Out of the wrecked expedition of Pamfilo de NarV3C7 to Florida. 1527. Cabeza de Vaca, with three companions. was saved : and for ten years they wandered among the Indians of the South west, finally making their way to Nlexico, with wonderful reports of the countries they had traversed. Expeditions soon followed into those countries that went by the name of New Mexico. Noticeable arc the expeditions of the Franciscan Mark of Nizza, ;.to: of Coronado. 1;42, in which the Franciscan monk. John of Padilla, fell a martyr to his zeal for the cause of religion. However, it was only in 1599 that a permanent occupation was effected, and the city of Santa Fe was founded by Don Juan de Onate. The missionary work was undertaken by Franciscan friars. After the first months of hardship and discouragement the work of evan gelization went forward at a marvelous rate; most of the natives were reckoned as being within the pale of the church ; not less than sixty friars at once were in the field. Fourscore years after the founding of the colony, 1680, the Indians rose in rebellion against the Spanish government ; in a few weeks no Spaniard was left north of El Paso; Christianity and civilization were swept away at one blow. In a few years the Spanish power, taking advantage of the anarchy and the famine fell upon the Indians after their rebellion, reoccupied the country and the missionaries were brought back. The work of the Gospel did not attain thereafter the success it had before the re bellion. The later history of Spanish Christianity in New Mexico is a history of decline and decay; the white population increased, while the Indian dwindled. When New Mexico became part of the United States the number of missionaries was small, only seventeen, and the Indians were only some 20.000 out of a total population of 8o,000.
New Mexico, in Spanish times, comprised a large portion of our present territory of Arizona. Here the Franciscans labored in the conversion of the natives until the rebellion of 168o, after which period the field passed into the hands of the Jesuits until their suppression by the Spanish gov ernment in 1767. Their central point was St. Francis Xavier del Bac, where still stands a noble church, and the best known of their missionaries was Father Kino. After the suppression of the Jesuits the missions of Arizona fell back to the Franciscans of New Mexico.
Mission work in Texas began in 1689. H. H. Bancroft ("North lllexican Slates and Texas," vol. xv, p. 631) sums up the condition of the Texan missions about the year 1785, naming his author ities. From this summing up it appears that while the Spanish population, pure and mixed, was about 3.000, the Christian Indians were only 50o. The number of natives baptized since 5690 was less than ro,000, and at no time had the neophytes ex ceeded 2.000. The church buildings and decora tions that are still in existence to-day show to what efficiency in handiwork the Indians were trained.
Though expeditions northward from Mexico along the coast of California were begun as early as 1542. yet it was only in 1769 that a permanent occupation was effected by the Spaniards and mission work was begun by the Franciscans in the present state of California. The founder of the California missions was the famous Juniperro Serra. About him as a man and as a Christian there is complete agreement on all sides; his name stands for what is best in religion and for what is most romantic in Spanish annals. He segregated
his Indian converts from the military and the Spanish colonists. The military composed the Presidio, the Spanish colonists the Pueblo, and the Indian converts the Mission. This was a wise policy. The neighborhood of the military force was undoubtedly advantageous and frequently necessary for the safety of a mission. The intro duction of white colonists was beneficial in put ting before the Indians object lessons of agricul ture and industry. But whereas soldiers and set tlers were not likely to he. at all times, models of the religion they professed. it wag prudent to keep the newly converted Indians from too close a con tact with the Spaniard. Within the missions only Christian natives resided, under the immediate spiritual and temporal government of the Fathers. Clustered around the mission buildings, wherein the children were educated and trained to mechan ical and industrial trades, were the thatched huts in which lived the Indians. Forty-three years after the first foundation there were eighteen mis sions and a Christian native population of 15,50o. Sixty-five years after the foundation there were twenty-one missions, with a native population of 3o,boo. During the first quarter of this century 18o8-1824) took place in Mexico the rebellion against Spanish rule and the establishment of the republic. This revolution brought on the secu larization of the missions. Secularization meant the confiscation of the mission properties and the expulsion of the Franciscans. The total ruin of the missions and the return of the Indians to savage life were the results of this inopportune policy.
(2) The French Missions. The land reached by the Cabots in 1494 was Cape Breton Island, "which name," says Parkman, "found on the oldest map, is a memorial of very early French voyages." There is reason to believe that before the voyage of Cabot, French fishermen frequented the banks of Newfoundland; there is evidence that they did so as early as the year 1504. In the year 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine sailor in the service of Francis I, touched the American coast near Cape Fear, in North Caro lina, and skirted it northward as far as latitude 50. In three voyages-1534, 1535, 1541—Jacques Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence to a great Indian village, back of which rose a majestic mound that Cartier named Mount Royal ; he had christened Montreal. For half a century no French expeditions to the western continent took place on account of the disturbed condition of France. In 1603 Samuel de Champlain made a voyage of exploration up the St. Lawrence as far as Montreal. In 16o5 he accompanied an ex pedition to Nova Scotia as royal geographer, and surveyed our northern coasts as far south as Bos ton Harbor. In 16°8 he laid the foundations of Quebec, and this was the beginning of the great French colony of Canada called New France. In 1614 four Recollects (a branch of the Fran ciscan order) came out to New France to attend to the spiritual wants of the settlers and convert the surrounding tribes. In 1625 came to Quebec the first band of Jesuits. whom the Recollects had called to their aid and to whom they left the field a few years later.