History of California Part 8

In the south, in the fertile valley where are now the great grain fields of Los Angeles county, San Fernando was founded. Between San Gabriel and San Diego were placed San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey, and the chapel of Pala. San Rafael and Solano, to the north of San Francis...o...b..y, complete the list of twenty-one missions of Upper California.

It is impossible to give more than the names of most of these missions, although about each many true and beautiful stories might be told. It would be well if those who live near one of these n.o.ble ruins would seek out its particular history and the stories connected with it. This would be interesting and helpful work for the students in the schools of the state.

The story of the missions seems like a fairy tale, wonderful and unreal. Into a wilderness inhabited only by savage men and wild animals, hundreds of miles from any civilized settlement, there came these men trained as simple priests.

Two by two they came, bringing with them, for the starting of each mission, a few soldiers, seven to ten, a few converted Indians from the missions of Lower California, a little live stock, some church furniture, and always the bells; yet in a little over forty years they had succeeded in founding a chain of missions whose sweet-toned bells chimed the hours and called to prayer from San Diego to the Bay of San Francisco.

Churches were built larger and often of a purer type of architecture than those in the civilized well-settled portions of the land,--buildings that have lasted for a hundred years and may last many years longer if care is taken to preserve them. Ca.n.a.ls of stone and cement and dams of masonry were constructed that would do credit to our best workmen of to-day.

The little packages of wheat and other grains, seeds from Spanish oranges and olives, little dried bundles of grapevines from Mexico, developed, under their care, into the great fields of grain, groves of oranges and olives, and the wide-spreading vineyards of the mission ranches. All these wonders were performed with Indian workmen trained by the padres.

But what the missionaries cared for more than their success in building and planting were the thousands of baptized Indians at each mission.

These they instructed daily for the good of their souls in the truths of the Christian religion, while for their bodily needs they were taught to plow the earth, to plant seed, to raise and care for domestic animals.

They learned also many useful trades; and music, frescoing, and art were taught those who seemed to have an especial taste for such things.

At the head of this great work was gentle Padre Junipero Serra, the most interesting character in the history of the missions. He was frail and slender and much worn by constant labor of head and hands, but his every thought and action seemed to be for others. Back and forth from Monterey to San Diego, from mission to mission, he traveled almost constantly, teaching, baptizing, confirming thousands of his dusky charges. He was president of all the missions, and besides this was bishop, doctor, judge, and architect, as well as steward of the mission products and money.

a.s.sociated with him in his work were a group of n.o.ble men whose lives were spent in caring for the native people with whom they worked and among whom they finally died. The inhabitants of California may well honor the mission padres for their earnest, unselfish lives, and in no way can this be done so fully as in the preservation of the grand old buildings they left behind, which are indeed fitting monuments to their devotion, energy, and skill.

Beginning with San Diego, let us, in fancy, visit the missions in the early part of the nineteenth century.

It is a winter day in the year 1813 when we ride up the broad, wind-swept road which leads to the newly dedicated mission building of San Diego. The wide plain that surrounds it is green with native gra.s.s and the blades of young wheat. Of the two hundred cattle, one hundred sheep, one hundred horses, and twenty a.s.ses brought up by Padre Junipero in 1769 to be divided among the earlier missions, San Diego had only its due share; yet under the wise management of the padres, they have now at this mission, feeding on the green plains, thousands of cattle, horses, and sheep, which are tended by comfortably clothed Indian herders. Near the mission are the green and gold of orange orchards, the gray of the olive, and the bare branches of extensive vineyards. At one side we see a large kitchen garden where young Indians are at work planting and hoeing.

As we draw up in front of the church, Indian servants come out to take our horses. We dismount, and a padre who is superintending work in the orchard comes and welcomes us with gentle courtesy. He sends us a servant to show us to our room, a small square apartment with a hard earthen floor and bare, whitewashed walls with no ornament but a cross.

The beds are of rawhide stretched over a frame. The covering consists of sheets of coa.r.s.e cotton grown and woven at the southern missions, and blankets, coa.r.s.e but warm, made by the Indians from the wool of the mission sheep.

Dinner at the padre's table we find most enjoyable. There is beef and chicken, the frijole, or red bean of Spain, and other vegetables prepared in a tasty manner peculiar to Spanish cooking, so we do not doubt that the cook has been taught his trade by the padre himself. The Indian boys who wait on the table also show careful training, performing their duties quickly and quietly. Here we can find for bread the tortilla,--still the food of the Indian and Mexican people of California. It is a thin cake made of meal or flour and water, and baked without grease on a hot stone or griddle. Wines made at the mission, the favorite chocolate, thick and sweet, and some fruit from the padre's garden complete the meal.

Dinner over, we visit the church and admire the striking contrast between the red tiles of the roof and the creamy white of the walls.

All the buildings are made of bricks molded from a clay called adobe and dried slowly in the sun. Each brick is twelve inches square by four inches thick, and the walls are laid two or three bricks deep, those of the church itself being nearly four feet in thickness. It seems almost impossible that so large and well made a building could have been constructed by untrained workmen. Next to the church are the rooms of the padres, then the dining room and the quarters of the mission guard, which consists apparently of but two men, the rest being at the presidio, several miles away. Adjoining these are the storehouses and shops of the Indian workmen, all of which open on the great courtyard.

In the courtyard is a busy scene. Blacksmiths with hammer and anvil make sounding blows as they work up old iron into needed farm utensils. The soap maker's caldron sends up a cloud of ill-smelling steam. At one side carpenters are at work tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and cutting square holes in logs for the beams of new buildings which the padres wish to put up. Saddle makers, squatted on the ground, are busy fashioning saddletrees, carving, and sewing leather. The shoemaker is hard at work with needle and awl. These and many other trades are all going on at once. These courts, which are called patios, were generally several acres in extent and at the most flourishing period of the missions each settlement often gave shelter to over a thousand people.

Behind the central court is the home of the unmarried women. This, and the rooms for their work, open on a separate square where there is shade from orange and fig trees and a bathing pond supplied by the zanja, or water ditch. Here square-figured, heavy-featured Indian girls are busy spinning and weaving thread into cloth. Others are cutting out and sewing garments. Some, squatted on the ground, are grinding corn into a coa.r.s.e meal for the atole, or mush. At the zanja several are engaged in washing clothes. Here these girls live under the care of an old Indian woman, and unless she accompanies them they may not, until they are married, go outside these walls. Near the mission we visit a long row of small adobe buildings, the homes of the families of the Christian Indians; a neat, busy settlement where the little ones, comfortably clothed, play about attended by the older children, while the mothers work for the padres four or five hours daily.

Leaving San Diego and traveling northward along "El Camino Real," the highway which leads from mission to mission, we reach San Luis Rey, "King of the Missions," as it is sometimes called. Its church is the largest of all those erected by the padres, being one hundred and sixty feet long, fifty-eight feet wide, and sixty feet high. Its one square, two-story tower has a chime of bells, the sweet clear tones of which reached our ears while we were yet miles from the mission. Counting the arches of the long corridor, we find there are two hundred and fifty-six. This mission became very wealthy. At one time it had a baptized Indian population of several thousand, owned twenty-four thousand cattle, ten thousand horses, and one hundred thousand sheep, and harvested fourteen thousand bushels of grain a year.

Its prosperity was due in a great measure to good Padre Peyri, who had charge of it from its beginning. Many years afterwards, as we shall see, the padres were ordered by the Mexican government to leave their missions, the wealth they had gathered, and the Indians they had taught and cared for. Father Peyri, knowing how hard it would be for him to get away from his Indian children, as he called them, slipped off by night to San Diego. In the morning the Indians missed him. Learning what had happened, five hundred of them mounted their ponies in hot haste and galloped all the way to San Diego, forty-five miles, to bring him back by force. They arrived just as the ship, with Padre Peyri on board, was weighing anchor. Standing on deck with outstretched arms, the padre blessed them amid their tears and loud cries. Some flung themselves into the water and swam after the ship. Four reached it, and, climbing up its sides, so implored to be taken on board that the padre consented and carried them with him to Rome, where one afterwards became a priest.

The next link in our chain, the most beautiful of all the missions, is that of San Juan Capistrano. It was founded in 1776, the year of our Declaration of Independence, but in 1812 it was destroyed by an earthquake, the ma.s.sive towers and n.o.ble arch falling in on the Indians, who were a.s.sembled in the church for morning prayers. Many of them were killed. The church has never been rebuilt.

It is Christmas Day when we reach San Gabriel, the next station on El Camino Real. Inside the great cactus fence which incloses the square about the mission we see a strangely mixed company,--Indians in their best clothes, their faces shining from a liberal use of mission soap and water; soldiers in their leather suits freshened up for the holiday; a few ranchmen in the gay dress of the times, riding beautiful horses; women and girls each brilliant in a bright-colored skirt with shawl or scarf gracefully draped over head and shoulders.

The Christmas Day morning service, held at four o'clock and known by the common people as the Rooster Ma.s.s, is long since over. The crowd is now gathered for the Pastorel, which, like the miracle plays of the Middle Ages, is a drama with characters taken from the Bible.

First to appear on the scene is an orchestra composed of young Indians playing violins, ba.s.s viols, reeds, flutes, and guitars. Closely following come the actors, representing San Gabriel and attendant angels, Satan, Blind Bartimeus, and a company of shepherds. The entertainment is very simple. There is the announcement of the birth of the Savior, the adoration of the babe, and the offering of gifts. The play concludes with a protracted struggle between San Gabriel and Satan for the possession of Blind Bartimeus, in which the saint finally comes off victor while the orchestra plays lively music. After the Pastorel there are games, dancing, and feasting. Every one seems happy, and it is with regret that we leave the gay scene.

Through the hills to the north, across the Arroyo Seco, not dry now, but a swift stream turbulent from the winter rains, we journey on. We pa.s.s Eagle Rock, a great bowlder high upon the green hillside, one of the landmarks of the region, and enter the valley of the Los Angeles River.

After traveling for several hours, we come to a large plantation of trees, vines, and grainfields, in the midst of which lies the mission of San Fernando. Its land extends for miles on every side and is exceedingly fertile. In front of the beautiful cloisters, under tall and stately palm trees, a fountain sends high its sparkling water, which falls back with pleasant tinkle into a basin of carved stone.

When we reach San Buenaventura, the next mission on our route, we find priests and Indians exceedingly busy, for word has come from Monterey that a Yankee trading vessel will soon sail for the south, and cattle must be killed and the fat rendered into tallow for the market. As hides and tallow are about the only commodities the padres have for sale, this is an important event. Indians tend the caldrons of bubbling grease, and keep up the fires under the kettles. When the tallow is slightly cooled, they pour it into sacks made from the skins of animals. These, when filled with the hardened tallow, look as though each again held a plump beast.

Traveling up the coast we come one afternoon to

A golden bay 'neath soft blue skies Where on a hillside creamy rise The mission towers whose patron saint Is Barbara--with legend quaint.

Here spring is merging into summer, and we are in time to see the ceremony which closes the wheat harvest. The workmen gather the last four sheaves from the field, and, fastening them in the form of a cross, carry them, followed by a long procession of dusky reapers, up the ascent to the church. As they approach, the bells burst out in a joyous peal, and from the mission doors the padres come forth, one bearing a cross, another the banner of the Virgin. A choir of Indian boys follows, chanting a hymn. All advance slowly down the avenue to meet the sheaf bearers, then counter march to the church, where the harvest festival is celebrated.

Pa.s.sing by other missions, we must close our journey with a visit to San Carlos, the Monterey mission, most prominent of all in the history of the church and state. It was from the first the special charge of Padre Junipero Serra, and, at the time we see it, his monument as well; for in it at last his weary body was laid to rest beside his friend Padre Juan Crespi, to whose writings, next to those of Padre Francisco Palou, we are most indebted for our knowledge of Junipero Serra and his great work. In 1813, with its graceful arched front and two towers, San Carlos was a n.o.ble-looking building, but since that time one tower has fallen.

We are reminded, as we look, of the scene when Junipero lay dying. Ever since morning the grief-stricken people had been waiting, listening for the news from the sick room. When the tolling of the bell announced that the beautiful life was ended, crowds came weeping and lamenting, anxious to see again the beloved face.

It was with great difficulty that the Indians could be kept from tearing the padre's robe from his body, so earnestly did they desire to possess some relic of the father they had loved so long.

Here we notice the daily life of the Indian, which (in 1813) is the same at all the missions. At sunrise comes the sound of the bells calling to the morning prayers, and we see the natives hurrying to the church.

After service they gather for breakfast of mush and tortillas. As the flocks and herds have increased, meat forms part of the daily food, sometimes from the freshly killed beeves, but generally in a dried state called carne seco. After breakfast the workers go in groups to their various employments. Dinner is served at eleven, and they have a resting period until two. Then work is again taken up and continued until an hour before sunset, when the bells call to evening prayer. Supper follows the evening service, after which the Indians can do as they like until bedtime. We see some engaged in a game of ball. Many are squatted on the ground playing other games,--gambling, we suspect. In one group there is dancing to the music of violin and guitar. There is laughter and chattering on all sides, and to us they seem happy, at least for the time.

The life led by the Indians at the missions was not generally a hard one. No doubt when they first came, or were brought, into the settlements, from their free wild life, they found it harder to keep the regular hours of the missions than to perform the work, which was seldom very heavy. When disobedient or lazy, they were punished severely, judging by the standards of to-day, but really no harder than was at that time the custom in schools and in navies the world over. When the soldiers came in contact with the natives, there was generally cruel treatment for the latter. But as far as possible the padres stood between their charges and the soldiers, always placing the mission as far from the presidio as the safety of the former would allow.

At San Diego, about five years after its settlement, wild Indians surprised the mission guard, and killed the padre and several of the converted Indians in a most cruel manner. The Spanish government gave orders that the murderers should be taken and executed and this mission abandoned; but Padre Junipero begged so hard for the culprits, who, he said, knew no better, having no knowledge of G.o.d, that he was finally allowed to have his way. Gentleness and patience won the day; not only the Indians who made the attack were converted, but many more of their tribe, and the mission became a flourishing settlement. There was once a rebellion among the Santa Clara and San Jose Indians, led by a young convert from Santa Clara, which required soldiers from Monterey to put down. Generally, however, the mission life was peaceful, the Indians being fond of their padres.

When Mexico became free from Spain, no more money was sent up to pay the soldiers or run the government in Upper California, and for a long time the missions advanced the money for the expenses of the government.

After a time the new priests who came up from Mexico were not generally men of such education and n.o.ble character as the early mission padres.

They cared less for missionary work, and were not so energetic. Their influence was not always good for the Indians, who quickly saw the difference between them and their old padres. They had little confidence in the newcomers, so at the few missions where such as these were in charge the Indians were disobedient, and received harsh punishments from the padres; and trouble followed.

In 1833 the Mexican government decided to confirm the mandate issued by Spain several years before in regard to the breaking up of the mission settlements. By this law each Indian was to have his own piece of land to own and care for. He was to be no longer under the control of the church, but to be his own master like any other citizen. As for the padres, they were to give up their wealth and lands, and leave for other missionary fields. That this would create a great change in California all realized; still it was no new idea, but the plan Spain had in mind when the missions were first founded. The mistake was in supposing that it was possible for a people to rise in so short a time from the wild life of the California Indian to the position of self-supporting citizens in a civilized country.

When the Indians understood this order, some were pleased and, like children when freed from restraint, ceased to work and became troublesome. Many, however, when they found that the padres were to leave them, became very unhappy; some, it is said, even died from homesickness for the mission and the padre. One committed suicide.

It was soon seen that they were not fitted to look after themselves.

Only a few years had pa.s.sed since they were savages, knowing nothing of civilized life, and they still needed some one to guide them. They not only began to drink and gamble, but were cheated and ill-treated on all sides, until many of them became afraid of living in towns and went back to wild life. For this they were no longer fitted, and they suffered so much from hunger and cold that great numbers of them died.

Because the Indians were not capable of caring for themselves at the time of the secularization of the missions, the padres are often severely blamed. It is said that they tried to keep the natives without knowledge, in fact something like slaves. But the truth is that the padres taught them by thousands, not only to cultivate the soil, to irrigate wisely, to raise domestic cattle, but to work at every trade that could be of use in a new country. They were encouraged to choose from among themselves alcaldes, or under officers of the mission.

In this way every inducement was given to the Indian showing himself capable of self-control, to rise to a prominent position in his little world, where he generally ruled his fellow-workmen wisely and kindly.

Added to this, the Indians acquired, through the teaching and example of the padres, a religion that has lasted through generations. The breaking up of the mission settlements scattered the Indians through the country, many of them going back to the wild life in the forest and mountains, where they no longer had any religious instructions. Yet to-day, after all the years that have pa.s.sed, there are few Indians from San Diego to San Francisco who do not speak the language of the padres and follow, though it may be but feebly, the teaching of the Catholic faith, the "Santa Fe" of the padres.

Some of the mission buildings, many of the flocks, and much of the land fell into the hands of men who had no possible right to them. Orchards and vineyards were cut down, cattle killed and stolen, and there was only ruin where a short time before there had been thousands of busy people leading comfortable lives. Soon the churches were neglected and began to crumble away, bats flew in and out of the broken arches, squirrels chattered fearlessly in the padre's dining room, and the only human visitor was some sad-hearted Indian worshiper, slipping timidly into the desolate building to kneel alone before the altar where once

Sweet strains from dusky neophytes Rose up to G.o.d in praise, When life centered 'round the missions In the happy golden days.

Chapter V

Pastoral Days