The History of Father Junipero Serra Martyrdom at San Diego

May 18, 2015

This is part of a series on Junipero Serra. To read the full series, click here.

THE Franciscans were especially lavish in bestowing their blood and virtue on the Church in California. Prominently etched onto the Golden State's martyrology are the names of six outstanding friars whose testimony for Christ is forever a monument to Christian endurance and bravery. 

Fray Luis Jayme (1740-1775), a native of the tranquil farming village of San Juan de Mallorca, was immensely pleased when the Presidente of the California Missions appointed him to what would be his first and last assignment, San Diego de Alcala. A clever and talented friar, Jayme's earliest efforts at San Diego were devoted to mastering the complexities of the local native language. Once he had gained a facility with its vocabulary, he was able to compile a Christian catechism. 

The extreme scarcity of water, combined with the proximity of the military personnel, induced Fray Luis to ask for and receive permission to move the mission from its original site, atop Presidio Hill, to the valley where it is presently situated. 

The new location proved eminently more practical. Almost immediately there was a notable upsurge in the number of conversions which by 1775, numbered 431. Such success obviously infuriated the devil who seems to have held the natives at San Diego in bondage during aboriginal times. In any event, a plan was hatched by a handful of pagan sorcerers and others to rid the area of all traces of Hispanic influence. 

At about 1:30, on the brilliantly lit night of November 4, 1775, 600 or more warriors from some forty rancherias silently crept into the mission compound. After quietly plundering the chapel, they set fire to the other buildings. The crackling of flames soon awakened the two missionaries, the guards and the Christian neophytes. 

Instead of running for shelter, Fray Luis Jayme resolutely walked toward the howling band of natives, uttering the traditional Franciscan greeting: "Amar a Dios, hijo". In a frenzied orgy of cruelty, the Indians seized him, stripped off his garments, shot eighteen arrows into his body and then pulverized his face with clubs and stones. 

The attack on the mission was only terminated when a well-aimed shot from a musket unnerved the Indians and caused them to flee in panic. Early next morning, the body of the thirty-five year old missionary was recovered in the dry bed of a nearby creek. His face was so disfigured that he could only be recognized by the whiteness of his flesh under a thick crust of congealed blood. 

The friar's mangled body was initially buried in the presidio chapel. When the new church at the mission was completed, it was re-interred in the sanctuary. There it rested until November 12, 1813, when it was transferred to the third and final church. 

Reaction of Fray Junípero Serra to the news of his confrere's death speaks volumes about the attitude of the early friars. Far from being saddened or disappointed the Presidente said: "Thanks be to God; now that the terrain has been watered by blood, the conversion of the San Diego Indians will take place." It was a paraphrase of Tertullian's sanguis, semen Christianorum which freely translated says that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church." 

Immediately Serra wrote to Bucareli, reminding the Viceroy that he had earlier asked "that in case the Indians, whether pagans or Christians would kill me, they should be pardoned." He wanted that request renewed. In addition he wanted "to see a formal decree from Your Excellency for me and the other religious, present and future, and it will give me special consolation to have it in my hands during the years that God may deign to add to my life." 

Thus would be avoided the mistakes of San Saba (in the Texas missions) where reprisals against the Indians had totally stalled the missionary work among them. Serra sadly recalled that "there in San Saba the soldiers are still in their presidios and the Indians in their paganism."

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