Between 1769 and 1853, one hundred and twenty-eight Fernandinos or Franciscan missionaries from the College of San Fernando in Mexico City founded in Upper California twenty-one missions, christianized close to 100,000 Indians, developed the agriculture, the arts and crafts of its earliest civilization, thus effecting the spiritual and in part the temporal conquest of the land. These Fernandinos, with very few exceptions, were natives of Spain. They represented a cross section of practically all the Spanish provinces from Galicia to Catalonia and from Cantabria to Andalucia. Not to be forgotten are the Balearic Islands. Sixteen of California’s missionaries came from Mallorca and thus formed eight percent of the total missionary personnel. Some of these sixteen were among California’s greatest.

Before touching on the spiritual and scientific contribution of the Mallorcan group, it will be well to insist on the fact that the very establishment of apostolic colleges in America antedating the California conquest, thus making possible the future Mallorcan contribution, was due to a Mallorcan, himself an outstanding missionary organizer both in Spain and the Indies, Fray Antonio de Jesús Llinás.

The Franciscan Order was the first large agency to concern itself with the Christianization and civilization of North America. Its personnel sought to change the culture patterns, the institutions, and the ideology of the native aboriginal social order not merely by erecting chapels and churches but also by an educational policy that was vitally interested in improving the quality of individual living and implementing the ideals of a Christian democratic society.

Lacking in the standard histories of the California missions as well as in several excellent biographical sketches, are long-sought, important vital statistics with regard to two among California’s greatest missionaries, Fray Francisco Palóu, O.F.M., and Fray Fermín Francisco Lasuén, O.F.M., respectively California’s first historian and the California missions’ second regularly appointed presidente. Why the chronological niche of the two missionaries in the facade of California history has stood unfinished is due to peculiar circumstances of recording and the hideout that certain necessary documents have maintained. Other missionaries, less prominent, are often much better outlined in Franciscan chronology.

With regard to Palóu, our interest centers on the exact day and year of his death. Even that of his birth was made known only in 1924 through the combined efforts of the Rev. LeRoy Callahan of the diocesan clergy of Los Angeles, and the Rev. Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., of Mission Santa Barbara. Father Callahan was in Mallorca doing research work on the early life of Junípero Serra while Father Engelhardt was composing his San Francisco Mission.

The Mexican nation has been incessantly plagued with revolutionary plans since the “grito of demoralization” by Guerrero in 1829. The word “plagued” is used advisedly, for very few of the revolutionary plans were more than expressions of personalismo, the bane of Latin-American politics. The immense majority of these so-called “programs” have had very little in the way of social and economic reforms embodied in them, either by word or implication; for the most part they have been political rather than socio-economic in character.

Early in the twentieth century, however, a small group developed one of the few socio-economic programs to be found in Mexican history. On July 1, 1906, while the Diaz government was still firmly entrenched, Ricardo Flores Magón and his little group of followers, almost unnoticed by the majority of the Mexicans, published a program of reform which at the time was one of the most sweeping ever outlined in Mexico. Announced as the philosophy of the Mexican Liberal Party, in it were all the elements of a vast socio-economic plan for the Mexican nation, with only a small part of the program dealing with political change. The Liberals well realized that curing only the political sore would not heal the sick nation.

The liberals at the Mexican constitutional convention of 1856–1857 were fairly representative of any group trying to establish the authority of the state over the clerical groups. Moreover their political thought shows the stress on material affairs rather than that of the spiritual realm. The quarrel between state and church in Mexico of course was not new. It had its antecedents in the colonial period when the Spanish crown had been able, in general, to control the affairs of the church. Once Mexico obtained her independence, however, the question of state-church relationship arose. The early fight culminated in 1833–1834 when Gómez Farías put through his Reform Laws which deprived the church of control of education, secularized missions, abolished some of the special privileges of the clerical groups and relieved the state of responsibility for enforcing religious vows. These measures of course were never carried out because in 1834 Gómez Farías was ousted from office by Santa Anna.

The Story of the Franciscan friars who sailed with the Mendaña (1567) and Quirós (1605) expeditions from Callao, Port of Lima in Peru, in search of the Unknown Southland, finds a place in the vast missionary enterprise of the Spanish Friars of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: as maritime expeditions they form important links in the chain of discoveries that eventually led to the finding of Australia; as religious enterprises they are part of the world-wide missionary apostolate of the Franciscan Order of that period.

The period 1939–1945 saw an unprecedented expansion of Latin American studies in the United States. This was partly due to the wartime activities of such government agencies as the Department of State and the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, and to the rising interest in the area approach to academic studies. This development would not have been possible, however, without the continuous concern of the foundations, which had helped to organize scholars in the field on a national basis, had stimulated research in relatively neglected fields, and had provided funds for the compilation and publication of certain basic bibliographical tools. Nor would this expansion have been more than a wartime boom had not the scholars and universities of the country been attracted to Hispanic studies since George Ticknor and William H. Prescott first disclosed their importance over a century ago, and to the Latin American field more particularly since 1900. The expansion was based upon solid elements.

The Conquest of Mexico was under way when Magellan’s fleet left San Lucar, September 1519, in quest of a western route to the coveted Spice Islands. On May 22, 1607, the two smaller ships of Quirós’ armada put in at Cavite in the Philippines, bringing to a close the last of the great Spanish exploration voyages in the Pacific. By that time the English and the Dutch had entered the ocean. The Sea of the South of which Balboa had taken possession in the name of his sovereigns was not to be an exclusive preserve of Spain any more. Spain was on the defensive in the New World. The great era of Spanish discovery in the Pacific Ocean was not to outlast the climax of Spanish power in the Americas. Quirós never lost his faith in the mission of Spain in the Pacific, but his entreaties, and those of the friars who were ready to accompany him for the spiritual conquest of the Pacific insular world, met with deaf ears. The Spanish authorities were under the impression that Spain had already seized more than she could grasp. In the Pacific the Spaniards were now satisfied with keeping up the Manila Galleon trade, the life line of the Philippines. The task of exploration was taken up by Spain’s competitors the Dutch, the English and the French.

Fray Francisco Palóu, O.F.M. immortalized himself and his hero when he wrote and published his Relación Histórica de la Vida y Apostólicas Tareas del Venerable Padre Fray Junípero Serra. The intimacy between author and hero through the years 1740 and 1784, began in the latter’s classroom at Palma, Mallorca, and ended at his deathbed in Carmel, California. The friendly association of Serra and Palóu continued undiminished in the pursuit of scholarship, the Franciscan way of life, travel and pioneering, the founding and administration of missions, in correspondence and mútual counsel. The younger man survived. Being author as well as missionary, he followed the impulse to write and to record for posterity the classic story of the founding of a famous mission field and to delineate the heroic deeds of its dominating personality. The Vida was the flowering of a fine, fraternal friendship.

“The most noble and most faithful city of St. Francis of Quito”, capital of the republic of Ecuador and formerly capital of the Audiencia of the same name, was founded upon the ruins of the capital of Atahualpa by the Spanish conqueror, D. Sebastián de Belalcázar y Medrano, on December 6, 1534. On January 25, 1535, the noble Flemish Franciscan, Fray Jodoco Ricke de Marselaer, assisted by two other Franciscans, placed the first stone of the building which was to become the first Franciscan monastery in South America. As was the custom, the patron of the new building was the saint of the day. In this case, the feast of the day was the Conversion of St. Paul and by this name was the new friary known.

Beyond All Question, the most valuable export of colonial Mexico was silver. However, the exaggerated emphasis usually accorded to this fact has tended to obscure the importance of other products in the Mexican colonial economy. Prior to the development of synthetic dyestuffs, the native dyes of New Spain ranked among her more valuable products. Such important tinting agents as Campeche wood (logwood), indigo, and cochineal were discovered in Mexico shortly after the conquest, and they were soon exported to the mother coutry in considerable volume. From Spain these raw dyestuffs were reexported to all of Europe, where, although the impact of American dyestuffs on the European economy has never been fully evaluated, these New World products served to bring about a revolution in the cloth industry of the continent.

With the publication of the complete works of Gregório de Matos, seventeenth century Brazilian satirical poet, or almost complete works (his poems which were too obscene for publication remain in manuscript), by the Brazilian Academy of Letters, it is now possible to evaluate his production to see if the critics who call him the founder of Brazilian literature, the precursor of literary emancipation and mental independence, and the first to give the cry of Brazilian independence, were overestimating the contribution of this “Mouth of Hell” as he was dubbed by his contemporaries.

An Excellent example of the deceptiveness of designations which, like “Latin America,” group under a single name diverse and even mutually hostile regions as though they constituted a unit, is the title of this article. An evidence of the false impression created by the phrase “Central America” is the question not infrequently asked: “Why do not the Central American republics form a federation?” They are close to one another and are so much alike that they ought naturally to combine into a union, as the thirteen British colonies of North America combined.” To ask that question is to betray that one has been misled by name. Though the republics of Central America are close to one another on the map they are not “much alike.” Quite to the reverse. They differ in climate, in soil, in racial composition, in tradition. They are so far from being much alike that every time they have formed a union (and they have tried more than once) the effort has ultimately failed and has usually been followed by wars among themselves which though on a scale comparatively small have been marked by extreme bitterness and ferocity. And though the dream of federation continues to float before the imaginations of some Central Americans there is no indication that the immediate future will behold it transmuted into a reality.

Silence must never be allowed to mean consent when truth and justice are at stake. In that case it becomes one’s sacred duty to speak out not only in self-defense but also to prevent the dissemination and perpetuation of error and to remedy as far as possible abuse of confidence and victory over ignorance where the victims are blameless and practically helpless.

Highlighting the Wars of Independence in Latin America are the personalities and exploits of the great patriot leaders who took up arms in the cause of freedom. Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín are known throughout the world, for they were outstanding liberators whose efforts were crowned with success. But there were other leaders in the Spanish colonies who are almost equally deserving of fame for their contributions to the revolution, and among such men was José Gervasio Artigas, leader of the rebels in the Banda Oriental. His biography is a story of adherence to ideals and tenacity of purpose in the face of dismaying opposition. Chroniclers of his life, however, are not in agreement as to his possible faults and virtues. As one observer has aptly said, “Perhaps never did the memory of a man meet with more honor in his own country and with less favor without it.”

Although, at the beginning of the year 1911, there was practically no aviation activity in Mexico, the development was so fast that by 1913 the airplane had demonstrated its usefulness in war and had even been used to bomb naval vessels. To those who would see, the events taking place in and over Mexico clearly foreshadowed the future importance of this weapon. While flying was not new in 1911, for many generations had worked on the problem, still it was only a couple of years before that Bleriot’s flight across the English Channel had convinced the world that flying was indeed a reality.

The study of agriculture, as it was practiced by the early California Padres, should begin in the rough, mountainous region of the Sierra Gorda of Mexico. There, in 1744, Franciscan missionaries began the work of evangelizing the Indians of the central belt of that region. Fathers of the Dominican Order had already established missions along one side of this range, while others of the Augustinian Order were laboring among the Indians of the other side, leaving the middle strip untouched.

The Reverend Father Fr. Pedro Pérez de Mezquía, Superior of the recently founded College of San Fernando in the City of Mexico, had accompanied the Franciscan Padres to aid them in the founding of five missions. From his experience in the missions in Texas whither he had gone with Fr. Margil, Fr. Mezquía had formulated a set of rules and regulations for both the spiritual direction and the temporal government of the Indians of the region. Unfortunately the climate of the Sierra Gorda did not agree with most of those first Padres. Some became ill and were obliged to retire to the College, others died, making frequent changes of missionaries necessary. Few stayed long enough to acquire a knowledge of the language of the Pame people, consequently little progress was made in the conversion of those Indians.

Although the natives made a crude kind of coarse woolens prior to the time of the Conquest, the manufacturing of woolen goods did not begin in New Spain until the early fifteen forties. At that time the first viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, laid the base of this industry in the new colony. Mendoza considered such an enterprise essential to lasting prosperity. He imported the merino, or fine wool, breed of sheep from Castile, and did everything possible to foster their growth. The viceroy had wide powers over local administration, and all matters pertaining to wool manufacturing were under his jurisdiction. Legislation regarding wool mills emanated from the crown; it was reissued by the viceroy; and its immediate execution was a cabildo function.

Licenses to establish textile mills could be granted only by the King through the mediation of the viceroy and audiencia. “None shall be founded in any way, nor for any cause, nor in any place, without my express license, or that of the viceroys …”