The History of Father Junipero Serra Voice for American Independence

Jun 18, 2015

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

THE effect on far-away California of the move for American Independence has yet to be adequately documented, for communications were practically nonexistent. As a province, the destinies of California were totally interlinked with those of its Spanish mother country. 

By virtue of the so-called Family Compact between the Bourbon crowns, Spain joined France, on June 23, 1779, in the war against England on behalf of the American colonies. It was a calculated risk. Victory would mean autonomy for England's New World possessions, thus resulting in the appearance of a dangerous neighbor, in America, and the eventual loss, perhaps, of Spain's colonial empire. 

Fray Junípero Serra learned about the hostilities while visiting San Francisco. He was asked to offer public prayers for the favorable outcome of the Spanish maneuvers and to collect one peso from every Indian in support of the war effort. 

In deference to the wishes of Madrid officials, Serra informed his fellow missionaries, on June 15, 1780, that "because we are in a special manner indebted here to the piety of our Catholic Monarch, who provides for us as his minister chaplains, and poor Franciscans . . . and because we are interested in the success and victory of his Catholic armed forces . . . I most earnestly ask in the Lord that as soon as you receive this letter you be most attentive in begging God to grant success to this public cause which is so favorable to our holy Catholic and Roman Church and is most pleasing in the sight of the same God Our Lord." 

Noting that "our Catholic Sovereign is at war with perfidious heretics," [i.e., the English], Father Serra felt that "we should all be united in this purpose and display how we are one in spirit, an especial reason for offering to God Our Lord our most pleasing if poor prayers." The missionaries were directed to recite, at the principal Mass on Sundays, the litany of the Blessed Mother or the saints along with the psalm, verses and prayers prescribed by the Rituale Romanum for "time of war." 

At the conclusion of the services, all were instructed to say the Credo three times "to help to soften the pride of our enemies who surround us on all sides and who, from time to time, threaten us." 

To what extent the struggle for American independence actually affected the California scene is unknown. The Pacific area was not attacked for England had enough to do on the Atlantic coast with her rebellious colonies. 

One of the few references to the cause was recorded by Benjamin Cummings Truman in 1867, while on a visit to Mission San Juan Capistrano. There Father Joseph Mut reportedly showed him "an old record kept by Padre Gorgonio [Gregorio Amurrio]" which bore the words: 

We prayed fervently last evening for the success of the colonists under one George Washington, because we believe their cause is just and that the Great Redeemer is on their side. 

That comment dated May 7, 1778, is now a valuable piece of "fugitive" California.