CALIFORNIA
178
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
