WikiPortallus: Mission San Luis Rey de Francia.html

Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, also known as San Luis Rey Mission Church, was founded on June 13, 1798 in what is now the town of Oceanside, California. In 1816, Mission San Antonio de Pala was established twenty miles (32 km) inland as its asistencia ("sub-mission"). The local Quechnajuichom tribe became known as the Luiseño, after the Mission. This church, built in 1811 is the third church on this location¹⁴. It is a National Historic Landmark, for its pristine example of a Spanish Mission Church complex.¹⁵

Precontact

The current prevailing theory postulates that Paleo-Indians entered the Americas from Asia via a land bridge called "Beringia" that connected eastern Siberia with present-day Alaska (when sea levels were significantly lower, due to widespread glaciation) between about 15,000 to 35,000 years ago. The remains of Arlington Springs Man on Santa Rosa Island are among the traces of a very early habitation in California, dated to the last ice age (Wisconsin glaciation) about 13,000 years ago. The first humans are therefore thought to have made their homes among the southern valleys of California's coastal mountain ranges some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago; the earliest of these people are known only from archaeological evidence.¹⁶ The cultural impacts resulting from climactic changes and other natural events during this broad expanse of time were negligible; conversely, European contact was a momentous event, which profoundly affected California's native peoples.¹⁷

History

In its prime, the San Luis Rey compound covered almost 6 acres (24,000 m²), making it one of the most extensive of all the missions.¹⁸ An early account of life at the Mission was written by one of its neophytes, Pablo Tac, in his work Indian Life and Customs at Mission San Luis Rey: A Record of California Mission Life by Pablo Tac, An Indian Neophyte (written in Rome circa 1835, edited and translated by Minna Hewes and Gordon Hewes in 1958). In the book, Tac lamented the rapid decline of his people:On June 13,1798 the mission was found or built:

The Mission-born, Franciscan-educated Tac noted that his people initially attempted to bar the Spaniards from their southern California lands. When the foreigners approached, "...the chief stood up...and met them," demanding, "...what are you looking for? Leave our country!"

During the Mexican-American War, the Mission was utilized as a military outpost by the United States Army.¹⁸ In July of 1847, Governor Richard Barnes Mason created an Indian sub-agency at San Luis Rey, and his men took charge of the mission property in August, appointing Jesse Hunter from the recently arrived Mormon Battalion as sub-agent. Battalion guide Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (the child who had traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition forty years earlier) was appointed by Mason as the alcalde "within the District of San Diego, at or near San Luis Rey" in November 1847. Charbonneau resigned from the post in August, 1848, claiming that "because of his Indian heritage others thought him biased when problems arose between the Indians and the other inhabitants of the district."²¹

Following secularization, no religious services were held at the Mission until 1893, when two Mexican priests were given permission to restore the Mission as a Franciscan college.¹⁸ Father Joseph O'Keefe was assigned as an interpreter for the monks. It was he who began to restore the old Mission in 1895. The cuadrángulo (quadrangle) and church were completed in 1905. San Luis Rey College was opened as a seminary in 1950, but closed in 1969. Today, Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is a working mission. It is cared for by the people who belong to the parish, and is still being restored. There is a museum and visitors center at the Mission, as well as a small cemetery.

The fourth episode of the Walt Disney television series Zorro was filmed on the Mission grounds. The story line purported that the Mission was haunted, and the episode (entitled "The Ghost of the Mission") was aired on Halloween (October 31, 1957).

In 1998, Sir Gilbert Levine led members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and, with the special permission of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, the ancient Capella Giulia Choir of Saint Peter’s Basilica, in a series of concerts to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the founding of the mission. These festival concerts constituted the first-ever visit of this 500 year-old choir to the Western Hemisphere. The concerts were broadcast on NPR’s “Performance Today”.

Mission industries

The goal of the missions was, above all, to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. Farming, therefore, was the most important industry of any mission. Prior to the establishment of the missions, the native peoples knew only how to utilize bone, seashells, stone, and wood for building, tool making, weapons, and so forth. The missionaries discovered that the Indians, who regarded labor as degrading to the masculine sex, had to be taught industry in order to learn how to be self-supportive. The result was the establishment of a great manual training school that comprised agriculture, the mechanical arts, and the raising and care of livestock. Everything consumed and otherwise utilized by the natives was produced at the missions under the supervision of the padres; thus, the neophytes not only supported themselves, but after 1811 sustained the entire military and civil government of California.²²

Mission bells

Bells were vitally important to daily life at any mission. The bells were rung at mealtimes, to call the Mission residents to work and to religious services, during births and funerals, to signal the approach of a ship or returning missionary, and at other times; novices were instructed in the intricate rituals associated with the ringing the mission bells.

Notes

^ Leffingwell, p. 27
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Krell, p. 273
^ Yenne, p. 158
^ Yenne, p. 156
^ Ruscin, p. 196
^ Forbes, p. 202
^ Engelhardt, San Diego Mission, pp. v, 228 "The military district of San Diego embraced the Missions of San Diego, San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, and San Gabriel..."
^ Ruscin, p. 195
^ ^a ^b ^c Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
^ Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California. Mission San Luis Rey was by far the most dominant of the Alta California missions at this time in terms of the number of neophytes attached to it.
^ Johnson, et al: "In contrast to baptismal patterns documented at missions in much of the rest of California, Mission San Luis Rey appears to have coexisted with nearby native communities for a much longer period of time without fully absorbing their populations...This may be the result of a conscious decision by the head missionary at Mission San Luis Rey, Fr. Antonio Peyri, to permit a certain number of baptized Luiseños to remain living apart from the mission with their unconverted relatives at their rancherías [villages]. The native communities in this way gradually became converted into mission ranchos at Santa Margarita, Las Flores, Las Pulgas, San Jacinto, Temecula, Pala, etc."
^ List of NHLs in California
^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2008-04-15).
^ NHL Details
^ NHL Writeup
^ Paddison, p. 333: The first undisputable archaeological evidence of human presence in California dates back to circa 8,000 BCE.
^ Jones and Klar 2005, p. 53: "Understanding how and when humans first settled California is intimately linked to the initial colonization of the Americas."
^ ^a ^b ^c Young, p. 18
^ Lightfoot, p. 108
^ Lightfoot, p. 105
^ Reading, Mrs. James. "Jean Baptiste Charbonneau: The Wind River Scout". The Journal of San Diego History, April 1965, Volume 11, Number 2.
^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 211
^ NPS Redbook
^ Krell, pp. 154, 275

Mission San Luis Rey de Francia.html

Contents

Precontact

History

Mission industries

Mission bells

Notes

References

See also

External links