I had some time tonight so I finished the first 400 pages of his writings and started volume two. Most of it was about coming to America and clerical stuff both the housekeeping of setting up and organization and then actual Clerical stuff. I will say what I am reading (which have reproduced originals as well so I know they are not edited to paint a picture) does not show someone who loves to punish or even likes it.
So far...up to now the military is allowed to discipline Natives and they are harsh, usually deadly. There is conflict between Fr. Serra and the military over this. He has been forbidden to discipline by order of the military, mainly because his justice is seen as too soft. There is direct evidence to no forced baptisms. He is opposed to them and laments that he wishes he spoke the language better so he could convert more because he needs to be able to talk to them better to do it. And some converts children travel to Spain to learn the language so they can become translators for the priests, who have a hard time learning the Native American languages at their ages. But he is categorically refusing to baptize those who he feels do not understand and lamenting his inability to speak better to those he is working with. So I can say now, any forced baptisms in the system came without his knowledge or after his death.
Then, in the second volume so far there is an incident where a mission is destroyed and the death of a priest killed by natives. The local authorities want to kill people in response. In the letter, the attack is explained:
Hail Jesus, Mary, Joseph!
Most Excellent Lord.
My most revered and most excellent Sir:
As we are in the vale of tears, not all the news I have to relate can be pleasant. And so I make no excuses for announcing to Your Excellency the tragic news I have just received of the total destruction of the San Diego Mission, and of the death of the senior of its two religious ministers, called Father Fray Luis Jayme, at the hand of the rebellious gentiles and of the Christian neophytes. All this happened, November 5th, about one or two o'clock at night. The gentiles came together from forty rancherias, according to information given me, and set fire to the church, after sacking it. Then they went on to
the storehouse, the house where the Fathers lived, the soldiers' barracks, and all the rest of the buildings.
They killed a carpenter from Guadalaxara and a blacksmith from Tepic. They wounded with their arrows the four soldiers, who alone were on guard at the said mission. Even though two of them were badly wounded, they have already recovered. The other religious, whose name is Father Fray Vicente Fuster, over and above the fright he got, received no further injuries than a wound in the shoulder, caused by a stone. He suffered pain from it for several days. On the morning following that sad night, he withdrew, in company with the handful still surviving, to the presidio. They carried on the shoulders of those Christian Indians who had remained loyal the dead, and the badly wounded. From there he writes to me asking me to tell him what he is to do.
This news I received the day before yesterday, at about nine o'clock at night, when the Captain Commandant, Don Fernando, came bringing it and the mail.
The military wanted to go and kill by the dozens in retribution. It is the policy when someone is killed they go into the tribes and kill in retribution to show them never to do it again. The old kill one of ours we kill ten ideology. Fr. Serra begs that they be allowed to live. That anyone who kills a priest be forgiven after moderate punishment only (and then only the one who did it if captured) and not killed as the military plans. It continues:
Most Excellent Lord, one the most important requests I made of the Most Illustrious Inspector General, at the beginning of these conquests was: if ever the Indians, whether they be gentile or Christian, killed me, they should be forgiven. The same request I make of Your Excellency. It has been my own fault I did not make this request before.
To see a formal statement drawn up by Your Excellency to that effect, in so far as it concerns me, and the other religious who at present are subject to me or will be in the future, would be for me a special consolation during the time Our Lord God will be pleased to add to my advancing years.
While the missionary is alive, let the soldiers guard him, and watch over him, like the pupils of God's very eyes. That is as it should be. Nor do I disdain such a favor for myself. But after the missionary has been killed, what can be gained by campaigns? Some will say to frighten them and prevent them from killing others.
What I say is that, in order to prevent them from killing others, keep better guard over them than they did over the one who has been killed; and, as to the murderer, let him live, in order that he should be saved—which is the very purpose of our coming here, and the reason which justifies it. Give him to understand, after a moderate amount of punishment, that he is being pardoned in accordance with our law, which commands us to forgive injuries; and let us prepare him, not for death, but for eternal life. Most Excellent Lord, may Your Excellency pardon me for my interference, who knows for what result. The details of all that has occurred, Your Excellency will see in the Officers' reports.
After this there is the strict enforcement of the policy of whipping those who attempt to leave the mission and go to those who are raiding the missions. Apparently Fr. Serra had not been enforcing it and had let it slide over the years and it is only increased because it led to raids. The military had planned to simply kill anyone who left and whenever someone on their side was killed they would go and decimate what they could find as a lesson. Fr. Serra tried to stopped that. I am not sure at this point in research if he did.
I would be including any abuses or ill treatment if it was indicated right now, but so far there is none. Let me be clear, he is racially paternalistic. Seeing the natives as not yet in the adulthood as a people. And that is pervasive in the writings. But that is in almost all writings of the time. His attitude is the textbook example of paternalism.
But there is not delight in punishment or even an excess. Rather there are counsels for moderation and explaining things over whipping. And for my reading so far he is not even allowed to discipline. Later he gets that authority. But it seems personally he is stopping more of them than ordering them. And he is definitely the voice of moderation against when the military wants to kill.
Now on the issue of cultural genocide, that local language and traditions are being purged. In that I am researching his role further. He has not, at this point done anything to eradicate language. In fact the opposite. It is a historical fact that the mission system itself engaged in cultural genocide, much like the Indian School in Carlisle Pennsylvania and the later Bureau of Indian Affair schools. But I am looking for direct involvement by Fr. Serra. Either in personal order or philosophical framework. Essentially is he of the eradicate culture model or the more Gregorian approach of Enculturation (although that still destroys it does not eradicate)? That has not been revealed yet in his writings.
Sources:
Writings of Junípero Serra / Edited by Antoníne v.2.Serra pp. 401-409
Writings of Junípero Serra / Edited by Antoníne V.1 (general synopsis of Material)
Adding further research on if Fr. Serra managed to stop the military from executing people. Yes. With his intervention the upper levels of authority compromised and did not execute but they did not pardon as he wanted. They settled for imprisonment and later exile.
Source:
Provincial State Papers, Archivos de California, Provincial Records Ms, 1:143, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California.
