Junípero Serra

views updated May 18 2018

Junípero Serra

A Franciscan missionary and founder of the Spanish missions of California, Junípero Serra (1713-1784) was one of the most respected and best-known figures in California history.

Junípero Serra whose sobriquets "Apostle of California" and "Father of the Missions" typify the love and esteem with which he is still regarded, was born Miguel José Serra at Petra on the island of Majorca just off the eastern coast of Spain. Educated by the Franciscan fathers at Palma, Serra joined the order in 1730 and took the name Junípero in memory of a companion of St. Francis of Assisi. For several years following his ordination, Serra remained at Palma as both student and teacher. He received a doctorate in theology in 1742 and served as professor of theology at the Franciscan university in Palma from 1744 to 1749.

Then, at the age of 36, Serra joined a group of missionaries setting out for Mexico. In company with his pupil and friend Fray Francisco Palóu, Serra arrived in Mexico City in December 1749. Shortly thereafter he volunteered to go to the mission field of Sierra Gorda in northeastern Mexico, where for 8 years he served as preacher and teacher. He learned the Otomí language of the natives, built several churches which are still in use today, and established a successful and thriving mission system.

In 1758 Serra prepared for a new assignment at Mission San Sabá on the Texas frontier, but before he could go north, hostile Comanches attacked and burned the mission. The Church then ordered Serra to the Franciscan college of San Fernando in Mexico City, and from 1758 to 1767 he served as home missionary, preached throughout Mexico, and served as a commissioner of the Holy Office, or Inquisition.

California Missions

In 1767, when the Spaniards expelled the Jesuit order from New Spain, Serra became president of the former Jesuit missions in Baja California. He arrived at Loreto in April 1768 and immediately set about the task of improving and enlarging the mission establishments. In 1769 he volunteered to go to Alta California to establish the first missions there. During the march north Serra suffered from painful bleeding ulcers on his legs and feet, but he refused to turn back. He arrived at San Diego in late June 1769 and immediately began construction of the first mission plant.

During the next 15 years Serra devoted his time and energy to the Franciscan establishment in California. When others despaired, Serra persevered. By 1782 the indefatigable priest had founded nine missions: San Diego, San Carlos Borromeo de Monterey (Carmel), San Antonio, San Gabriel, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Clara, and San Buenaventura. Slowly he overcame the fear and hostility of the natives and converted them to the Christian religion. Serra was as concerned with the Native Americans' physical well-being as with their spiritual life. He introduced domestic animals and new agricultural methods and trades to the neophytes at his missions and did everything possible to help the natives adjust to a different way of life. Under his care the California missions became the most successful and prosperous in all of New Spain.

Not only did Serra have responsibility for the missions, but after the founding of the pueblos of San José and Los Angeles he also administered the churches there as well as those at the presidios of San Diego, Monterey, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara. His devotion and constancy were in large part responsible for the growth and development of Spanish California.

Serra died in August 1784 at Mission San Carlos Borromeo and was buried in the mission church (at present-day Carmel), which has become a shrine to his memory. Monuments to Serra dot the map from Majorca to San Francisco, and several societies, including Serra International, have been established in his honor.

Additional Sources

Habig, Marion Alphonse, Junípero Serra, Chicago, Ill.: Franciscan Herald Press, 1987.

Morgado, Martin J., Junípero Serra's legacy, Pacific Grove, Calif.:Mount Carmel, 1987.

Pirus, Betty L., Before I sleep, New York: Vantage Press, 1977.

Sullivan, Marion F., Westward the bells: a biography of Junípero Serra, Boston, MA: St. Paul Books & Media, 1988.

Weber, Francis J., A bicentennial compendium of Maynard J. Geiger's The life and times of Fr. Junípero Serra, S.l.: s.n., 1988, Santa Barbara, CA: Kimberly Press.

Weber, Francis J., Some "fugitive" glimpses at Fray Junípero Serra, S.l.: s.n., 1984. □

Encyclopedia of World Biography

Serra, Junipero (1713-1784)

views updated May 17 2018

Junipero Serra (1713-1784)

Sources

Catholic missionary

Early Zeal. As the leader of the Spanish missionary effort in California, Junipero Serra laid the foundation for a strong Roman Catholic presence in the early American religious landscape. Serra was born on 24 November 1713 on the island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea off the Spanish coast. Serra was baptized with the name Miguel Jose but changed it to Junipero in 1731, when he became a member of the community of religious men, originally called friars, founded by St. Francis of Assisi. As a Franciscan brother, Serra pledged complete obedience to the Roman Catholic Church, and promised to live a life of poverty and chastity devoted to God. He was well educated at a Spanish university and became a professor of philosophy. His intense piety left him feeling dissatisfied with an academic career, however, and in 1750 he arrived in Mexico to take up missionary work among the Indians there.

Indian Missions. Once in the Americas, Serra joined a huge effort of countless priests and monks who worked to bring Christianity as well as the benefits of European civilization to the Native American population. The Spanish missions had their most direct effects on the Indians who came to live beside European settlers and adopt their religion and culture. The missionary effort centered on establishing permanent settlements of Indians, who would take up agriculture and abandon their nomadic hunting customs. They would also take up Catholicism. The spiritual effort led many Southwestern Indians to take up at least elements of the Catholic faith, often in combination with their traditional beliefs and practices. The complex and lively religious culture that emerged was undermined by other aspects of the mission effort that included the military conquest of the lands controlled by the Indians and the often-harsh repression of the rights of the native population. World politics also had a part to play in this religious effort. A series of struggles between the Roman Catholic Church and various European countries led to the removal of the members of the Jesuit order from Spanish missions in 1767. The Franciscans were ready to take up the work begun by the Jesuits, and Serra was appointed superintendent of the Mexican mission efforts, at that time centered in the area that is today Baja, California. At the same time the arrival of Russian and English explorers along the upper California coast made Spain eager to expand the Franciscan missionary effort and extend the reach of its control northward.

California. Serra obliged his church and his nation by joining a Spanish expedition headed north into California in 1769. That same year he founded his first new mission, in San Diego. Eventually twenty-one missions were settled in the American Southwest, nine of them founded by Serra personally. These survive today as some of California’s leading cities, including Santa Clara and San Francisco, as well as San Diego. The missions prospered under Serra’s leadership. They became economic and military posts, as well as religious centers, identified by their distinctive buildings made of adobe, connected by arcades that protected walkers from the sun. Serra visited the settlements repeatedly and on many occasions spoke out against the abuse of Indian rights. Serra claimed to have baptized more than six thousand Native Americans and brought many of those into the shelter of the towns that surrounded each Spanish mission. He never understood how destructive the resettlement of Native Americans into the missions was, however, as these towns became centers of disease as well as of farming, leading to the decline of the Indian groups. Serra died on a pastoral visit to the mission in Monterey, California, on 28 August 1784.