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CHAPTER 1
BEGINNINGS
Continued
In spite of such trials and hardships, the Dominicans persevered in their missionary
endeavors through some 80 years. Although with the departure of the Franciscans they had
the charge of all the Baja missions, their specific task was to missionize northern Baja
-- the "Frontera," extending from Velicata to just south of San Diego -- thus
bringing the missions of Baja geographically closer to those of Alta California.
Accordingly, in 1774 they established their first mission -- Nuestra Senora del Rosario
--at Vinaraco, some 520 miles north of Loreto and about 20 miles northwest of Mission San
Fernando de Espana Velicata, which had been the northernmost mission when the Dominicans
arrived. One father, Francisco Galisteo, O.P., is recorded to have been in residence there
in 1775. On August 30, 1775, a second mission was dedicated under the title of Santo
Domingo. It was located 70 miles northwest of Rosario. Its founders, and presumably
initial curates, were Frs. Manual Garcia and Miguel Hidalgo. The third mission, San
Vicente Ferrer, was founded in October of 1780, about 60 miles north of Santo Domingo (and
642 miles north of Loreto). Again we find Fr. Hidalgo as curate together with Fr. Joachin
Valero. San Miguel was the Dominicans' fourth mission, founded in March, 1787, about 60
miles north of San Vicente. Fr. Luis Sales was in residence at this time. The fifth
mission, founded in 1791 by Fr. Jose Loriente, was Santo Tomas. It was located between San
Vicente and San Miguel. San Pedro Martir was the sixth mission (1794), situated some 40
miles east of San Domingo. The seventh mission, Santa Catalina Martir, was dedicated on
November 12, 1797, and was located 20 miles east of San Vicente and Santo Tomas. Two
other, later missions were established by Dominicans: Descanso, almost to the border of
Alta California, in 1817, and Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe del Norte, just south of Mission
San Miguel in 1834. By the end of the eighteenth century, then, and the beginnings of the
nineteenth, the Dominicans had succeeded in connecting the northern reaches of Baja with
its southern mission complex, as also with the missions of Alta California.[14]
Such was the work of the Baja Dominicans as a body. Individual Dominicans, however, did
not limit themselves to their established territory. They would at various times edge
further and further north until we find some of them making their way into Alta
California, sometimes at the request of the Franciscans to help out in their missions,
sometimes simply on their own for whatever reason.
The first Dominican known to have visited Alta California is Father
Caietano Pallas, who appears in the register of baptisms of Mission San Diego on April 5,
1791. He was at the time secretary to Fr. Juan Crisostomo Gomez, the presidente of the
missions. This seems to have been his sole visitation north of the boarder. Judging from
his subsequent activities in Baja there would have been little if any time for him to
serve beyond the Dominican domain. We find him throughout the '90s engaged at several
different missions and in various capacities. His name appears on the records of Mission
San Fernando de Velicata and Mission Nuestra Senora del Rosario. From 1793 to 1798, he
served as vicar provincial and presidente of the Baja missions. During this period, he was
also in charge of the mission and presidio of Loreto, accepting that position in 1794.
This same year he travelled the long trail north to found Mission San Pedro Martir by
planting the cross and celebrating the Mass of the Saint's Feast Day, April 28. The
following October and November found him at work at Mission San Vicente Ferrer, Mission
Santo Domingo, Mission Rosario, and Mission San Fernando. He was to found Mission Santa
Catalina Martir in 1797, but being occupied elsewhere he authorized Fr. Jose Loriente for
the work. Father Pallas retired from the Baja missions in 1799.
Other Dominican names found in the registers of Mission San Diego as officiating at one
function or another are: Fr. Jose Loriente (September, 1791, and June, 1792), Fr. Mariano
Apolinaro (October, 1794, and October, 1795), Fr. Miguel Lopez (May and June, 1795), Fr.
Jose Conouse (July, 1798), Fr. Eudaldo Surroca (November, 1801).
It seems that the first Dominican to have gone farther than Mission San Diego was
Father Ramon Lopez. He performed baptisms at Mission San Diego in November 1798 and, the
same month, went on to visit Mission San Juan Capistrano. Fr. Ramon served as vicar
provincial and presidente of the missions in Baja from 1810 to 1816 when, on June 30 or
July 1, he died. Another of the fathers traveling further north than San Diego was Fr.
Felix Caballero. In May of 1821 he visited the Franciscans at San Juan Capistrano, after
which he was appointed administrator of the Baja missions of San Miguel and Santa Catalina
-- at a time, writes his contemporary missionary, Fr. Jose Miguel de Pineda, when "In
the whole frontier district, we are no more than three Fathers."
In 1823 Fr. Caballero journeyed north again, this time into Arizona, arriving in Tucson
in June of that year. He was intent on finding a land route from Mexico to California, but
unfortunately at the Colorado River a band of Indians attacked his party, stealing their
supplies as well as their clothes. He was forced to return to Baja. He was again found in
San Diego in 1824, when he assisted the overburdened fathers at their Mission. On May 14
of that year it is recorded that he baptized eight adult Indians from Santa Isabela. Back
in Baja, while ministering in several of the missions, he was, in 1825, appointed vicar
provincial and presidente of the missions, holding both positions until his death on July
11, 1840. It was said that although throughout his life he remained an ardent Spaniard, he
nevertheless was enthusiastic when the Mexican revolt proved successful, though he was
less and less enthusiastic as the revolution progressed.
Another Baja Dominican supporter of the revolution was Fr. Antonio Menendez, who
eventually moved further into Alta California than any of his predecessors and made of it
his field of ministry.
Before coming north, however, he journeyed from mission to mission in Baja ministering
where, apparently, resident priests were no longer present. He was centered at Mission
Nuestra Senora del Santissimo Rosario from October 30, 1814, to August 30, 1815. From
April 13 to July 10, 1815, he visited Mission San Fernando de Velicata, which had had no
resident priest since December 1806, and performed three baptisms. He recorded burials at
Mission San Vicente Ferrer on April 24 and September 16, 1817. In 1823, he was again at
Mission del Rosario, where he recorded a baptism on August 10. Fr. Menendez appears for
the first time in the baptismal records of Mission San Diego on March 31, 1824. On April
25 of this year he officiated at a baptism at the presidio chapel. When, on May 25, 1825,
he again baptized at the presidio, he signed himself as "Ministro de San Vicente
Ferrer, Baja California."
But his activities were soon to be centered elsewhere. In 1825, at the age of 43, after
12 years of missionary labors, Father Antonio was given a pass by Father Felix Caballero,
then vicar provincial and presidente, to return to his convent in Mexico City. First,
however, he travelled to San Diego, where the Franciscans persuaded him to accept the
chaplaincy of the soldiers and their families, as the fathers found it difficult to take
care of both the presidio and the Indians at the Mission. In October, he was notified by
Governor Echeandia that "the President of the Republic, through the Minister of War,
tells you that he will receive with pleasure your services as chaplain of San Diego."
Being chaplain, he received a salary for his services, much of a novelty for this begging
friar. At San Diego, he also conducted a primary school for a while, receiving a salary
for this also: from $15 to $20 a month from town funds. On October 16, 1829, he baptized
for the last time at the Mission.
From San Diego, he travelled the long distance to Monterey, perhaps with the party of
the then Governor Echeandia, who went by land to the capital in December of 1829. Here
again he acted as chaplain at the presidio, and the legislative assembly allowed him $30 a
month for his ministry. His name is found in the baptismal records of the Presidio Chapel
of San Carlos Boromeo from February 28, 1829, until April 12, 1831. During this time he
was also at Mission Nuestra Senora de Solidad where on March 6, 1829, he officiated at a
burial.
Menendez next went to Santa Barbara, where he undertook the ministry of chaplain to the
presidio and the town. His first baptism at the Mission was on June 23, 1831, and the last
on August 19 of that year. He baptized at the Presidio Chapel for the first time on
November 6, 1831, and remained as chaplain until April 1 of the following year. Later that
same month, Menendez died suddenly, and his death and burial are recorded as follows in
the burial register of the presidio: "No. 295. On April 14, 1832, in the crypt of the
church of this Mission of Santa Barbara, I gave ecclesiastical burial to the body of the
Rev. Fr. Antonio Menendez of the Order of Preachers, missionary of Baja California
residing at the adjoining presidio in which he held the position of chaplain by permit of
the Rev. Fr. Presidente Narciso Duran. On account of the almost sudden death, he could not
receive more than the holy sacrament of Extreme Unction. In testimony I have signed. --Fr.
Antonio Jimeno."[15]
Still others travelled into Alta California, for shorter or longer stays -- Fr. Tomas
de Ahumada, for one, who was called from Mission San Miguel in Baja to San Diego to tend a
solitary Franciscan who was dying. But the Dominican missionary who came and stayed the
longest, making of Alta California his "home," and briefly serving in the
establishment of the new Western Dominican Congregation, was Fr. Ignacio Ramirez de
Arellano. Shortly after his emigration north of the boarder around 1849, the Dominican
ministry in Baja would be terminated. Two lone Dominicans, Frs. Gabriel Gonzalez and Tomas
Mansilla -- all that was left of 80 years of Dominican presence in Baja -- embarked from
the port of La Paz in February, 1855, for their convent in Mexico City.[16]
Father Ramirez had been in Baja in the early 1830s, but, for whatever reason, had
returned to Mexico. On January 30, 1840, we find him once again in Baja in charge of
Mission San Jose del Cabo and, as of October of this year, vice presidente of the missions
under Father Gabriel Gonzalez, O.P., presidente and vicar provincial of the Baja
vicariate. When Garcia Diego y Moreno, O.F.M., who had been consecrated the first Bishop
of both Californias on October 4, 1840, arrived in San Diego in December, 1841, he
reappointed Fr. Gonzalez Vicar Forane of Baja California and granted him permission to
administer the Sacrament of Confirmation. He granted the same faculties to Fr. Ramirez, no
doubt because of the vastness of the Baja part of his diocese and the scarcity of clergy
in attendance of it.
After the U.S. declaration of war against Mexico in 1846, Captain John M. Montgomery of
the American warship Portsmouth, on March 29, 1847, took possession of San Jose del
Cabo in the extreme south of Baja. On April 13th he appeared before La Paz, the capital,
and immediately secured its surrender, and with it the whole of the Baja territory until
the end of the war in 1848. Throughout the war Fr. Ramirez's sympathies were with the
Americans, and apparently he had their respect, as may be indicated in a report of
September 27, 1847, by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry S. Burton, then in command of La Paz, to
the Secretary of State of Upper California, in which it is noted: "by the politeness
of Fray Ramirez de Arrellano, padre presidente [sic] in this peninsula, I have been able
to form a tolerably accurate estimate of the amount of population in Lower
California."[17] At any rate, at the end of the war,
whether because of dislike and/or fear of the Mexicans or his love of the Americans, Fr.
Ramirez emigrated to Alta California. There his name is first found in the baptismal
records of the Church of San Carlos in Monterey on February 15, 1849. At the end of the
following month, Fr. Jose Marie Gonzalez Rubio, O.F.M., who had been named vicar
capitular, or administrator, of the diocese on the death of Bishop Garcia Diego y Moreno
on April 30, 1846, granted him the faculties of the diocese, and he began to function as
the pastor of San Carlos.
Fr. Ramirez's liking for the United States seems to have climaxed with the entrance of
Alta California into the Union in 1850. He was actively present at the Constitutional
Convention that met in Colton Hall, Monterey, from September 1 to October 13, 1849, as
reported in the minutes of the Convention[18]:
At the [second] meeting, on Monday September 3rd, a quorum was present, and Reverend
Samuel J. Willey, being observed among those outside the rail, was invited to open the
proceedings with a prayer, which he did. Later it was resolved to begin the deliberations
of each day in the same way, the Reverend Mr. Willey and Padre Ramirez, pastor of what had
been the presidio church in Pedro Fages' time, were invited to officiate on alternate
mornings.
One of the observers of the Convention was a Baynard Taylor who later wrote his
recollections of it, some of which were of Fr. Ramirez:
The appearance of the company... was genteel and respectable, and perhaps the genial
unrestrained social spirit that possessed all present would have been less had there been
more uniformity of costume... The most interesting figure to me was that of Padre Ramirez,
who, in his clerical cassock [habit?], looked on until a late hour. If the strongest
advocate of priestly gravity and decorum had been present, he could not have found in his
heart to grudge the good old padre the pleasure that beamed upon his honest countenance.
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Partial Endnotes
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[14] These foundations and dates are as given by
Engelhardt and Meigs. Meigs (p. 39) notes changes in location for most of the missions and
the dates of change and reasons for them. The reason for change was most often water
failure, though for Santo Tomas it was mosquitoes in "an unhealthy lagoon."
Nieser (pp. 291-92) claims that Descanso was not founded in 1817 but 1809, and was really
Mission San Miguel brought further north. Thus Descanso was at the time often called
"Mission Nueva de San Miguel" and the former mission simply "Mission
Vieja."
[15] Quoted by C. Hess in his unpublished monograph:
"Our Dominican Heritage: Western Dominican Province Pre-History."
[16] As Nieser says: "To describe the process [of the
dissolution of the Dominican missions] would require a very long chapter, but some
interesting phases should be pointed out. The modification of the mission and of the
status of the missionary was gradual. The peninsular missions which survived became first
quasi-parishes and included in their services whites as well as Indians, then parishes
under diocesan control [secularization]. Mission lands were gradually allotted to Indians
and sold or allotted to whites. At least one mission was essentially a garrison, to whose
church soldiers and settlers could come and Indians were invited. Most of the missions
became small settlements or villages and the people were attended occasionally by visiting
priests. The Dominican fathers' status likewise changed to that of quasi-pastor, chaplain,
pastor, and visiting priest" (p.287). The causes for the dissolution were multiple,
as Nieser lists them: 1) a hostile government's secularization of the missions, taking
them from the care of the missionaries and placing them in that of those who could not or
would not manage them; 2) the Mexican revolution, separating New Spain from Old Spain,
thus discouraging the Spanish government and church from supplying new missionaries and
supporting the old; 3) epidemics of small-pox and "galico" (Syphilis) which in
the later mission years more and more would decimate the Indian population until in the
end (c. 1850) only a handful of natives remained to carry on the life, activities and work
necessary to sustain the missions; 4) the discovery of gold in Alta California which drew
the relatively few Baja settlers away from an already sparsely populated country, and left
the missions prey to renegade 49ers on their way north; 5) the barrenness of the country
which, with few missionaries and Indians to work the land, often became the source of
great poverty working grave hardship on Indian and missionary alike. Interest in Baja, on
the part of state and church alike, had severely declined, and all eyes were focused on
the north where there was life, good land aplenty, and a promising future.
[17] Engelhardt, pp. 669-670. As noted in the text Fr.
Ramirez was not presidente of the missions but vice-presidente.
[18] The following quotations re Ramirez are as they
appear in Fr. Hess's monograph.
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