American Minute with Bill Federer
Christian California?
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In 1535,
Hernán Cortés
explored the Baja California Peninsula, sailing the Sea of Cortés and founding the city of La Paz.
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In 1539,
Francisco de Ulloa
sailed around the Cedros Islands off the coast of Baja California.
He was the first to call it
"California,"
a name taken from a heroic romance novel,
Amadis de Gallia,
published by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo around 1510.
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In 1542,
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo
is believed to be the first European to actually explore the California coast.
Landing at San Diego Bay, then sailing around the channel islands, he claimed "the Island of California" for Spain.
He came ashore at San Pedro bay, which became the port of Los Angeles.
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In 1579,
Sir Francis Drake,
sailing for England's Virgin Queen Elizabeth I, explored up the coast of California on his voyage to circumnavigate the globe. He anchored north of San Francisco at Drake's Bay.
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In 1595, Spanish explorer
Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeno,
on his galleon San Agustin, sailed from the Philippines, named for King Philip II of Spain, to map the coasts of Oregon and California, down to Acapulco, Mexico.
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In 1769, the first Spanish missions were founded in California by Franciscan missionary
Junipero Serra,
whose statue is in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall.
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California cities were originally founded as
Spanish Christian missions:
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1769
San Diego de Alcalá
(grew into San Diego, CA, cultivated the first olives in California)
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1770
San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo
(grew into Carmel, CA)
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1771
San Antonio de Padua
(grew into Monterey County, CA)
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1771
San Gabriel
(grew into San Gabriel, CA, began California's citrus industry)
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1772
San Luis Obispo de Tolosa
(grew into San Luis Obispo, CA)
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1776
San Francisco de Asís
(oldest surviving structure in San Francisco, CA)
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1776
San Juan Capistrano
(grew into San Juan Capistrano, CA, produced California's first wine)
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1777
Santa Clara de Asís
(grew into Santa Clara, CA)
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1782
San Buenaventura
(grew into Ventura, CA)
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1786
Santa Barbara
(grew into Santa Barbara, CA)
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1787
La Purísima Concepción
(grew into Lompoc, CA)
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1791
Santa Cruz
(meaning Holy Cross, grew into Santa Cruz, CA)
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1791
Nuestra Señora de la Soledad
(grew into Soledad, CA)
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1797
San José
(grew into Fremont, CA)
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1797
San Juan Bautista
(grew into San Juan Bautista, CA, restored with help from the Hearst Foundation)
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1797
San Miguel Arcángel
(grew into San Miguel, CA)
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1797
San Fernando Rey de España
(grew into Mission Hills district of Los Angeles)
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1798
San Luis Rey de Francia
(grew into Oceanside, CA, first California Pepper Tree planted)
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1804
Santa Inés
(Danish town of Solvang built around mission)
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1808
Sacramento Valley and River
were christened after the "Most Holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ," the Catholic communion - Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
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1817
San Rafael Arcángel
(grew into San Francisco Bay area, had the first hospital in California)
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1823
San Francisco Solano
(grew into Sonoma, CA)
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Prior to the
Spanish Christian Missions,
the Indian culture regarded manual labor as the role of women, as it was considered degrading for men.
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Spanish Christian Missionaries
taught men to work in industry and introduced into California irrigation and oranges, grapes, apples, peaches, pears, and figs.
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Spanish Christian Missions
introduced the Indians to the wheeled cart, which had been in existence in Mesopotamia since the 4th millennium BC, and the wheelbarrow, which was invented in China in the 2nd century BC.
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Technologically, native inhabitants had an existence somewhere between the stone age and the bronze age.
Spanish Missionaries
introduced cattle, oxen, sheep, horses, mules, burros, goats and swine.
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Missionaries
built foundries, introducing Indians to the Iron Age with blacksmith furnaces smelting and fashioning iron into nails, crosses, gates, hinges, and cannons.
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Spain lost California to Mexico in 1821, but instead of giving people rights and freedoms, Mexico set up a monarchy with
Augustin Iturbide as Emperor.
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Iturbide
was executed, and Mexico adopted a
Federal Constitution
in 1824.
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In 1833,
General Santa Anna
became President and, together with his Vice-President Gomez Farias,
instituted anti-clerical Mexican Secularization Acts.
He took
all Christian Mission property away
from the Catholic Church and sold it to political insiders who supported his government.
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In 1834,
General Santa Anna
suspended Mexico's Constitution and declared himself dictator, stating to U.S. minister to Mexico, Joel R. Poinsett:
"A hundred years to come my people will not be fit for liberty ... a despotism is the proper government for them."
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When several Mexican States opposed
Santa Anna,
he sent his army and crushed the resistance.
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Santa Anna's
ruthless actions precipitated the Texas War of Independence, 1836, and the Mexican-American War, 1846.
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After the wars,
California was purchased by the United States
with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.
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In 1849, workers in California building a sawmill for
John Sutter
on the south fork of the American River,
discovered gold.
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Soon prospectors, called
"Forty-Niners,"
arrived.
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California
became the
31st State
on September 9, 1850.
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California's Constitution
, which prohibited slavery, stated:
"We, the People of the State of California,
grateful to Almighty God
for our freedom ... do establish this Constitution."
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Regarding
California's Catholic Missions,
the U.S. Board of Land Commissioners wrote, as recorded in W.W. Robinson's book, Land in California (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1948, p. 28):
"The Missions were intended ... to be temporary ... It was supposed that within that period of time the Indians would be sufficiently instructed in Christianity and the arts of civilized life."
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On May 23, 1862,
President Lincoln restored all 21 California Missions
taken by anti-clerical Mexican Secularization Acts back to the Catholic Church:
"I grant unto the ... Bishop of Monterrey ... in trust for the religious purposes ... the tracts of land described in the foregoing survey."
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Many citizens are concerned that California may be demonstrating what Massachusetts colonial leader Cotton Mather wrote in
Magnalia Christi Americana,
1702:
"Religion begat prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother."
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Spanish Missions
were an integral part of California's history.
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In 2004, the
ACLU,
similar to
Santa Anna's Secularization Acts,
pressured Los Angeles County to
remove a tiny cross from its county seal.
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In 2014, the County
restored
the cross.
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The
ACLU,
with an Orwellian fixation
to expunge official public acknowledgement of the state's Christian founding,
brought a lawsuit, and in 2016, U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder ruled to
remove the cross.
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American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
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Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
wjfederer@gmail.com
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