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William Henry Hudson - The Famous Missions of California
formidable proportions, and the labors of the missionaries were not always as fruitful as had been hoped.
Fortunately, however, the Indians were, as a rule, friendly, notwithstanding the fact that the behaviour of
the Spanish soldiers, especially towards their women, occasionally aroused their distrust and resentment.
At one establishment only did serious disturbances actually threaten for a time the continuance of the
mission and its work. Junipero had lately returned from Mexico, with undiminished zeal and all sorts of
fresh designs revolving in his brain, when a courier reached him at San Carlos bringing news of a terrible
disaster at San Diego. Important affairs detained him for a time at Monterey, but when at length he was
able to get to the scene of the trouble, it was to find that first reports had not been exaggerated. On the
night of the 4th of November, 1775, eight hundred Indians had made a ferocious assault upon the
mission, fired the buildings, and brutally done to death Father Jayme, one of the two priests in charge.
"God be thanked," Junipero had exclaimed, when the letter containing the dreadful news had been read to
him, "now the soil is watered, and the conquest of the Dieguinos will soon be complete!" In the faith that
the blood of the martyrs is veritably the seed of the church, he, on reaching San Diego, with his
customary energy, set about the task of re-establishing the mission; and the buildings which presently
arose from the ruins were a great improvement upon those which had been destroyed.
Before these alarming events at the mother-mission broke in upon his regular work, the president had
resolved upon yet another settlement (not included in the still uncompleted plan), for which he had
selected a point on the coast some twenty-six leagues north of San Diego, and which was to be dedicated
to San Juan Capistrano. A beginning had indeed been made there, not by Junipero in person, but by
fathers delegated by him for the purpose; but when news of the murder of Father Jayme reached them,
they had hastily buried bells, chasubles and supplies, and hurried south. As soon as ever he felt it wise to
leave San Diego Junipero himself now repaired to the abandoned site; and there, on the 1st of November,
1776, the bells were dug up and hung, mass said, and the mission established. It is curious to remember
that while the padre-presidente was thus immersed in apostolic labors on the far Pacific coast, on the
other side of the North American continent events of a very different character were shaking the whole
civilized world.
Though the establishment of San Juan Capistrano is naturally mentioned in this place, partly because of
the abortive start made there a year before, and partly because its actual foundation constituted the next
noteworthy incident in Junipero's career, this mission is, in strict chronological order, not the sixth, but
the seventh on our list. For some three weeks before its dedication, and without the knowledge of the
president himself, though in full accordance with his designs, the cross had been planted at a point many
leagues northward beyond San Carlos, and destined presently to be the most important on the coast. It
will be remembered that when Portolà's party made their first futile search for the harbour of Monterey,
they had by accident found their way as far as the Bay of San Francisco. The significance of their
discovery was not appreciated at the time, either by themselves or by those at headquarters to whom it
was reported; but later explorations so clearly established the value of the spot for settlement and
fortification, that it was determined to build a presidio there. Some years previous to this, as we have
seen, a mission on the northern bay had been part of Junipero's ambitious scheme; and though at the time
he was forced by circumstances to hold his hand, the idea was constantly uppermost in his thoughts. At
length, when, in the summer of 1776, an expedition was despatched from Monterey for the founding of
the proposed presidio, two missionaries were included in the party - one of these being none other than
that Father Palou, whose records have been our chief guides in the course of this story. The buildings of
the presidio - store house, commandant's dwelling, and huts for the soldiers and their families - were
completed by the middle of September; and on the 17th of that month - the day of St. Francis, patron of
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