Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions (review)

Abstract

Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in Missions. By James A. Sandos. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2004. Pp. xix, 251. $35.00.) James A. Sandos set a formidable task for himself in writing this new treatment of a well-furrowed subject, Franciscan missionization in Alta California, 1769-1830's. His stated intent is to reconcile two prevailing but opposing interpretative views of mission era: the pro- and anti-Franciscan schools of thought. The former been dubbed Christophilic Triumphalist by David J. Weber: 'self-sacrificing priests of Christian God selflessly devoted . . . to bringing spiritual truth and uplift to benighted savages.'The latter school, which has emerged over past fifty years, Sandos labels Christophobic (p. xiii). To complete his new synthetic approach, author introduces a new interpretative element, theohistory, a combination of theology and history as a complement to accepted ethnohistory (p. xvi). The net result is a book that fascinates and frustrates, since it literally oscillates between two polarized theses. But it appears that more weight is given to negative aspects of Franciscan missionary activities as seen from Nihilist perspective. To author's credit, however, he repudiates those critics' charges that missionaries enslaved Indians and instituted a policy of genocide. Sandos' primary target throughout is Junipero Serra. The friar is castigated for inscribing on the theological clean slate of California . . . his well ordered understanding of medieval world. In 'these last centuries' before Apocalypse, Serra would build a model of a primitive Christian church, a community of Indians and Franciscans clustered in their mission settlements learning and teaching Christian doctrine, preparing themselves for return of Christ (p. 79). Serra's medieval views, according to author, were derived from his devotion to life of St. Francis Solano (1549-1610), famed Franciscan missionary who died in Peru, philosophy and theology of Scot Franciscan, John Duns Scotus (1263-1308), and mystical writings of Franciscan nun, Maria de Jesus de Agreda (1602-1665), noted for her four-volume The Mystical City of God (1670), which expositated concept of Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception. Serra is taken to task for adherence to Scholastic theological view of egocentric structure of universe in face of sixteenth-century Copernican heliocentric system. Serra's repudiation of latter proves his medieval outlook in all things. The frustrating elements in Sandos' book are argumentative. However, he an excellent chapter on venereal disease, which is well detailed in respect to syphilis, but slights impact of gonorrhea on birth rate. Nor does chapter detail problem of native lack of sanitation and sanitary habits. One of widespread health problems was skin disease. To credit of government and friars, smallpox never appeared in Spanish California. Quarantine was well understood in respect to some contagious diseases. …