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Narcisco Durán and the Secularization of the California Missions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Michael C. Neri
Michael C. Neri*
Affiliation:
St. Patrick’s Seminary, Menlo Park, California
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Extract

The secularization of the Franciscan missions is one of the most controversial problems which historians of Mexican California are called upon to interpret. This essay is an addition to the story of the secularization process in California in the hope that it will render it more complete by illuminating the mind of one of its chief protagonists, Fray Narciso Durán, the Spanish Franciscan friar who held the offices of president and commissary-prefect of the missions during the secularization controversies.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , January 1977 , pp. 411 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1977

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References

1 The major sources for the background history of secularization are: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, History of California, vols. III-IV, (San Francisco, 1885–1886)Google Scholar. Rev.Engelhardt, Zephryin O.F.M., The Missions and Missionaries of California, 4 vols., (San Francisco, 1913)Google Scholar. Rev.Geary, Gerald J., The Secularization of the California Missions (1810-1846), (Washington, D. C., 1934)Google Scholar. Geary gives attention to the background of the secularization process in California as it evolved in Spanish legislation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Hansen, Woodrow James, The Search for Authority in California 1820–1849, (Oakland, 1960)Google Scholar. Hansen gives a fine treatment of this period from the perspective of an emerging sense of identity among the native Californian leaders and their attempts to find ways of applying their newly-discovered liberal ideology to the political situation in California. Hittell, Theodore H., History of California, vol. II, (San Francisco, 1898)Google Scholar. Langston, Kathryn Lee, The Secularization of the California Missions, 1813–1846, (Berkeley, 1925)Google Scholar. As an appendix to this M.A. thesis, on pages 168 to 280, Langston provides a useful collection of documents relating to the political aspects of secularization in California, translated into English, and presented in chronological order. Servín, Manuel P., “The Secularization of the California Missions: A Reappraisal,” Southern California Quarterly, XLVII, (June, 1965), pp. 133–151 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article points out some shortcomings in the Franciscan approach to the California mission system which resulted in added difficulties once secularization was initiated. It provides much-needed perspective on the church-state conflict in Mexican California by putting it in the context of early Franciscan resistance to colonization.

2 Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, pp. 522–23.

3 Echeandía, Decreto de Emancipación a favor de Neófitos, 1826, Manuscript (Hereafter cited as MS), cited in Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 102.

4 Hansen, op. cit., p. 10.

5 Hittell, op. cit., p. 106.

6 Durán to Echeandía, November 13, 1827, MS, no. 179, in Narciso Durán, “The Writings …,” (Hereafter cited as TW), Bancroft Library (Hereafter cited as BL).

7 Durán to Martínez, November 8, 1828, MS, Archivo del Archobispado de San Francisco (Hereafter cited as AASF), BL.

8 Durán to Martínez, November 9, 1828, MS, no. 39, TW, BL.

9 Cf. nos. 3–11, TW, BL, for examples of these reports from 1827 to 1830.

10 Durán to Herrera, June 10, 1826, MS, no. 34, TW, BL.

11 Ibid., Translation mine.

12 Durán to Herrera, September 10, 1826, MS, AASF, BL.

13 Durán to Herrera, October 13, 1826, MS, AASF, BL.

14 Durán to Herrera, February 24, 1827, MS, no. 180, TW, BL, Durán to Echeandia, May 1, 1827, MS, AASF, BL.

15 Echeandia, Plan para convertir en Pueblos las Missiones, 1829–30, translated in Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 302; cf. Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 103; Geary, op. cit., p. 109; Hansen, op. cit., p. 10.

16 Hansen, op. cit., p. 12.

17 Durán to Bustamante, May 10, 1830, MS, no. 150, TW, BL.

18 Durán to Bustamante, September 23, 1830, MS, cited in Engelhardt, op. cit., III, p. 337–44.

19 Op. cit., p. 341.

20 This attempt to encourage colonization marks Durán as an exception to Servín’s thesis regarding the Franciscan repugnance to the influx of white settlers into California.

21 Echeandía, Decreto de Secularización de Missiones, 6 de Enero, 1831, MS, translated in Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 305; cf. Engelhardt, op. cit., III, p. 379; Hittell, op. cit., pp. 123–24; Geary, op. cit., p. 113.

22 Secularización, Decreto de las Cortes de 13 de Septiembre de 1813, MS, translated in Engelhardt, op. cit., III, p. 95–7; cf. Geary, op. cit., pp. 70–4; Hansen, op. cit., p. 3; Langston, op. cit., pp. 169–72.

23 Bancroft, op. cit., p. 305.

24 Durán, Notas y Comentarios al Bando de Echeandía sobre las Missiones, 1831, MS, no. 106, TW, BL; A full translation of this document may be found in Engelhardt, op. cit., HI, pp. 379 ff.

25 Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 309.

26 Cf. note 18 above.

27 “gente Ilamada de razón.” This term appears in note 27 of the commentary of 1830 and is scattered throughout Durán’s letters. It is a rather cynical variation on the term “gente de razon” which was the customary appellation of the white population, used to distinguish them from the Indians.

28 Echeandia, Reglamento de Secularización, 18 de Nov. 1832, MS, translated in Bancroft, op. cit., III, pp. 314–15; cf. Geary, op. cit., p. 127; Engelhardt, op. cit., III, p. 422.

29 Durán, Notas a una circula ó Bando intimado por El Sr. D. José Maria Echeandía a los quatro Missiones, 1832, MS, no. 78, TW, BL; translated in Engelhardt, op. cit., III, pp. 422 ff.

30 Figueroa, Prevenciones provisionales para la emancipación de Indios reducidos, 15 de Julio, 1833, MS, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., III, pp. 328 ff.; cf. Engelhardt, op. cit., III, p. 480; Geary, op. cit., p. 137; Hansen, op. cit., p. 17. Decreto del Congreso Mejicano secularizando las Missiones, 17 de Agosto de 1833, MS, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 336; cf. Engelhardt, op. cit., III, pp. 518–20; Geary, op. cit., p. 146; Hansen, loc. cit., Hittell, op. cit., p. 181; Langston, op. cit., p. 119. Figueroa, Reglamento Provisional para la secularización de las Missiones de la Alta California, 9 de Agosto, 1834, MS, quoted in Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 342; cf. Engelhardt, op. cit., III, pp. 523–30; Geary, op. cit., pp. 149–51; Hansen, loc. cit., Hittell, op. cit., pp. 182–88; Langston, loc. cit. Reglamento de Missiones secularizadas por la Diputatión in 3 de Nov. 1834, MS, translated in Engelhardt, op. cit., III, pp. 530–32; cf. Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 347. At the center of this political activity was the effort of the native California leaders to continue the process of secularization, but also to insure that the benefits which would result would accrue to them, and not to the would-be colonists who had been sent by Valentín Gómez Farías, the new liberal Mexican president, under the leadership of Hijar and Padrés, cf. C. Alan Hutchinson, Frontier Settlement in Mexican California, (New Haven, 1969), for a thorough treatment of these events.

31 Durán to Figueroa, February 5, 1833, MS, no. 187, TW, BL.

32 Durán to Figueroa, June 7, July 9, 1833, MSS, nos. 40, 43, TW, BL.

33 Durán to Figueroa, Crítica sobre las prevenciones de Emancipación, July 16, 1833, MS, no.42, TW, BL.

34 Durán to Figueroa, Proyectos de Secularización de Missiones, October 3, 1833, MS, no. 139, TW, BL; translation in Engelhardt, op. cit., III, pp. 485 ff.

35 Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 335, in a note, refers to a letter of Durán’s, dated October 10, 1835, in which Durán asks explicitly that the friars be relieved of the mission temporalities.

36 Durán to Figueroa, July 22, 1834, MS, no. 45, TW, BL.

37 Ibid., Translation mine.

38 Cf. note 30 above.

39 Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 347.

40 Cf. note 30 above.

41 Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 44.

42 Hansen, op. cit., p. 24. Hansen interprets this order as an attempt to arrest the conveyance of the mission lands and wealth solely into the hands of the native Californians for fear they would gain too much of a sense of independence from the central government.

43 Durán to Chico, July 9, 183S, MSS, nos. 46, 47, TW, BL; Durán to Chico, July 15, 1835, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., III, p. 434. These letters betray personal as well as professional tension between Durán and Chico. In the two letters dated July 9, 1935 the friar complains of the administration of curate’s fees and of his own salary. In the letter of July 15, 1935, Durán expresses his disappointment with the governor’s pride and lack of diplomacy in the latter’s handling of a supposed breach of protocol during his visit to Mission Santa Ynez.

44 Durán to Chico, June 15, 1836, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 46; translation in Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, pp. 21–9.

45 Durán to Junta Departmental, August 13, 1837 MS, no. 48, TW, BL; cf. Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, p. 15.

46 Hansen, op. cit., p. 32.

47 Durán to Alvarado, n.d., 1838, MS, no. 49, TW, BL.

48 Alvarado, Reglamento para los Administradores de Missiones, 17 de Enero, 1839, MS, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 55; cf. Hansen, op. cit., p. 30; Hittell, op. cit., p. 297.

49 Durán to Alvarado, May 13, 1839, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 57;; cf. Engelhardt. op. cit., IV, p. 147.

50 Durán to Alvarado, December 3, 1839, MS, no. 59, TW, BL.

51 Durán to Hartnell, January 7, 1840, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 60.

52 Durán to Hartnell, February 15, 1840, cited in Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, p. 163. Durán had sworn allegiance to the Mexican nation after the Centralist Constitution was passed in 1835, and after Spain had recognized Mexican independence.

53 Alvarado, Reglamento de Ex-Missiones, l de Marzo, 1840, MS, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 59; cf. Hittell, op. cit., p. 300.

54 Durán to Alvarado, April 6, 1840, cited in Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, p. 176.

55 Durán to Alvarado, April 20, 1840, MS, no. 118, TW, BL; cf. Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, p. 176.

56 Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 330; cf. Geary, op. cit., p. 176.

57 Hansen, op. cit., pp. 36–7.

58 Micheltorena, Decreto por el cual devuelve la administración de las Missiones a los frailes, 29 de Marzo, 1843, MS, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 369; cf. Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, pp. 272–77; Geary, op. cit., pp. 182–3; Hittell, op. cit., p. 322.

59 Durán, Circular, April 18, 1843, MS, no. 108, TW, BL; This document includes the Reglamento para la Mejor Observancia de los cinco articulos which is translated in Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, pp. 277 ff.; cf. Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 371.

60 Translated in Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, p. 286 ff.; cf. Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 424; Hittell, op. cit., p. 339.

61 Durán to Micheltorena, Protesta, October 21, 1844, cited in Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, p. 288–93.

62 Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 549; Engelhardt, op. cit., IV, p. 373; Hansen, op. cit., p. 49; Hittell, op. cit., p. 380.

63 Pico, Reglamento para la enagención y arriendo de las Ex-Missiones, 28 de Oct., 1845, MS, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 552; cf. Engelhardt, op. cit., IV., p. 445–50; Geary, op. cit., p. 188; Hansen, op. cit., p. 50; Hittell, op. cit., pp. 379–83.

64 Hansen, op. cit., p. 49; Hittell, op. cit., p. 381.

65 For a larger sampling of Durán’s extant correspondence in these years cf. nos. 61–75, 80 88, TW, BL, and the years 1845 and 1846 in AASF, BL.

66 Durán to Pico, March 26, 1845, MS, no. 61, TW, BL; Durán to Pico, April 23, 1845, MS no. 219, TW, BL; cf. Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 548.

67 Durán to Pico, May 16, 1845, MS, no. 80, TW, BL; cf. Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 549.

68 “amada California,” in Durán to Pico, June 18, 1845, MS, AASF, BL.

69 Durán to Pico, July 3, 1845, MS, AASF, BL.

70 Durán to Pico, August 1, 1845, MS, no. 85, TW, BL.

71 Durán to Pico, September 15, 1845, cited in Bancroft, op. cit., IV, p. 551.

72 Durán to Pico, October 7, 1845, MS, no. 66. TW, BL.

73 Durán to Pico, January 24, 1846, MS, no. 73, TW, BL.

74 Durán to Pico, February 11, 1846, MS, no. 75, TW, BL.

75 Servín, loc. cit.

76 Hansen, loc. cit.