Angelus News | August 2-9, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 27

More documents

Recommendations

Info

A baptism conducted by California mission friars in a sketch displayed at the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala in San Diego. This drawing is part of a collection of sketches depicting mission life by California artists A.B. Dodge and Alexander Harmer. NANCY WIECHEC/CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE George Harwood Phillips, Ph.D., who agreed: “I don’t think you can see Franciscan missionaries committing genocide [in California].” Neither of these distinguished scholars are mission apologists; in fact, they are critical of several practices in the missions. I was in the audience, heard them both, and can attest that no one in the crowd of mostly Native Americans opposed them. Regarding genocide, there are two crucial elements to look at: intentionality and magnitude. Did the Spaniards intend to wipe out California’s Indians? The answer to this question is a simple no. What about the magnitude of losses? There were an estimated 225,000 Indians in California in 1769. In 1830, just prior to secularization of the missions, there were about 150,000, a drop of one-third. The vast majority of this admittedly tragic decline was due to infectious diseases that the Spaniards had no control of — they hardly understood how pathogens spread. Nor were there any real massacres by the Spaniards along the West Coast. And there’s a major spiritual reason for that: The Spaniards, and the Franciscans in particular, saw the Indians as having an inviolate soul, of being essentially the equal of any Spaniard. Unlike the Puritans of New England, for instance, the Spanish intermarried with Native Americans almost from the start; in fact, Serra actively encouraged it. Perhaps some of the understandable anger toward the Spanish stem from two very real records of atrocity: that of Spain 200 years earlier during the conquest of Peru and Mexico, as well as modern-day Arizona and Florida, in which scores of Native Americans were killed. The other “black record” is that of the United States when it took over California in 1850. I am convinced that the Spanish (particularly the Franciscans) learned an important lesson over those 200 years of the colonial conquests, and that they put into practice in their last crucible, California: You do not convert someone by force. As Viceroy Antonio Bucareli in Mexico City instructed the new governor of California, Felipe de Neve, in 1776, “The good treatment of the Indians and the kindness, love and gifts showered upon them are the only means, taken together, to win them over; and may Your Grace prefer those means to others that stem from rigor. By the latter we have never been able to win good will from anyone.” That’s a far cry from the blunt words of the first American governor of California, Peter Hardeman Burnett, nearly a century later: “It is inevitable that the Indian must go.” That suggests genocide, which climaxed in the last stand of California’s Native Americans in the Modoc War of 1872. By then, the number of California Indians had declined to just 30,000, an 80 percent drop after the Spanish withdrawal and nearly three times the rate of loss under the Spaniards. And 40 percent of those losses under the Americans was not due to disease, but to outright murder. One important point to keep in mind is that the large majority of California Indians did not come into the missions. The largest mission population was 22,000; that is about 10 percent of 12 • ANGELUS • August 2-9, 2019
NANCY WIECHEC/CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE DINA MOORE BOWDEN VIA GREGORY ORFALEA the population estimate on contact of 225,000. On several occasions, Serra referred to the California Indians being “in their own country.” He almost never referred to Indians as “barbaros” (“barbarians”), as others did, but rather “indios,” “gentiles,” or “pobres.” In fact, Serra directly suggested that Spain remove itself from California if soldier depredations continued. If the better side of Christianity was not shown the Indians on a daily basis, he said, “what business have we … in such a place?” Were the missions slavery? The question arises: Were the missions slavery? It’s a serious claim, but it is false. No one was forced into the missions. This is made clear by the testimony of Father Pedro Font, diarist of the second settler expedition into Upper California, who observed, “The method of which the fathers observe in the conversion [of the Indians] is not to oblige anyone to become Christian, admitting only those who voluntarily offer themselves for baptism.” Most historians ratify this. There was, however, a catch. Once one entered the mission he or she could not leave without permission. The missions were a community on a frontier and Indian labor, as well as Spanish labor, were necessities for a community’s survival. We might ponder how many who came into the mission system understood this quid pro quo, but there’s little doubt most fell to the task of contributing their labor for the food, clothes, living quarters, and other items they were given. Douglas Monroy, a Hispanic-American historian and author of “The Borders Within,” calls this “the communitarian spirit,” and he notes that working for the common good was not all that different from the ethic of the Indian village. Sandos calls the mission Indian status “spiritual debt peonage,” though the Indians were given concrete things, not just spiritual practices. Most took “leave” to their home villages for weeks or months. Some, like the Luiseno of Mission San Luis Rey, were already in their villages and commuting to mission work. There is one undeniable, hard, and premeditated thing to admit about the missions: the use of the flog for corporal punishment for theft, assault, concubinage, and desertion. That Spanish civilians and soldiers got the same treatment is no comfort for those of us who see such a thing as abhorrent. The bell tower of St. Peter’s, Serra’s childhood parish church, in Petra, Mallorca (left) and bells at Mission San Juan Capistrano (right). WIKIMEDIA COMMONS However, a few things need to be said about this practice. First, whippings for discipline were common in the 18th century. Even schoolboys at Eton in England were caned for infractions, and their parents paid a fee for it to the school. Second, many tribes made prisoners of war run a gauntlet of beatings, so such a thing was not entirely strange. Third, as Father Francis Guest has written, the Indians were considered children by the padres, and as such the flogging was cut in half (12 strokes at most). Guest also notes that the punishment was not to be given in anger and if it were, those who did so had committed a grave sin and were subject to punishment themselves. Serra himself was clearly conflicted about the practice: “I am willing to admit that in the infliction of punishment we are now discussing, there may have been inequities and excesses on the part of some Fathers and that we are all exposed to err in that record,” he wrote. About this matter, I wrote in my biography of Serra, “Journey to the Sun: Junípero Serra’s Dream and the Founding of California” (Scribner, 2014), in no uncertain terms: “It was cruel, a violation of the Fifth Commandment; Christ accepted the Roman soldier’s whipping his body, but he certainly didn’t recommend it. Serra’s and Lasuen’s arguments for flogging ultimately ring hollow. They should have had the wisdom and foresight to stop it.” Ultimately, before the mission period was over, the flogging was outlawed in 1833. Father Francisco Diego at Mission Santa Clara applauded that “such punishment as revolts my soul is being abolished.” If this were the main story of Serra and the missions, I would say tear down the bells. But it isn’t, not by a long shot. In his landmark apology to the native peoples of the Americas in Bolivia in 2015, Pope Francis said, “Where there was sin — and there was plenty of sin — there was also abundant grace increased by the men and women who defended indigenous peoples.” As I have indicated, Serra tirelessly defended the indigenous people against those who talked as if they were sub- August 2-9, 2019 • ANGELUS • 13
Page 1 and 2: ANGELUS August 2-9, 2019 Vol. 4 No.
Page 3 and 4: ON THE COVER A nationwide trend pus
Page 5 and 6: NEW WORLD OF FAITH BY ARCHBISHOP JO
Page 7 and 8: NATION Abortion by cable and on dem
Page 9 and 10: LA Catholic Events Items for LA Cat
Page 11 and 12: IN EXILE BY FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER
Page 13: Statues of Confederate generals bro
Page 17 and 18: ing evidence of a second miracle fo
Page 19 and 20: and firemen broke through the smoke
Page 21 and 22: August 2-9, 2019 • ANGELUS • 19
Page 23 and 24: San Francisco to study English led
Page 25 and 26: there is a constant Catholic presen
Page 27 and 28: is believing that “prayer flows f
Page 29 and 30: tainment. As some psychiatrist once
Page 31 and 32: no objective reality or truth, and
Page 34 and 35: THE CRUX BY HEATHER KING Crystal cl

Angelus News | August 2-9, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 27

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?