This week continues the examination of the Spanish efforts to bring the Catholic faith to the New World.

Our Catholic Roots 1492—1865

The Spanish Contribution (Part 2)

The Southwest
At the other end of the continent, Spanish missionaries were also on the march. Moving from well-established strongholds in Mexico, the first Franciscan missionaries entered the future state of New Mexico at about the same time that Cancer reached Tampa. They met with the same fate—death at the hands of the Native Americans who regarded the missionaries as invaders. As in Florida, the Franciscans did not return to New Mexico in numbers until the end of the century, when the Spanish undertook a full-scale colonizing effort in 1598.

Throughout the Southwest, the missionaries' usual strategy was to establish agricultural missions among the Native Americans. Each of these missions was a self-sustaining ranch with a large complex of buildings at its center. A church, workshops, and living quarters for the Christianized Indians were built. These were surrounded by strong walls for defense against unfriendly Indians. The priests themselves served not only as religious instructors of the Indians, but also as ranch managers. They taught the women how to cook, sew, spin, and weave. They taught the men how to plant the crops, to cut down trees and to build, to tan leather, run the forge, shear the sheep, and tend the cattle. They also introduced to their missions grapes, oranges, and almost every domestic plant and animal then known in Europe. Nearby, more a curse than a blessing, soldiers were stationed to guarantee protection from hostile outsiders.

The priests were in almost constant conflict with the soldiers and the civil authorities whom they accused of exploiting the Indians. Matters came to a head in New Mexico in 1680. The Indians rose up in revolt, expelling all Spaniards from the territory and killing many of them, including most of the missionaries. For some of the Indians, there were no differences among white men: all were evil. Other Indians never forgave the missionaries for having taken away their ancient religion. Still others mourned the loss of the priests who taught and guided them.

After a time, order was re-imposed by the military, and the missions were re-established. But the continuing death of more and more Indians infected with European diseases, together with the small but steady immigration of Spanish settlers, gradually transformed New Mexico from an Indian nation to a Spanish settlement. Eventually the Franciscan missionaries departed. They were replaced very slowly by diocesan clergy assigned to the Diocese of Santa Fe, one of the first Catholic dioceses created in the western half of the United States.

Beginning in 1687, a Jesuit, Father Eusebius Kino, carried the familiar pattern of missionary work into Arizona. Drawing upon the modest support available from Mexico, he baptized more than 4,500 Pima Indians and established many agricultural missions before being shot by rebellious Indians in 1711. Arizona had to wait more than fifty years for its second priest, and he too was murdered by the Yuma Indians. After his death, Arizona was without a priest for 100 more years.

 

The Dominicans were founded by St. Dominic in 1216. Among their most famous members was St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Franciscans were established by St. Francis of Assisi in 1209 to care for and preach the Gospel to the poor.

The Jesuits, also known as the Society of Jesus, were founded in 1540 by St. Ignatius Loyola. Jesuits have worked in many countries living the good news of salvation.

As signs of their total commitment to Christ, members of all religious orders of priests, brothers, and sisters take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Texas and California
The last two Spanish missionary efforts launched from Mexico were by far the greatest—the Franciscan missions of Texas and California. However, the beginnings in Texas were not promising. After only three years' work, the missionaries were expelled by the Indians in 1693. Returning much later with the support and protection of Spanish soldiers, the priests labored in Texas for more than a century. In that time, they built missions all over the territory, baptizing Native Americans in vast numbers, and surviving periodic attacks from bands of hostile tribesmen.

The Spanish plan did not call for the missionaries to remain permanently at the missions. Instead, their assigned role was to convert the Native Americans to Christianity and to train them to live and work like respectable Spanish peasant farmers. As soon as the Indians appeared ready, the missions were to be converted into parish churches served by diocesan priests, the mission lands were to be distributed among the Indians, and the missionaries were to move on to new frontiers where they would begin the process all over again. In theory the plan made excellent sense. In practice it failed to work.

Father Junípero Serra, a Franciscan priest, is the best known of the Spanish missionaries who brought the Catholic Church to North America. Father Serra was a popular and learned university professor at Palma, Spain, where he led a very satisfying and peaceful life. However, Serra and his good friend Father Palou were touched by the appeals of recruiters who came to the university with stories of thousands of Native Americans who had never even heard of Christ. So, despite the fact that they were already middle-aged, the two priests put aside their comfortable lives and set sail for Mexico.

At first they worked among the Mexican Indians. and after a while Serra became responsible for supervising many of the Mexican missions. A new challenge came in 1769, when the Spanish decided to extend the Mexican missions northward into California. Serra was instructed to accompany the expedition up from Mexico and to take charge of establishing agricultural missions throughout the territory of California. Beginning in 1769 with Mission San Diego de Alcalà, Father Serra established nine missions along the length of California in the next fifteen years. Most of the Native Americans that Serra found in California were from very primitive tribes. The Indians had lived simply by hunting, fishing, and gathering food that grew in the wild. Thus the task of building the missions and teaching the Indians to farm and to live in settled mission communities took much longer than he had hoped.

More than once Serra saw a mission burned to the ground by the Indians or destroyed by an earthquake. Mission San Carlos at Carmel, for example, had to be rebuilt seven times. More than once Father Serra knelt in prayer at the grave of a murdered priest. A diseased leg made walking a chore and kept him in constant pain. But nothing could make him turn back. Year after year, Father Serra walked or rode his mule from mission to mission, encouraging the missionaries, teaching and confirming the Indians, defending them against the soldiers, and planning always for new missions.

Under the guidance of the missionaries, the Indians learned the skills needed to and maintain the extensive mission establishments. Not only buildings, but elaborate irrigation systems involving reservoirs and aqueducts were slowly put together in this way. Vineyards and orchards, famous in California today, appeared first in California at the missions. As many as fifty different trades were mastered by the Indians with the help of their Franciscan teachers. Every day began with Mass in the mission church and ended with recreation and night prayers together. The goal of all this activity was not only to spread Christianity, but to prepare the Native Americans to survive and live with dignity in a land that was being changed forever by the coming of the Europeans with their more advanced civilization.

As Father Junípero Serra lay on his deathbed at Carmel Mission in 1784, he had the comfort of knowing that 6,736 Indians had been baptized since his arrival, and 4,646 were at that moment dwelling in peace at his nine missions. His old friend, Father Palou, was with him as he died, and saw to his burial under the floor of the mission church. Afterward, Father Palou wrote down his thoughts:

...Father Junípero ended his life as subject to Time, having lived seventy years, nine months and four days, having labored in the apostolic ministry one half of his life, and in these Californias sixteen years... His memory shall not fail, because the works he performed when alive shall be impressed in the minds of the dwellers of this New California; despite the ravages of time, they shall not be forgotten.

End of the Missions
Serra's successors carried on his work with energy and dedication, establishing twelve more missions and many sub-missions in the years that followed his death. When the time finally came for the missionaries to leave, their records showed that they had baptized 99,000, mostly Indians, and given Christian burial to 74,000. But near the end of their time in California, the missionaries had begun to face the sad reality that burials of Indians were exceeding baptisms. Just as in South and Central America, the Native Americans were dying from European diseases against which they had no immunity. Equally sad were the prospects which the remaining Native Americans faced throughout the Southwest as the missionaries departed.

The goal of the missions had been to Christianize the Indians, to give them the skills to survive in a land transformed by the arrival of Europeans, and then to give them back the lands they had learned to cultivate under the guidance of the missionaries. What actually occurred was something far different.

In Texas, the missions were handed over to the civil authorities in 1794. A few Indians got a little land, and one-by-one the missionaries were sent on their way. Without the missionaries to guide them, the converted Comanches abandoned their farming and became wanderers once again. By the early 1800s the missions were dead in Texas, and few diocesan priests could be found to take the place of the departed missionaries.

The same fate awaited the missions in California, which were taken from the hands of the missionaries by the Mexican Congress in 1833. Under the civil authorities who gained control of them, the Indians were declared free to leave the missions, while the mission lands were sold or granted to wealthy Spaniards and Mexicans. The missionaries themselves were called home to Mexico or Spain, saddened by much that was beyond their control, but comforted by the knowledge that they had shared the light of faith with the Native Americans. Little else remained of their work but a few decaying mission churches. The great Spanish missionary enterprise in North America was ended.

Terms

exploit: to use another person in a selfish or unethical way.

vows: a promise or pledge that binds one to live and act in a particular manner

Questions for Reflection

What were the long-term goals and plans that the Spanish had when they established their missions?

What did the Native Americans lose with the coming of the Spanish? what did they gain?

 

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