extracts from work entitled “account of american peninsula of california,” written by a priest of the society of jesus, who within the last year lived as such manheim, 1772.
[Clavigero, in his Storia della California, alludes to this work as written by the Rev. James Begert (Bägert), a German Jesuit, who spent seventeen years on the mission in California.]
At about this time lived Father Juan Maria Salvatierra, a Spanish Jesuit, who was formerly a missionary in Tarrahumara. He was virtually the head of all missions, and subsequently provincial of New Spain or of the Mexican Jesuit province. He was a man of known zeal for the salvation of souls, of great mind, and not without humility, meekness, patience, and gentleness, together with a healthy, strong body and splendid energy, of which he gave many evidences and which can be read in his biography.
While Salvatierra was performing his duty of visiting the missions, Father Kino often spoke to him concerning California. Both longed to go to that region and both asked for mission duty in California in order to make a beginning toward the conversion of the Californians. [Page 357] This honor, however, was destined by God to be given only to Father Salvatierra, who finally, after much opposition, as well from his superior as from the high council and viceroy of Mexico, and after many solicitations and presentations and after the lapse of considerable time, he received permission to go to California on condition, made by the viceroy, that the whole undertaking should be at the expense of the fathers, without expectation or hope of obtaining any assistance from the treasury. Salvatierra had practically nothing outside of several good friends, a great mind, and his trust in God. These did not forsake him, but on the contrary did him no little good in getting the assistance of benevolent people who desired to participate in such a holy work. Among others, a missionary priest from Queretaro, by the name of Juan Cavillero y Ozio, gave him not less than twenty thousand dollars, with additional promises that he would honor any drafts that Salvatierra should draw upon him and promptly pay the same. A rich man from Acapulco, named Gill de la Sierpe, loaned him, besides giving certain donations or alms, a small vessel, and presented him also with a boat (p. 198).
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In the meantime—although innumerable dangers beset the missionaries, such as many shipwrecks, hard work, cares, hunger, and suffering, and also skirmishes with the Indians and uprisings of the Californians, because of all of which the entire mission was often upon the point of being destroyed and entirely annihilated—in the meantime, I say, they did not only fortify the two missions already established, named Loreto and St. Xavier, but they established thereafter eighteen other missions. The illustrious Philip V contributed much toward such establishments. Scarcely had he ascended the Spanish throne than he ordered his viceroy in Mexico to pay yearly to the missionaries in California, and also to others, six hundred florins for their maintenance; to furnish their churches with bells, vestments, and other necessary things; to supply a company of twenty-five soldiers; to prepare a ship with a pilot and eight sailors for the service of the missionaries, and to remit to them each year, for the permanent support of the missions, the sum of thirteen thousand dollars, or twenty-six thousand florins, the same to be taken out of the treasury of Guadalajara. These were the King’s commands. Many years passed, however, before these commands were executed. The report from Mexico of the nonexecution of these commands not reaching Madrid for many years, the same were accordingly repeated in the years 1705, 1708, and 1716, until finally in the year 1716 the order for the payment for the first time was obeyed, up to which time—that is, from the year 1697 to 1716—the poor California missions cost over three hundred thousand dollars—that is, six hundred thousand florins—which sum, although not so large in the New as in the Old World, was still not a small or paltry amount for Father Salvatierra and his coworkers to obtain through donations from generous and benevolent private individuals.
The generosity of rich pious Spaniards toward the poor Californians in America, inspired by love of God, was not fruitless of results in inducing others to contribute.
Besides these donations, the noble Marquis of Villapuente (whose coffers in Mexico for the Californian and similar missions, as also for other spiritual and corporal work of mercy, were always open) came into a large inheritance, with which, after making certain alms and [Page 358] donations, he furnished an entire regiment of soldiers for the service of his King in the long drawn out Spanish war of succession.
Father Salvatierra, who was in California at the moment in which his good friend Don Gill de la Sierpe was dying in Mexico, saw in a vision fifty innocent, nicely dressed children leading his good friend into heaven. He related this vision to those who were around him, and he soon thereafter received information from Mexico that his vision was true, and that on the very day and hour he had the vision the death of his good friend occurred. The children he had seen, however, were fifty pure, baptized young Californians, since there had been just so many converted and no more up to that time.
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Of these fifteen missions established, the Marquis of Villapuente endowed six; the duchess of Gandia, from the House of Borja, two; the missionary priest, Juan Cavillero y Ozio, two; Don Arteaga, one; Luyando, a Jesuit from Mexico and a Californian missionary who took the money out of his inheritance, one; the Marquis Louis Peña, one; the Marquis Luis Velasco, one; and lastly, a certain brotherhood in Mexico, also one, which for the everlasting glory and heartfelt gratitude toward the magnanimous donors and benefactors shall be here recorded (p. 214).