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 CALIFORNIA

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CALIFORNIA

ably first applied the name. It is divided into Lower or Old California and Upper California. The latter part comprises the present State of California. The first missionaries were the Franciscans, who, under the leadership of Martin de la Corufia, one of the so- called " Twelve Apostles of Mexico ", on the 3d of May, 1535, landed with Cortes at Santa Cruz Bay, near what is now La Paz on the lower eastern coast of the penin- sula. After a year of extreme privations, due to the sterility of the soil, the undertaking, which had cost the famous conqueror $300,000, had to be abandoned. The Friars Minor made another effort to establish missions among the natives, when in 1596 Sebastian Vizcaino set out to found a colony in California. The missionaries were Diego de Perdomo, Bernar- dino de Zamudio, Antonio Tello, Nicolas de Arabia, and a lay brother, Cristobal L6pez. Hunger and the hostility of the savages, who proved to be on the lowest plane of humanity, put an end to the venture before the close of the year.

In 1683 the Jesuit Fathers, Eusebius Kuehn, better known as Kino, and Pedro Matfas Goni with Fray Jos6 Guijosa, of the Order of St. John of God, accompanying Admiral Isidro Otondo y Antillon, landed somewhat north of La Paz for the pur- pose of converting the natives and es- tablishing a Span- ish colony. After two years and six months as many as four hundred In- dians attended the catechetical in- structions. Owing to the precarious state of the whole enterprise, the mis- sionaries admin- istered baptism only to those neo- phytes who were found in danger of death. For want of supplies, and after an expenditure of $225,000 on the part of the Govern- ment, the Spaniards once more withdrew, in Septem- ber, 1685, despite the protests of the religious and the sorrow of the catechumens.

Anxious to secure a foothold in the territory lest a foreign power take possession, but having learned from experience that the military could not succeed, the Spanish Government, through the viceroy, in- vited the Society of Jesus to undertake the conquest and settlement of the country. Urged by Fathers Kino and Salvatierra the superiors of the Society at length accepted the charge. Thereupon, the Viceroy Moctezuma, on the 5th of February, 1697, formally authorized the Society of Jesus to establish mis- sions in California on condition that the royal treas- ury be not expected to pay any expenses incurred without the order of the king, and that possession of the territory be taken in the name of the King of Spain. In return the Jesuits were to enjoy the privilege of enlisting soldiers to act as guards for the missions at the expense of the Society, and in time of war these soldiers were to be considered on the same footing with those of the regular army. The Jesuits were to have absolute authority on the peninsula in temporal ;is well as spiritual affairs, and were em- powered to choose men suitable for the administra- tion of justice. Father Juan Marfa Salvatierra was appointed superior of the California missions. He at once began to collect funds to place the undertaking upon a firm basis. It would require ten thousand

Juan Maria Salvatierra

dollars, he thought, to furnish a revenue of five hun- dred dollars a year to maintain one priest at each mission. The Rev. Juan Caballero of Queretaro donated twenty thousand dollars for two missions, and the Confraternity of Our Lady of Sorrows in the city of Mexico supplied ten thousand dollars for the founding and maintaining of a third establishment. This was the beginning of the celebrated Pious Fund of California. Other benefactors in course of time provided the necessary capital for additional missions, until the fund, which was judiciously in- vested in Mexican real estate, with its accumulations amounted to half a million dollars by the year 1767. A Jesuit, the Rev. Juan de Ugarte, was appointed to manage the fund and to act as procurator for the missionaries. After collecting minor donations and goods to the value of fifteen thousand dollars, and having enlisted five trustworthy guards under the command of Captain Luis Tortolero y Torres, Father Salvatierra crossed the Gulf of California and landed at San Dionisio Bay on t he 1 9t h of October, 1 697. The first and the principal mission of Lower Cali- fornia was established a league from the shore and placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Loreto. The necessary buildings were hastily constructed, and the zealous Jesuit assembled the neighbouring Indians. He first endeavoured to learn their language, and meanwhile through signs tried to make them under- stand his object and the most necessary truths of religion. Father Francisco Maria Piccolo soon joined him, and assisted especially in teaching the little ones. Father Juan de Ugarte, who had re- signed the procuratorship, followed in 1700. Next to Salvatierra this religious is the most noted of the early California missionaries. It was he who intro- duced agriculture and stock-raising at the second mission of San Francisco Xavier, for the purpose of making the missions self-supporting. He succeeded to some extent, but the barrenness of the soil and the lack of water, except at two or three other establish- ments, prevented the system from becoming general on the peninsula. Indeed, the scarcity of water and of arable land brought the mission establish- ments to the verge of abandonment several times, even before the deatli of Salvatierra, which occurred at Guadalajara in 1717. It was also the energetic Ugarte who built the first large ship in California, of native timber, and made a voyage of exploration to the mouth of the Colorado River in 1721. Though the missionaries devoted themselves heart and soul to their task, the work of conversion proved truly dis- heartening, inasmuch as polygamy, sorcery, and the vilest habits prevailed among the Lower Californians to a degree not known elsewhere. If we add to this the total indifference of the natives, who possessed no religious ideas whatever, the frequent epidemics and almost constant wars which often destroyed the labour of years and caused the desertion of sev- eral missions, it becomes plain that only the most zealous and ascetic men could have succeeded as well as these missionaries did. Pagan hatred fre- quently attacked the isolated religious, and in October, 1734, brought about the violent death of two priests. These were Fathers Lorenzo Carranzo of Mission Santiago and Nicolas Tamaral of Mission San Jose del Cabo, in the southern part of the penin- sula, both of whom were killed with arrows and clubs, after which the bodies were fright hilly muti- lated. Two other religious, warned in time, barely escaped with their lives. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks and obstacles, to which must be added the animosity of the pearl-fishers and their friends in Mexico, besides the want of every convenience of life, the Jesuits in time established a chain of missions which extended from Cape San Lucas to the thirty- first degree of latitude. These missions and the year of their establishment, beginning from south to