Father Serra's 1773 and 1775 Reports on the Original Mission San Gabriel

The Reverend Junipero Serra, founded of most of the California missions, was supposed to have been present at the founding of Mission San Gabriel in September 1771, but was not informed of the decision to send out the priests Somera and Cambón, who established the site at Whittier Narrows.

Serra did, however, visit the mission in May 1773 and submitted a long report to the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), in which he stated that

The place together with the circumstances of soil, arroyos, timber, fire-wood, and other facilities, is beyond dispute that most excellent of all discovered. Without doubt, this one alone, if well cultivated, would be sufficient to maintain itself and all the rest [of the missions.]

Recall in the first post of this blog that Father Juan Crespí, in his diary on the Portolá expedition of 1769-1770, considered that "La Puente" a few miles to the east was superior, but that the Whittier Narrows location was also a prime one for a mission site.

According to Serra, Alta California departmental governor Pedro Fages instituted restrictions on native access to the mission compound that soured relations between them and the Spaniards. In addition to detailing the rape and consequent violence that was also covered by Father Francisco Palou in his report of the same year, Serra criticized the behavior of the soldiers stationed at San Gabriel for their laziness, violent tendencies and impudence, including the continued rape of Indian women and the killing of men.

Serra also made reference to attempts to develop the mission and noted a problem that proved to be insurmountable to keeping the facility at Whittier Narrows: "the Fathers in the first year planted a piece of land with wheat, which went up and promised well; but owing to the lack of experience in that territory, they sowed in too low ground, so that the copious rains, which set in, submerged and destroyed it." On other hand, he did state that "what did thrive very well is a garden sufficiently large and fenced in. When I passed there, it abounded in various kinds of vegetables, melons, water melons, etc."

Serra returned to Mission San Gabriel early in 1775 and sent another report to the viceroy in February. In it, he documented that the increase of livestock was to 65 cattle, 66 sheep, 34 goats, 18 pigs, 19 horses, and 16 mules. In the preceding year, harvests of wheat, corn and beans were moderately successful and wheat was sown for the new season with the land for the other two crops in preparation.

As to the neophytes, Serra reported that, from 8 September 1771 to 31 December 1774, “there have been baptized 148 Indians of all ages, of whom eight have died. Nineteen Indian marriages have been blessed. Hence the Mission is composed of 19 new Christian Indian families with 154 persons, all of whom live at the Mission in their little huts of poles.”

Yet, there was an important set of statements about the inherent problems of the site of the Mission. In this regard, Serra wrote that

from the last day of December, 1773, till the last day of December, 1774, they have constructed no new buildings at the Mission, except a structure of poles . . . for the smithy, and another . . . which is to be used as a granary for corn.

As to why this was,

The reason is that for greater convenience and utility they want to move the Mission to where the land is cultivated in the same valley, only about half a league distant.

Indeed, it was not long afterward that the move was approved and made. The next entry will detail the visits of famed explorer Juan Bautista de Anza to both the original and current sites of the Mission San Gabriel.
Sources:
Zephyrin Englehardt, San Gabriel Mission and the Beginnings of Los Angeles (San Gabriel: Mission San Gabriel,) 1927.
Chester Lyle Guthrie, "Site of Mision Vieja: Registered Landmark #161," State of California, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks, 1933, found in Cultural Resources Archival Study: Whittier Narrows Archaeological District, prepared for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District by Lois Roberts and James Brock, Archaeological Advisory Group, March 1987.
Roberta S. Greenwood, John M. Foster and Anne Q. Duffield (with contributions by Gwendolyn R. Romani, A. George Toren and Sherri M. Gust), The First Historical Settlement in Los Angeles County: Investigations at Whittier Narrows, prepared for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District, January 1989.
Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri