous and the others in fair condition, with several thousand natives directly or indirectly under their influence. To push the system north and into Alta California was the aim of the Jesuit Priesthood, but the war and the expulsion of the Jesuits hopelessly defeated it. It was the happy fortune of the Franciscan Order to enter the Golden State and make the memory of their lives and labors immortal. The indomitable Jesuits toiled on until 1767, when the order of the King expelled them. It came suddenly, like the lightning’s stroke. For nearly a century the Jesuit had toiled and suffered without hope of earthly reward, to establish Missions for the benefits of the savages in Lower California. Fifteen of these had been founded before the native war. Four of them were destroyed at that time, but afterwards restored. Salvatierra had founded six, and Ugarte seven, in twenty years. Two more were added to the list after the death of these Padres, by Eechevarri, the Visitor. St. Ignacio was at this time the most northerly Mission; but a priest was sent north from San Ignacio to found the Mission of Santa Gertrude. Father Retz was in charge there, and in a few years it became very prosperous; in fact it excelled in converts it had about twelve hundred and produced from the soil more wealth then any other Mission. Water was abundant and the land was fertile.
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Five years after this Fathers Cousaq and Retz, who were the energetic explorers of that day in the cactus districts, discovered a hot sulphur spring at Adac, and chose it as the site of a Mission; but Cousaq died immediately afterwards. He had been nearly thirty years on the peninsula. Three years later the Mission was founded at Adac and endowed in 1762 by the munificence of the Countess of Granada, and was dedicated in respect to the pious memory of St. Francis Borgia. It was about one hundred miles north of Santa Gertrude, in the Cocopah desert. Father Link was conductor of this Mission. He founded a large flowing spring some distance away and cultivated a number of acres, raising all food products and fruits incident to sub-tropical climate and soil. It grew into an important Mission, with some two thousand Christian converts, clothed and fed from its resources. The last Mission north the Santa Maria was founded in 1767, on the thirty-first parallel of latitude, twenty-five miles west of the gulf. Father Arnes was the resident Priest here, but his services soon closed, for the order of expulsion was issued that year. Captain Portola, afterwards Governor of Alta California, went there with the Franciscans, with a company of soldiers from Spain, and carried out the decree. The Franciscans were ordered by the King to take control of these Missions. Junipero Serra, as Superior, with sixteen Priest from the College of San Ferdinand, in the city of Mexico, arrived at Loretto in the spring of 1768. Father Palou, the boyhood friend of Serra, was assistant. The Priests were at once sent to their Missions, traveling on foot, the custom of these men. Immediately trouble began. The soldiers insisted on the right o control the property, but would permit the Priest to possess the churches and homes built for them, and to manage spiritual matters. This was against the order of the King, who gave the Priest absolute control of the Missions. Serra was left practically without rights, except to instruct the natives and conduct religious services. Irrigation and cultivation ceased, the provisions were wasted, the flocks recklessly slaughtered; the Indians, being ill-treated and poorly fed, fled to the mountains. The Missions were on the way to swift dissolution. At this perilous hour Don Jose Galvez, the ruling official above the Viceroy, arrived. He investigated affairs, turned the soldiers out of power, and ordered the Missions under the control of Serra. But matters did not prosper.
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Galvez, with the best of motives, interfered with the Missions. He suppressed the San Luis and Dolores Missions. He likewise changed the Mission of Santiago to a parish under a secular Priest, thus deranging the entire Mission system by introducing two forms of Government, in their nature antagonistic. He sought to average the populations at the Missions by removing hundreds from their old homes to new ones and distance Missions, to begin life over again, the consequences were that many were made destitute, and epidemics dotted the land with new made graves. He applied the Pious Fund to other purposes then the support of Mission life. Had he listened to the advice of Serra and Palou, who had been trained in the Cerro Gordo Missions in the dark mountains of Mexico, the intelligent convictions thus formed would have led to beneficial results. But in Alta California he redeemed all the mistakes he had made in the peninsula, and became the organizing and practical power that made possible the great success of the Franciscans there. An expedition was ordered and prepared by Galvez to enter the Bay of San Diego in the spring of 1769, to take possession of Alta California. Junipero Serra was appointed President of the Missions to be founded there, and Padre Palou was left as President in the Peninsula. Father Palou found serious difficulty in conducting the Missions that had been so disorganized. An epidemic occurred in the South, and a hundred died at Dolores and San Luis Gonzago Mission; a hundred more escaped to the mountains.
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The following year the crops were devoured by locusts, and the next year by drought. Many of the flocks and herds were, by the order of Galvez, driven to Alta California. In 1771 Sergeant Barri was made Governor of the peninsula, and claimed control of the Missions. He was so violent and obstructive that Father Palou decided that it was useless for the Franciscans to remain in the peninsula; they were transferred in 1772, but they could not restore energy to the decaying Missions. Constant interference by Governor Barri and his successors baffled the Priests, and so discouraged the natives that they left the Missions to return to their wild life. In 1825 Mission life had almost disappeared from the peninsula. In 1860 the buildings had fallen into ruins, and the cultivated lands had become barren wastes.
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THE MISSIONS OF TEXAS
THE Franciscans had almost exclusively the field of Texas Missions. The three principal Orders of the Church that founded and operated the Missions of New Spain were the Franciscans, the Jesuits, and the Dominicans. The first had their chief fields in Texas, Alta California, Sonora, and Chihuahua; the second, in Lower California, Old and New Mexico, and Arizona; the third in Old Mexico and Lower California. Large tracts were conveyed to the Missions, and such privileges as were needful for their purposes. The following are the Missions of Texas. Adaes, in honor of Our Lady del Pilar, is suppose to have been founded in 1718, on the Sabine River, by Governor Alarcon, of the Province of Coahuila and Texas, near the French fort at Natchitoches. A presidio was built for the soldiers and garrisoned strongly to watch the French. In 1716 Captain Domingo Ramon was sent to Texas with a small squad of soldiers and friars to establish Missions, and it is sometimes asserted that he founded this Mission, on the Honda Creek, fifteen miles from the fort. It was always an inferior Mission, and never prospered much. In 1768 it had a Church and some thirty houses. The Presidio was probably more important then the Mission at that time, as there was another fortress on the trinity. Spain and France both claimed the Province. In 1790 the Mission was deserted, but Bishop Maria and Governor Cardero were there in 1805, and the prelate is said to have baptized two hundred neophytes in the old chapel. The site can now be found by none but zealots.
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Our Lady de Los Dolores, on the Acs Bayou, was not far from San Augustine, and appeared in Priestly records as a living Mission about 1715. It is not now known who founded it, and it never brought forth much fruit- not enough to make history. It was abandoned in 1772. The Alamo is the most noted Mission in Texas, not for its sanctity, but because it was besieged and taken by Mexico from those that revolted against her Government in 1836. As a Mission it was not a success. From the hour of its location on the Rio Grande almost to its final location at San Antonio, it was a restless and movable shrine. Founded in 1700 under the name of San Francisco Solano, it was removed in 1703 to Ildephonso; again in the year 1710 it was returned to the Rio Grande. Still again it was transferred to San Antonio, and dedicated in the name of San Antonio de Valero, the duke who was Viceroy of Mexico. Yet more restless it was moved to the Military Plaza in the city in 1732; and lastly, in 1744, it took its final departure over the river to another site in the city, where it has since been quietly anchored. It assumed the name of Alamo, and was used as a Church for the populace. It was a misnomer to call it a Mission, unless it belongs to a class of itinerant Missions. Concepcion La Purisima de Acuna is located on the left bank of the river, about two miles below the city. It was projected by the Viceroy in 1722, after which it was named, but no steps were taken to build it until 1731, when Captain Perez and Father Bergaro laid the corner-stone. It never Developed into a prosperous Mission, and was closed to work when Zebulon Pike visited it in 1807, while exploring the West and Arkansas River regions. San Francisco de La Espada- meaning the Mission of the Sword-was first located on the Medina River in 1731, but was removed in 1750 to San Antonio, to escape the raids of the Apaches. Like many other Missions in Texas, this was but a dwarf in the Mission fields, and is not interesting except for its pious purpose, and because it is one of the links in the chain. Life among the Apaches for twenty years raises the presumption that the Priests had courage; but it was a fruitless field, where none were converted but by Father Kuehn, and that but transiently. Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Victory County, known sometimes as Mission Valley, was projected, it is said, by Don Domingo Ramon; but this is mere tradition. His Plan was supposed to be to open up ditches for the irrigation of the valley and to protect it by a presidio, and in time he would develop a prosperous Mission. Little is known about it, except there are extensive ruins in the valley.
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La Bahia Mission- Del Espiritu Santo- at Goliad was begun in 1718. It is supposed to have been projected by Domingo Teran, who founded many Missions. The Presidio always had a Mission connected with it, either within its grounds or outside as a separate establishment; so the Priests were ever present. The old Mission of Aranama, on the east side of the river, was nearly opposite La Bahia. Both these Missions had their day and did their work of beneficence among the Indians, but it is impossible to give details of either their history or traditions. The Goliad Chapel still shelters the Pious. La Trinidad. Tradition says that this Mission was founded by Governor Teran, in 1691, when he explored Texas with a party of Priests for that purpose. He and Don Domingo Ramon, who were favorites with the Indians, at this time devoted a few busy years projecting and founding presidios and Missions in various places. The site was on the Trinity River, near the town of Alabama, but this site was deserted in a short time for another at Nacogdoches. The Indians made trouble; the river became troublesome by overflows; and the malarial climate completed the causes of removal. Our Lady of Loretto. This Mission projected by Don Ramon in 1621, on Matagorda Bay, was soon given up. Our Lady of Nacogdoches. This Mission was founded by Don Ramon in 1716, and prospered until 1772, when contentions between the French and Spanish made it necessary to remove the Indians to San Antonio. The Mission was then garrisoned to hold the French in check at Nacogdoches. The stone fort of 1778 still remains. Our Lady of Orgnizacco. This Mission was founded in 1716, on the San Jacinto River, to instruct and convert a tribe of that name; but in 1772 the Indian converts were removed to San Antonio.
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Rosario. In 1730 this Mission was started near Goliad, but soon abandoned. San Francisco was a chapel in San Antonio in 1730, amplified into a Cathedral in 1868, but did not develop into a Mission. San Jose de Aguayo was founded in honor of Governor Aguayo of Texas, in 1720. The buildings were begun two years earlier, but not completed until fifty-one years afterwards. When finished they were magnificent, and surpassed every Mission east of the Rio Grande. They were located on the river, about four miles below San Antonio. The Mission was noted for its beautiful statues and decorative paintings. It was built in the Moorish style of architecture, and its great, glittering dome was visible on a clear, sunny day for more then a hundred miles. The Indians called it the Day-Star of their Manitou, and many of them worshipped it. The carving and painting were the work of a Moorish artist from Seville, whose ancestor, centuries before, ornamented and chiseled the statues for the halls of the Alhambra; so runs the legend. The grand dome has long since fallen. The statues of the Queen of the Angels, and many others, have been mutilated by barbaric hands. The beautiful sculptured figures and decorations upon the outer walls have suffered the same fate. Wealth, beauty, and art strove to make it the wonder of those days, and still the love of the wonderful draws to it scores of visitors every year to gaze and meditate upon its grand ruins, beauty of location, and fateful history. It now stands upon the elevated tableland overlooking the river, a solitary monument of the sad fortunes of the old padres. This in its time was the Kingly Mission of Texas, like San Luis, Rey de Francia, of Alta California, but it has not, like that, been restored.
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San Juan Capistrano is six miles below San Antonio, on the east side of the river. It was founded in 1732. It was never a leading and important Mission, but simply a colony, founded as an experiment. It was one of the unfortunates that were abandoned from poverty or other causes; yet its buildings as studied and viewed from the ruins would indicate wealth at the time of construction. San Saba was founded in 1734, in Menard County. This was among the Comanche’s, a powerful and war-like tribe. During many years the padres made many converts. When the silver mine, the Las Almagres was discovered in 1752 the Indians became victims of the rapacious miners and adventurers. The Comanche’s turned in defense of their rights, and with no since of discrimination, killed the missionaries and burned the Mission. Many obscure Missions in the southwest, for real or fancied wrongs against the Indians, not committed by the padres or their followers, were destroyed. In the regions ranged by the Apaches are still found ruins believed to be on the sites of old Missions. Among the priesthood Father Kuehn was the exception who won the friendship of these savages. On the upper Nueces, Brazos, Texas and Colorado Rivers are found these ruins without a living name. In Texas all operative Missions were secularized by Governor Don Pedro de Navo in 1794; then their property and control were transferred to the clergy of the parishes. San Antonio de Bexar, the first important settlement by the Spaniards in Texas, was the central point around which clustered the great Missions of this province. Some of them are now restored sufficiently for the use of the secular clergy. The Order of Franciscans did a noble work here, but not comparable with their success in Alta California. The continual raids of the Comanche’s and the hostility of France were serious obstructions to Mission progress.
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THE MISSIONS OF NEW MEXICO
THE Missions of New Mexico in 1680 showed a population of twenty-five thousand, of which probably twenty-five hundred were Spaniards. Neither in importance, wealth, nor influence did they compare with the great Missions of the eighteenth century, established in other provinces of Mexico. From the records of the Church, made mainly of the reports of the priests in control at that time, is derived what knowledge id available on the subject, and these give but little information in regard to each of these quasi Missions. The following notes are taken from the reports of 1680 and 1691. Seneca (San Antonio), above Guadalupe Del Paso, founded in 1630 by P. Arteaga, succeeded by P. Garcia de Zuniga, or San Francisco, who is buried there. Piros nation; Convent of San Antonio; vineyard fish stream. Socorro, above Semern; of Piros nation; 600 inhabitants. Founded by P.Garcia. Alamillo (Santa Ana), 31 miles above Socorro; 300 Piros. Sevilleta, 51 miles from Alamillo across river; Piros. Isleta (San Antonio), where a small stream, with the Rio del Norte, encloses a fertile tract. Convent built by P. Juan de Salos; 2,000 inhabitants of Tiguas nation; named for the Alamo trees which shade the road. Puray, or Purnay (San Bartlolme), 11 miles from Sandia (Alameda); 200 Tiguas. Sandia (San Francisco), 11 miles from Puray; 3,000 Tiguas. Convent, where P. Estevan de Perea, the founder, is buried; also the skull of P. Rodriguez, the first martyr, is venerated.
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San Felipe, on the river, on a height on the east bank ; 300 inhabitants with the little pueblo of Santa Ana; of Azures (Queres) nation; Convent founded by Quinones, who with P. Geron Pedraza, is buried here. Santo Domingo, above San Felipe; 150 inhabitants. One of the best Convents, where the archives are kept, and where in 1661 was celebrated an auto da fe by order of the Inquisition. P. Juan de Escalona is buried here. Padres in 1680- Talaban (one custodio), Lorenzana, and Mondesdeoca. Santa Fe Villa, 81 miles from Domingo; residence of the Governor and soldiers, with four padres. Tesuque (San Lorenzo), 21 miles from Santa Fe, in a forest; 200 Tiguas (Tehuas); P. Juan Bautista Pio. Nambe ( San Francisco) , 31 miles east of Tesuque ; 51 miles from Rio del Norte ; two little settlements of Jacono and Cuya Manqué ; 600 inhabitants. P. Thomas de Tirres. San Ildefonso, near the river, and 21 miles from Jacona, in a fertile tract, with 20 farms; 800 inhabitants. PP. Morales, Sanchez, De Pro. And Fr. Luis. Santa Clara. Convent on height by the river; 300 inhabitants; a vista of San Ildefonso. San Juan de los Caballeros. Three hundred inhabitants; vista of San Ildefonso. In sight are the buildings of the Villa de San Gabriel, the first Spanish Capital. All the Padres named in the above fifteen Missions were killed in the revolt of the Indians in 1680, as they were in eighteen other Missions at the same time. The revolt was attributed to demoniac influences upon a people given to idolatry. It is said that a girl, several years before miraculously raised from the dead, foretold the uprising and massacre. The tribes were deeply devoted to their primitive faith. and resorted to old rites and forms of worship in secret on every opportunity. The Priests destroyed their idols and punished them severely whenever detected in their devotions. The State taxed heavily; the soldiers had no regard for native rights, and no mercy.
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Had the Missions been in absolute control of the situation the rebellion might not have happened, but the curse of Spanish misrule was upon all, and the Padres were held responsible by the natives for the tyranny of Church and State. The Pueblo, or Zuni Indians, occupied the central region of revolt. They had been a peaceful agricultural people for ages, and had a civilization above the Aztecs and equal to the Mayas, except in architecture and written language. The soldier entered the Zuni country one hundred and forty years before the rebellion and subdued it with fire and sword. The Priests came immediately in his rear, and vigorously attacked the Zuni creed and worship; they suppressed it for a century, but did not eradicate it; and when the flames of war burst out, the Indian was conquered again, but the progress of the Missions was stayed forever. The parish church was substituted, and remains today administering the rites of the Church and teaching its creed to a population less enlightened then the Zuni.
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THE MISSIONS OF ARIZONA
THE first Mission settlement in Arizona was made in 1732. Father Felipe Segesser founded San Xavier del Bac, and Juan Bautista founded San Miguel de Guevavi. These were regular Missions; the Indian Rancherias in that region were only vistas. In 1750 a presidio was located at Guevavi. The settlements formed by Father Kuehn forty years before had disappeared. Pimeria Alta was the name of Arizona at this time. During this year a revolt among the Pimas resulted in the murder of two priests of the Missions and nearly one hundred Spaniards. The Missions were deserted, but again occupied three years later. This blow from the natives destroyed the prospects and usefulness of all Missions in Pimeria. The Mosques in the Northeast were a bone of contention between the Jesuits and Franciscans, and this, with the hostility of these cliff dwellers, defeated mission labors with them until the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768. Primeria was a portion of Sonora, and assumed the name of Arizona in 1846. The annals of events in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early part of the eighteenth century of these changing provinces and their boundary lines are so meager and confused that Mission history is very indistinct and unreliable. The Franciscans had solo possession of this field after 1768. There were no Missions in Arizona until many years after Father Kuehn’s death in 1711; in fact, there were no Spanish Missions save in Santa Cruz Valley. Bac and Guevavi were the only Missions there, yet there were several vistas de Rancherias in this locality, protected by garrison at Tubac. The Indian settlements founded or visited by Kuehn have been called Missions by the Spanish historians. The Missions and vistas de Rancherias were transferred to the Franciscans, but their property had been confiscated from the Jesuits by the Government.
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The Friars who took control of the Indian settlements had no means of their own, but lived upon pensions. They held their little Mission communities together by labors of love, teaching, caring for the sick, ministering to the dying, and instructing the children, whom they won by presents. Into their rude chapels, built of brush, stone, or adobe, they induced the Indian by persuasion and promise to enter and listen to divine service; but they had little influence on his life. The good Padres found him heathen and left him heathen. As late as 1829 there were no records to show of the existence of Missions in Arizona. Many efforts had been made in the Gila River regions since 1640 to establish Missions; but the vastness of this wilderness, and its entire control by fierce and savage tribes, made the task of the missionary practically hopeless. The vistas de Rancherias were resorted to as substitutes for regular Missions, and these were at all times subject to every danger and hardship incident to savage life. The progress made in Mission life in Arizona from 1768 to 1846, a period of seventy-eight years, is shown by the fact that twenty-two vista stations were permanently established, as well as the two regular Missions already referred to. The American invasion of those regions gave the movement greater vigor, until in 1901 the census revealed a membership of forty thousand Catholic women within a large district, of which Tucson was the centre.
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THE END
Transcribed and submitted by Kim Buck, 2007.