Saint Junípero Serra

Junípero Serra was born on the island of Mallorca, Spain, in 1713, joined the Franciscan order, and became a respected professor of philosophy before volunteering for missionary work in New Spain. In 1769, already in his fifties and suffering chronic leg problems that plagued him for the rest of his life, he began founding a chain of Franciscan missions along the California coast, eventually establishing nine of the twenty-one missions that would form the backbone of Spanish colonial settlement in the region. Serra saw his work as bringing Christianity and a settled agricultural life to Native Californian communities, and defended indigenous people against abuse by Spanish soldiers in his own writings. However, the mission system he founded also relied on compulsory labor and confinement of Native Californians who entered it, and introduced European diseases combined with harsh conditions at the missions contributed to significant loss of life among indigenous populations — a documented historical reality that remains part of his story and a source of ongoing controversy over his 2015 canonization. He died at Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel in 1784.