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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
The Year 1949 is the two hundredth anniversary of the leave-taking from their native land for American missionary endeavors, of the Mallorquin Franciscans, Junípero Serra, Francisco Palóu, and Juan Crespí. They were, however, but a threesome among the thirty-three who comprised the entire group or “mission” that sailed from Cádiz in the latter part of 1749. The coming anniversary, therefore, suggests the proper occasion to study from the original sources, the methods, chronology, and personalities involved in that great missionary enterprize that meant so much for the Americas. The greater part of the material of this article is based on the expediente, No. 5546, of Contratación, located in the Archivo de Indias, Sevilla, Spain. It is entitled: “Mission de Sn. Franco, para el Collegio de Sn. Fernando de Mexico. Año de 1749.” The writer found it at Sevilla in the fall of 1946.
1 The basic laws dealing with the sending of religious to the Indies may be found in Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (Madrid, 1681), 1, tit. 14, de los religiosos, 59–76.
2 Members of the Franciscan Order are divided into three groups; sacerdotes (ordained priests), coristas (clerics, in vows, studying for the priesthood), legos (lay-brothers, in vows, but not destined for the priesthood).
3 Contratación, 5546.
4 Holzapfel, H. O.F.M., Handbuch der Geschichte des Franziskanerordens (Freiburg, 1909), 418 Google Scholar. Also Geiger, Maynard O.F.M., The Franciscan Conquest of Florida (1513–1618) (Wash., D. C, 1937), 21.Google Scholar
5 Palóu, , Vida (Mexico, 1787), 6–13.Google Scholar
6 Palóu, , Vida, 13 Google Scholar. Also Contratación, 5546.
7 Junípero Serra in a letter from Cádiz, Aug. 20, 1749, to his cousin, Fray Francisco Serra, O.F.M., states that the ship on which he and his companions were to sail “within three or four days” was called the Villasota. This does not contradict the statement of Contratación, 5546, that the ship was N. S. de Guadalupe. The ship may have been substituted before sailing or, probably, the ship had both names, a common practice having been to give the ship a religious as well as a secular name.
8 Serra gives many details of the voyage in another letter to Francisco Serra, from Vera Cruz, Dec. 14, 1749. Palóu, also recounts some in his Vida, 13–16 Google Scholar.
9 These details have been gathered from the “Libro de Decretos de el Colegio de el Sr. Sn. Fernando de Mexico” in the Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico, and from abundant biographical data in the Santa Barbara Mission Archives.
