Junípero Serra

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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.

Further Reading

Although adulatory, the work by Serra's friend and companion Francisco Palóu, Life of Fray Junípero Serra (1787; trans. 1955), is the best known of the Serra biographies, available in several editions and translations. The best of the modern works is Maynard J. Geiger, The Life and Times of Fray Junípero Serra (2 vols., 1959). The study by Katherine and Edward Maddin Ainsworth, In the Shade of the Juniper Tree: A Life of Fray Junípero Serra (1970), is thoroughly researched, but the wealth of factual material tends to obscure Serra's personal qualities. Most histories of California devote at least part of a chapter to Serra's career. Particularly recommended is the discussion in Charles E. Chapman, A History of California: The Spanish Period (1928).

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.

(1713-1784), Franciscan missionary and founder of Spanish missions in California. Born on the island of Mallorca, Spain, Serra became a Franciscan novice at age sixteen. He chose as his confirmation name and patron Brother Juniper, the legendary friend of Saint Francis of Assisi, who was known for his good-spiritedness and self-abnegation.

After his ordination, Serra taught theology and was awarded his doctorate in 1742. Among his first students at the Convent of San Francisco in Mallorca was Francisco Palou, who later became a fellow missionary in Mexico and California and served as Serra's chronicler and first biographer. In 1748, setting aside a comfortable career as a recognized theologian and priest, Serra, along with Palou, traveled to Mexico to take up a foreign mission.

In the New World, Serra quickly became an important figure. Noted for his religious enthusiasm and self-discipline, he amazed Native Americans and religious Spanish alike by flagellating himself during sermons, persistently following the Franciscan injunction to travel on foot despite crippling ulcerations in his foot and leg, and facing threats of death with equanimity. Moreover, he was an able administrator and advocate for church interests to the Spanish government. In 1767, after the Jesuits were expelled from Spain and Mexico by Carlos III, Serra was appointed to head up a Franciscan missionary effort in northern California. He dreamed of establishing fifty missions and eventually founded nine, from San Diego to San Francisco, overseeing their administration to the time of his death.

Serra was appointed to the tribunal and commissary of the Inquisition for the Sierra Gorda region in 1752. Although Palou records his "zealous" reputation, he only vaguely suggests the scope of Serra's role in the Inquisition. The handful of documents that have been located by scholars portray only marginal involvement.

From his first mission assignment at Sierra Gorda (1750), Serra established a pattern of interceding on behalf of the land interests of converted Native Americans. When Spanish settlers and soldiers tried to dispossess the Pames Indians of their mission lands, Serra petitioned the Mexican viceroy to disband the Spanish settlement--and won. Later, in similar conflicts--for instance, that between the Santa Clara Mission Indians and the Pueblo San Jose--Serra did not prevail over local Spanish colonial interests.

Serra was more consistently successful in his lifelong goal of converting Native Americans to Catholicism. Late in life, after establishing nine missions, he obtained a grant from the pope allowing him to confirm Native American Catholic novitiates in 1778. For the next six years, Serra traveled tirelessly on foot, making roughly fifty-three hundred confirmations. He died just months after his patent expired.

Junípero Serra has been a controversial figure in the Catholic church. He was designated "venerable" by John Paul II in 1985 and subsequently considered for sainthood. This honor, however, was protested by Native American and other Catholic activists, who questioned this move as a general endorsement of the exploitative colonization of Native Americans. Although Serra was known to have argued on behalf of the property rights and economic entitlement of converted Native Americans, he consistently advocated against their right to self-governance. He was, further, a staunch supporter of corporal punishment, appealing to the Spanish government for an extension of friars' jurisdiction to flog Indians.

Bibliography:

Daniel Fogel, Junípero Serra, the Vatican, and Enslavement Theology (1988); Maynard Geiger, O.F.M., The Life and Times of Junípero Serra, O.F.M.: The Man Who Never Turned Back (1713-1784) (1959).

Author:

Dana D. Nelson Salvino

See also French and Spanish Settlements; Missionaries.