California Romantic and Resourceful | Page 3

shall not attempt to speak of the
hardship and high endeavor of the splendid band of navigators,
beginning with Cabrillo in 1542, who discovered, explored and
reported on its bays, outlets, rivers and coast line; whose exploits were
as heroic as anything accomplished by the Norsemen in Iceland, or the
circumnavigators of the Cape of Good Hope. I do not desire to picture
the decades of the pastoral life of the hacienda and its broad acres, that
culminated in "the splendid idle forties." I do not intend to recall the
miniature struggles of Church and State, the many political
controversies of the Mexican regime, or the play of plot and
counterplot that made up so much of its history "before the Gringo
came." I shall not try to tell the story of the discovery of gold and its
world-thrilling incidents, nor of the hardships and courage of the
emigrant trail, nor of the importance of the mission of the Pathfinder,
and the excitement of the conquest, each in itself an experience that full
to the brim.
Let me rather call attention to three incidents of our history, ignoring

all the rest, to enforce the point of its uniqueness, its variety, its novelty,
its importance, as entitling it to its proper proportionate place in the
history of the nation.
And first of all, the story of the missions. The story of the missions is
the history of the beginning of the colonization of California. The
Spanish Government was desirous of providing its ships, on the return
trip from Manila, with good harbors of supply and repairs, and was also
desirous of promoting a settlement of the north as a safeguard against
possible Russian aggression. The Franciscans, upon the expulsion of
the Jesuits in 1767, had taken charge of the missions, and, in their zeal
for the conversion of the Indians, seconded the plans of the
government.
"The official purpose here, as in older mission undertakings," says Dr.
Josiah Royce, "was a union of physical and spiritual conquest, soldiers
under a military governor co-operating to this end with missionaries
and mission establishments. The natives were to be overcome by arms
in so far as they might resist the conquerors, were to be attracted to the
missions by peaceable measures in so far as might prove possible, were
to be instructed in the faith, and were to be kept for the present under
the paternal rule of the clergy, until such time as they might be ready
for a free life as Christian subjects. Meanwhile, Spanish colonists were
to be brought to the new land as circumstances might determine, and, to
these, allotments of land were to be made. No grants of lands, in a legal
sense, were made or promised to the mission establishments, whose
position was to be merely that of spiritual institutions, intrusted with
the education of neophytes, and with the care of the property that
should be given or hereafter produced for the purpose. On the other
hand, if the government tended to regard the missions as purely
subsidiary to its purpose, the outgoing missionaries to this strange land
were so much the more certain to be quite uncorrupted by worldly
ambitions, by a hope of acquiring wealth, or by any intention to found a
powerful ecclesiastical government in the new colony. They went to
save souls, and their motive was as single as it was worthy of reverence.
In the sequel, the more successful missions of Upper California became,
for a time, very wealthy; but this was only by virtue of the gifts of
nature and of the devoted labors of the padres."
Such a scheme of human effort is so unique, and so in contradiction to

much that obtains today, that it seems like a narrative from another
world. Fortunately, the annals of these missions, which ultimately
extended from San Diego to beyond Sonoma - stepping-stones of
civilization on this coast - are complete, and their simple
disinterestedness and directness sound like a tale from Arcady. They
were signally successful because those who conducted them were true
to the trustee-ship of their lives. They cannot be held responsible if they
were unable in a single generation to eradicate in the Indian the
ingrained heredity of shiftlessness of all the generations that had gone
before. It is a source of high satisfaction that there was on the part of
the padres no record of overreaching the simple native, no failure to
respect what rights they claimed, no carnage and bloodshed, that have
so often attended expeditions sent nominally for civilization, but really
for conquest. Here, at least, was one record of missionary endeavor that
came to full fruition and flower, and knew no fear or despair, until it
attracted the attention of the ruthless rapacity and greed of the Mexican