On June 3, 1770, the second Mission according to Serra’s plan, San Carlos Borremeo, was founded at Monterey. Serra himself was present and celebrated mass, at the conclusion of which Governor Portola proclaimed possession of the Bay of Monterey in the names of God and the King of Spain. The celebration of mass, the burning […]
Of all the heritage enjoyed by the present generation in California, descending from the old padres, the greatest corporeal blessings are the fruits, wines, foods, flowers, seeds, plants, and trees, natural products of the soil and climate of Old Spain, the Garden of the Ancients. Without these the far-famed land would be shorn of her
San Antonio De Padua was the third Mission in the order of founding, and was located in the beautiful valley of Santa Margarita, now called Los Robles, in the heart of the Santa Lucia range, on the fourteenth of July, 1771. This range runs from the San Fernando Mountains, twenty miles north of Los Angeles,
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
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
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 than 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
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 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 visitas. In 1750 a presidio was located at Guevavi. The settlements formed by Father Kuehn forty years
Jose De Galvez, the Visitador-General of New Spain, was the practical head of the first missionary expedition of the Franciscans, and was a man of extraordinary energy, forethought, and practical ability. He fashioned and controlled the enterprise, with Junipero Serra as President of the Missions, both in Lower and Upper California. Galvez deserves a more
La Soledad, Our Lady of Solitude, was founded on the ninth of October 1791, midway between the Missions of San Antonio de Padua and Santa Clara. The site was located in a region of and plains, which depended largely upon irrigation to make them fruitful. Padre Lasuen, who chose the site and later instituted the