A book to honor Fray Junípero Serra as he enters Sainthood in 2015.Celebrating the significant places Serra delivered his message to in each of the three major phases of his life -- Mallorca, Mexico, and Alta California.101 plates from original large-format film negatives made by Craig Alan Huber, represented in the aesthetic of a platinum / palladium print.Accompanying text by known Serra biographer Robert M. Senkewicz provides a brief history of Serra's major life experiences, from his youth in Mallorca to his final days in Alta California.Handsome cloth-bound hardback with dust cover, offset printed in beautiful duotone on fine-art paper.Limited first edition run.Limited special edition of 75 signed copies including an original platinum / palladium photographic print numbered and signed by the artist, housed in a custom case. Choice of three different prints.
The narrative of the remarkable life of Junipero Serra, the intrepid priest who led Spain and the Catholic Church into California in the 1700s and became a key figure in the making of the American West. In the year 1749, at the age of thirty-six, Junipero Serra left his position as a highly regarded priest in Spain for the turbulent and dangerous New World, knowing he would never return. The Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church both sought expansion in Mexico--the former in search of gold, the latter seeking souls--as well as entry into the mysterious land to the north called "California." By his death at age seventy-one, Serra had traveled more than 14,000 miles on land and sea through the New World--much of that distance on a chronically infected and painful foot--baptized and confirmed 6,000 Indians, and founded nine of California's twenty-one missions, with his followers establishing the rest.
Travelers following Saint Junipero Serra's Camino Real in California with a pilgrim's heart--and this book in hand--will make their way to 21 missions established in the 1700s, stretching from San Diego to Sonoma north of San Francisco Bay. For each mission, this guide provides the street address, the mission's website, a brief history of the place, the story of the mission's patron or namesake, and information about the mission bells. A true pilgrimage, the experience of following Saint Serra's Camino can be a transformative and enriching one.
In Junípero Serra: California, Indians, and the Transformation of a Missionary, Beebe and Senkewicz focus on Serra’s religious identity and his relations with Native peoples. They intersperse their narrative with new and accessible translations of many of Serra’s letters and sermons, which allows his voice to be heard in a more direct and engaging fashion.
A portrait of the priest and colonialist who is one of the most important figures in California's history In the 1770s, just as Britain's American subjects were freeing themselves from the burdens of colonial rule, Spaniards moved up the California coast to build frontier outposts of empire and church. At the head of this effort was Junípero Serra, an ambitious Franciscan who hoped to convert California Indians to Catholicism and turn them into European-style farmers. For his efforts, he has been beatified by the Catholic Church and widely celebrated as the man who laid the foundation for modern California. But his legacy is divisive. The missions Serra founded would devastate California's Native American population, and much more than his counterparts in colonial America, he remains a contentious and contested figure to this day. Steven W. Hackel's groundbreaking biography, Junípero Serra: California's Founding Father, is the first to remove Serra from the realm of polemic and place him within the currents of history. Born into a poor family on the Spanish island of Mallorca, Serra joined the Franciscan order and rose to prominence as a priest and professor through his feats of devotion and powers of intellect. But he could imagine no greater service to God than converting Indians, and in 1749 he set off for the new world. In Mexico, Serra first worked as a missionary to Indians and as an uncompromising agent of the Inquisition. He then became an itinerant preacher, gaining a reputation as a mesmerizing orator who could inspire, enthrall, and terrify his audiences at will. With a potent blend of Franciscan piety and worldly cunning, he outmaneuvered Spanish royal officials, rival religious orders, and avaricious settlers to establish himself as a peerless frontier administrator. In the culminating years of his life, he extended Spanish dominion north, founding and promoting missions in present-day San Diego, Los Angeles, Monterey, and San Francisco. But even Serra could not overcome the forces massing against him. California's military leaders rarely shared his zeal, Indians often opposed his efforts, and ultimately the missions proved to be cauldrons of disease and discontent. Serra, in his hope to save souls, unwittingly helped bring about the massive decline of California's indigenous population. On the three-hundredth anniversary of Junípero Serra's birth, Hackel's complex, authoritative biography tells the full story of a man whose life and legacies continue to be both celebrated and denounced. Based on exhaustive research and a vivid narrative, this is an essential portrait of America's least understood founder.
As one of America’s most important missionaries, Junípero Serra is widely recognized as the founding father of California’s missions. It was for that work that he was canonized in 2015 by Pope Francis. Less well known, however, is the degree to which Junípero Serra embodied the social, religious and artistic currents that shaped Spain and Mexico across the 18th century. Further, Serra’s reception in American culture in the 19th and 20th centuries has often been obscured by the controversies surrounding his treatment of California’s Indians. This volume situates Serra in the larger Spanish and Mexican contexts within which he lived, learned, and came of age. Offering a rare glimpse into Serra’s life, these essays capture the full complexity of cultural trends and developments that paved the way for this powerful missionary to become not only California’s most polarizing historical figure but also North America’s first Spanish colonial saint.
A Cross of Thorns reexamines a chapter of California history that has been largely forgotten -- the enslavement of California's Indian population by Spanish missionaries from 1769 to 1821. California's Spanish missions are one of the state's major tourist attractions, where visitors are told that peaceful cultural exchange occurred between Franciscan friars and California Indians.
A monograph honoring the 21 California Missions founded by Franciscan Missionaries between 1769 and 1823, led by Fray Junípero Serra. Foreword by Rubén G. Mendoza, PhD, RPA, CSU Monterey Bay. Contributions by Julianne Burton-Carvajal, PhD, Historian. Includes 22 tipped-in original platinum/palladium prints and 3 loose platinum/palladium prints, all printed by photographic artist Craig Alan Huber using archival methods. Letterpress printing is employed entirely throughout the book, which also includes a custom linen-covered drop-face clamshell box and custom linen-covered loose print folio. Published by Marquand Editions, Tieton, Washington in association with VERITAS EDITIONS, LLC. Limited to an edition of 15 numbered copies. Accompanying the images in this portfolio are period commentaries by Fray Juan Crespí, OFM; Fray Junípero Serra, OFM; Fray Francisco Palóu, OFM; Captain George Vancouver; Auguste Duhaut-Cilly; Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; Esteban Munrás; Robert Louis Stevenson; Helen Hunt Jackson; José Jacinto (Jo) Mora; Henry Harry Downie; Maynard Geiger, OFM; and Norman Neuerburg. Their observations provide the historic context and perceptions of a core sampling of those who have graced the hallowed halls of those twenty-one missions. The Missions represented, in chronological order of founding, include Mission San Diego de Alcalá, 1769; Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Río Carmelo, 1770;Mission San Antonio de Padua, 1771;Mission San Gabriel, Arcángel, 1771;Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, 1772; Mission San Juan Capistrano, 1776; Mission Santa Clara de Asís, 1777;Mission San Buenaventura, 1782;Mission Santa Bárbara, Virgen y Mártir, 1786;Mission La Purísima Concepción de María Santísima, 1787; Mission La Exaltación de la Santa Cruz, 1791;Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, 1791; Mission del Gloriosísimo Patriarca San José, 1797;Mission San Juan Bautista, 1797;Mission San Miguel, Arcángel, 1797;Mission San Fernando Rey de España, 1797;Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, 1798;Mission Santa Inés, Virgen y Mártir, 1804;Mission San Rafael, Arcángel, 1817;Mission San Francisco Solano, 1823.
