Volume 90, Number 1 - California Historical Society

workings. Nonetheless, when battling enemies,
the priests and settlers followed patterns first
conceived by Muslims. They performed acts
of sacrifice, spoke of their obligation to smite
foes for God, and sometimes considered war a
sacred enterprise. During the campaign to fight
the pirate Hippolyte Bouchard in 1818, a settler
asked heaven to bless his efforts: “Under the
protection of the God of battles I believe I can
destroy all such villains as may have the rashness
to set foot upon this soil.” 5 A priest, meanwhile,
mortified the flesh to seek divine support against
Bouchard. According to a witness, the cleric
prayed, abstained from food, and whipped himself
so God would grant his compatriots victory. 6
At the same time, and up through the 1830s,
some priests accompanied military expeditions
into California’s interior to capture or punish
defiant Indians. If hostilities seemed certain, they
said Mass for the soldiers and militia and then
marched into battle beside the troops.
Any claim about jihad’s influence in California
may sound far-fetched or confused. To some,
jihad urges the believer to improve his character
and nothing more. Others admit that Muslims
did invoke jihad to make war, but some historical
context is needed. In the first years of Islam,
when Muhammad and his companions battled
for their survival, they proclaimed jihad to convince
believers that God was on their side. 7 It is
also worth wondering if war in Muslim Spain was
as prevalent as we suppose. There is no argument
that Christians and Muslims fought one another,
but just as notable, and perhaps for longer periods
of time, the two sides, along with a sizable
Jewish population, lived together in peace. 8
There is also some question about the nature
of war and its practitioners. Even if Muslims in
Spain saw war as a religious obligation, it seems
unlikely that such a practice would surface centuries
later in California, a place thousands of miles
20 California History • volume 90 number 1 2012
away. Moreover, Franciscan priests had little in
common with Muslims who saw war as an act
of devotion. The Muslim mystics and pilgrims
who supposedly went to battle abounded in
great number, whereas the Franciscans, at least
in California, were few, and those who joined
campaigns fewer still. 9 The intrepid priests who
accompanied troops into the field do not prove
that all Franciscans saw war as a holy endeavor.
(The sharp-eyed reader could add that Islam has
no ordained clergy or sacraments, at least in
the Christian, especially Catholic, sense.) As for
the settlers in California, the most fundamental
understanding of human nature shows that
individuals do not need divine approval to fight.
If religion did impel believers to take up arms,
Christianity, not Islam, provided enough cause.
The Book of Revelation, by itself, with its descriptions
of bloodshed and beasts on the loose, could
fire the imagination of any Christian warrior.
Nonetheless, these doubts, while valid, and which
will be addressed in due time, reflect a misunderstanding.
The point is not that Muslims or Christians
relished bloodshed. What matters more is
how and under what circumstances Muslims and
their Spanish-speaking counterparts considered
war a sacred effort. But caution is in order. Professing
similar attitudes, whether about war or
anything else, does not mean one side mirrored
the other. Although Muslims were the first to
consecrate violence, Christians in Spain, when
following suit, did not blindly imitate Islamic
habits. Instead, they ensured that the prosecution
of war conformed to their beliefs. Over time,
as the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of California
would confirm, Christians had introduced
so many changes that the Muslim imprint had
largely disappeared. What remained, though,
despite the overlay of Christian ritual and practice,
was the Muslim conviction that war was a
sacred calling. Thus, regardless of their faith,
the men-at-arms knew when, and against whom,
they could make piety assume lethal proportions.