Kevin Starr offers a lucid background to Fr. Serra’s Representation to Viceroy Bucareli in 1773: ’ ”

“[Serra] and Pedro Fages—Portolâ’s successor between 1770 and 1774 and governor in his own right from 1782 to 1791—quarreled continually over an array of issues, large and small. A career officer from Catalonia who had been serving in New Spain only since 1767, Fages commanded a unit of elite Catalan volunteers as well as the criollo leatherjackets. He opposed Serra’s program of rapid expansion on the grounds that Alta California did not contain enough soldiers to provide these missions with proper security. Fages believed, moreover, that military considerations should always take precedence over the Franciscan program of mission development. He thus argued that mules could be appropriated from Mission San Diego to construct a presidio or—even more threatening to the Franciscans Indians could be put to work. Serra, naturally, opposed such efforts. Furthermore, the Franciscans were outraged by various soldiers’ sexual behavior, which made a mockery of friars’ attempts to introduce monogamy and marriage into Indian life. Worse, at the recently established Mission San Gabriel Arcângel (1771), soldiers rode about in posses, plundering Indian encampments and lassoing Indian women like cattle and raping them. In one horrible incident, a notorious San Diego soldier named Camacho raped and murdered an Indian girl and otherwise terrorized the local Indians. ^[p.222]

  IN late 1772 Serra made the long, arduous journey back to Mexico City to present [various] grievances to Viceroy Bucareli. Serra almost died en route, once in Guadalajara and again in Querétaro, from recurrent fever. In Mexico City, Serra met with the viceroy at the viceregal palace on a number of occasions in March 1773. [...] Serra called for the removal of Fages, the promotion of Sergeant José Francisco Ortega to lieutenant, and the granting of authority to missionaries to expel aberrant soldiers from the system and return them under arrest to Mexico to face charges.

        Serra returned to Alta California with a new reglamento (civil code), based on his thirty-two requests, although Ortega, while promoted, was not named governor, as Serra had also requested, but was assigned to the San Diego garrison. To serve as military commander, and hence the de facto governor, Bucareli appointed the veteran captain Fernando de Rivera y Moncada. The Crown seriously qualified missionary authority over soldiers; thus, despite Serra’s seemingly triumphant return to Alta California, the stage was set for three more years of turmoil, for the veteran Rivera—an older officer with a prickly disposition—would prove even more resistant than Fages had been to the Franciscans’ efforts to exercise authority over the military.”

Continental Ambitions, Roman Catholics in North America, The Colonial Experience, Kevin Starr, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2016) pp. 221-223

Following is a translation of the appeal by Fr. Serra to the Viceroy of Mexico on March 9, 1773.  It is taken from the Historical Memoirs (Documentas) of Fr. Serra’s companion and biographer. Fr. Palou.

EMBARKATION OF THE FATHER PRESIDÉNT FOR MEXICO, HIS ILLNESS, HIS ARRIVAL, AND THE REPRESENTATION THAT HE MADE TO HIS EXCELLENCY

It has already been said that the reverend father president, seeing that the spiritual conquest was being delayed for lack of superior orders, and by the conduct of the commander at Monterey, decided to go to Mexico to solicit the necessary measures from his Excellency. With this object he embarked on the 19th of October, 1772, in the packet San Carlos, and he had such a fortunate voyage that on the 4th of November he was already in San Blas. Although it was his wish to reach the College as soon as possible, he was delayed because he fell seriously ill of a high fever which put him at the gates of death, for which he prepared himself with the holy sacraments; but it was God’s will to spare his life so that he might accomplish the purpose for which he had taken such a long voyage.’

As soon as he saw himself free of the illness, with the lively anxiety which he had to reach his destination, and without waiting for complete recovery, he agaixi’.- et out on the road; but the hardship he suffered on it and the little strength that he had left caused him to have a relapse after reaching the College of Santa Cruz de Quèrétaro, where he became seriously ill and .in great danger. But he recovered a second time, and, as soon as he was convalescent he went on his way, arriving at our College of San Fernando on the 16th of February, 1773.

As soon as he arrived and received the blessing of the reverend father guardian he went to see his Excellency the Viceroy, who received him with expressions of a desire to give him the consolation which he sought by vigorous measures for the spiritual promotion of the new conquests. For this purpose he asked him to draw up a representation setting forth everything which he might think desirable. He did so and the representation is copied here literally.’

THE REPRESENTATION

From the Franciscan Guardian to Fr. Serra, exhorting him to make his representation to the Viceroy

Fray Rafael Verger, of the regular observance of Our Seraphic Father San Francisco, present guardian of the apostolic College of San Fernando of this city of Mexico, to the father lecturer and president of the missions of San Carlos de Monterey, San Diego, and those intervening, Fray Junipero Serra, Greetings :

In view of the fact that his Excellency the Viceroy of this New Spain, Don Fray Antonio Maria de Bucareli y Ursua, desires a faithful and exact account of everything that is conducive and necessary to the stability and augmentation of those new conquests, with the object of taking the best means for the service of both Majesties, I order your Reverence, under charge of holy obedience, to set forth as clearly and briefly as possible the points which you may consider conducive to the purpose named, with the arguments and reasons that may occur to you in regard to each one of them, expecting, as I do expect, from the piety, wisdom, veracity, and long experience which assist your Reverence in the management of Indians, that you will faithfully satisfy the Catholic and pious zeal of his Excellency, as the present circumstances demand.

College of San Fernando de Mexico, March 9, 1773.

Fray Rafael Verger, Guardian.

Fr. Serra’s Representation in 32 Articles

Most Excellent Sir:

In obedience to the foregoing superior order of my prelate, and at the same time confiding in and edified by the great zeal and vigor with which your Excellency, as vice-regent of our Catholic and Sovereign Monarch (whom God save), desires the permanence and the continued betterment of that new Christianity, began to-day with five missions, and which it is hoped to spread still more by the founding of others; and appreciating the great favor with which your Excellency, without any merit of mine, deigns to honor me (since I have been present at everything that has been done in those new establishments from the very day and hour when they were begun, and since I am an eye-witness to everything that has happened), with the task of representing before your Excellency all that may appear to me necessary and conducive to the success of the pious designs of our great monarch, whom God prosper, to confirm and spread our Holy Catholic Faith in those vast provinces, I, Fray Junipero Serra, of the Order of Our Seraphic Father San Francisco, apostolic missionary of the College de propaganda fide of San Fernando of this Court of Mexico, president of the missions to the heathen of Monterey and its environs, set forth to your Excellency with the proper humility the following points:

1. At present it is necessary that a pilot and an assistant pilot should come from Vera Cruz to conduct the packet San Carlos to Monterey, for in case your Excellency should grant to Don Miguel Pino the leave of absence for which he has asked to return to Cadiz, his native place, where he has his wife and mother,from whom he has been absent now for many years, no pilots will be left in San Blas but the alfé-rez of frigate, Don Juan Pérez, and the pilot, Don José Caiiizares, to whom, because of his youth, it does not seem right to entrust at present the conduct of the bark as principal and only pilot. But he ought to go as second, in order to alternate watches with the chief pilot, for it is very hard for one to have to do it alone, as happened in this last voyage to Don Juan Pérez. I say for the present, because as soon as the frigate is considered fit to make the voyage, another pilot and another second pilot will be necessary, all together being what I verbally stated to your Excellency, namely, that two pilots and two second pilots were needed.

2. I consider it necessary to use all urgency in equipping the new frigate with all possible haste, for, in view of its great size (for I went inside of it and saw its spacious hold), a voyage by it, together with the two packets, can relieve the presidio and missions already founded or to be founded from suffering and hunger, and can make all the men happy and content, which is what especially concerns us for the advancement that we all desire.

3. I call to your Excellency’s attention the fact that this year no salary has been collected for me, though it has been collected for twelve friars, as follows: for ten who have been assigned and are actually present serving two by two in the five new missions, as appears from the attached certificate, which is that of the officer of the presidio; and for two more who are detained in San Diego for the founding of San Buenaventura. It is my intention, as soon as your Excellency shall have taken the measures that seem best to you, to return to my mission of San Carlos. It does not seem to be right for my brothers to support me from that which they do not have; and though it may not seem necessary to maintain three ministers for one mission, permit me to say that I do not find this undesirable, for, since the third one is the president, it is very necessary for him to be supernumerary, so that he may make his journeys to visit the other missions and assist in the founding of the new ones, leaving two at San Carlos, so that on feast days one can celebrate Mass at the mission and the other at the presidio or in other parts, and so that the third may have the title of chaplain of the presidio. His salary may well be four hundred pesos, which I believe to be the least that should be given to any clerical father to whom they may give that title. But he ought to reside at the mission, a matter in regard to which I am waiting until later to speak more at length to your Excellency. The two friars detained at San Diego to await the founding of San Buenaventura are the father preacher Fray Ramón Ussôn and the father preacher Fray Juan Figuer, who have been there since the beginning of November of the past year of 1772.

4. Several pious persons of Tepic, Compostela, and their neighborhoods, having heard of the privations that we are suffering there, have promised that on my return they would give me some alms of corn and other provisions for ourselves and the new Christians. I therefore beg that your Excellency will be pleased to order the commissary of San Blas to receive the alms that I may collect, with any examinations that he may please to make, stating in the invoices that it belongs to the missions, and is not subject to the officer of the presidio.

And permit me to say the same in regard to some packs that are detained in Loreto, composed of books, pictures, crucifixes to use in preaching, and other ornaments and utensils that were for the personal use of the friars of this new college, who have gone out and are to go out from the old missions of California. In consideration of the cost of transportation, and since the friars are coming to Mexico, where nothing is lacking, they have given them to the new missions, which lack everything. And having been examined, as they have been, outside and inside, by the reverend Dominican fathers, with this procedure they have seen with their own eyes with what lack of reason Governor Don Felipe Barry has said and proclaimed that all the packs were made up of ornaments stolen from the missions. If these packs, however, cannot be taken by land to San Diego, your Excellency can order the governor to send them by sea to the port of San Blas, directed to the commissary there, who will put them on the bark which may sail for Monterey, with the same statement in the invoices that they are private property of the missions.

5. It seems to me highly desirable that your Excellency shall grant permission to the captain of the royal presidio of Tubac for the expedition that he has offered to make to seek a route to the port of San Diego or that of Monterey, without your Excellency omitting for this reason to give orders, if you think best, to some official of New Mexico to undertake the same task; for, as I am informed, by starting from Santa Fé and traveling directly west,’ with very slight declination to the south, Monterey will be found, since the latter is situated in latitude thirty-six degrees and thirty-six minutes, and the former, according to the diary of Don Pedro de Rivera, is in thirty-seven degrees and twenty-eight’ minutes. It is certain that if by our own good fortune communication should be opened by other routes with those regions, especially with New Mexico, the conquest might notably be increased and many souls won for heaven.

6. It seems to me very desirable to remove and retire the officer Don Pedro Fages from the command of the presidio of Monterey and to put another in his place, for if this is not done there will be no cessation of desertions among the soldiers and so many other people, which up to now have caused and are causing so much censure; nor will those who cannot do more fail to continue to be, as they have been from first to last, very dissatisfied, not so much from excessive labor or want of food, as I have often heard many of them say to various people, as from the ill-treatment and bad manners of that officer, which I have known for a long time from personal experience.

I have just received with the last letters copies of the representations made on the one hand by the volunteer soldiers of that presidio, to their captain Don Agustin Callis, whom they suppose to be in this Court, and others by the Leather-jackets, to their captain Don Fernando Rivera, whom they also suppose to be in Mexico. Both bodies beg their respective officers to rescue them in whatever way they can from such oppression and subjection. If I were to speak, not of what concerns my person or the other friars, for this will be passed over in silence, but of the hindrance that his conduct has always caused to the missions, it would be a long discourse. If it should be necessary to write it in more detail and to give more reasons for urging what is asked for here, it will be done on the least hint from your Excellency. But if what has been said above, together with the information given by the reverend father guardian of this College in writing, and what I gave by word of mouth, is enough for the purpose, I beg your Excellency to let him retire with honor and without disgrace, and may God bless him.

7. I am of the opinion that it is not best for the present that the officer placed in command of that presidio should be one of the regular troops, for, as those gentlemen are not accustomed to such service as that of the leather-jacket soldiers, which is totally different from that of the other troops, we might find ourselves in the same difficulties as heretofore. And if your Excellency will grant me the great favor of your permission to propose a suitable person for the office, I will say that, in my opinion, among all those who compose the company none is more suitable for it than its sergeant, Don José Francisco Ortega.

The reasons for my opinion are his services and his ability to discharge the duties of the office. First as to his services : After having served the king for some years as a leather-jacket soldier in California, at the time of the regulars of the Company who were later expelled, when he was distinguished by the appointment of sergeant, he resigned his place and devoted himself to working in the mines in the southern part of that Peninsula. At that time, as he seemed to be the most suitable person of that department, he was made lieutenant-justice of all those mining camps, and he administered that office with equity for some years. The new governor, Don Gaspar de Portolâ, came to attend to the expulsion of the Jesuit fathers and to take the governorship of the province; and, having met and talked with Sergeant Ortega he offered him his former post of soldier and sergeant, and, having obtained his consent, he took him in his company to Loreto. There he served the governor and the king as accountant and manager of the royal storehouse for more than a year, during which time the royal exchequer was in charge of Senor Portolâ. Afterwards came the new commissary, Don Francisco Trillo, and he made use of Sergeant Ortega’s pen all the time that it was needed.

The time came for the expedition to Monterey, and Sergeant Ortega was designated for the second division, in which I went, and also the governor. We sallied forth, and just as we were setting foot in this country of the heathen, we received the last letters from the illustrious visitor-general, and in the one that was for the governor, which he read before me, his Lordship said that Sergeant Ortega might accompany the expedition, with the consolation of knowing that he had reserved for him, upon his return, the position of lieutenant of the company, which Don Blas de Somera was leaving, having asked for retirement. This promise we all celebrated, giving him hearty congratulations.

He went with the expedition, and as soon as we came to the end of the short stretch of road which some of the soldiers knew because they had been over it on a preceding expedition, the governor detailed the sergeant to go every day, accompanied by a soldier, to explore the route that we were to take on the following day. And thus he continued for the space of more than a month that our journey lasted, going three time over the road the rest of the expedition traveled but once. He went to look for the watering place and the camping site, returned with the information, and then went with all the party to the place selected. The soldier who accompanied him was sometimes relieved, but the sergeant never. The danger of going in this way among a heathen people who were now resisting us, as we saw afterwards, kept me in constant anxiety; and in fact on some occasions his escape in safety could be attributed only to the saints of his devotion.

After our arrival at San Diego, where everybody was surprised at the manner in which we had come, the departure from that port in search of the harbor of Monterey was determined upon. The sergeant went with the rest; and, according to what I was told by fathers Crespi and Gomez, who went with that expedition to the harbor of San Francisco, in the whole of it the work of Senor Ortega was notable. For although Captain Rivera was named chief explorer, the sergeant never left off serving in the same office; and especially’ when they went out in various directions to look for the harbor, it was he who penetrated farthest in the examination of the estuaries of San Francisco, looking for a passage to the other shore, which was not found.

After the expedition had returned to San Diego and the governor had been informed of what had happened to us on the day of the Assumption of Our Lady, when the heathen had killed one of our people, wounded others, and tried to kill us all, and it became necessary to return to Monterey, as was done after the arrival of the bark, and it seemed to him that a person of complete confidence was required to command the guard that was to remain at that mission, he designated Sergeant Ortega for the place.

When I went to Monterey, suffering the pain of leaving the two fathers among so many perils and equally great privations, the chief consolation that I had in regard to the first was that the sergeant was staying with them, and in fact my confidence was not misplaced. After the expedition was concluded they transferred him to California. There the governor has employed him in journeys to Sinaloa for provisions, and in going back and forth to San Diego to look for and mark sites for the five missions which are to be placed in the intervening country. While he was performing that duty, climbing mountains and threading ravines, he discovered, besides the principal object, a road from Vellicatâ to San Diego by which about fifty leagues are saved, and in future the distance will be shortened still more.

This is a brief resumé of the services of the person whom I propose to your Excellency. And as to his qualifications for the office, I will say that in commanding the soldiers, as far as I have seen, he is firm without anger, prudent and judicious. I believe that they will love him without ceasing to fear him, and that they will fear him enough without ceasing to love him. And since in all the duties that he has performed and that I have related he has conducted himself with honor, I expect that he will do the same in others that may be entrusted to him. Because in his youth he was employed in the city of Zelaya, his native town, in the management of warehouses and stores, he is acquainted with this business and is expert° at it. He has a good pen, and so I am confident that the warehouse will be well managed; and because he has a God-fearing conscience the accounts will be correct.

Don Pedro Fages entered the office which he has to-day with only the title of lieutenant, and with the same title this worthy person might enter the office, if it seems well to your Excellency, and if not you will determine, as always, the best course.

10. I will say that my opinion in regard to the number of soldiers needed by the missions for the escorts is as follows: for the mission of San Carlos de Monterey, situated on the plains of Carmelo River, in view of its proximity to the presidio, eight Leather-jacket soldiers will be enough; for the mission of San Antonio de Padua de los Robles, ten of the same Leather-jackets; for that of San Luis Obispo de los Tichos also ten Leather-jackets; for that of San Gabriel de los Temblores also ten Leather-jackets; and for that of San Diego del Puerto thirteen or fourteen, also Leather-jackets. The reason for this last increase is because it frequently happens that messengers go out from this mission, either to Monterey or to California, and if it should be left with a smaller number it might again happen as at the last arrival of the barks at that port, when Captain Juan Pérez found it with such a small number of soldiers that it was necessary for him to land a number of sailors for the proper defense of the mission, as I believe he wrote to your Excellency.

As to San Buenaventura and Santa Clara, for the present it seems to me that for the first there should be twenty, on account of its proximity to the channel of Santa Barbara, and for the second fifteen. In regard to the mission of Our Seraphic Father San Francisco on his famous harbor I do not speak, for I am ignorant as to how and where your Excellency will decide that it shall be established.

From the above it results, in my opinion, that for the presidio and the missions already founded and to be founded, it will be necessary and very proper that an attempt be made to complete the number of one hundred Leather-jacket soldiers, and that they shall definitely belong to that presidio of Monterey, without being confused with those of Old California.

11. For those soldiers there should be established at the presidio of Monterey, their headquarters, a warehouse of goods, with a regulation of prices (of which they are ignorant up to now), and the method of payment, their accounts to be taken from the warehouse at Loreto, for on account of the great distance it is an inconvenience to them. And as they have to take most of their pay in goods, on which the royal factory may have its legal gains, their annual pay ought to be increased somewhat, for by the last orders it was greatly lowered, although their work was increased.

In this way they will be made content, and others with their families may ask to go there. It is certain that formerly the place of soldier was solicited with prayers and ardor, and his family, which he had with him, lived decently, but now there is no one to look for such a post or to wish for it. It is my opinion that if affairs were arranged on a good plan some captain in Sinaloa or some other’ of those provinces might be ordered to recruit thirty or forty leather-jacket soldiers, as many of them as possible with respectable Spanish families, assuring them of the same good living that they formerly enjoyed in California. They might embark for California and then go by land to Monterey, supplied with animals, arms, and other necessaries for the service. In this way those missions would be well served, and the country would go on being settled, thus facilitating the conquest in spiritual and temporal matters. It is not essential that all should be married, for if there are only two families for each mission I consider it very probable that the others will soon be married, for even in the present circumstances several have come to me to ask permission.

As for money, it seems to me that if they ask for any it should be given to them, for it must finally come to the warehouse, less something that they may spend with the people of the bark on the way. They could then be given the rations on account, as has always been done at Loreto, and it might be that this way would be more profitable for them as well as for the treasury, for I suspect that they now eat and wear less and spend more. I desired to make out this statement mathematically, but I saw that it was impossible, through not knowing at what price the goods are bought and at what price they are to be sold, information necessary in order to know the exact amount of the gain. But, be that as it may, I believe that for the purpose of securing such high ends your Excellency will not stop at using more means.

12. It is very important that the missions shall be provided with some peons to cultivate the land, and endeavor to raise some crops for their maintenance and advancement. This benefit would by now have been partly secured if it were not for the opposition of the commander of the presidio, as I lately wrote to the reverend father guardian of this College from San Diego, in the middle of October, the original letter being presented before the superior government of your Excellency, where it can be seen.

It seems to me that the easiest way is the one which we have asked for from the beginning and is stated in that letter. It is that young men from the neighborhood of San Blas shall go in the barks in the capacity of sailors. Among them there will be found, in my opinion, without much difficulty, farmers, cowboys, and muleteers. These can be distributed among the missions, six in each one, or at least four, with the condition that the commander of the presidio shall not have the right to take them away during the whole year. This arrangement would keep them contented, but without it no one would be found to remain voluntarily, especially with matters as they are now. During the year they should receive the pay of sailors from the auditor’s office at San Blas, and free rations at the missions. If at the end of the year they should desire to persevere into the next, the same arrangement should be continued with them; and if they wish to return to San Blas with the bark they should not be hindered, but an effort should be made to secure others to remain in their places.

13. It is no less important that when the cattle go up, which by superior decree of your Excellency are to be taken from California to supply the missions of Monterey, there shall go with the company, voluntarily and with good treatment, some Indian families from California, to be distributed among the missions, at least two or three to each mission, for by this means two purposes will be served. The first is to have those two or three Indians more for the work; and the second and principal one is that the heathen may see that there is marriage among the Christians also, whereas up to this time they have wondered much to see all the men without any women. When one of the fathers of San Diego went last year to California in search of provisions, which were exhausted at that mission, he took back with him, as a part of the company, two such families, and upon their arrival there was such excitement and joy among the new Christians, and also among the heathen, that they could not do enough for them; and if some more families who are not Indians should come from there it also would serve greatly for the same purpose, providing that there were means to maintain them.

14. It was the custom in California for the father of each mission to have a soldier, chosen by him,° not so much as guard as for a major domo. They called him the missionary soldier. He was charged by the father with the work, and everything else that came up in the duties of the mission; and if the soldier conducted himself properly it was usual for him to grow old in that position. But now everything is changed, for if it is merely known that a soldier is devoted to aiding and relieving the father, he is immediately taken away and moved to another place. For the commander of Monterey says, citing the governor of California, that these soldiers, seeing themselves loved and favored by the fathers, become self-conceited, which is inimical to his authority. According to this idea, only those soldiers should be in the missions who do not esteem the fathers or have any love or respect for them.

In view of this state of affairs, I beg that your Excellency may be pleased to order the commander of the presidio to follow the old custom, and that the soldier of each mission chosen by the fathers for those offices shall be free of guard and sentinel duty; that he shall not be removed without serious cause; and that in the interest of harmony at least the reason be communicated to the missionary father. This measure is of great importance for the advancement of the temporal affairs of the missions, for the father cannot attend personally to everything, nor would he know how to direct all the manual work that comes up, for at the monastery they did not teach him this.

15. I beg your Excellency, in my name and in that of all the missionaries who are exiled there, that whatever is taken in the barks from here for the maintenance of the missions for the following year shall be marked separately from what belongs to the commander of the presidio and guards. The first year it was done this way, and there was nothing to dispute about. But in the two following years the commissary of San Blas sent it all to the commander of the presidio, for him to give us what he pleased, to serve through the year, even the bells for which I asked his Excellency, the Marquis de Croix, and two broken ones that I sent to San Blas to be cast for me.

Although I wrote about this to his Excellency and to the commissary mentioned, the bells came directed to Don Pedro Fages, and Senor Trillo did not reply to me on the subject. When I wished to dispose of them the officer told me that they had come to him without any order, and that he would do whatever he pleased with them. Moreover, our letters are enclosed at San Blas in the packages for the officer, so that no one can receive any except by his hand, and we receive them however and whenever he pleases, as I could tell your Excellency by word of mouth. The notice that comes to us from this College says that they are sending mail to him and he will give it to us; so that we have to make out the receipt, not to the captain of the bark, but to him.

In regard to the food for the year, and the other little things that we ought to have, at least to give to the Christian boys and girls, there might be much to write, but I only say that our poverty is great, and that never have we friars been so humiliated, nor the commander better treated than since we and his Grace have been in Monterey. May our poverty be endured for the love of God, and may his triumph, which I do not envy him, do him good! What I do desire and ask for is the maintenance of the missions, and the ability to give a mouthful to the Christians and catechumens, and to augment Christianity. Only two California Indians have remained with me in my mission at San Carlos, for I distributed the rest among the other missions. When the distribution was made in San Diego of what was sent with the pack train to Monterey, I begged him to let it be entered on the account of those Indians, but he replied that he was not giving anything for Indians, and that if he wished to throw them out he would throw them out.

In short, it seems to me most necessary that the alms which are given us by the piety of your Excellency and of the king, our master, whom God save, without which at present we could not maintain ourselves nor the missions subsist, shall go from here assigned and designated. I have already shown in the letter cited that the missions of San Diego and San Gabriel are worse provided for this year with the arrival of two ships than they were last year with one, the reason being that last year what was to be given to San Diego was decided here, on condition that the packet San José had not arrived, and in fact it never arrived.

16. Since your Excellency sent by the last barks a forge to the mission of San Diego, which, after many disputes, I succeeded in getting the officer to deliver, it remains for your Excellency to send a blacksmith to them, for one is badly needed, both on the barks when they arrive, for they always require some repairs of that sort, and at a mission so remote as that of Monterey. If, for instance, an ax or a hoe is broken in working, there is nothing to do but lay it aside, for to send it to the presidio of Monterey to be mended, which is the only place where there is a forge and blacksmith, would be a matter of a year, for even at my mission, which is only a step away, an ax, which might be mended in a quarter of an hour, is usually kept for many weeks, and our work is consequently delayed.

17.  On account of what I have just said, I ask your Excellency for a new forge, with a blacksmith, which, placed at the mission on the Carmelo River, would serve also for the missions of San Antonio and San Luis, by which means, besides being better served, we could set recently converted¹⁰ boys to learn the trade. This petition has been urged upon me by the fathers of those missions in their last letters, for they are weary of struggling with the presidio, where, although the commander has not absolutely refused to do the work, it has been done very slowly not a few times, but many. With a blacksmith at San Diego the repairing can be done there for the neighboring missions, and with one at Carmelo for the two named, San Antonio and San Luis.

18.  I beg your Excellency, in order to equip these two forges, to order sent and delivered to the two missions a considerable amount of iron, part in round bars and part in flat sheets, plainly addressed to the missions, so that it may not cost us a new struggle to get it, because of the claims of the presidio.

19.  Two carpenters are as necessary as the two” blacksmiths, one for the missions near Monterey, and the other to be placed at the missions’ of San Gabriel de los Temblores, to which San Diego and San Buenaventura may have resort, and both of them should be supplied with the tools of their trade. All of this may be easily done if your Excellency will entrust it to some person from Guadalaxara, the one who seems best to you, and from there the two blacksmiths and the carpenters may set out with their supplies, being given to understand that the supplies are not for them but for their respective missions.

20.  In view of the custom that his Majesty, whom God save, has of giving two bells to each one of the missions newly founded, a large and a small one, two are lacking at present for the already founded mission of San Gabriel, two for that of Santa Clara, and two more for that of Our Father San Francisco when it shall be founded. And if from these four cast at San Blas the officer should appropriate one for the presidio there would be one lacking for the mission of San Luis. For this reason I beg that your Excellency may be pleased to order that the four bells which lately went to Monterey shall be delivered to me, and that three be sent for the three missions mentioned. And if your Excellency should be pleased to send one more, to be placed in the presidio to ring the Ave Marias for Mass, I would esteem it highly, and would place it there without fail.

In regard to this matter I will add that, having seen the four bells cast at San Blas, and compared the expense which they have occasioned with that which would have resulted from the purchase and freight charges if they had been bought here in Mexico, I find that the saving from casting them there does not amount to much. Indeed, it would be better to take them already made from this city, for the truth is those bells are very crude and ugly, although I can say nothing of their sound because I have not seen them hung up and tested.

21. As it has also been the custom of his Majesty, whom God save, to give the vestments, sacred vessels, and other ecclesiastical ornaments pertaining to the administration of the holy sacraments, to the missions that are newly founded, his Excellency the Marquis de Croix charged each of the commissioners to collect, from the sacristies which were respectively assigned to the expelled religious of the Company of Jesus, in a large box and well packed, all the articles of this class mentioned in the list sent to them by his Excellency. The result was that when I examined the five boxes that came to me at Monterey for the five new missions, I found that two of them were not merely respectable but very valuable and fine; of these one is destined for the mission of Our Father San Francisco, and the other for that of Santa Clara. But of the other three, which I delivered to the missions of San Antonio, San Luis, and San Gabriel, the vestments are all old, torn, and indecent, except for the fact that the commissioner who packed the box for the mission of San Antonio took the trouble to have them all mended, and to have all the white vestments both washed and mended, so that it all might go, although poor and old, at least neat; but the vestments for the other two missions are in rags, dirty, and in every way unserviceable.

For this reason I was compelled to give out of the vestments of Monterey three chasubles of some splendor to those three missions, each its own, so that they might celebrate with some decency, but with frontals and chasubles of other colors I cannot supply them. Consequently I beg that your Excellency will order that either from those of the expelled fathers which are to be distributed, or by having new ones made at the factory, those missions shall be supplied with decent vestments, and that some pieces which are lacking for the mission of Santa Clara, as is stated in the attached lists, shall be provided. I do not doubt that this step would be quite in harmony with the purpose and will of our Catholic monarch, who, always zealous for divine worship, has never stopped at expense to advance it.

22. I beg that your Excellency may be pleased to give strict orders to the commander not to interfere with communication between us friars and our College by letters, strictly forbidding him to open them or send them astray, and ordering that whenever couriers are to be sent he shall inform us in sufficient time to enable us to write properly. And I humbly beg your Excellency that these letters of ours shall be delivered to our College free of charge for the messenger; for the reverend father guardian of the College tells me that the charge for this purpose is very heavy, and as the missions have no other fund but the very small allowance given us as alms by the king, my master, whom God save, it seems hard that we immediately have to squeeze it out from this same allowance in order that news may be had of us and the state of those missions. And if military gentlemen are excused from this charge, who are more military than we, who are always in the field and as near the arrows as any soldier

23.    I request that the measures at San Blas shall be regulated so that there shall be twelve almuds to a fanega, as is customary, and that they shall not deliver to us at the missions, as they have done up to now, nine and a half or ten almuds to the fanega, for we have to certify that we have received so many fanegas, and when they see the receipts here they make the accounts very different from what the facts are in reality.

24.    I beg that when these measures have been regulated, a complete set of them shall be ordered made at San Blas, as follows : a half fanega, a quarter fanega, an almud, a half almud, and a quarter almud, for each of the missions, and that they shall go sealed, as is customary in Mexico and other parts, as proof of their legality. By this means, at present and in future what is given and received will go on a fixed basis, and frauds, which might occur without this arrangement, will be prevented.

25. I believe it will be a good thing if your Excellency shall be pleased to seriously charge the commissary at San Blas to take more care than he has up to this time about the condition of the provisions that he sends for the maintenance of those missions and the presidio. If the corn is put on board already damaged and worm-eaten, and I say the same in regard to the rest of the provisions, in what state will it arrive there, and how will it be when it comes to be used? That which has been put on board fresh and good has arrived there in the same condition, but sometimes, when we have received it in a very damaged condition, the captain of the bark has replied to us that it was already that way at San Blas.

Of meat last year there was none, and what has lately arrived this year has been so worm-eaten and worthless that, note’ without foundation, the opinion has been formed that it must be the meat that should have gone the year before, and on the pretext that there was no room in the bark it was neither little nor much. There is nothing that is more plentiful in the neighborhood of San Blas than cattle, and yet in spite of that, although they were assigned from the beginning, as a part of the daily ration, a half a pound, or six ounces, of meat, it will soon be two years since the poor men have tasted any other than what they have obtained from the heathen or by hunting.

But the chief pity this last year has been in respect to the flour, which is the most useful and necessary article among all that have gone or may go. It went in any kind of common sack of agave fibre, and consequently it sifted out at every movement or touch, so that the loads arrived noticeably diminished. And it may easily be imagined how much more diminished they will be, when they arrive at their respective missions over the long roads that intervene, and how much expense will be occasioned by what is lost, which is the best, as well as by what is saved. If your Excellency would be pleased to order that this commodity shall go under the same conditions as those under which it was ordered sent in the previous year by his Excellency the Marquis de Croix, all losses would be avoided, and with the same number of loads there would be enough to eat for a much longer time.

26. I again remind your Excellency that all the missions are in the greatest need of mules, so that those which are somewhat remote from the ports are totally unable to carry from them their respective supplies and provisions. If the commander of the presidio had not taken away from the two missions of San Carlos and San Diego those that the governor gave them at the beginning, as I say in the letter quoted, and in regard to which I await the required order from your Excellency, the two missions mentioned could assist the neighboring ones. But the mules have all been absorbed by the presidio, where, with their simultaneous and in great part superfluous packing, they are about to use them up, a work in which the deserters assist, with those that they carry off, and the heathen, with those which they have eaten. Consequently it seems to me very important that your Excellency shall take such measures in the matter as may seem best to you, and especially that mares and jennies shall be placed there for breeding, for otherwise we shall never get out of our poverty in this particular.

27.  I pray your Excellency to have delivered to me the cattle that were assigned in the partition to the two missions of Our Father San Francisco and Santa Clara, with the increase that they have had since the day of the partition, as I also asked in the letter cited, for it is to be believed that we will take better care of them at the missions” than they do at the presidio, and we will also have more milk to support the Christians, which is almost the only aliment that up to now we have been able to give them.

28.  I call to the attention of your Excellency the fact that at the beginning of the expedition a surgeon named Don Pedro Prat was assigned to it. When we went to Monterey the bark carried a large quantity of medicines, so that the surgeon, reserving what was necessary for the presidio,might distribute to the missions what he thought best, writing in a memorandum book the virtues of what he gave them, and how and when each medicine ought to be applied. But we had the misfortune that no sooner was the port of Monterey found than the surgeon lost his mind. He remained one year in the presidio, but totally demented; he was afterwards sent away in the bark, and finally died in the hospital of the Bethlemite Fathers at Guadalaxara. The medicines are there; and if your Excellency should be pleased to send another surgeon in place of the one deceased, there would be the consolation of being able to minister blood-letting to any who might need it, and of having some one to cure a wound, a sore, or any other illness to which the knowledge and skill of that official may extend.

29. I pray your Excellency, for the consolation of the poor creatures, to grant leaves of absence to five of the volunteer Catalonian soldiers who reside at Monterey but were married in Spain, to another in doubt whether he is married or a widower, and to another who is totally invalided. They are the following: Sergeant Juan Puig, married; Gerônimol° Planes, married; Valentin Planells, married; Pablo Ferrer, married; Francisco Bombau, married; Domingo Malaret, in doubt; Domingo Clua, invalid.

And I ask your Excellency for the same favor for three Leather-jackets who were married in very remote parts, and have been a long time absent from their families. First, Miguel de Islas, a respectable Spaniard, married in Mexico, where his wife and one daughter live, from whom he has now been absent seven years. Second, Juan Antonio Coronel, mulatto, married in Sinaloa, and many years absent from his consort. The third was married in San Luis Potosi. His appellation is Zambrano; I do not remember his given name, but I know that he is married and that he makes us a lot of trouble there.

In respect to these three, as well as to the preceding, I believe it would be very agreeable to God if your Excellency would be pleased to grant them permission to return to their homes.

30. I also beg your Excellency to determine upon some reward for those soldiers or those who are not” soldiers who may marry new Christian daughters of that country. In regard to this matter the visitor-general repeatedly charged Don Pedro Fages, but I have not been able to learn in what terms or upon what conditions. But however it may be, I am of the opinion that one who marries in this way will remain at the mission of his consort, and will not go moving around to others. Let him be given for the present a mule to go about on, if he has none, and after one year or somewhat more in the service of the mission in planting the land, let him be given from the herds of the king a couple of cows and a mule, or whatever may seem best to your Excellency. And in time we might assign to them a piece of ground, so that they may plant for themselves, since there is nothing else to give them.

31. I supplicate your Excellency, when a new commander is placed at the presidio of Monterey, that he be given power, in the name of your Excellency by a decree¹⁸ which you will be pleased to issue for the purpose, to proclaim a general pardon for the deserters, if any of them should be yet found scattered among the heathen, so that the danger of inquietude among the heathen and the perdition of the wretched wanderers and Christian renegades may be avoided, and so that this example of the great mercy of your Excellency towards those miserable criminals may serve as a consolation to all.

32. Finally, in conclusion of so many petitions, all directed toward the one end stated at the beginning of this long writing, I humbly pray, in regard to the measures which your Excellency may be pleased to issue in consequence of these representations, that you will order that I be given a duplicate or literal copy of all of them for my guidance and that of the other missionaries, for, if I know exactly what orders your Excellency gives the commissary at San Blas I. can call him to account about it if it should be necessary. If I might know what orders are given to the governor of California in regard to the business of sending the cattle for the new missions, or arming and equipping the new soldiers who may come from the capital to Monterey, although at their own expense and from their salary, or of sending to San Diego or to San Blas the loads spoken of in article four of the present writing, or any other orders that he may receive from your Excellency, I can take the same step.

And I request the same especially in regard to all the measures, orders, and instructions that may be given to the commander of the presidio of Monterey; for, if I have specific knowledge of them your Excellency may rest assured that neither I nor the other friars will attempt to do anything that may be contrary to them in the smallest degree, which might happen if we were ignorant of them.

In short, your Excellency will be pleased in this to decide, order, and command what seems best to you, for I have every confidence in your great wisdom and zeal, and am sure that whatever seems right to you will always be for the best. I desire to receive your decision in regard to this as soon as possible, so that I may be able to take the road with it for that poor vineyard of the Lord, considering that on account of the broken health in which I find myself it will be necessary for me to proceed slowly. And, just not to stop asking until the very end, if your Excellency would order that I be given some alms for the expenses of the journey I would receive it as a special new favor and grace.

May our Lord spare you the many years that my deep affection desires for your Excellency in His holy love and grace.

Apostolic College of San Fernando of this Court of Mexico, March 13, 1773.

Most excellent Sir, the most humble servant and chaplain of your Excellency, who venerates you,

kisses your hands.  FRAY JUNIPERO SERRA.

On the 15th this writing was presented by the reverend father president to his Excellency, who, after acquainting himself with its contents, called for the 6th of May a council of war and royal exchequer, in order to decide upon the thirty-two points contained in this representation. It was held, and the decision arrived at is stated in the next chapter.

“While serving as president of the missions of Sierra Gorda, Serra quarreled with Colonel José de Escandôn, the regional military commander, who favored pro-settler policies aimed toward the establishment of a civil order. Escand6n also advocated the development of self-governing Indian pueblos versus the Franciscan program of Indian guardianship under the missions. As father president of the Alta California missions, Serra butted heads with one military commander and three governors. Serra got along rather well with Portolà, the first commander, during the organization and execution of the Sacred Expedition and the founding of San Diego and Monterey. By contrast, he and Pedro Fages—Portolâ’s successor between 1770 and 1774 and governor in his own right from 1782 to 1791—quarreled continually over an array of issues, large and small. A career officer from Catalonia who had been serving in New Spain only since 1767, Fages commanded a unit of elite Catalan volunteers as well as the criollo leatherjackets. He opposed Serra’s program of rapid expansion on the grounds that Alta California did not contain enough soldiers to provide these missions with proper security. Fages believed, moreover, that military considerations should always take precedence over the Franciscan program of mission development. He thus argued that mules could be appropriated from Mission San Diego to construct a presidio or—even more threatening tothe Franciscans indians could beput to work. Serra, naturally, oppo-sed such efforts. Furthermore, the Franciscans were outraged by various soldiers’ sexual behavior, which made a mockery of friars’ attempts to introduce monogamy and marriage into Indian life. Worse, at the recently established Mission San Gabriel Arcângel (1771), soldiers rode about in posses, plundering Indian encampments and lassoing Indian women like cattle and raping them. In one horrible incident, a notorious San Diego soldier named Camacho raped and murdered an Indian girl and otherwise terrorized the local Indians. [p.222]

“In late 1772 Serra made the long, arduous journey back to Mexico City to present [various] these and other grievances to Viceroy Bucareli. Serra almost died en route, once in Guadalajara and again in Querétaro, from recurrent fever. In Mexico City, Serra met with the viceroy at the viceregal palace on a number of occasions in March 1773. From one perspective, there could be no greater contrast than that between Antonio Maria de Bucareli y Urstia, the Marquis of Vallehermoso and count of Jerena, lieutenant general and former govemor of Cuba, who had popes and cardinals in his family tree, and the farmer’s son from Majorca. Yet each man was a religious under vows: Serra a Franciscan, Bucareli a professed Knight of Malta. Like Serra, Bucareli was intensely attuned to the evangelical significance of the Alta California venture. Assuming the office of viceroy on 22 September 1771, the aristocratic soldier-monk inherited responsibility for Alta California—thus far a money pit for the Crown­along with another brainchild of José de Gavez, the poorly sited naval base and shipyard at San Blas on the Gulf of California toast of Mexico, which Bucareli was in the process of reorganizing concurrently with Serra’s visit. Thus, when Serra spoke of the evangelization of the Indians of Alta California being endangered by Lieutenant Fages’ intransigence and inability to control his troops, Bucareli listened. He fully grasped the strategic importance of New Spain’s fragile hold on the Pacific toast and realized that it would take decades to settle a civilian population in the region; therefore, the Franciscan missions (as Gâlvez had planned) represented the best way for New Spain to hold Alta Califomia in the meantime. As a professed religions brother, the viceroy likewise respected Serra’s evangelical arguments on their own terras and asked the father president to draw up a representaci6n (summary statement with recommendations) of how Serra thought things should be mn in Alta California. In the thirty-two-point repœsentaciem he submitted to Bucareli, Serra called for the removal of Fages, the promotion of Sergeant José Francisco Ortega to lieutenant, and the granting of authority to missionaries to expel aberrant soldiers from the system and retum them under arrest to Mexico to face charges.

Serra retumed to Alta California with a new reglamento (civil code), based on his thirty-two requests, although Ortega, while promoted, was not named govemor, as Serra had also requested, but was assigned to the San Diego garrison. To serve as military commander, and hence the de facto govemor, Bucareli appointed the veteran captain Fernando de Rivera y Moncada. The Crown seriously qualified missionary [p.223] authority over soldiers; thus, despite Serra’s seemingly triumphant retum to Alta California, the stage was set for three more years of turmoil, for the veteran Rivera—an older officer with a prickly disposition—would prove even more resistant than Fages had been to the Franciscans’ efforts to exercise authority over the military.”

xcxxcxxc  F ” “ This Webpage was created for a workshop held at Saint Andrew’s Abbey, Valyermo, California in 1990....x....  ’ “”.