Hill and Wang
September 2013
On Sale: September 3, 2013
352 pages ISBN: 0809095319 EAN: 9780809095315 Kindle: B00C74TDGY Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
A portrait of the priest and colonialist who is one of
the most important figures in California’s
history
In the 1770s, just as Britain’s American
subjects were freeing themselves from the burdens of
colonial rule, Spaniards moved up the California coast to
build frontier outposts of empire and church. At the head of
this effort was Junípero Serra, an ambitious Franciscan who
hoped to convert California Indians to Catholicism and turn
them into European-style farmers. For his efforts, he has
been beatified by the Catholic Church and widely celebrated
as the man who laid the foundation for modern California.
But his legacy is divisive. The missions Serra founded would
devastate California’s Native American population, and much
more than his counterparts in colonial America, he remains a
contentious and contested figure to this day.
Steven
W. Hackel’s groundbreaking biography, Junípero Serra:
California’s Founding Father, is the first to remove
Serra from the realm of polemic and place him within the
currents of history. Born into a poor family on the Spanish
island of Mallorca, Serra joined the Franciscan order and
rose to prominence as a priest and professor through his
feats of devotion and powers of intellect. But he could
imagine no greater service to God than converting Indians,
and in 1749 he set off for the new world. In Mexico, Serra
first worked as a missionary to Indians and as an
uncompromising agent of the Inquisition. He then became an
itinerant preacher, gaining a reputation as a mesmerizing
orator who could inspire, enthrall, and terrify his
audiences at will. With a potent blend of Franciscan piety
and worldly cunning, he outmaneuvered Spanish royal
officials, rival religious orders, and avaricious settlers
to establish himself as a peerless frontier administrator.
In the culminating years of his life, he extended Spanish
dominion north, founding and promoting missions in
present-day San Diego, Los Angeles, Monterey, and San
Francisco. But even Serra could not overcome the forces
massing against him. California’s military leaders rarely
shared his zeal, Indians often opposed his efforts, and
ultimately the missions proved to be cauldrons of disease
and discontent. Serra, in his hope to save souls,
unwittingly helped bring about the massive decline of
California’s indigenous population.
On the
three-hundredth anniversary of Junípero Serra’s birth,
Hackel’s complex, authoritative biography tells the full
story of a man whose life and legacies continue to be both
celebrated and denounced. Based on exhaustive research and a
vivid narrative, this is an essential portrait of America’s
least understood founder.
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