Mission San Luis Rey de Francia
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- For the novel by Thornton Wilder, see The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
 Today, Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is well maintained. This Mission is architecturally distinctive due to the combination of Spanish, Moorish, and Mexican lines exhibited. |
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| Location | 4050 Mission Ave. Oceanside, California 92057 |
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| Name as Founded | La Misión de San Luis, Rey de Francia [1] |
| English Translation | The Mission of Saint Louis, King of France |
| Patron | King Louis IX [2] |
| Nickname(s) | "King of the Missions" [3] |
| Founding Date | June 13, 1798 [4] |
| Founding Priest(s) | Father Fermín Lasuén [5] |
| Founding Order | Eighteenth [2] |
| Military District | First [6]<refits a pretty mission>Engelhardt, San Diego Mission, pp. v, 228 "The military district of San Diego embraced the Missions of San Diego, San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, and San Gabriel..."</ref> |
| Native Tribe(s) Spanish Name(s) |
Kumeyaay, Quechnajuichom Diegueño, Luiseño |
| Native Place Name(s) | Quechinga [7] |
| Baptisms | 5,399 [8] |
| Marriages | 1,335 [8] |
| Burials | 2,718 [8] |
| Neophyte Population | 2,788 [9][10] |
| Secularized | 1834 [2] |
| Returned to the Church | 1865 [2] |
| Governing Body | Franciscans, Province of Santa Barbara |
| Current Use | Museum/Cemetery/Retreat House |
| Coordinates | 33°13′57.2082″N 117°19′12.6336″W / 33.232557833°N 117.320176°W |
| National Historic Landmark | #NPS–70000142 |
| Date added to the NRHP | 1970 |
| California Historical Landmark | #239 |
| Web Site | http://www.sanluisrey.org/ |
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, also known as San Luis Rey Mission Church, was founded on June 13, 1798 in what is now the city of Oceanside, California. In 1816, Mission San Antonio de Pala was established twenty miles (32 km) inland as its asistencia ("sub-mission"). The local Quechnajuichom tribe became known as the Luiseño, after the Mission. This church, built in 1811 is the third church on this location[11]. It is a National Historic Landmark, for its pristine example of a Spanish Mission Church complex.[12].
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[edit] History
In its prime, the San Luis Rey compound covered almost 6 acres (24,000 m2), making it one of the most extensive of all the missions.[13] An early account of life at the Mission was written by one of its neophytes, Pablo Tac, in his work Indian Life and Customs at Mission San Luis Rey: A Record of California Mission Life by Pablo Tac, An Indian Neophyte (written in Rome circa 1835, edited and translated by Minna Hewes and Gordon Hewes in 1958). In the book, Tac lamented the rapid decline of his people:On June 13,1798 the mission was found or built:
In Quechla not long ago there were 5,000 souls, with all their neighboring lands. Through a sickness that came to California 2,000 souls died, and 3,000 were left.[14]
Tac went on to describe the preferential treatment the padres received:
In the mission of San Luis Rey de Francia the Fernandino [sic] father is like a king. He has his pages, alcaldes, majordomos, musicians, soldiers, gardens, ranchos, livestock....[15]
The Mission-born, Franciscan-educated Tac noted that his people initially attempted to bar the Spaniards from their southern California lands. When the foreigners approached, "...the chief stood up...and met them," demanding, "...what are you looking for? Leave our country!"
During the Mexican-American War, the Mission was utilized as a military outpost by the United States Army.[13] In July 1847, Governor Richard Barnes Mason created an Indian sub-agency at San Luis Rey, and his men took charge of the mission property in August, appointing Jesse Hunter from the recently arrived Mormon Battalion as sub-agent. Battalion guide Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (the child who had traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition forty years earlier) was appointed by Mason as the alcalde "within the District of San Diego, at or near San Luis Rey" in November 1847. Charbonneau resigned from the post in August, 1848, claiming that "because of his Indian heritage others thought him biased when problems arose between the Indians and the other inhabitants of the district."[16]
Following secularization, no religious services were held at the Mission until 1893, when two Mexican priests were given permission to restore the Mission as a Franciscan college.[13] Father Joseph O'Keefe was assigned as an interpreter for the monks. It was he who began to restore the old Mission in 1895. The cuadrángulo (quadrangle) and church were completed in 1905. San Luis Rey College was opened as a seminary in 1950, but closed in 1969. Today, Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is a working mission. It is cared for by the people who belong to the parish, and is still being restored. There is a museum and visitors center at the Mission, as well as a small cemetery. Walt Disney added a skull and crossbones to its entrance. In fact, the first season episodes of Zorro were filmed here.
In 1998, Sir Gilbert Levine led members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and, with the special permission of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, the ancient Capella Giulia Choir of Saint Peter’s Basilica, in a series of concerts to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the founding of the mission. These festival concerts constituted the first-ever visit of this 500 year-old choir to the Western Hemisphere. The concerts were broadcast on NPR’s “Performance Today”.
| San Luis Rey Mission Church | |
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| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| U.S. National Historic Landmark | |
 Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, circa 1910.
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| Nearest city: | Oceanside, California |
| Coordinates: | 33°13′57″N 117°19′10″W / 33.2325°N 117.31944°W |
| Built/Founded: | 1811 |
| Governing body: | Private |
| Added to NRHP: | April 15, 1970 |
| Designated NHL: | April 15, 1970[17] |
| NRHP Reference#: | 70000142[18] |
[edit] Mission industries
The goal of the missions was, above all, to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. Farming, therefore, was the most important industry of any mission. Prior to the establishment of the missions, the native peoples knew only how to utilize bone, seashells, stone, and wood for building, tool making, weapons, and so forth. The missionaries discovered that the Indians, who regarded labor as degrading to the masculine sex, had to be taught industry in order to learn how to be self-supportive. The result was the establishment of a great manual training school that comprised agriculture, the mechanical arts, and the raising and care of livestock. Everything consumed and otherwise utilized by the natives was produced at the missions under the supervision of the padres; thus, the neophytes not only supported themselves, but after 1811 sustained the entire military and civil government of California.[19]
[edit] Mission bells
Bells were vitally important to daily life at any mission. The bells were rung at mealtimes, to call the Mission residents to work and to religious services, during births and funerals, to signal the approach of a ship or returning missionary, and at other times; novices were instructed in the intricate rituals associated with the ringing the mission bells. The Luisenos had the job to do farming, construction over the mission, leather making, weaving, cooking,and growing crops.
[edit] See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mission San Luis Rey de Francia |
- Las Flores Asistencia
- Mission San Antonio de Pala
- USNS Mission San Luis Rey (AO-128) — a Buenaventura Class fleet oiler built during World War II.
[edit] External links
- Mission San Luis Rey - official site
- Early photographs, sketches, land surveys of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, via Calisphere, California Digital Library
- Elevation & Site Layout sketches of the Mission proper
- Satellite image from Google Maps
- Early History of the California Coast, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
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[edit] References
- Engelhardt, Zephyrin, O.F.M. (1920). San Diego Mission. James H. Barry Company, San Francisco, CA.
- Engelhardt, Zephyrin, O.F.M. (1922). San Juan Capistrano Mission. Standard Printing Co., Los Angeles, CA.
- Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London.
- Johnson, John; Crawford, Dinah; O'Neil, Stephen (1998), "The Ethnohistoric Basis for Cultural Affiliation in the Camp Pendleton Marine Base Area: Contributions to Luiseno and Juaneno Ethnohistory Based on Mission Register Research."
- Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, MD. ISBN 0-759-10872-2.
- Krell, Dorothy (ed.) (1979). The California Missions: A Pictorial History. Sunset Publishing Corporation, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-376-05172-8.
- Leffingwell, Randy (2005). California Missions and Presidios: The History & Beauty of the Spanish Missions. Voyageur Press, Inc., Stillwater, MN. ISBN 0-89658-492-5.
- Lightfoot, Kent G. (2004). Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounters on the California Frontiers. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 0-52020-824-2.
- Paddison, Joshua (ed.) (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-890771-13-9.
- Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA. ISBN 0-932653-30-8.
- Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8.
- Young, Stanley and Melba Levick (1988). The Missions of California. Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, CA. ISBN 0-8118-3694-0.
- ^ Leffingwell, p. 27
- ^ a b c d Krell, p. 273
- ^ Yenne, p. 158
- ^ Yenne, p. 156
- ^ Ruscin, p. 196
- ^ Forbes, p. 202
- ^ Ruscin, p. 195
- ^ a b c Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
- ^ Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California. Mission San Luis Rey was by far the most dominant of the Alta California missions at this time in terms of the number of neophytes attached to it.
- ^ Johnson, et al.: "In contrast to baptismal patterns documented at missions in much of the rest of California, Mission San Luis Rey appears to have coexisted with nearby native communities for a much longer period of time without fully absorbing their populations...This may be the result of a conscious decision by the head missionary at Mission San Luis Rey, Fr. Antonio Peyri, to permit a certain number of baptized Luiseños to remain living apart from the mission with their unconverted relatives at their rancherías [villages]. The native communities in this way gradually became converted into mission ranchos at Santa Margarita, Las Flores, Las Pulgas, San Jacinto, Temecula, Pala, etc."
- ^ NHL Details
- ^ NHL Writeup
- ^ a b c d Young, p. 18
- ^ Lightfoot, p. 108
- ^ Lightfoot, p. 105
- ^ Reading, Mrs. James. "Jean Baptiste Charbonneau: The Wind River Scout". The Journal of San Diego History, April 1965, Volume 11, Number 2.
- ^ List of NHLs in California
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15. http://www.nr.nps.gov/.
- ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 211
- ^ Krell, pp. 275-276
