CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times
Op-Ed
By GREGORY ORFALEA
The outcries began as soon as Pope Francis announced that, after 80 years of formal consideration, Father Junipero Serra, founder of the California missions, was to be made a saint. The outrage isn’t new. It hews back to the accusation that Serra actively participated in “genocide,” a notion promoted by California Native American advocates such as Rupert and Jeannette Costo in the 1980s. For others it is bad enough that, to modern eyes, the mission system was oppressive.
But look closer. The majority of California’s Indians were never in the missions. The system didn’t enslave them (though it was a version of indentured servitude). And what killed most of them, in or out of the missions, was disease, lethal germs — which no Spaniard of Serra’s time had any clue about.
The “criminals” in this enterprise were not the Spanish, but the Americans. The indigenous population at the time of European contact (225,000) declined 33% (to 150,000) under Spanish and Mexican rule. Under American rule (from 1848 on), when most of the missions were in ruin, sold off or closed, the Indian population plummeted, to 30,000 in 1870 — an 80% drop. Either figure is tragic, but there is no mistaking who the major culprit was.
Where is Serra in all this? And where the case for sainthood? Lost in the red herring of obvious, harmful effects of colonialism on the native population.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.