By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO—Three Franciscan Padres whose lives are celebrated at Mission San Diego are Father Junipero Serra, who founded this mission and eight others, Fermin Lasuen, who succeeded Serra as president of the missions and founded nine more, and Luis Jayme (also spelled Jaime), who is remembered as the first Christian martyr in Alta California.
Serra, the most widely known of the three, has been beatified by the Roman Catholic Church, a step toward possible canonization as a saint. Standing in front of a statue of him in the mission’s Meditation Garden, chief guide Janet Bartel notes that he was 5’2 inches tall, 110 pounds, and troubled by a zancudo (mosquito) bite that had become ulcerated and had made walking difficult.
Nevertheless, while making the 200-mile trek in 1769 from Mission Santa Maria in Baja California to San Diego, he insisted on walking, rather than riding on a mule. With the coarse material of his grey robe rubbing against his leg, it became more and more irritated, so that it became clear to his compatriots that Serra shouldn’t continue by foot. But he told a muleteer simply to dress the wound as he would for the mule—and after a day’s rest, he resumed his journey.
Why was he so stubborn? Bartel said that the Franciscan order was “dedicated to all God’s creatures” and that Serra didn’t want the mule to have to suffer his weight.
Born in Petra, Majorca, Spain, in 1713, Serra had dreamed as a child of becoming a Franciscan, but because he was frail and sickly, he was discouraged. Bartel explained that the Franciscans are a mendicant order who give away their own possessions and rely on the charity of others. Additionally, they are supposed to walk everywhere – a life thought to be too tough for the young Serra. But the boy was determined, eventually winning acceptance into the order. He was assigned to Lullian University, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy and was on the faculty.
Eventually, his dream to go to New Spain as a missionary was realized with assignment to the Sierra Gorda following a political decision by King Carlos III to expel the Jesuits. Before long, Serra was put in charge of Franciscan missions in Baja California. Like many Franciscans, Serra was a diligent diarist and record-keeper. His signature in the San Diego parish’s baptismal book is easy to recognize by the distinctive rubrica that follows it.
Although he was the founder of Mission San Diego, he soon relocated to the Monterey/ Carmel area, which he established as the headquarters for the mission system. Thereafter, he would come on visits to Mission San Diego but never again was its resident padre.
One long room at the mission, called Farther Serra’s quarters, is quite Spartan. At the end farthest from the door is a bed with rawhide lacing. Before someone repaired to such a bed, “sleep tight” would have been appropriate advice, because unlaced rawhide could cause someone to sag to the floor. Near the bed is a rope ladder leading to a loft, where another bed is located. Bartel said that in deference to his age and bad leg, Father Serra would have gotten to sleep downstairs, and an assistant would have slept in the loft. The room is also furnished with a chair and a small trunk in which Serra could have kept his possessions, particularly his writing materials.
The long room may have been divided so the front area could be used as sleeping quarters by others, or perhaps as a meeting place.
In addition to Mission San Diego de Alcala, the missions founded during Serra’s presidency included San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo, San Antonio de Padua, San Gabriel Arcángel, San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, San Juan Capistrano, San Francisco de Asís, Santa Clara de Asís, and San Buenaventura.
Some two centuries after Serra’s death at age 70 in 1784, controversy erupted when Serra was beatified by the church. Some Native American groups said their ancestors were treated as slaves by the Franciscans, who sometimes beat them to death. They said the reduction in population of Native Americans during the time of Spanish rule amounted to genocide. Counter-arguments blame the many Native American deaths on diseases inadvertently carried by the Spaniards to Alta California. Compared to other European colonialists, Spanish rule was benign, Bartel said.
“There will always be controversy, I am afraid, because a lot of people have misunderstood Father Serra and his motives,” said Bartel. “It really bothers me because I think they never read documented history to see what he went through.”
Serra’s successor, Padre Lasuen, at night time had very few people to talk to. “There were no other padres at the mission, and he had little in common with the few soldiers on hand,” Bartel noted. Although some Kumeyaay stayed in the mission’s quadrangle—sometimes building conical huts known as ewa’as for shelter – for the most part, they returned to their nearby villages. Although many local Native Americans desired to stay at the mission, there simply wasn’t sufficient room for them, Bartel said. Accordingly, Lusuen devised a system of rotation, under which the Kumeyaay who stayed eight days made way for the next group.
In such loneliness, Lusuen wrote to his superiors that he was ‘miserable’ and wanted to be reassigned to some other mission. However, they told him to persist in his assignment. Eventually, he was promoted to the mission presidency and able to make his home at a mission of his choosing. He chose Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel, California. It is at that site that both he and Father Serra are buried.
As president of the mission system, Lusuen founded between 1786 and 1798 these nine missions: Santa Barbara, La Purisima Concepcion, Santa Cruz, Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, San Jose, San Juan Bautista, San Miguel Arcangel, San Fernando Rey de Espana, and San Luis Rey de Francia.
Three other missions in the chain of 21 California missions —Santa Ines, San Rafael Arcangel, and San Francisco de Solano– were founded between 1804 and 1823 by other Padres.
Outside Mission San Diego is a large white cross memorializing Padre Luis Jayme, who on the night of November 5, 1775, emerged from the mission to greet hundreds of Native Americans with his customary salutation “Love God, my children.” According to church accounts, they responded by clubbing him to death, dragging his body down a hill, and firing numerous arrows into it. They also looted the church before setting it afire.
Bartel said Jayme actually had a good relationship with the local Kumeyaay Indians, and that the marauders were Yuman Indians who resided in villages well to the east of the mission. As the story is told, the Kumeyaay who were living at the mission were warned that they would be killed if they raised an alarm, and so unhappily complied. Survivors of the attack escaped to the Presidio five miles away, where they learned to their consternation that the soldiers there had not noticed the flames of the mission and could not have rendered aid. Although the Indians apparently had meant also to attack the Presidio, it is speculated that they feared they would be repulsed by well-armed soldiers and so abandoned their plans.
The spot where Father Jayme’s body was found is memorialized on a marker that today is located within a condominium complex across the street from the mission. The marker faces a thick hedge so that it no longer can be seen from the street. From time to time, according to Bartel, there has been talk of removing the marker, but residents of the condominium complex who are also parishioners have thus far been able to stymie such a development. From a practical standpoint, it would be a fairly easy matter to create a nook in the hedge so that the historic marker could be shared with passersby.
The plaque on the hidden marker reads: “Padre Luis Jayme, Pastor of the Mission San Diego de Alcala, was martyred near this site November 5, 1775.Father Jayme had asked that the Mission be moved to its present site from Presidio Hill in order to better grow foods for the Mission.In this area, the Mission padres produced grape, olives and other farm products for the Indian and Spanish communities. Also near this site a small structure housed the guard from the Royal Presidio, which served as escort and guard for the Mission padres.”
Father Jayme’s body and those of other early padres are buried near the altar of the mission’s main church.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. This article previously was posted on examiner.com