Editorial: ‘Moving forward’ worked for Junipero Serra, but not for everyone

“They killed us in our teepees, they cut our women down – they might have left some babies crying on the ground” – Neil Young, “Pocahontas”

With last Wednesday’s canonization of Junipero Serra, the renowned Franciscan friar who established the California mission system, Pope Francis marked sainthood for the first time ever on U.S. soil – and when it comes to benchmark get-your-halo moments, this was a doozy.

From the establishment of Mission San Diego in 1769 to the Mission San Francisco Solano in 1823, nearly 100,000 native Americans were “converted” through the California missions – some of whom, it is said, benefited from a stable environment of healthcare, food and Catholicism (not necessarily in that order), while perhaps the vast majority suffered from its legacy of coercion, confinement and cultural subjugation (not necessarily in that order).

Though Serra died 39 years before the founding of the Sonoma Mission (he directly oversaw the first nine of the eventual 21 missions of Alta California), his progenitorial imprint upon the Valley is undeniable. It would be an easy argument to make that, were it not for Junipero Serra, there would be no Sonoma.

The controversies around granting Serra sainthood have been in the news all week, essentially boiling down to an essential question: Who was Junipero Serra? A zealous inquisitor who enslaved Indians for the advancement of his Christian conversion cause? Or, a well-meaning colonialist whose early incarnation of the White Man’s Burden was an attempt – ill-advised if not ill-intended – at bettering the fortunes (and afterlife fortunes) of an indigenous people? The debate goes on.

What can’t be debated is that the “mission system” Serra worked within was one of incarceration, forced labor and faux conversion. Some might argue Serra was at least a paternalistic warden of a Judeo-Christian jail, but he was a warden nonetheless.

To his credit, Pope Francis – who is the pope of favor among non-Catholics these days – acknowledged the church’s “mistreatments and wrongs” committed against the Native Americans, but nevertheless quoted what he said was Serra’s motto, “Siempre adelante” – keep moving forward. To some, that sort of “the past is the past” line is sorely insufficient when discussing a chapter in a book of genocide that stamped out 12 million people. But let’s be honest, Frances didn’t come to bury Serra, he came to praise him; you can’t kinda canonize someone, kinda not. Besides, despite Francis’s expressed distaste for such methods of mass conversion, he wouldn’t be pope if he wasn’t in favor of saving so many souls, that’s pretty much his job to appreciate those numbers.

And, as my fifth grade Catechism teacher used to say (specifically about notably reformed reprobate Thomas Augustine), “You can’t have a lot of saint, without a little sin.”

So Serra’s piety or villainy will continue to be pondered and pontificated upon – and no one can undo what’s in the past, and no one can undo who’s been canonized.

But, unfortunately, some can rewrite the past – bury its inconveniences and muddy its details.

So with that in mind, here’s a short excerpt from North Bay anthropologist Betty Goerke’s book about an early mission-system provocateur, “Chief Marin: Rebel, Leader and Legend,” which quotes a Russian explorer observing neophytes who had received a rare “weekend pass” to visit their native villages:

“This short time is the happiest period of their existence; and I myself have seen them going home in crowds, with loud rejoicings. The sick, who can not undertake the journey, at least accompany their happy countrymen to the shore where they embark, and there sit for days together, mournfully gazing on the distant summits of the mountains which surround their homes; they often sit in this situation for several days, without taking any food, so much does the sight of their lost home affect these new Christians.”

It seems those “new Christians” never took to heart what Serra meant by “keep moving forward.”

Siempre adelante... siempre adelante...

Email Jason at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.