USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego > City of San Diego and San Diego County : the birthplace of California, Volume I > Part 5
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By this time there had been baptized at the mission 106 persons of whom 19 had died, leaving 97 living at the mission. These figures were compiled by Father Serra from the reports of the missionaries.
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For nearly a year after that the mission at its new site went along in peace and with success. In November, 1775, however, there came a savage mob of Indians who overwhelmed the sleepy guards sta- tioned at the mission and not only burned most of the mission build- ings but killed Fr. Luis Jayme, who with Fr. Vincente Fuster, was stationed there. There had been numerous baptisms of Indians in the preceding month, and these, with the many already converted, had made what Father Palou describes as a good-sized settlement. Soon after the baptisms in October, however, two Indians apostasized and fled. It seems that the sergeant at the presidio went in search of them and did not find them. He reported, however, that they had gone from rancheria to rancheria, exhorting the Indians to wipe out the mission and presidio. The result was that the Indians planned to attack both mission and presidio at the same time. That they failed was certainly not attributable to the Spanish soldiers, who in view of the warnings they seem to have had, might have been expected to double their watchfulness. And it certainly was not lack of numbers which prevented the savages from attaining their end, for it. is re- corded that the party which attacked the mission numbered 800. Another party, doubtless also of considerable strength, was to attack the presidio. The plan miscarried to the extent that the band as- signed to make the assault at the presidio saw the flames at the mission, which evidently was fired by the savages too early for the other band to reach its destination and that latter horde, fearing that the alarm had been given to the presidio, desisted from assault.
The attack was made late in the night of November 4. The soldiers and Fathers had gone to sleep, and the sentinels, Father Palou relates, had given themselves to sleep. The Christian Indians at the mission were threatened with death if they left their beds, and the savages swept on to the vestry, breaking open chests and stealing whatever they could find. Then they went on to the soldiers' quarters, where there was a fire around which the guards slept, and from this a brand was taken by which the invaders set fire to various parts of the mission. The four soldiers and the Fathers awoke. These four guards with the blacksmith, two carpenters and two boys, formed the only defenders of the place. Against these the cowardly, ignorant savages were arrayed in a horde.
The blacksmith was soon mortally wounded. One of the car- penters was also fatally wour 'ed, but lived several days, in the course of which he made a will, leaving his little all to the Indians of the mission.
Father Jayme, it is recorded, did not seek the protection of the soldiers but went straight to a large group of the attacking savages, greeting them with his customary salutation, "Love God, my children !" The Indians, however, fell upon him, dragged him to the river bed, stripped him to the waist, fired arrow after arrow into his body and then beat him cruelly and savagely until all sign of life was gone. When his body was recovered the next day, Father Palou related, there was not a sound spot on it except his consecrated hands.
The Indians, too cowardly to rush the defenders, kept up the attack until daylight, when they withdrew. Meanwhile the soldiers, facing heavy odds, made a gallant defense while the mission buildings
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about the little adobe structure, which they made their fortress, were burning. When the assailants departed, the Christian Indians who had been held helpless, came forth, and one of them was sent to the presidio, while a party went out to find Father Jayme.
The mission had been reduced to ashes, the books, records and manuscripts had all been destroyed, and, with the death of Fr. Luis Jayme, the enterprise had suffered a loss which might have been regarded as staggering. Yet Father Serra, at Mission Carmelo, Monterey, on hearing the news-imparted, by the way, in a blunt fashion by the spleenful Captain Rivera-said :
"Thanks be to God! That land is now irrigated. Now the conversion of the Dieguinos will succeed."
With such fortitude and confidence did this leader in spiritual conquest face the issue. And he lived to see a new mission on the site of the old, with a happy band of Indian converts living in and about-a new mission so substantial and free from danger of fire that its ruins today are in fairly good state of preservation.
The soldiers, it seems, were keen for punishment of the sav- ages, one Indian chief being flogged so severely that he died. Father Palou relates that the missionaries did all they could to establish a policy of kindness and forgiveness. Captain Rivera, however, was apparently determined upon another policy, in pursuance of which he dragged one Indian neophyte who had repented his participation in the attack, from the sanctuary he had obtained in the warehouse buildings which the Fathers then ( February, 1776) were using as a chapel. This Rivera and his men did, in spite of the protest of Father Vicente, who thereupon declared the captain and his assistants to be excommunicated. Father Engelhardt in his history says the records fail to show whether this decree was lifted.
At any rate Father Serra, who, as has been told, was determined to go ahead, soon started plans to restore the mission, and despite hindrance from military sources, in which Rivera seems to have been the principal one if not the only one, succeeded. In this Father Serra was enthusiastically supported by Viceroy Bucareli, who also in- structed that the work of establishing the mission at San Juan Capis- trano should proceed.
Before November, 1776, there were enough buildings for a good beginning. By the next spring there were a chapel, surprisingly well equipped in view of the difficulty in transporting any articles in those days; houses of two apartments for the Fathers, with the modest beginning of a library, so dear to these missionaries: a warehouse, to whose supplies Mission San Gabriel contributed generously-a con- crete example of the manner in which the missions co-operated-a kitchen and harness room. and a dormitory. With these. Fr. Vincente Fuster says in his annual report, the mission already had a good little farm, on which wheat and barley had been sown, and quite an assortment of livestock, always a considerable item in the mission's work of providing income and sustenance for its Indian converts. It is interesting to note the characteristically careful manner in which he took account of the livestock: 102 head of cattle: 304 sheep and goats, eight tame horses, five unbroken colts, seventeen mares, one stud, one tame burro, a drove of mules with another stud, twelve
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foals and four young mules and eighteen other mules; some of which were not able to do much.
In the peaceful years that came after the burning of the original and frail mission buildings at the valley site there came many im- provements and extensions, in which the keen administrative ability of the missionaries stands out clearly.
The annual report of Fr. Francisco de Lasuen made at the end of 1777, shows remarkably good progress, a new church of adobe with the thatched roof having been prepared. It was of good size, too-about 14 by 80 feet. But Father Lasuen and his associates had already determined to improve upon that ; timber had been cut in the valley of San Luis, he wrote, for a new edifice, to be more spacious and of more stable character. Various articles used in the church ceremonies had been sent from Mexico and from Mission San Carlos, and notable additions made to the little library. Mission San Luis Obispo and Mission San Juan Capistrano, then in its infancy, had made other donations. With all this help and other that was given, and despite the hard work of the Fathers and the neophytes, the task was by no means easy. In view of the lack of mechanical equipment such as the modern farmer, or "rancher," has, it is plain that the task was a great one. There were a hundred and one details to con- sider every day, apart from the religious services; there was an abundance of Indian labor, it is true, but it was sadly ignorant, inefficient, shiftless, thoughtless, and, many times, downright lazy, if a criterion may be had of the Indians who remain today, the wash from that period. And, indeed, testimony is not lacking that the habits of slothful savagery, in which the males were willing to rest lazily while the women did the hard work, prevailed in that day and that to overcome this situation there was necessary a wonderful patience on the part of the Fathers.
The task ahead seemed too great and the prospect of success little, as Fathers Lasuen and Figuer faced it; and they applied for permission to retire to the college in Mexico. They were dissuaded, however, by the undismayed Father Serra, who appealed to them in such an eloquent way to remain that they stayed. Father Figuer, in- deed, remained at his post until death came December, 1784, while Father Lasuen remained here until September, 1785.
The task, as has been said, was a great one and the greatest part of it was to teach the Indians. Even in later years this was a work that required the utmost patience. For as Father Engelhardt has aptly said, the older Indians, even those kept more or less under good influences, away from temptations to revert to savagery, or from the demoralizing influences often to be found at the presidio, were always children; at least nearly all of them remained so as to intellect. Patient explanation accomplished wonders, to be sure, but there seemed to be here an almost insurmountable obstacle. Still, the Indians picked up a good deal of Spanish, and to assist in the work of making simple things clear. the Indian language was used. It became evident early in the history of the mission that an appeal must be made "through the stomach" to form a foundation on which the Fathers could build a groundwork of proof that Christianity and its influences were far better than paganism and barbarity. So they
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felt obliged to provide means by which their charges should, if pos- sible, be clothed, fed, usefully employed and even amused.
By no means did the Mission Fathers confine their work to the mission itself and its immediate surroundings. Frequently they went long distances, usually on foot, but sometimes, if haste were necessary, on horseback, to comfort the sick or baptize those near death who sought that service. On some occasions, at least, there seem to have been hampering restrictions governing the soldiers who might have assisted more on such journeys.
Through it all the Fathers seem, to an unprejudiced student of the history of that period to have labored with an unselfish devotion. They had taken the vow of poverty, of which their simple garb was a visible symbol. Father Engelhardt says they left their work "as poor as they had come." In addition, he writes, nothing of what was made at the mission went to the college in Mexico; while, on the other hand, at least in the later years of the mission, heavy demands were made upon them by the soldiery, at the expense of the mission's Indian charges.
Some few travelers of and visitors in the period in which the missions held their own have been sarcastic in writing about their hosts at the various establishments. But many who rode the rough highways of the time have paid generous tribute to the kindly hos- pitality to be found at the missions; and in this list San Diego was no exception. What there was available of food was always given to the guests, for whom a room was always provided if he wished to spend the night : and for it all no pay was asked or expected or accepted. Doubtless in those days the Fathers got rewards from such visits in the form of news. There were no newspapers here in those days, and even letters were infrequent; so the wayfarer, with his accounts of what had happened along his route, or bringing late and important news from some point, was, beyond doubt, the more welcome on that account.
This hospitality was not confined to that period alone. William Heath Davis, writing in later years about his journeys up and down the coast of California in the early '30s, gave warm praise to these men at the missions. After visiting several of the missions, includ- ing San Diego, in 1831, he also said that he was "impressed with the neatness and order about them, and the respectable appearance of the Indians." "The men," he wrote, "dressed in white shirts and blue drill or cotton pants : many of them with shoes, which were manufactured at the missions, from bullock hides, deer and elkskins, dressed and tanned there. The government of the Indians was sys- tematic and well designed." Davis also wrote: "An instance is not known of Indians doing harm to any of the Padres, so great was the respect in which the Fathers were held."
Joseph Warren Revere, a navy officer who made a comprehensive tour along the line of the missions and who later, in 1849, wrote a book containing his observations, spoke in similar praise of the Mis- sion Fathers, whose success among the Indians he regarded as re- markable.
There is little or no occasion for argument concerning what the Mission Fathers accomplished for civilization on the Pacific coast. As
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William Heath Davis says in his graphic way, they were "the original pioneers of California, beyond all others." The buildings which they erected may be in ruins, but the influences for good which they built up have remained throughout all the years. They apparently went as far as humanly possible, in their time, in the work of educating the poor miserable beings whom they found here. They gave them the best elementary education they could have received-lessons in simple morality and common thrift and industry. Those who seemed especially apt were encouraged to go farther in schooling. So busy must they have been with the tasks of administration, farming and husbandry merely to provide food and clothing that it seems a wonder they could do anything in the way of educating their people ; yet they must have done a great deal on that line. They were men of edu- cation broad for those days and by no means lacking in literary at- tainments, as is amply proved by their writings. They were men of many other attainments in knowledge and culture, and it appears that they did everything in their power to spread the good which they had acquired throughout the strange land to which they came. The love which was shown to these Fathers of the Missions by many who lived under their influence is evidence of the service they gave. As has been mentioned, the influence of the Fathers was spread many miles from the missions themselves. Their garb indeed becanie more or less familiar throughout all of California from beyond San Francisco to San Diego. The long, loose robe of grayish hue, with the hood thrown back from the head in good weather: the sandals in which they trudged along wearying miles; the girdle, with tassels hanging down in front-all became known not only to the people of the country but to the many who visited the coast in the years when the missions were flourishing.
In the course of time, as the missions and the population about them grew, the field of administration at the missions had to be broad- ened to include trading, and in that, too, the padres showed them- selves able and efficient. The Americans and others who came in vessels from other coasts to do business on the Pacific coast found them "first class merchants," to use a phrase from Davis' history. His supercargo told him that they were "shrewd purchasers." Yet they were universally recognized as men of the strictest probity- "strictly reliable," as Davis remarks. The Fathers by the '30s indeed had built up an extensive trading business. Much of it was among the missions themselves, which was really one big family. For instance, the mission at Capistrano might need more hides from San Diego, and San Diego might need more grain; the respective wants were made known and an exchange was soon effected. Or, at any rate, what one mission needed, it soon got from a neighbor, even if the need was supplied as a gift. The missions also traded with fur hunters, supplied rancheros with various good, accepting other com- modities in payment. Davis, however, observed a kindly rivalry among the missions to conduct each with growing success and for each to stand on its own financial feet.
As the years went on the spiritual influence and field of com- mercial endeavor of the San Diego Mission were extended. The territorial extent included many rancherias covering thousands of acres
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-the number not definitely determined; one reason for this was that a few acres more or less in the great domain of the day made little difference. When the mission holdings were deeded to Santiago Arguello, in 1846, the legal papers set the extent at more than 58,000 acres ; a little more than twenty-two acres, containing the mission buildings, were left to the church and are still held by it. In 1822 the mission's report showed that it had more than 30,000 head of stock, that being the largest number so reported by Mission San Diego. The number gradually decreased from that year on until by 1834 it was only about 11,000. The total number of neophytes at the mission seems to have reached the maximum at about the same period ; the entry for 1824 being 1,829. Baptisms in 1784 had reached only 1,075; they increased steadily to the year 1846, when the last
RUINS OF THE OLD MISSION DAM Built by the Franciscan Fathers. ,
Franciscan Father left the mission, the number then having mounted to 7,126. By far the most of these were Indians.
Among the mission's material results were a group of olive trees, of which there are still survivors, first of California's thousands of such trees, now famous as producers.
One of the most interesting pieces of work done by the Fathers at the San Diego Mission was the dam which they built, about three miles up the river from the mission, in a gorge well fitted by nature for that purpose. With this they constructed an extensive system of irrigation works, an early monument to the triumph of man over the difficulties to be found in southern California, where water mist be stored up in rainy seasons to supply the needs of dry periods. In this way the Franciscan Fathers, carly in the 19th century, set an example which, followed and improved upon in recent years, has
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made of southern California a garden, blossoming even as the rose in summers, that would be dry except for the water stored up from winter floods.
Just when this dam was built the writer has been unable to find from records available to him, but it seems clear that it was started early in the 19th century and was finished doubtless by 1810. The tables which the Fathers carefully kept of the products of the mission indicate this clearly. And, although the remains bear no tablet such as may be found on modern structures of the kind, with the names of engineers and other officials appearing thereon, the ruins them- selves tell of an engineering accomplishment of no small importance. The river was dammed with a solid stone wall about 220 feet long, about thirteen feet thick and coated with a cement as hard as rock- a cohesive substance which had surprising merit. In the centre was a gateway twelve feet high and lined with brick. The aqueduct, a small affair, but no less remarkable than the dam for strength, was built of tiles, resting on cobblestones in that same remarkable cement. Bancroft relates that the dam was still standing in 1874, although the rushing waters had washed out a channel at one end and sand had been washed up on the structure to such an extent that only a small part of the dam itself was visible. The aqueduct was built down the gorge, which was so precipitous that a man on horseback could not traverse it. In its three miles the aqueduct crossed gulches from 15 to 20 feet deep, and its construction was so good that after the founda- tions had been swept away it was supported by its own strength in many places for many years.
Remains of the dam are still to be seen, and it is of importance that they have attracted the attention not only of tourists and casual visitors but of engineers and experts seeking to increase the water supply of the city of San Diego in recent years. In fact, for many years the old dam itself has drawn the attention of builders and the site has been the centre of much formal and informal discussion among those interested in bringing more water to the city for the needs of the future.
The missions' influence began to wane in 1824, when Mexico, having ended the power of Spain, enacted a colonization law, in the administration of which many acres were given to supporters of a Mexican government. These grants seem to have cut in upon mis- sion holdings. In 1832 Mexico passed an act of secularization, which amounted to confiscation of the Franciscan missions. The end of the old mission days came in 1846, when Pio Pico, then governor of California, sold mission property with a lavish hand.
The growth of the mission to the general form to be observed in the present ruins is described by Smythe as follows :
"By 1783 the San Diego Mission had begun to assume some- thing of its permanent appearance. The church occupied a space eighty-two feet long by fifteen wide, running North and South. The granary was nearly as large. There was a storehouse, a house for sick women and another for sick men, a modest house for the priests, a good sized larder, and these enclosed on three sides, a square one hundred and fifty-one feet long, the remaining side being enclosed by an adobe wall eight feet high. As the years went on the estab- lishment was gradually extended to provide a series of small shops
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around the patio for the artisans and mechanics and accommodations for the increasing number of neophytes outside the walls, but close at hand. It was not until 1804 that the buildings took on the final shape which is preserved in the pictures of the mission period. But the plan of the Fathers was always the same, with its low, gently- slanting roofs, its interior square, its Roman towers; and the material was always adobe, with burnt tile for roofs, windows, and doorways. The walls were about four feet thick. There can be no question that the architecture harmonized with the landscape, for it was the architecture of Spain in a landscape resembling Spain in all essen- tial aspects."
It has seemed fitting to the writer at this point to refer again to Father Serra, the beloved missionary who was responsible more than any other one man for the construction and maintenance of the San Diego Mission and for the success which it had. And that reference will be to his death, which was indeed typical of his life. The story is told by Father Palou, his companion, in words whose very sim- plicity is impressive. Father Palou hastened to Mission San Carlos, Monterey, early in August, 1784, on receipt of a letter from Father Serra, and found him very weak, although still going around on his duties. His chief ailment, it seems, was a malady or heaviness, as Father Palou calls it, of the chest. Strong plasters were applied by the royal surgeon from a newly arrived packetboat, but apparently with no result except to increase his pain. Yet Father Serra went about as if well, though his loving companions, seeing him, knew he was not. Weaker and weaker he grew physically, for several days, but never weaker in faith in the work which he had started of con- verting the Indians. At one o'clock on the afternoon of St. Augus- tine's day, August 28, he went, after taking a little broth, to his little room, saying, "Let us now go to rest.'
His bed consisted of a few hard boards covered only with a blanket : which, says Father Palou, he used rather as a cover than as a softening for his rude couch. He always slept that way, says his faithful biographer, when on the road, stretching out his blanket and a pillow, and lying always with a cross, about a foot long which he held on his breast. This cross he had carried since he had been in the college in Mexico, and he never left it behind.
As the venerable Father went inside they all thought it was to sleep and some navy officers who were there and to whom he had recently spoken and embraced, went away to dine. Father Palou, more solicitous, slipped into the room a few minutes later and found him just as they had left him, "but now asleep in the Lord."
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