IT is generally believed that the California Indian in his original condition was one of the most miserable and wretched of the world’s aborigines. As one writer puts it : ” When discovered by the padres he was almost naked, half starved, living in filthy little hovels built of tule, speaking a meagre language broken […]

One of the ranchos of San Luis Obispo was that of Santa Margarita on the north side of the Sierra Santa Lucia. As far as I know there is no record of the date when the chapel was built, yet it is a most interesting and important structure, even in its present utterly ruined and […]

The chapel at Pala is perhaps the best known of all the asistencias on account of its picturesque campanile. It was built by the indefatigable Padre Peyri, in 1816, and is about twenty miles from San Luis Rey, to which it belonged. Within a year or two, by means of a resident padre, over a […]

THE disastrous effect of the order of secularization upon the Indians, as well as the Missions themselves, has been referred to in a special chapter. Here I wish to give, in brief, a clearer idea of the present condition of the Indians than was there possible. In the years 1833–1837 secularization actually was accomplished. The […]

TO the indomitable energy of Galvez, the California Missions owed much, but his work was largely initial. It required the steady, patient, constant labors of men on the ground, to see that the plans so carefully formulated were carried out. From St. Francis down, the chief aim of the members of his order has been […]

LASUEN’S third Mission, of 1797, was San Miguel, located near a large rancheria named Sagshpileel, and on the site called Vahia. One reason for the selection of the location is given in the fact that there was plenty of water at Santa Isabel and San Marcos for the irrigation of three hundred fanegas of seed. […]

ON September 8, 1797, the seventeenth of the California Missions was founded by Padre Lasuen, in the Encino Valley where Francisco Reyes had a rancho in the Los Angeles jurisdiction. The natives called it Achois Comihavit. Reyes’ house was appropriated as a temporary dwelling for the missionary. The Mission was dedicated to Fernando III, King […]

THE last Mission of the century, the last of Lasuen’s administration, and the last south of Santa Barbara, was that of San Luis Rey. Lasuen himself explored the region and determined the site. The Governor agreed to it, and on the 27th of February, 1798, ordered a guard to be furnished from San Diego who […]

“BEAUTIFUL for situation ” was the spot selected for the only Mission founded during the first decade of the nineteenth century, — Santa Ines. Governor Borica, who called California ” the most peaceful and quiet country on earth,” and under whose orders Padre Lasuen had established the five Missions of 1796-97, had himself made explorations […]

FOUNDED, as we have seen, by Serra himself, September 1, 1772, by the end of 1773 it could report only twelve converts. Serra left the day after the founding, leaving Padre Cavalier in charge, with two Indians from Lower California, four soldiers and their corporal. Their only provisions were a few hundred pounds of flour […]