Fray Junípero Serra Dies: August 28, 1784
This text comes from our book, From Sea to Shining Sea.
Don Gaspar de Portolá had gone north to find a bay that, over 100 years before, the Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno had discovered. Vizcaíno had named this bay Monterey, meaning “king’s mountain.” There, the first Mass to be said in California was offered. But in seeking Monterey, Portolá discovered a much larger bay than either San Diego or Monterey. This was San Francisco Bay, named after St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of Fray Junípero’s order.
Fray Junípero joined Portolá on his second journey to Monterey in April 1770. On the feast of Pentecost, the day on which the Church celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, Serra and Portolá took possession of Alta California for the king of Spain. More importantly, Serra claimed Monterey for the King of Heaven. On the southern part of Monterey peninsula, Fray Junípero established his second mission, calling it San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (Saint Charles Borromeo of Carmel). With two other friars, Serra next sought a site for his third mission, to the south of Carmel, and discovered it, on a river he called the San Antonio. Hanging a bell from a great tree, Fray Junípero joyfully rang it. “Come, Gentiles!” he cried.“Come to the Holy Church. Come and receive the Faith of Jesus Christ!”
In the years that followed, Fray Junípero established seven more missions up and down the coast of California. In these missions, the friars not only instructed the Indians in the Faith, but taught them how to farm and do various crafts, such as carpentry, leather tanning, and masonry. The Indians also learned how to play European musical instruments. The friars formed small orchestras of Indian musicians who played many difficult pieces written by European composers. As in other parts of Spanish America, the friars’ goal was to teach the California Indians how to live in a Christian and Spanish society.
This was rather difficult, for the California Indians were very primitive. They lived by hunting and gathering acorns and other nuts. California had many small tribes, which fought bloody feuds with each other. Their weapons were made of bone or stone, since they did not know how to smelt iron. Indian homes were small, dome-like structures made of willow branches and reeds. Their greatest art was baskets that had beautiful, intricate designs. These baskets were so tightly woven that they could hold water. The Indians boiled water by heating up stones in the fire and then dropping the hot stones into the water-filled baskets. But though their culture was primitive, the California Indians were quick to learn the arts the friars taught them. The friars themselves commented on how intelligent the Indians were.
But not all was peaceful in Alta California. Fray Junípero argued with the Spanish governor over the cruel way the soldiers sometimes treated the Indians. Then there was the problem that many Indians were dying from European diseases, for which they had no immunities. Though they tried to help the sick Indians, the friars did not fully understand why they were dying from diseases that killed so few Europeans.
Wild tribes, too, encouraged mission Indians to rebel. When, in 1775, the friars at San Diego Mission disciplined two Christian Indians who had been caught stealing, the Indians fled from the mission to the tribes that lived in the hills to the east of San Diego. On the fourth of November, 600 Indians attacked the mission and killed one of the priests there—Fray Luis Jayme. Then they shot his body full of arrows and pounded his head and face with stones and hunting sticks.
But Fray Junípero showed his charity in asking the governor to pardon the Indian who had been chiefly responsible for Fray Luis’s death. The murderer should be punished, Serra told the governor, but he should not be executed. “Let him live,” pleaded Fray Junípero, “in order that he should be saved. Give him to understand . . . that he is being pardoned in accordance with our law which commands us to forgive injuries.”
Fray Junípero Serra spent the remainder of his life in California, visiting the missions he had established, preaching the Gospel, administering the sacraments, and protecting the rights of the Indians. In 1784 he began to feel pains in his chest, and he knew his end was near. After receiving last rites, Fray Junípero died on August 28. Both Spaniards and the Indians he so loved came to his funeral. So loud was the weeping of the Indians at the funeral that it was hard to hear the friars sing the office of the dead.
Fray Junípero was buried in the sanctuary of the mission church of San Carlos de Borromeo on the Monterey peninsula.
