Mission Dolores
(LA MISIÓN SAN FRANCISCO DE ASÍS)
Part 1
Entry Author: Br.
Guire Cleary, S.S.F
Mission Dolores ca August 14, 1956 Photo
ID#AAB-0664
Photo used with permission from San Francisco Public Library
SAN FRANCISCO - EXPLORATION AND FOUNDATION
San Francisco's oldest intact building is the principal remaining
physical monument of the Spanish Empire and Mexican Republic
in the region of the San Francisco Bay. The mission is named
after the founder of the Franciscan Order, Saint Francis of
Assisi (1182-1226). Founded under the direction of Fray Junípero
Serra, it is the sixth Franciscan mission to be established
in Alta California. A story is recounted by California's first
historian and the first Franciscan pastor of Mission Dolores,
Fray Francisco Palóu
about the naming of San Francisco. In 1768 José de
Gálvez, the Inspector General of Mexico, informed Junípero
Serra of the names to be given to the missions to be established
in Alta California. Serra remonstrated saying, "Is there
then to be no mission for Our Father San Francisco?"
Gálvez jested, "If San Francisco wants a mission,
let him cause his port to be discovered, and it will be placed
there!" It was not until Sergeant José Francisco
Ortega, under command of Gaspár de Portolá,
sighted the Golden Gate and the San Francisco Bay on November
1, 1769 that Europeans became aware of the existence of the
immense bay and its beautiful passage through the coastal
mountains. San Francisco had led Spain to its port.
In 1774, an expedition led by Captain Fernando Rivera y Moncada
began explorations for a suitable site for the mission of
San Francisco. Accompanying the expedition was Fray Francisco
Palóu. Presents were made to Ssalson Ohlone people
of beads and Spanish food, including wheat and beans. Palóu
records in his diary that the Indians were much taken with
the products of European culture and Palóu promised
that he would return and help the First Peoples to plant seeds
and gather them in great abundance. Palóu believed
that the Ohlone were pleased, understood him and would help
build houses when he returned to establish a mission.
Viceroy Antonio Maria Bucareli y Ursúa, concerned
about the possibility of Russian encroachment on what he held
to be Spanish territory, ordered Captain Juan Bautista De
Anza to recruit soldiers and settlers in Sonora, Mexico and
establish a Mission and Presidio in the port of San Francisco.
Mission San Francisco de Asís has as its common name
"Mission Dolores," taken from the name of the now
vanished Lake Dolores and Dolores Creek. The Señor
Commandante, Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza, who explored the
creek and lake on the Friday before Palm Sunday, April 5,
1776, gave the name "Dolores". This day was traditionally
called the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (Nuestra Señora
de los Dolores). On June 27, 1776 the colonists under the
command of Lieutenant José
Joaquin Moraga arrived along the shore of Laguna Dolores,
near what is now Albion and Camp Streets in the Mission District.
Two Franciscan padres, Fray Francisco Palóu and Fray
Benito Cambón, accompanied them. Under an arbor
(enramada) built by Moraga's soldiers, Fray Francisco Palóu
celebrated the first Mass on the feast of Saints Peter and
Paul, June 29, 1776. [Much innocent ink has been spilt over
the issue of whether this date of June 29, 1776 is the "official
birthday" of the mission and of the city of San Francisco.
The author of this article is inclined to October 9, 1776
as the ecclesial dedication of the mission church, but is
prepared to celebrate all reasonable dates and solicits invitations
to all parties commemorating same.] Moraga's soldiers remained
about a month and withdrew to found the Royal Presidio near
the Golden Gate.
MISSION SAN FRANCISCO - GOALS AND PURPOSES OF THE MISSIONS
Fray Junípero Serra was a philosopher of the school
of John Dun Scotus who believed that God is love and that
this love is manifested within communities and relationships.
The effort of missionization was to create Christian communities
where God would be revealed. Central to the goals of the Franciscans
at Mission Dolores was the idea of ingathering of native peoples
into villages (reducion), inculcation of Christian doctrine
and morality, and European cultural values, establishment
of Spanish law and government, and the creation of townships
of Hispanicized farmers and artisans out of the indigenous
population. Spanish law guaranteed that Indian tribes entering
the mission system would have their lands preserved intact
under the management of the mission padres. The intention
was to have self-governing pueblos in place within 10 years.
This was the plan and hope of missionization: that Indians
would be attracted by European technology and culture and,
establishing their homes near missions, would ultimately accept
Christianity and Spanish rule. The labor, creativity, and
skills of the Indians of the Bay Area created an astonishingly
complex ranching, agricultural, and manufacturing enterprise
at Mission Dolores and the other missions of California. While
the process of conversion to Christianity was mostly voluntary,
once baptized an Indian became the ward of the mission and
subject to what to our era must appear to be oppressive and
controlling in the extreme.
MISSION SAN FRANCISCO - ESTABLISHMENT AND GROWTH
The missionaries turned their attention to the establishment
of the mission and the conversion of Ohlone Indians in the
nearby village of Chutchui. Palóu inscribed the register
of the mission on August 1, 1776 with the words, "…the
Mission of Our Father San Francisco, founded by Religious
of the holy Apostolic College of San Fernando at this Port
of the same name of our Father San Francisco in Northern California,
through the favor and at the expense of our Catholic Monarch,
the King of Spain, Don Carlos III…commenced at the same
time that it was founded in the vicinity of the new presidio
of the same name of San Francisco…" The mission
was formally opened on October 9, 1776. The first adult Indian
baptism took place on June 24, 1777 when Chamis, a 20-year-old
Ohlone man, was baptized and given the Christian name of Francisco
Moraga. Lieut. José Joaquin Moraga acted as godfather.
Chamis later became the first Indian married at Mission Dolores,
taking Paszém as his wife on April 24,1778.
Several temporary chapels were built at Mission Dolores and
the foundation stones of the present mission church were laid
in 1783. Some 26,000 adobe bricks were made by 1788, and the
walls were largely in place by the end of that year. The church
was dedicated on August 2, 1791, making it the oldest intact
church nave in California. Roof tiles were laid on in 1794-1795.
Within a few years, other adobe buildings were added for housing,
ranching, agricultural, and manufacturing enterprises. At
its peak in 1810-1820, the average Indian population at Pueblo
Dolores was about 1,100 persons. The California missions were
not only houses of worship. They were farming communities,
manufacturers of all sorts of products, hotels, ranches, hospitals,
schools, and the centers of the largest communities in the
state. Gov. Figueroa said of the California missions in 1834,
"Military and civilians depended on missions, (which)
made loans, hostels where travelers and poor received food,
lodging, horses, or whatever they wanted free of charge. California
missions were the sole source of the prosperity of the territory."
Mission Dolores at the peak of its prosperity in 1810 owned
11,000 sheep, 11,000 cows, and thousands of horses, goats,
pigs, and mules. Its ranching and farming operations extended
as far south as San Mateo and east to Alameda. Horses were
corralled on Potrero Hill, and the milking sheds for the cows
were located along Dolores Creek at what is today Mission
High School. Twenty looms were kept in operation to process
wool into cloth. The circumference of its holdings was said
to have been about 125 miles.
Setbacks at Mission Dolores included a mass exodus of 280
people in the summer of 1795 due to the three muchos: too
much work, too much punishment, and too much hunger. Periodic
epidemics of measles, smallpox, and diphtheria drastically
reduced mission populations. Syphilis and bacterial infections
took immense tolls. Padre Ramon Abella recorded the following
sad note in the Burial Register at Mission Dolores on July
22, 1814, "Today I buried Viridiana, the last of the
adults who witnessed the founding of the mission…Everyone
who saw the arrival of the missionaries…have died; and
of those who have been born since that time, rare are those
who live." The imposition of a communal labor and living
system on the native population made possible exposure to
European technology, resources, and commerce but at a cost
that still engenders debate. Many hold that the majority of
the padres were selfless and motivated by religious and humanitarian
goals. However, the results are questioned and still vigorously
debated. By 1810 more than 5,000 years of tribal life in the
Bay Area had effectively ended. Government support of the
military in Alta California ceased with the inception of the
Mexican War of Independence in 1810.
Tensions and disputes arose between the missions and the civil
authorities when the missions were asked to supply food and
manufactured goods to the military. After the Mexican Republic
was established in 1821, pressure began to mount for the close
of the missions. Politicians of the day debated whether lands
and enterprises under mission custody would be acknowledged
as owned by the Indian Christians and organized into townships
or largely redistributed to the Mexican settlers. In 1834,
Mission Dolores was ordered to be turned over to an administrator
who valued the holdings at $67,227.60. The process of secularization
meant that the missions would no longer manage the agricultural,
ranching and manufacturing enterprises with their vast holdings
of land and livestock. The missions would essentially be made
into parish churches consisting of only the church proper,
the residence of the priests and a small amount of land immediately
surrounding the churches for use as kitchen gardens and cemeteries.
By 1842, there were only eight Indian Christians resident
at the mission. Spiritual needs of the parish were met by
remaining Franciscans, but the situation of the parish was
doubtful, and the last Franciscan, Fray José Real,
withdrew to Santa Clara in 1845.
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Founded under the direction of Fray Junípero Serra