By Catholic San Francisco
Mission Dolores is the cradle of the Catholic faith in San Francisco, but it also holds an important place in the broader life of the city. San Francisco landmark No. 1? Mission Dolores. The key to the city? Modeled after the key to the mission. The birthday of San Francisco? June 29, 1776, the day the first Mass was celebrated near the site of the future mission. (In recent years “415 Day” has been instituted to commemorate the incorporation of the city of San Francisco on April 15, 1850, a latecomer to the birthday party.)
The relationship between the mission and the city has been rich, complex and at times contentious. We will explore what this building has meant to the society that has surrounded it for 250 years. The mission has functioned under three flags: Spanish, Mexican and American. In this article we will look at Mission Dolores in the Spanish era.
How did our mission get here in the first place? It began as an outpost of empire. In the late 18th century, the rulers of Spain were nervous because Russian fur traders were making their way down the west coast of America. In response, the Spanish crown decreed that a series of communities be established in Alta California. These would have three components: military garrisons, towns populated by settlers from Mexico and missions to evangelize the Native peoples. The first of these outposts (San Diego) was established in 1769, the last (San Francisco Solano in Sonoma) in 1823.
The missions of Alta California were entrusted to the Franciscan order under the leadership of St. Junípero Serra. Naturally, the sons of St. Francis wanted to name one of the missions after their founder. The inspector general of New Spain, Don José Galvez, told Father Serra, “If St. Francis desires a mission, tell him to find us a harbor.” This was an early instance of “the Pacific Rim:” The Spanish wanted a port to connect this new territory with Mexico, the Philippines and China. The Poverello delivered in a big way: in 1760, an overland expedition led by Don Gaspar de Portolá set eyes on the future San Francisco Bay, one the greatest natural harbors in the world. For 200 years, Spanish, Portuguese and English ships had sailed past the narrow Golden Gate, not seeing it or suspecting what lay beyond it. Galvez had his port, and St. Francis had his mission!
The original settlement consisted of the Presidio guarding the Golden Gate and, a few miles away, the Mission of St. Francis near a body of water called “Laguna de los Dolores.” In the 1830s, the third component was added: a small town on the bay called Yerba Buena. These three centers — military, religious and civic — carried out related but distinct functions, and much of the light and shadow of the mission enterprise in California arises from this complex situation.
The missions were not solely religious sites: they were centers of agriculture, ranching, manufacturing, music and art. The only surviving building at Mission Dolores is the church. To get an idea of what the mission was like in its heyday, visit Mission La Purísima Concepción near Lompoc. This state park has re-created a complete mission complex. The original missions were isolated villages, remote from one another and separated by a vast distance from the home culture of the missionaries. The risen Christ commissioned His disciples to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), and the padres must have felt that this was indeed where they were!
As is true throughout our country, the encounter between the Native American and European cultures spelled the end to the way of life for the Ohlone people in our region. In our own time, we are more sensitive to that tragic aspect of American history. The intention of the Franciscans was to preach the Gospel to the Indigenous people and to share with them the agricultural and technical skills of European culture. Once the mission complex and its extensive lands were developed, they would belong to the Indians. This was to be their “pueblo,” on a par with the towns inhabited by Mexican settlers.
The church of Mission Dolores is rather modest compared to many other California missions, although it has the distinction of being the only church to survive intact from its beginning. It is the oldest building in San Francisco, dedicated Aug. 2, 1791. The Ohlones were skilled in making huts and boats from tule reeds; we have one such hut in the mission cemetery, built in 2001 by descendants of the original Ohlone people.
The padres taught the Indians to make adobe bricks and clay roof tiles, and how to build large, permanent structures with them. The church was decorated by Ohlone artists who combined Native and Spanish motifs. The roof beams are painted with Ohlone designs, and behind the carved altar there is a mural on the wall of the sanctuary, considered to be the best-preserved example of art from the period of first contact with Europeans. The reredos, which was installed five years after the church was completed, served both to conceal the mural and to preserve it.
The elaborate Spanish altar over the Ohlone mural can symbolize both the triumph and the tragedy of the Spanish era of Mission Dolores. Some Native traditions and customs continued, but in many ways the new culture concealed what had been here before. This displacement became even more pronounced when the gold rush brought vast numbers of American and European immigrants to San Francisco. Whatever the injustices and failings of the mission system were, at least the padres had benevolent intentions and wanted to build a future with the first peoples. Subsequent settlers simply viewed the Indians as a problem to be contained or eliminated.
The cemetery at Mission Dolores bears witness to this later European/American hegemony: almost all of the 200 gravestones in Mission Dolores cemetery date from 1850 on. The wooden grave markers for the thousands buried there before (mostly Ohlones, but also Europeans) did not survive the post-mission era of San Francisco.
There is one very important grave from the first chapter of our history: that of José Joaquin Moraga, second in command of the de Anza expedition of 1776, who died in 1785. As de Anza’s successor, he was responsible for founding the settlements in San Francisco and San Jose. In 1777, he served as godfather to a 21-year-old man named Chamis, the first Ohlone to be baptized in Mission Dolores. That such a high-ranking figure took on this role indicates how important the work of evangelization was to the Spanish settlers. They saw the faith as a great good in itself and hoped that it would create a bond between themselves and the Native Americans.
St. Paul saw Jesus Christ as the one who brought together two peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles. This was the dream cherished on the day of Chamis’ baptism: the illustrious Spanish leader and the Native American became brothers in Christ. Cultural blindness and the vicissitudes of history prevented this dream from becoming a reality. But the vision of a community united as a family in spite of different backgrounds or social status is still a noble ideal, and one worthy of the patronage of the Poor Man of Assisi, and the city that bears his name.
Photo: Francisco Valdez
