title: Junípero Serra

text: By age seven, Miquel was working the fields with his parents, helping cultivate wheat and beans, and tending the cattle. But he showed a special interest in visiting the local Franciscan friary at the church of San Bernardino within a block of the Serra family house. Attending the friars' primary school at the church, Miquel learned reading, writing, mathematics, Latin, religion and liturgical song, especially Gregorian chant. Gifted with a good voice, he eagerly took to vocal music. The friars sometimes let him join the community choir and sing at special church feasts. Miquel and his father Antonio often visited the friary for friendly chats with the Franciscans.


title: Junípero Serra

text: At age 16, Miquel's parents enrolled him in a Franciscan school in the capital city, Palma de Majorca, where he studied philosophy. A year later, he became a novice in the Franciscan order.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On September 14, 1730, some two months before his 17th birthday, Serra entered the Franciscan Order at Palma, specifically, the Alcantarine branch of the Friars Minor, a reform movement in the Order. The slight and frail Serra now embarked on his novitiate period, a rigorous year of preparation to become a full member of the Franciscan Order. He was given the religious name of Junípero in honor of Brother Juniper, who had been among the first Franciscans and a companion of Francis of Assisi. The young Junípero, along with his fellow novices, vowed to scorn property and comfort, and to remain celibate. He still had seven years to go to become an ordained Catholic priest. He immersed himself in rigorous studies of logic, metaphysics, cosmology, and theology.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The daily routine at the friary followed a rigid schedule: prayers, meditation, choir singing, physical chores, spiritual readings, and instruction. The friars would wake up every midnight for another round of chants. Serra's superiors discouraged letters and visitors. In his free time, he avidly read stories about Franciscan friars roaming the provinces of Spain and around the world to win new souls for the church, often suffering martyrdom in the process.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 1737, Serra became a priest, and three years later earned an ecclesiastical license to teach philosophy at the Convento de San Francisco. His philosophy course, including over 60 students, lasted three years. Among his students were fellow future missionaries Francisco Palóu and Juan Crespí. When the course ended in 1743, Serra told his students: "I desire nothing more from you than this, that when the news of my death shall have reached your ears, I ask you to say for the benefit of my soul: 'May he rest in peace.' Nor shall I omit to do the same for you so that all of us will attain the goal for which we have been created."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra was considered intellectually brilliant by his peers. He received a doctorate in theology from the Lullian College (founded in the 14th century by Ramon Lull for the training of Franciscan missionaries) in Palma de Majorca, where he also occupied the Duns Scotus chair of philosophy until he joined the missionary College of San Fernando de Mexico in 1749.


title: Junípero Serra

text: During Serra's last five years on the island of Majorca, drought and plague afflicted his home village of Petra. Serra sometimes went home from Palma for brief visits to his parents—now separated—and gave them some financial support. On one occasion he was called home to anoint his seriously ill father with the last rites. In one of his final visits to Petra, Serra found his younger sister Juana María near death.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 1748, Serra and Palóu confided to each other their desire to become missionaries. Serra, now 35, was assured a prestigious career as priest and scholar if he stayed in Majorca; but he set his sights firmly on pagan lands. Applying to the colonial bureaucracy in Madrid, Serra requested that both he and Palóu embark on a foreign mission. After weathering some administrative obstacles, they received permission and set sail for Cádiz, the port of departure for Spain's colonies in the Americas.


title: Junípero Serra

text: While waiting to set sail, Serra wrote a long letter to a colleague back in Majorca, urging him to console Serra's parents—now in their 70s—over their only son's pending departure. "They [my parents] will learn to see how sweet is His yoke," Serra wrote, "and that He will change for them the sorrow they may now experience into great happiness. Now is not the time to muse or fret over the happenings of life but rather to be conformed entirely to the will of God, striving to prepare themselves for that happy death which of all the things of life is our principal concern." Serra asked his colleague to read this letter to his parents, who had never attended school.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 1749, Serra and the Franciscan missionary team landed in Veracruz, on the Gulf coast of New Spain (now Mexico). To get from Veracruz to Mexico City, Serra and his Franciscan companions took the Camino Real (), a rough road stretching from sea level through tropical forests, dry plains, high plateaus and volcanic sierra mountains to an altitude of 7400 feet (2250 meters). Royal officials provided horses for the 20 Franciscan friars to ride up the Camino Real. All accepted the offer, except for Serra and one companion, a friar from Andalusia. Strictly following the rule of his patron saint Francis of Assisi that friars "must not ride on horseback unless compelled by manifest necessity or infirmity," Serra insisted on walking to Mexico City. He and his fellow friar set out on the Camino Real with no money or guide, carrying only their breviaries. They trusted in Providence and the hospitality of local people along the way.


title: Junípero Serra

text: During the trek Serra's left foot swelled up, and a burning itch tormented him. Arriving at a farm at day's end, he could hardly stand. He attributed the swelling to a mosquito bite. His discomfort caused him to stay over at the farm another night, during which he scratched his foot and leg to excess, desperately trying to relieve the itch. The next morning his leg was raw and bleeding. This wound plagued Serra for the rest of his life.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Hobbling into Mexico City, Serra joined up with his fellow friars at the College of San Fernando de Mexico, a specialized training center and regional headquarters for Franciscan missionaries. Serra requested that he do his novitiate year again—despite his academic prestige, and the fact that the college's novices were far younger men. Though his request was declined, Serra insisted on living as a novice at San Fernando: "This learned university professor ... would often eat more sparingly in order to replace the student whose turn it was to read to the community. Or he would humbly carry trays and wait on tables with the lay brothers."


title: Junípero Serra

text: The Sierra Gorda Indian missions, some 90 miles north of Santiago de Querétaro, were nestled in a vast region of jagged mountains, home of the Pame people and a scattering of Spanish colonists. The Pames—who centuries earlier had built a civilization with temples, idols and priests—lived mainly by gathering and hunting, but also pursued agriculture. Many groups among them, adopting mobile guerrilla tactics, had eluded conquest by the Spanish military.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra and Palóu, arriving at the village of Jalpan, found the mission in disarray: The parishioners, numbering fewer than a thousand, were attending neither confession nor Mass. The two missionaries set about learning the Pame language from a Mexican who had lived among the Pames. But the statement by Palóu that Serra translated the catechism into the Pame language is questionable, as Serra himself later admitted he had great difficulties learning indigenous languages.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra involved Pames parishioners in the ritual reenactment of Jesus' forced death march. Erecting 14 stations, Serra led the procession himself, carrying an extremely heavy cross. At each station, the procession paused for a prayer, and at the end Serra sermonized on the sufferings and death of Jesus. On Holy Thursday, 12 Pames elders reenacted the roles of the apostles. Serra, in the role of Jesus, washed their feet and then, after the service, dined with them.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra also tackled the practical side of mission administration. Working with the college of San Fernando, he had cattle, goats, sheep, and farming tools brought to the Sierra Gorda mission. Palóu supervised the farm labor of men of the mission; the women learned spinning, sewing and knitting. Their products were collected and rationed to the mission residents, according to personal needs. Christian Pames sold their surplus products in nearby trading centers, under the friars' supervision to protect them from cheaters. Pames who adapted successfully to mission life received their own parcels of land to raise corn, beans and pumpkins, and sometimes received oxen and seeds as well.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Within two years, Serra had made inroads against the Pames' traditional belief system. On his 1752 visit from the Sierra Gorda mission to the college of San Fernando in Mexico City, Serra joyfully carried a goddess statue presented to him by Christian Pames. The statue, showing the face of Cachum, mother of the sun, had been erected on a hilltop shrine where some Pame chiefs lay buried.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Back in the Sierra Gorda, Serra faced a conflict between Spanish soldiers, settlers, and mission natives or "Indians". Following a Spanish military victory over the Pames in 1743, Spanish authorities had sent not only Franciscan missionaries, but also Spanish/Mexican soldiers and their families into the Sierra Gorda. The soldiers had the job of pursuing runaway mission Indians and securing the region for the Spanish crown. But the soldiers' land claims clashed with mission lands that Christian Pames were working.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Some of the soldiers' families tried to establish a town, and the officer in charge of their deployment approved their plan. The Pames objected, threatening to defend their lands by force if necessary. Soldiers and settlers let their cattle graze on Christian Pames' farmlands and bullied Pames into working for them. Serra and the College of San Fernando sided with the Pames—citing the Laws of the Indies, which banned colonial settlements in mission territories.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The viceroy, Spain's highest official in Mexico, suspended the intrusive colony. But the townspeople protested and stayed put. The government set up commissions and looked into alternative sites for the colony. It ordered the settlers to keep their cattle out of the Pames' fields, and to pay the Pames fairly for their labor (with the friars supervising payment). After a protracted legal struggle, the settlers moved out, and in 1755 the Pames and friars reclaimed their land.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Crowning his Sierra Gorda mission, Serra oversaw the construction of a splendid church in Jalpan. Gathering masons, carpenters, and other skilled craftsmen from Mexico City, Serra employed Christian Pames in seasonal construction work over the course of seven years to complete the church. Serra pitched in himself, carrying wooden beams and applying mortar between the stones forming the church walls.


title: Junípero Serra

text: During his 1752 visit to Mexico City, Serra sent a request from the college of San Fernando to the local headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition. He asked that an inquisitor be appointed to preside over the Sierra Gorda. The next day, Inquisition officials appointed Serra himself as inquisitor for the whole region—adding that he could exercise his powers anywhere he did missionary work in New Spain, as long as there was no regular Inquisition official in the region.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In September 1752, Serra filed a report to the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico City from Jalpan, on "evidences of witchcraft in the Sierra Gorda missions." He denounced several Christian non-Indians who lived in and around the mission for "the most detestable and horrible crimes of sorcery, witchcraft and devil worship. ... If it is necessary to specify one of the persons guilty of such crimes, I accuse by name a certain Melchora de los Reyes Acosta, a married mulattress, an inhabitant of the said mission. . ... In these last days a certain Cayetana, a very clever Mexican woman of said mission, married to one Pérez, a mulatto, has confessed—she, being observed and accused of similar crimes, having been held under arrest by us for some days past—that in the mission there is a large congregation of [Christian non-Indians], although some Indians also join them, and that these persons, ... flying through the air at night, are in the habit of meeting in a cave on a hill near a ranch called El Saucillo, in the center of said missions, where they worship and make sacrifice to the demons who appear visibly there in the guise of young goats and various other things of that nature. ... If such evil is not attacked, the horrible corruption will spread among these poor [Indian] neophytes who are in our charge."


title: Junípero Serra

text: According to modern Franciscan historians, this report by Serra to the Inquisition is the only letter of his that has survived from eight years of mission work in the Sierra Gorda. Serra's first biographer, Francisco Palóu, wrote that Serra, in his role of inquisitor, had to work in many parts of Mexico and travel long distances. Yet the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City, with over a thousand volumes of indexed documents on the Inquisition, apparently contains only two references to Serra's work for the Inquisition following his 1752 appointment: his preaching in Oaxaca in 1764, and his partial handling of the case of a Sierra Gorda mulatto accused of sorcery in 1766.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 1758, Serra returned to the College of San Fernando. Over the next nine years he worked in the college's administrative offices, and as a missionary and inquisitor in the dioceses of Mexico, Puebla, Oaxaca, Valladolid, and Guadalajara.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Emulating an earlier Franciscan missionary and saint, Francisco Solano, Serra made a habit of punishing himself physically, to purify his spirit. He wore a sackcloth spiked with bristles, or a coat interwoven with broken pieces of wire, under his gray friar's outer garment. In his austere cell, Serra kept a chain of sharp pointed iron links hanging on the wall beside his bed, to whip himself at night when sinful thoughts ran through his mind. His nightly self-flagellations at the college of San Fernando caught the ears of some of his fellow friars. In his letters to his Franciscan companions, Serra often referred to himself as a "sinner" and a "most unworthy priest."


title: Junípero Serra

text: In one of his sermons in Mexico City, while exhorting his listeners to repent their sins, Serra took out his chain, bared his shoulders and started whipping himself. Many parishioners, roused by the spectacle, began sobbing. Finally, a man climbed to the pulpit, took the chain from Serra's hand and began whipping "him"self, declaring: "I am the sinner who is ungrateful to God who ought to do penance for my many sins, and not the padre [Serra], who is a saint." The man kept whipping himself until he collapsed. After receiving the last sacraments, he later died from the ordeal.


title: Junípero Serra

text: During other sermons on the theme of repentance, Serra would hoist a large stone in one hand and, while clutching a crucifix in the other, smash the stone against his chest. Many of his listeners feared that he would strike himself dead. Later, Serra suffered chest pains and shortness of breath; Palóu suggests that Serra's self-inflicted bruises were the cause. While preaching of hell and damnation, Serra would sear his flesh with a four-pronged candle flame—emulating a famed Franciscan preacher, John of Capistrano. Palóu described this as "quite violent, painful, and dangerous towards wounding his chest."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra did not stand alone among Catholic missionaries in displaying self-punishment at the pulpit. The more zealous Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries did likewise. But few took it to the extremes that Serra did. The regulations of the college of San Fernando said that self-punishment should never be carried to the point of permanently incapacitating oneself.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On June 24, 1767, the Viceroy of New Spain, Carlos Francisco de Croix, read a Spanish royal decree to Mexico's archbishop and assembled church officials: "Repair with an armed force to the houses of the Jesuits. Seize the persons of all of them and, within 24 hours, transport them as prisoners to the port of Veracruz. Cause to be sealed the records of said houses and records of such persons without allowing them to remove anything but their breviaries and such garments as are absolutely necessary for their journey. If after the embarkation there should be found one Jesuit in that district, even if ill or dying, you shall suffer the penalty of death."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Spain's king Carlos III had plotted the expulsion of Jesuits throughout his empire five months earlier.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On the Baja California peninsula, newly appointed governor Gaspar de Portolá had to notify and remove the Jesuits from the chain of missions they had developed in forbidding territory over 70 years. By February 1768, Portolá gathered the 16 Baja Jesuit missionaries in Loreto, from where they sailed to mainland Mexico for deportation. Sympathetic to the Jesuits, Portolá treated them kindly even as he removed them under the king's orders.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Into the vacuum created by the Jesuits' expulsion from Mexico, stepped Franciscan missionaries. In July 1767, the guardian of the college of San Fernando appointed Serra president of the missions of Baja California, heading a group of 15 Franciscan friars; Francisco Palóu served as his second in command. Jesuit priests had developed 13 missions on that long and arid peninsula over seven decades. Two Jesuits had died at the hands of Indians in the revolt of 1734–36.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In March 1768, Serra and his missionary team boarded a Spanish sloop at San Blas, on Mexico's Pacific coast. Sailing over 200 miles up the Gulf of California, they landed at Loreto two weeks later. Gaspar de Portolá, governor of Las Californias, welcomed them at the Loreto mission, founded by Jesuits in 1697. While he gave control of the church to Serra, Portolá controlled the living quarters and rationed out food to the friars, charging their costs to the mission.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra and Palóu found—to their unpleasant surprise—that they ruled only on spiritual matters: everyday management of the mission remained in the hands of the military, who had occupied the Baja missions since evicting the Jesuits. In August 1768, New Spain's inspector general José de Gálvez, displeased with the sloppy military administration of the Baja missions, ordered them turned over fully to the Franciscan friars.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The Franciscans found that the Indian population in the Baja California mission territories had dwindled to about 7,150. By the time the Franciscans had moved north and turned the missions over to Dominican friars in 1772, the Indian population had decreased to about 5,000. "If it goes on at this rate," wrote Palóu, "in a short time Baja California will come to an end." Epidemics, especially syphilis introduced by Spanish troops, were wasting the Indians. But Palóu attributed the ravages of syphilis to God's retribution for the Indians' murder of the two Jesuit priests over 30 years earlier.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 1768 José de Gálvez, inspector general of New Spain, decided to send explorers and locate missions in Alta (upper) California. Gálvez aimed both to Christianize the extensive Indian populations and serve Spain's strategic interest by preventing Russian explorations and possible claims to North America's Pacific coast. Gálvez chose Serra to head the missionary team in the California expedition. Serra, now 55, eagerly seized the chance to harvest thousands of pagan souls in lands previously untouched by the church.


title: Junípero Serra

text: But as the expedition gathered in Loreto, Serra's foot and leg infection had become almost crippling. The commander, Gaspar de Portolá, tried to dissuade him from joining the expedition, and wrote to Gálvez about Serra's condition. Serra's fellow friar and former student Francisco Palóu also became concerned, gently suggesting to Serra that he stay in Baja California and let the younger and stronger Palóu make the journey to San Diego in his place. Serra rebuffed both Portolá's and Palóu's doubts. He chided Palóu for his suggestion: "Let us not speak of that. I have placed all my confidence in God, of whose goodness I hope that He will grant me to reach not only San Diego to raise the standard of the Holy Cross in that port, but also Monterey."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra suggested that the Portolá party set off without him; he would follow and meet up with them on the way to Alta California. He then assigned friar Miguel de la Campa as chaplain to the Portolá expedition, which set out from Loreto on March 9, 1769. Spending holy week at mission Loreto, Serra set out on March 28. "From my mission of Loreto," wrote Serra, "I took along no more provisions for so long a journey than a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese. For I was there [at mission Loreto] a whole year, in economic matters, as a mere guest to receive the crumbs of the royal soldier commissioner, whose liberality at my departure did not extend beyond the aforementioned articles."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Two servants—one named José María Vergerano, a 20-year-old from Magdalena, the other a soldier guard—accompanied Serra on his journey from Loreto, as he rode on a feeble mule. On April 28, 1769, Serra arrived at mission San Borja, where he received a warm welcome from friar Fermín Lasuén. Founded just seven years before by the Jesuit Wenceslaus Linck, mission San Borja sat in an unusually arid region of Baja California. Continuing north, Serra stopped on May 5 to celebrate a Mass for the feast of the Ascension in the deserted church at Calamajué, scarcely more than a ruined hut. The next morning he arrived at Santa María, where he met up with Portolá, friar Miguel de la Campa and several members of their party. In this arid region, whose alkaline land resisted cultivation, lived the "poorest of all" the Indians Serra had encountered in Mexico. On Sunday May 7, Serra celebrated high Mass and preached a sermon at the mission church on the frontier of Spanish Catholicism.


title: Junípero Serra

text: After leaving Mission Santa María, Serra urged Portolá to move ahead of the slow pack train, so they could reach Velicatá in time for Pentecost the next day. Portolá agreed, so the small group traveled all day May 13 to reach Velicatá by late evening. The advanced guard of the party greeted them there.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On Pentecost day, May 14, 1769, Serra founded his first mission, Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá, in a mud hut that had served as a makeshift church when friar Fermín Lasuén had traveled up on Easter to conduct the sacraments for the Fernando Rivera expedition, the overland party that had preceded the Portolá party. The founding celebration took place "with all the neatness of holy poverty," in Serra's words. Smoke from the soldiers' guns, fired in repeated volleys, served as incense.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The new mission lacked Indians to convert. A few days later, friar Miguel de la Campa notified Serra that a few natives had arrived. Serra joyously rushed out to welcome twelve Indian, men and boys. "Then I saw what I could hardly begin to believe when I read about it," wrote Serra. "... namely, that they go about entirely naked like Adam in paradise before the fall. ... We treated with them for a long time; and although they saw all of us clothed, they nevertheless showed not the least trace of shame in their manner of nudity." Serra placed both hands upon their heads as a token of paternal affection. He then handed them figs, which they ate immediately. One of the Indian men gave Serra roasted agave stalks and four fishes. In return, Portolá and his soldiers offered tobacco leaves and various food items.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Through a Christian Indian interpreter, Serra told the Indians that de la Campa would stay at the mission to serve them. According to Stephen Hyslop, "[Serra's] goal and that of his fellow friars was not to confirm Indians in their seeming innocence, like 'Adam in the garden, before sin', but to make them aware of their sins and move them to repent." The motive behind gifts of food, tobacco, and the like was, "in the words of Serra's colleague and biographer, Father Francisco Palóu, spiritual conquest meant enticing Indians with food and clothing, by which means they could be indoctrinated as Christians and 'gradually acquire a knowledge of what is spiritually good and evil' ".


title: Junípero Serra

text: Back on the road, Serra found it very difficult to stay on his feet because "my left foot had become very inflamed, a painful condition which I have suffered for a year or more. Now this inflammation has reached halfway up my leg." Portolá again tried to persuade Serra to withdraw from the expedition, offering to "have you carried back to the first mission where you can recuperate, and we will continue our journey." Serra countered that "God ... has given me the strength to come so far. ... Even though I should die on the way, I shall not turn back. They can bury me wherever they wish and I shall gladly be left among the pagans, if it be God's will." Portolá had a stretcher prepared, so that Christian Indians traveling with the expedition could carry Serra along the trail.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Not wishing to burden his traveling companies, Serra departed from his usual practice of avoiding medicines: he asked one of the muleteers, Juan Antonio Coronel, if he could prepare a remedy for his foot and leg wound. When Coronel objected that he knew only how to heal animals' wounds, Serra rejoined: "Well then, son, just imagine that I am an animal. ... Make me the same remedy that you would apply to an animal." Coronel then crushed some tallow between stones and mixed it with green desert herbs. After heating the mix, he applied it to Serra's foot and leg. The next morning, Serra felt "much improved and I celebrated Mass. ... I was enabled to make the daily trek just as if I did not have any ailment. ... There is no swelling but only the itching which I feel at times."


title: Junípero Serra

text: The expedition still had 300 miles (480 kilometers) to travel to San Diego. They passed through desert terrain into oak savanna in June, often camping and sleeping under large oaks. From a high hill on June 20, their advance scouts saw the Pacific Ocean in the distance. Reaching its shores that evening, the party called the spot Ensenada de Todos Santos (All Saints' Cove, today simply Ensenada). They now had less than 80 miles (130 kilometers) to reach San Diego.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Pressing north, they stayed close to the ocean. On June 23, they came upon a large Indian village where they enjoyed a pleasant stopover. The natives appeared healthy, robust and friendly, immediately repeating the Spanish words they heard. Some danced for the party, offering them fish and mussels. "We were all enamored of them," wrote Serra. "In fact, all the pagans have pleased me, but these in particular have stolen my heart."


title: Junípero Serra

text: The Indians now encountered by the party near the coast appeared well-fed and more eager to receive cloth than food. On June 25, as the party struggled to cross a series of ravines, they noticed many Indians following them. When they camped for the night, the Indians pressed close. Whenever Serra placed his hands on their heads, they placed theirs on his. Coveting cloth, some begged Serra for the friar's habit he wore. Several women passed Serra's spectacles around with delight from hand to hand, until one man dashed off with them. Serra's companions rushed to recover them, the only pair of spectacles Serra possessed.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On June 28, sergeant José Ortega, who had ridden ahead to meet the Rivera party in San Diego, returned with fresh animals and letters to Serra from friars Juan Crespí and Fernando Parrón. Serra learned that two Spanish galleons dispatched from Baja to supply the new missions had arrived at San Diego Bay. One of the ships, the "San Carlos", had sailed almost four months from La Paz, bypassing its destination by almost 200 miles before doubling back south to reach San Diego Bay. By the time it dropped anchor on April 29, scurvy had so devastated its crew that they lacked the strength to lower a boat. Men on shore from the "San Antonio", which had arrived three weeks earlier, had to board the "San Carlos" to help its surviving crew ashore.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The Portolá/Serra party, having trekked 900 miles (1450 kilometers) from Loreto and suffered dwindling food supplies along the way, arrived in San Diego on July 1, 1769. "It was a day of great rejoicing and merriment for all," wrote Serra, "because although each one in his respective journey had undergone the same hardships, their meeting ... now became the material for mutual accounts of their experiences."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Between the overland and seafaring parties of the expedition, about 300 men had started on the trip from Baja California. But no more than half of them reached San Diego. Most of the Christian Indians recruited to the overland parties had died or deserted; military officers had denied them rations when food started running low. Half of those who made it to San Diego spent months unable to resume the expedition, due to illness. Doctor Pedro Prat, who had also sailed on the "San Carlos" as the expedition's surgeon, struggled to treat the ill men, himself weakened from scurvy. Friar Fernando Parrón, who had sailed on the "San Carlos" as chaplain, had become weak with scurvy as well. Many men who had sailed on the "San Antonio", including captain Juan Pérez, had also taken ill with scurvy. Despite the efforts of Doctor Prat, many of the ill men died in San Diego.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On July 16, 1769, Serra founded mission San Diego in honor of Didacus of Alcalá in a simple shelter on Presidio Hill serving as a temporary church. Tensions with the local Kumeyaay people made it difficult to attract converts. The Indians accepted the trinkets Serra offered as rewards for visiting the new mission. But their craving for Spanish cloth irritated the soldiers, who accused them of stealing. Some of the Kumeyaay teased and taunted the sick soldiers. To warn them away, soldiers fired their guns into the air. The Christian Indians from Baja who remained with the Spaniards did not know the Kumeyaay language.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, Serra and padre Sebastian Vizcaíno celebrated Mass at the new mission chapel, to which several Hispanics had gone for confession and Holy Communion. After Mass, four soldiers went down to the beach to bring padre Fernando Parrón back from the "San Carlos", where he had been celebrating Mass.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Observing the mission and its neighboring huts sparsely protected, a group of over 20 Indians attacked with bows and arrows. The four remaining soldiers, aided by the blacksmith and carpenter, returned fire with muskets and pistols. Serra, clutching a Jesus figurine in one hand and a Mary figurine in the other, prayed to God to save both sides from casualties. The blacksmith, Chacón, ran about the Spanish huts unprotected by a leather jacket, shouting: "Long live the faith of Jesus Christ and may these dogs, enemies of that faith, die!"


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra's young servant José María Vergerano ran into Serra's hut, his neck pierced by an arrow. "Father, absolve me," he beseeched, "for the Indians have killed me." "He entered my little hut with so much blood streaming from his temples and mouth that, shortly after, I gave him absolution and helped him to die well," wrote Serra. "He passed away at my feet, bathed in his blood." Padre Vizcaíno, the blacksmith Chacón, and a Christian Indian from San Ignacio suffered wounds. That night Serra buried Vergerano secretly, concealing his death from the Indians.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The Indian warriors, suffering several dead and wounded, retreated with a new-found respect for the power of Spanish firearms. As local Indians cremated their dead, the wailing of their women sounded from local villages. Yet Serra wrote six months later, in a letter to the guardian of the college of San Fernando, that "both our men and theirs sustained wounds"—without mentioning any Indian deaths. He added: "It seems none of them died so they can still be baptized." Tightening security, the soldiers built a stockade of poles around the mission buildings, banning Indians from entering.


title: Junípero Serra

text: A teenage boy from the Kumeyaay village of Kosa'aay (Cosoy, known today as Old Town, San Diego) who had often visited the mission before the outbreak of hostilities, resumed his visits with the friars. He soon learned enough Spanish for Serra to view him as an envoy to help convert the Kumeyaay. Serra urged the boy to persuade some parents to bring their young child to the mission, so that Serra could administer Catholic baptism to the child by pouring water over his head.


title: Junípero Serra

text: A few days later, a group of Indians arrived at the mission carrying a naked baby boy. The Spaniards interpreted their sign language as a desire to have the boy baptized. Serra covered the child with some clothing and asked the corporal of the guard to sponsor the baptism. Dressed in surplice and stole, Serra read the initial prayers and performed the ceremonies to prepare for baptism. But just as he lifted the baptismal shell, filled it with water and readied to pour it over the baby's head, some Indians grabbed the child from the corporal's arms and ran away to their village in fear. The other Kumeyaay visitors followed them, laughing and jeering. The frustrated Serra never forgot this incident; recounting it years later brought tears to his eyes. Serra attributed the Indians' behavior to his own sins.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Over six months dragged on without a single Indian convert to mission San Diego. On January 24, 1770, the 74 exhausted men of the Portolá expedition returned from their exploratory journey up the coast to San Francisco. They had survived by slaughtering and eating their mules along the return trek south. Commander Gaspar de Portolá, engineer and cartographer Miguel Costansó, and friar Juan Crespí all arrived in San Diego with detailed diaries of their trip. They reported large populations of Indians living along the coast who seemed friendly and docile, ready to embrace the gospel. Serra fervently wrote to the guardian of the college of San Fernando, requesting more missionaries willing to face hardships in Alta California.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Food remained scarce as the San Diego outpost awaited the return of the supply ship "San Antonio". Weighing the risk of his soldiers dying of starvation, Portolá set a deadline of March 19, the feast of saint Joseph, patron of his expedition: If no ship arrived by that day—Portolá told Serra—he would march his men south the next morning. The anguished Serra, along with friar Juan Crespí, insisted on staying in San Diego in the event of the Portolá group's departure. Boarding the "San Carlos" (still anchored in San Diego Bay), Serra told captain Vicente Vila of Portolá's plan. Vila agreed to stay in the harbor until the relief ship arrived—and to welcome Serra and Crespí aboard if they got stranded by Portolá's departure.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On the morning of March 19, Serra celebrated Mass and preached a sermon at the forlorn mission on Presidio Hill. No ship appeared in the bay that morning. But around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the sails of a ship—the "San Antonio"—came into view on the horizon. It sailed past San Diego Bay, destined for Monterey. When it got to the Santa Barbara Channel, its sailors made landfall to fetch fresh water. There they learned from Indians that the Portolá expedition had returned south. So the "San Antonio" also turned south, anchoring in San Diego Bay on March 23.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Bolstered by the food unloaded from the "San Antonio", Portolá and his men shifted their sights back north to Monterey, specified by José de Gálvez as the northern stake of Spain's empire in California. Friar Juan Crespí prepared to accompany the second Portolá expedition to Monterey. Leaving mission San Diego in the hands of friars Fernando Parrón and Francisco Gómez, Serra rode a launch out to board the "San Antonio". He and Crespí would meet in Monterey. Since Serra planned to establish the mission there while having Crespí establish mission San Buenaventura, the two friars would be living over 200 miles apart. "Truly," wrote Serra to Palóu, "this state of solitude shall be ... the greatest of my hardships, but God in His infinite mercy will see me through."


title: Junípero Serra

text: On April 16, 1770, the "San Antonio" set sail from San Diego Bay, carrying Serra, doctor Pedro Prat, engineer Miguel Costansó and a crew of sailors under captain Juan Pérez. Contrary winds blew the ship back south to the Baja peninsula, then as far north as the Farallon Islands. As the ship heaved against heavy winds, Pérez, Serra and sailors recited daily prayers, promising to make a novena and celebrate High Mass upon their safe arrival in Monterey. Several sailors fell sick with scurvy. Serra described the six-week voyage as "somewhat uncomfortable."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Meanwhile, the land expedition departed from San Diego on April 17 under the command of Portolá. His group included friar Crespí, captain Pedro Fages, twelve Spanish volunteers, seven leather-jacketed soldiers, two muleteers, five Baja Christian Indians, and Portolá's servant. Following the same route they had taken the year before, the expedition reached Monterey Bay on May 24, without losing a single man or suffering any serious illness.


title: Junípero Serra

text: With the "San Antonio" nowhere in sight, Portolá, Crespí and a guard walked over the hills to Point Pinos, then to a beachside hill just south where their party had planted a large cross five months before on their journey back from San Francisco Bay. They found the cross surrounded by feathers and broken arrows driven into the ground, with fresh sardines and meat laid out before the cross. No Indians were in sight. The three men then walked along the rocky coast south to Carmel Bay. Several Indians approached them, and the two groups exchanged gifts. On May 31, the "San Antonio" sailed into Monterey Bay and dropped anchor, reuniting the surviving men of the land and sea expeditions.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On Pentecost Sunday, June 3, 1770, Serra, Portolá and the whole expedition held a ceremony at a makeshift chapel erected next to a massive oak tree by Monterey Bay, to found mission San Carlos Borromeo. "The men of the land and sea expeditions coming from different directions met here at the same time," wrote Serra, "we singing the divine praises in our launch, while the gentlemen on land sang in their hearts." After the raising and planting of a large cross, which Serra blessed, "the standards of our Catholic monarch were also set up, the one ceremony ... accompanied by shouts of 'Long live the Faith!' and the other by 'Long live the King!' Added to this was the clangor of the bells, the volleys of the muskets, and the cannonading from the ship." Both king Carlos III and viceroy Carlos de Croix had chosen to name the new mission after Carlo Borromeo. The body of a sailor, Alexo Niño, who had died the day before aboard the "San Antonio", was buried at the foot of the newly erected cross.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra realized from the start that the new mission needed relocation: While the Laws of the Indies required missions to be located near Indian villages, there were no Indian settlements near the newly christened mission by Monterey Bay. "It might be necessary," wrote Serra to the guardian of the college of San Fernando, "to change the site of the mission toward the area of Carmel, a locality indeed more delightful and suitable because of the extent and excellent quality of the land and water supply necessary to produce very abundant harvests."


title: Junípero Serra

text: On July 9, the "San Antonio" set sail from Monterey, bound for Mexico. Aboard were Portolá and Miguel Costansó, along with several letters from Serra. Forty men, including the two friars and five Baja Indians, remained to develop the mission on the Monterey peninsula. In San Diego, 450 miles (725 kilometers) south, 23 men remained to develop the mission there. Both groups would have to wait a year before receiving supplies and news from Mexico.


title: Junípero Serra

text: When the party reached San Diego on July 1, Serra stayed behind to start the Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first of the 21 California missions (including the nearby Visita de la Presentación, also founded under Serra's leadership).


title: Junípero Serra

text: Junipero Serra moved to the area that is now Monterey in 1770, and founded Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo. He remained there as "Father Presidente" of the Alta California missions. In 1771, Serra relocated the mission to Carmel, which became known as "Mission Carmel" and served as his headquarters.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra was also present at the founding of the Presidio of Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, California) on April 21, 1782, but was prevented from locating the mission there because of the animosity of Governor Felipe de Neve.


title: Junípero Serra

text: He began in San Diego on July 16, 1769, and established his headquarters near the Presidio of Monterey, but soon moved a few miles south to establish Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in today's Carmel, California.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The missions were primarily designed to bring the Catholic faith to the native peoples. Other aims were to integrate the neophytes into Spanish society, to provide a framework for organizing the natives into a productive workforce in support of new extensions of Spanish power, and to train them to take over ownership and management of the land. As head of the order in California, Serra not only dealt with church officials, but also with Spanish officials in Mexico City and with the local military officers who commanded the nearby garrison.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 1773, difficulties with Pedro Fages, the military commander, compelled Serra to travel to Mexico City to argue before Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa for the removal of Fages as the Governor of California Nueva. At the capital of Mexico, by order of Viceroy Bucareli, he printed up "Representación" in 32 articles. Bucareli ruled in Serra's favor on 30 of the 32 charges brought against Fages, and removed him from office in 1774, after which time Serra returned to California. In 1778, Serra, although not a bishop, was given dispensation to administer the sacrament of confirmation for the faithful in California. After he had exercised his privilege for a year, Governor Felipe de Neve directed him to suspend administering the sacrament until he could present the papal brief. For nearly two years Serra refrained, and then Viceroy Majorga gave instructions to the effect that Serra was within his rights.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Franciscans saw the Indians as children of God who deserved the opportunity for salvation, and would make good Christians. Converted Indians were segregated from Indians who had not yet embraced Christianity, lest there be a relapse. To understand the impetus behind missionary efforts in the 18th century, one must take into account the era's views on the salvation of unbaptized infants. While there were many controversies in the Church's history, the fate of unbaptized infants has never been definitively settled by an ecumenical council of Bishops in the Catholic church.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In the 18th century, most Catholic speculation regarding the ultimate end of unbaptized infants was still in line with the early Church Fathers such as Augustine of Hippo, who believed that unbaptized infants would receive the mildest chastisements in Hell, but no reward. For Serra and his companions, therefore, instructing the natives so that their children might also be saved would have most likely been a great concern. From this came the determined efforts of missionaries to the detriment of native cultures, which few today would countenance.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Discipline was strict, and the converts were not allowed to come and go at will. Indians who were baptized were required to live at the mission and conscripted into forced labor as plowmen, shepherds, cattle herders, blacksmiths, and carpenters on the mission. Disease, starvation, overwork, and torture decimated these tribes. Serra successfully resisted the efforts of Governor Felipe de Neve to bring Enlightenment policies to missionary work, because those policies would have subverted the economic and religious goals of the Franciscans.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra wielded this kind of influence because his missions served economic and political purposes as well as religious ends. The number of civilian colonists in Alta California never exceeded 3,200, and the missions with their Indian populations were critical to keeping the region within Spain's political orbit. Economically, the missions produced all of the colony's cattle and grain, and by the 1780s were even producing surpluses sufficient to trade with Mexico for luxury goods.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 1779, Franciscan missionaries under Serra's direction planted California's first sustained vineyard at Mission San Diego de Alcalá. Hence, he has been called the "Father of California Wine". The variety he planted, presumably descended from Spain, became known as the Mission grape and dominated California wine production until about 1880.


title: Junípero Serra

text: From his perspective, Serra's singular purpose was to save the souls of indigenous Americans. He believed that the death of an unconverted heathen was tragic, while the death of a baptized convert was a cause for joy. He maintained a patriarchal or fatherly attitude towards the Native American population. He wrote, "That spiritual fathers should punish their sons, the Indians, with blows appears to be as old as the conquest of the Americas; so general in fact that the saints do not seem to be any exception to the rule." Punishment made clear to the natives "that we, every one of us, came here for the single purpose of doing them good and their eternal salvation."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra also led efforts to protect the natives from abuse under Spanish soldiers. After a series of abuses on the native population by the hand of local soldiers, Serra and other missionaries protested against governor of Alta California Pedro Fages, who refused to reprimand his soldiers. Serra then departed for Mexico on October 17, 1772 to plead his case to the viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa. Bucareli requested Serra set his grievances in writing, which led to the drafting of the Representación. This document, which consisted of 32-points, also laid out the rights of Native Americans in Spanish California and protections against the soldiers, placing them under the governance of the missions. Mission Indians enjoyed rights as human beings under the protection of the Spanish monarchy, and were recognized as Hijos de Dios, or "Children of God." According to professor George Yagi, this stood in contrast to the treatment of Natives on the east coast of America, where they were guaranteed no rights.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Native Americans objected to the Catholic Church's canonization of Serra, charging the priest "directed and approved of the torture and enslavement of Natives" at missions that served as both religious and military installations.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In October 2015, a week after the Catholic Church canonized Serra, Serra's statue in Monterey was decapitated.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On September 12, 2017, Santa Barbara police reported a statue of Serra located at southern California's Santa Barbara mission had been decapitated and covered with red paint.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On November 3, 2017, the statue of Serra located at the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel was vandalized with red paint and suffered damage during a decapitation attempt with a reciprocating saw. Though the perpetrator failed to decapitate the bronze statue of Serra, $3000 was needed to repair it as well.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On June 19, 2020, during the worldwide civil unrest that occurred after the murder of George Floyd, activists in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park toppled a 30-foot replica of Serra, wrapped in a friar cloak and gripping a large cross. Once the statue fell red paint was poured on it and phrases including "Stolen Land," "Olone Land," and "Decolonize" were spray-painted on the pedestal where the founder of Spanish Missions previously stood.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On June 20, 2020, a crowd of indigenous elders and young people gathered in downtown Los Angeles to witness the toppling of Serra's statue at Father Serra Park near Olvera Street. Burning sage, speaking of their ancestors and chanting "Take it down!" the crowd watched as activists tied a rope around Serra's statue to rip it from its pedestal. Erected by the Knights of Columbus in 1932, the group said that the statue of Serra had become a symbol of Spanish colonization in which Native Americans, prohibited from practicing their customs and religion, were beaten when they tried to escape the church-run missions.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On July 4, 2020, a group of people toppled the statue of Serra located near the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The group was among an estimated 200 protestors who marched through the streets of Sacramento.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On October 12, 2020, a group of people toppled the statue of Serra located in front of Mission San Rafael Arcángel, in San Rafael, California.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On March 9, 2021, following a petition that began circulating after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the San Diego Unified School Board formally renamed Serra High School and its Conquistador mascot because of Serra's associations with indigenous assimilation.


title: Junípero Serra

text: "The New York Times" noted that some "Indian historians and authors blame Father Serra for the suppression of their culture and the premature deaths at the missions of thousands of their ancestors." George Tinker, an Osage/Cherokee and professor at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, cites evidence that Serra required the converted Indians to labor to support the missions. Tinker writes that while Serra's intentions in evangelizing were honest and genuine, overwhelming evidence suggests that the "native peoples resisted the Spanish intrusion from the beginning".


title: Junípero Serra

text: While administering Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Monterey, California, Serra had ongoing conflicts with Pedro Fages, who was military governor of Alta California. Fages worked his men very harshly and was seen as a tyrant. Serra intervened on the soldiers' behalf, and the two did not get along. Serra moved the mission to Carmel due to better lands for farming, due to his conflicts with Fages, and in part to protect the Indian neophytes from the influence of Spanish soldiers.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Mark A. Noll, a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, wrote that Serra's attitude—that missionaries could, and should, treat their wards like children, including the use of corporal punishment—was common at the time. Tinker argues that it is more appropriate to judge the beatings and whippings administered by Serra and others from the point of view of the Native Americans, who were the victims of the violence, and who did not punish their children with physical discipline. Salvatore J. Cordileone, archbishop of San Francisco, acknowledges Native American concerns about Serra's whippings and coercive treatment, but argues that missionaries were also teaching school and farming.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Iris Engstrand, emerita professor of history at the Catholic University of San Diego, described Serra as:


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra wrote a letter in 1775 to Fernando Rivera y Moncada explicitly instructing the colonial commander to whip and shackle Indigenous men who had escaped from Mission San Carlos:


title: Junípero Serra

text: Deborah A. Miranda, a professor of American literature at Washington and Lee University and an enrolled member of the Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation, stated that "Serra did not just bring us Christianity. He imposed it, giving us no choice in the matter. He did incalculable damage to a whole culture".


title: Junípero Serra

text: Professor Edward Castillo, a Native American and director of Native American Studies at the Sonoma State University in California, said in a "Firing Line" episode with William F. Buckley Jr. that "... you pointed out [that] in my work I haven't cited Serra as oppressor. You can't put a whip in his hand. You can't put a smoking gun in his hand. And that is true. The man was an administrator."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Corine Fairbanks of the American Indian Movement proclaimed: "For too long the mission system has been glorified as these wonderful moments of California's golden era. That is not true. They were concentration camps. They were places of death.".


title: Junípero Serra

text: Pope Francis, in addition to his canonization of Serra during a visit to the United States, called on Catholics to "embark upon a new chapter of evangelization." Francis further noted: "Instead of seeming to impose new obligations, (Christians) should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet. It is not by proselytizing that the Church grows, but 'by attraction'."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Catholic writers maintain that the attacks on Serra impose modern judgments about the appropriateness of Christian evangelization of non-Christians, and that much of the criticism leveled against Serra results from ahistorical value judgments and from ideologies that deny the validity of Christianity and Catholicism as a legitimate social and cultural force.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Despite these concerns, thousands of Native Americans in California maintain their Catholic faith, and some supported efforts to canonize Serra. James Nieblas—the first Native American priest to be ordained from the Juañeno Acjachemen Nation, a tribe evangelized by Serra—was chosen to meet with Pope Francis during his visit to Washington D.C. Nieblas, a longtime supporter of Serra's canonization, stated during a 1986 interview with the "Los Angeles Times" that "Father Serra brought our people to this day. I think Serra would be proud ... canonization has the full support and backing of the Juaneno people."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Members of other tribes associated with the mission system also expressed support for Serra's canonization. "Our people were directly involved with the Carmel Mission," said Tony Cerda, tribal chief of the Costanoan Rumsen Carmel tribe. "We support the canonization. ... The mission lands were our ancestral homes. Our ancestors are buried at the mission."


title: Junípero Serra

text: On the Costanoan Rumsen Carmel Tribe's official website, the community released a bilingual statement in support of Serra's canonization shortly after a visit between Chief Cerda and Pope Francis, stating:


title: Junípero Serra

text: Two members of California's Ohlone Tribe played roles in the canonization Mass by placing a relic of Serra's near the altar and reading a scripture in Chochenyo, a native language. One of the participants, Andrew Galvan, a member of the Ohlone Tribe and curator of Mission Dolores in San Francisco who sat on the Junípero Serra Cause for Canonization board, stated prior to the ceremony that the canonization "will be the culmination of a life's work for me. ... It will be a ceremonial opening of the door that will 'let us Indians in,' a moment I honestly didn't think I would live to see."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Ruben Mendoza, an archeologist of Mexican Mestizo and Native Yaqui descent who has extensively excavated missions in California, stated during a March 2015 interview with the "Los Angeles Times" that "Serra endured great hardships to evangelize Native Californians. In the process, he orchestrated the development of a chain of missions that helped give birth to modern California. ... When I don't go along with the idea that the missions were concentration camps and that the Spanish brutalized every Indian they encountered, I'm seen as an adversary."


title: Junípero Serra

text: In July 2015, Mendoza testified at a hearing on a proposal to remove a statue of Junipero Serra from the U.S. Capitol. In his remarks, he stated, "What greater symbol of empowerment than that offered by Fray Junípero Serra himself can we offer our youth? I ask that this legislative body seriously reconsider this politicized effort to minimize and erase one of the most substantive Hispanic and Latino contributions to our nation's history."


title: Junípero Serra

text: Biographer Gregory Orfalea wrote of Serra: "I see his devotion to Native Californians as heartfelt, plain-spoken and borne out by continuous example."


title: Junípero Serra

text: During the remaining three years of his life, he once more visited the missions from San Diego to San Francisco, traveling more than 600 miles in the process, to confirm all who had been baptized. He suffered intensely from his disabled leg and from his chest, yet he would use no remedies. He confirmed 5,309 people, who, with but few exceptions, were California Indian neophytes converted during the fourteen years from 1770.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On August 28, 1784, at the age of 70, Junípero Serra died at Mission San Carlos Borromeo from tuberculosis. He is buried there under the sanctuary. Following Serra's death, leadership of the Franciscan missionary effort in Alta California passed to Fermín Lasuén.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Junípero Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25, 1988. The pope spoke before a crowd of 20,000 in a beatification ceremony for six; according to the pope's address in English, "He sowed the seeds of Christian faith amid the momentous changes wrought by the arrival of European settlers in the New World. It was a field of missionary endeavor that required patience, perseverance, and humility, as well as vision and courage."


title: Junípero Serra

text: During Serra's beatification, questions were raised about how Indians were treated while Serra was in charge. The question of Franciscan treatment of Indians first arose in 1783. The famous historian of missions Herbert Eugene Bolton gave evidence favorable to the case in 1948, and the testimony of five other historians was solicited in 1986.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra was canonized by Pope Francis on September 23, 2015, as a part of the pope's first visit to the United States, the first canonization to take place on American soil. During a speech at the Pontifical North American College in Rome on May 2, 2015, Pope Francis stated that "Friar Junípero ... was one of the founding fathers of the United States, a saintly example of the Church's universality and special patron of the Hispanic people of the country." Junípero Serra is the second native saint of the Balearic Islands after Catherine of Palma. He is also included among the Saints of the United States and México.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra's feast day is celebrated on July 1 in the United States and on August 28 everywhere. He is considered to be the patron saint of California, Hispanic Americans, and religious vocations.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The Mission in Carmel, California, containing Serra's remains has continued as a place of public veneration. The burial location of Serra is southeast of the altar and is marked with an inscription in the floor of the sanctuary. Other relics are remnants of the wood from Serra's coffin on display next to the sanctuary, and personal items belonging to Serra on display in the mission museums. A bronze and marble sarcophagus depicting Serra's life was completed in 1924 by the sculptor Jo Mora, but Serra's remains have never been transferred to that sarcophagus.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Many of Serra's letters and other documentation are extant, the principal ones being his ""Diario"" of the journey from Loreto to San Diego, which was published in "Out West" (March to June 1902) along with Serra's "Representación".


title: Junípero Serra

text: The Junípero Serra Collection (1713–1947) at the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library are their earliest archival materials. This library is part of the building complex of the Mission Santa Barbara, but is now a separate non-profit, independent educational and research institution. It continues to have ties to the Franciscans and the legacy of Serra.


title: Junípero Serra

text: The chapel at Mission San Juan Capistrano, built in 1782, is thought to be the oldest standing building in California. Commonly referred to as "Father Serra's Church," it is the only remaining church in which Serra is known to have celebrated the rites of the Roman Catholic Church (he presided over the confirmations of 213 people on October 12 and 13, 1783).


title: Junípero Serra

text: Many cities in California have streets, schools, and other features named after Serra. Examples include Junipero Serra Boulevard, a major boulevard in and south of San Francisco; Serramonte, a large 1960s residential neighborhood on the border of Daly City and Colma in the suburbs south of San Francisco; Serra Springs, a pair of springs in Los Angeles; Serra Mesa, a community in San Diego; Junipero Serra Peak, the highest mountain in the Santa Lucia Mountains; Junipero Serra Landfill, a solid waste disposal site in Colma; and Serra Fault, a fault in San Mateo County. Schools named after Serra include Junípero Serra High School, a public school in the San Diego community of Tierrasanta, and four Catholic high schools: Junípero Serra High School in Gardena, Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, and Serra Catholic High School in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. There are public elementary schools in San Francisco and Ventura, as well as a K-8 Catholic school in Rancho Santa Margarita.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 1884, the Legislature of California passed a concurrent resolution making August 29 of that year, the centennial of Serra's burial, a legal holiday.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra International, a global lay organization that promotes religious vocations to the Catholic Church, was named in his honor. The group, founded in 1935, currently numbers a membership of about 20,000 worldwide. It also boasts over 1,000 chapters in 44 countries.


title: Junípero Serra

text: Serra's legacy towards Native Americans has been a topic of discussion in the Los Angeles area in recent years. The Mexica Movement, an indigenous separatist group that rejects European influence in the Americas, protested Serra's canonization at the Los Angeles Cathedral in February 2015. The Huntington Library announcement of its 2013 exhibition on Serra made it clear that Serra's treatment of Native Americans would be part of the comprehensive coverage of his legacy.


title: Junípero Serra

text: On September 27, 2015, in response to Serra's canonization, the San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo Mission was vandalized. The statue of Serra was toppled and splattered with paint, and the cemetery, the mission doors, a fountain, and a crucifix were as well. The message "Saint of Genocide" was put on Serra's tomb, and similar messages were painted elsewhere in the mission courtyard. After the incident, law enforcement authorities launched a hate crime investigation since the only grave sites targeted for desecration were those of Europeans.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 2018, Spanish producer Pedro Alonso Pablos made an animation, medium-length film dedicated to the life and work of Fray Junípero called "The call of Junipero", and although the Catholic Church had no formal role during the process of creating the film, the vision that the film offers coincides with that of the Church.


title: Junípero Serra

text: In 2019, Stanford University renamed two buildings that had formerly been named after Serra: Serra House, where the Clayman Institute for Gender Research is located was renamed the Carolyn Lewis Attneave House, and a student dormitory located in the Lucie Stern Hall complex was renamed the Sally Ride House. The university followed the recommendations of a committee headed by Paul Brest (former dean of Stanford Law School), which had concluded that


title: Junípero Serra

text: Robert A. Heinlein featured Serra in his serialized short fiction Lost Legacy first published in November 1941 in Super Science Stories edited by Frederick Pohl. The story is about a cache of ancient knowledge fictitiously discovered by Serra on Mt. Shasta. The fiction also features as a character Ambrose Bierce, the famous writer who disappeared and was declared dead in 1913 at age 72.


title: Globe Telecom

text: Globe Telecom, Inc., commonly shortened as Globe, is a major provider of telecommunications services in the Philippines. The company operates the largest mobile network in the Philippines and one of the largest fixed-line and broadband networks. As of March 2022, Globe's total mobile subscriber base reached 87.4 million. It is also the country's largest telecommunications company in terms of market capitalization.


title: Globe Telecom

text: The company's principal shareholders are Ayala Corporation and Singtel. It is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GLO and had a market capitalization of ₱363 billion as of the end of August 2021.


title: Globe Telecom

text: Globe offers commercial wireless services through its 2G, 3G, 3.5G HSPA+, 4G LTE, and LTE-A networks, with 5G currently being deployed in key areas in the Philippines. Its 5G coverage is available in over 2,000 locations all over the country and about 96% of the National Capital Region.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 2016, Globe introduced its "Globe Lifestyle" brand as a way to connect to its customers through fashion. It also launched two entertainment divisions: Anima (formerly Globe Studios), which focuses on film and television production, and Globe Live, which focuses on live concerts and musical events.


title: Globe Telecom

text: On December 8, 1928, Congress passed Act No. 3495 granting the Robert Dollar Company (a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of California), a franchise to operate wireless long-distance message services in the Philippines. Subsequently, Congress passed Act No. 4150 on November 28, 1934, to transfer the franchise and privileges of the Robert Dollar Company to Globe Wireless Limited, which was incorporated in the Philippines on January 15, 1935.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 1965, Globe Wireless Limited was merged with Mackay Radio & Telegraph Company and Philippine Press Wireless to form Globe-Mackay Cable and Radio Corporation ("Globe-Mackay"), with the transfer of Mackay's franchise to Globe Wireless Limited approved by the Congress through Republic Act No. 4491 enacted on June 19, 1965. By Republic Act No. 4630 enacted in the same date by the Congress, its franchise was further expanded to allow Globe-Mackay to operate international communications systems. Globe-Mackay was granted a new franchise on December 24, 1980, by Batasang Pambansa, under Batas Pambansa Blg. 95, extending it for 50 years.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 1974, Ayala Corporation began its investing in Globe-Mackay. Globe-Mackay offered its shares to the public on August 11, 1975, becoming the first telecommunications company in the country to do so.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 1991, Globe-Mackay merged with Clavecilla Radio Corporation, a domestic telecommunications pioneer, to form GMCR, Inc. The merger gave GMCR the capability to provide all forms of telecommunications to address the international and domestic requirements of its customers. The merger was also approved by the Congress through Republic Act No. 7229 enacted on March 19, 1992, which amended its franchise.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 1993, Globe partnered with Singapore Telecom, Inc. (STI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications Limited ("Singtel"), after Ayala and STI signed a memorandum of understanding.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 2001, Globe merged with Isla Communications Company, Inc. ("Islacom"), a joint venture with Deutsche Telekom as foreign partner. It became its wholly owned subsidiary effective on June 27, 2001. Deutsche Telekom eventually sold its share to Singapore Telecom. In 2003, the National Telecommunications Commission ("NTC") granted Globe Telecom's application to transfer its fixed line business assets and subscribers to Islacom, pursuant to its strategy to integrate all of its fixed line services under Islacom. Subsequently, Islacom was renamed as Innove Communications, Inc.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 2004, Globe invested in G-Xchange, Inc. ("GXI"), a wholly owned subsidiary, to handle the mobile payment and remittance service marketed under the GCash brand using Globe Telecom's network as transport channel. GXI started commercial operations on October 16, 2004. In late 2019, the GCash brand was refreshed by global branding and design agency Serious Studio. That brand refresh was suggested by Ant Financial, Globe's venture partner in GCash (by way of Mynt, GXI's successor company).


title: Globe Telecom

text: In November 2004, Globe and seven other leading Asia-Pacific mobile operators ("JV Partners") signed an agreement ("JV agreement") to form Bridge Alliance. The joint venture company operates through a Singapore-incorporated company, Bridge Mobile Pte. Limited (BMPL) which serves as a commercial vehicle for the JV partners to build and establish a regional mobile infrastructure and common service platform to deliver different regional mobile services to their subscribers. The Bridge Alliance has a combined customer base of over 900 million subscribers among its partners in Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 2005, Innove was awarded by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) with a nationwide franchise for its fixed line business, allowing it to operate a Local Exchange Carrier service nationwide and expand its network coverage. In December 2005, the NTC approved Globe Telecom's application for third generation (3G) radio frequency spectra to support the upgrade of its cellular mobile telephone system ("CMTS") network to be able to provide 3G services. Globe was assigned with 10-Megahertz (MHz) of the 3G radio frequency spectrum.


title: Globe Telecom

text: On May 19, 2008, following the approval of the NTC, the subscribers contracts of Touch Mobile (TM) prepaid service were transferred from Innove to Globe, which now operates all wireless prepaid services using its integrated cellular networks.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In August 2008, and to further grow its mobile data segment, Globe acquired 100% ownership of Entertainment Gateway Group ("EGG"), a leading mobile content provide in the Philippines. EGG Group is engaged in the development and creation of wireless products and services accessible through telephones or other forms of communication devices. It also provides internet and mobile value added services, information technology and technical services including software development and related services. EGGC is registered with the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) as a content provider. On May 15, 2014, EGGC changed its corporate name from Entertainment Gateway Group Corp. to Yondu, Inc. (Yondu).


title: Globe Telecom

text: On October 30, 2008, Globe, the Bank of the Philippine Islands and Ayala Corporation signed a memorandum of agreement to form a joint venture that would allow rural and low-income customers' access to financial products and services. In October 2009, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) approved the sale and transfer by BPI of its shares of stock in Pilipinas Savings Bank, Inc. (PSBI), formalizing the creation of the venture. Globe Telecom's and BPI's ownership stakes in PSBI is at 40% each, while AC's shareholding is at 20%. The partners plan to transform PSBI (now called BPI Globe BanKO, Inc.) into the country's first mobile microfinance bank. The bank's initial focus will be on wholesale lending to other microfinance institutions but will eventually expand to include retail lending, deposit-taking, and micro-insurance. BPI Globe BanKO opened its first branch in Metro Manila in the first quarter of 2011 and now has 6 branches nationwide, over 2,000 partner outlets, 261,000 customers and over P2.4 billion in its wholesale loan portfolio.


title: Globe Telecom

text: On November 25, 2008, Globe formed GTI Business Holdings, Inc. (GTIBH) primarily to act as an investment company. In March 2012, Globe launched Kickstart Ventures, Inc. (Kickstart) to help, support and develop the dynamic and growing community of technopreneurs in the Philippines. Kickstart is a business incubator that is focused on providing aspiring technopreneurs with the efficient environment and the necessary mechanisms to start their own business. Since its launch, Kickstart has 10 companies in its portfolio covering the digital media and technology, and web/mobile platform space.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In May 2013, ABS-CBN Convergence, Inc. ("ABS-C", formerly Multimedia Telephony, Inc.) announced the launch of its mobile brand, ABS-CBNmobile. The launch of the new mobile brand is being supported through a network sharing agreement with Globe, wherein the latter provides network capacity and coverage to ABS-C on a nationwide basis. ABS-C formally launched the brand on November 26, 2013.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In October 2013, following the court's approval of the Amended Rehabilitation Plan (jointly filed by Globe and BayanTel in May 2013), Globe acquired a 38% interest in BayanTel by converting BayanTel's unsustainable debt into common shares. This follows Globe Telecom's successful tender offer for close to 97% of BayanTel's outstanding indebtedness as of December 2012. As part of the amended rehab plan and pending regulatory approvals, Globe would further convert a portion of its sustainable debt into common shares of BayanTel, bringing up its stake to around 56%. In October 2014, Globe Telecom received a copy of the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the Court of Appeals stopping the National Telecommunications Commission's (NTC) proceedings in connection with the bid of Globe Telecom Inc. to take over Bayan Telecommunications Inc. (BayanTel). Despite the lapse of the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) last December 9, 2014, the Court of Appeals has advised the NTC to refrain from conducting any proceedings in connection with the bid of Globe assume majority control of BayanTel.


title: Globe Telecom

text: On June 3, 2014, Globe signed an agreement with Azalea Technology, Inc. and SCS Computer Systems, acquiring the entire ownership stake in Asticom. Asticom, a systems integrator and information technology services provider to domestic and international markets, is 49% owned by Azalea, a 100%-owned subsidiary of Ayala Corporation and 51% owned by SCS Computer Systems, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecom.


title: Globe Telecom

text: On June 30, 2015, Globe incorporated Global Capital Venture Holdings, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary organized under the laws of the Philippines and formed for the purpose of venturing into strategic non-core business.


title: Globe Telecom

text: On August 27, 2015, Globe Telecom, Inc. (Globe), Ayala Corporation (AC), and Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) signed an agreement to turn over full ownership of BPI Globe BanKO (BanKO) to BPI, one of the majority owners of the joint venture.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In Q3 2016, Globe Telecom dislodged Smart Communications as the largest telecommunications company it terms of subscriber base with 65.8 million subscribers, 200,000 more than its rival.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 2017, Globe Telecom's CEO, Ernest Cu was named the CEO of the year by the World Communication Awards 2017.


title: Globe Telecom

text: In 2018, Globe Telecom was selected as the best workplace in Asia. and the Internet was proposed to be extended in Europe.


title: Globe Telecom

text: Globe Telecom and MET Events organized the Philippine Pro Gaming League. In its first season, it only had 3 games "Dota 2", "Tekken 7", and "Arena of Valor" with P800,000 prize pool. The second season increased the prize pool to P1.3-million, had 4 games: "League of Legends", "Tekken 7", "Rules of Survival", and "Arena of Valor" and a "" corporate league added later on.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The Seoul Capital Area (SCA), Sudogwon (, ) or Gyeonggi region (), is the metropolitan area of Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi Province, located in north-west South Korea. Its population of 26 million (as of 2020) is ranked as the fifth largest metropolitan area in the world. Its area is about . It forms the cultural, commercial, financial, industrial, and residential center of South Korea. The largest city is Seoul, with a population of approximately 10 million people, followed by Incheon, with 3 million inhabitants.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The Capital Area occupies a plain in the Han River valley. It contains some of the most fertile land on the Korean peninsula, although relatively little of it is now used for agriculture. The Gimpo international airport, one of the country's larger expanses of level arable land, covers much of the area of the cities of Gimpo and Bucheon.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The Capital Area has been home to a Korean capital for around 2,000 years. Its central location and relatively gentle landscape have given it a central role in the country's affairs.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The first capital to be constructed in the region was that of Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. The country's first capital was built in 19 BC and was named Wiryeseong. This is believed to have been constructed near the modern-day boundary of Seoul and Gwangju City. However, Baekje was unable to hold this territory, and surrendered the Han River valley to Goguryeo in the 5th century. The land was then taken over by Silla in the 6th century, at which point it came to play a critical role in helping Silla to establish ties with China.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: After the fall of Silla, Taejo of Goryeo established the capital of his kingdom in Kaesŏng, now just north of the Demilitarized Zone. During the Mongol invasions of Korea in the 12th century, the seat of government briefly shifted to Ganghwa Island, now just south of the DMZ in Incheon metropolitan city, where the Mongol naval attacks were repelled for about a decade before the king voluntarily surrendered to stop the carnage the Mongols committed in the peninsula, in order to lure the king out.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: After the fall of Goryeo Dynasty in 1392, the newly founded Joseon Dynasty had its capital (then called Hanseong or Hanyang), less than south of the old dynasty's capital, Kaesŏng. Hanyang was chosen to be the new capital for mountains surrounding it making it safe from enemies, and for the Han River, separating the north and south parts of the city that let the trade business flourish. During the new dynasty's rule, extensive road systems, administrative buildings, royal palaces, and new ports were built, quickly attracting wealth from all over the kingdom. During the Korean Empire period, Hanseong's public transportation was improved with the installation of streetcars and manually drawn trolleys similar to taxis. Horse carriage systems similar to the ones in Europe were also established.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: Following the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1910, Hanseong was renamed Keijo (Gyeongseong) and served as Korea's capital. The Korran Republic with its war of resistance against Japan also named it as its capital. Upon Japan's defeat and Korea's liberation in 1945, the capital retained one of its old names, Seoul and became capital of South Korea.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: In the Korean War (1950–1953), the Capital Area became the focus of battles so destructive that most of Seoul and the surrounding regions were eradicated. Seoul was especially hit hard, since it exchanged hands four times during the course of the war.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: During the latter half of the 20th century, the Capital Area began to rapidly develop as South Korea's economic wealth expanded. Population expanded fourfold since the Korean War. In 2001, the new Incheon International Airport took over all international flights to Seoul.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: Covering only about 12% of the country's area, the Seoul Capital Area is home to more than 48.2% of the national population, and is the world's fifth largest urban area. This percentage has risen steadily since the mid-20th century, and the trend is expected to continue. Currently more than half of the people who move from one region to another are moving to the capital area. By 2020, it is projected that more than 52% of South Korea's population will live within the area, or 26,310,000 people. However, the Seoul Capital Area reached 25,620,000 people by 2015, bringing the chance of reaching a population of 26.31 Million in less than 5 years.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: In 2017, Seoul Capital Area's gross regional product was ₩870 trillion(US$770 billion), generating half of the country's total GDP. It is the fourth largest urban economy in the world after Tokyo, New York City and Los Angeles, and the region hosts headquarters of 59 Forbes Global 2000 companies.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: As the economy of Seoul Capital Area transformed to knowledge economy from the manufacturing-based economy of the 20th century, there are a number of high-tech business parks in Seoul Capital Area, such as Digital Media City and Pangyo Techno Valley.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The South Korean government is now implementing a plan to create several centers for economic activities in the Capital Area. According to the plan, for example, Seoul is a 'Northeast Asia's Financial and Business Hub', and southwestern coast, with Incheon and Suwon, is 'International logistics and High-tech Industrial Belt'.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The Seoul Capital Area is home to the most affluent and livable cities and apartments in Korea but there are significant discrepancies between cities and districts, particularly between those built in the older and newer generations. Newer areas with more modern and luxurious apartments and infrastructure are more expensive, along with proximity to Gangnam District, the commercial center of the region.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: Various agencies have been set up to deal with the intergovernmental problems of the region. Proposals for consolidating some or all of the cities of the capital area into a handful of metropolitan cities have thus far not been implemented.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: Development in the area is currently governed by the Capital Region Readjustment Planning Act (수도권정비계획법), first passed in 1982 and last revised in 1996.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The Seoul Capital Area is divided among the special city of Seoul, the metropolitan city of Incheon, and province of Gyeonggi. Seoul has 25 gu (local government wards), Incheon has 8 gu and 2 counties, and Gyeonggi Province has 28 cities and 3 counties as the subdivisions.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: 27 cities and 4 counties of Gyeonggi-do. Below are seven of the largest cities, sorted by their population size:


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The cities of the capital area are tightly interconnected by road and rail. Many of the country's railroad lines, most notably the Gyeongbu Line, terminate in the region. In addition, rapid transit is provided by the Seoul Metropolitan Subway, which has lines that serve all districts of Seoul, as well as the city of Incheon and other surrounding cities within Gyeonggi Province.


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: The region is a nexus for travel by air and water. The country's two largest airports, Incheon International Airport and Gimpo International Airport, are in the metropolitan area. International and domestic ferries depart from Incheon's ferry terminals several times a day. Massive volumes of international freight pass through the container terminals of Incheon (primarily bound to and from China).


title: Seoul Capital Area

text: Seoul Ring Expressway (Expressway No. 100) connects satellite cities around Seoul: Ilsan, Toegyewon, Hanam, Pyeongchon, Songnae, Bundang, Pangyo and Gimpo.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: Alice in Wonderland is a 1976 American erotic musical comedy film loosely based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The film expands the original story to include sex and broad adult humor, as well as original songs. The film was directed by Bud Townsend, produced by William Osco, and written by Bucky Searles, based on a concept by Jason Williams.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: The plot revolves around Alice (Kristine De Bell), a librarian who falls asleep reading the book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", and dreams of the White Rabbit (Larry Gelman), whom she follows into Wonderland, where she begins to experiment with her unexplored sexuality. Through a series of sexual encounters, Alice loses her sexual inhibitions and allows herself to become sexually liberated. The film is a softcore erotic comedy with orchestrated musical numbers which move the plot forward, and contribute to the film's humor.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: After premiering in a longer version, three minutes were edited from the film, and it was rated R by the MPAA, and released theatrically by General National, a company formed by producers Jason Williams and William Osco, due to other distributors being unwilling to distribute a sex film. The film grossed over $90million at the box office. Osco later re-edited the film as hardcore, incorporating explicit sex that was not part of its original production. In 2004, Osco staged an Off-Broadway stage adaptation of the musical.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: After rejecting the advances of her boyfriend, William (Ron Nelson), mousy librarian Alice falls asleep reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The White Rabbit appears to her in a dream and she follows him into Wonderland. Finding herself in a room and too large to fit through the small door, Alice drinks a potion which causes her to shrink while her dress remains the same size, leaving her naked. While chasing the White Rabbit, she falls into a river and begins to drown, but is saved by a group of local inhabitants. After making friends with them, Alice is given a new (albeit very revealing) dress before setting off after the White Rabbit again. While walking through the woods, she begins to experiment with her sexuality by stripping naked and masturbating. The White Rabbit happens upon her and takes her to meet the Mad Hatter.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: After being initially uncomfortable when the Mad Hatter exposes his penis to her, Alice ultimately performs fellatio on him. She is then called to assist Humpty Dumpty, who has fallen off a wall, causing him to lose the ability to achieve an erection. The situation is rectified when Alice performs fellatio on Dumpty as well. She is then taken to meet siblings Tweedledee and Tweedledum, whom she watches having passionate but incestuous intercourse. Following this encounter, Alice, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter continue on toward the King's Ball. On the way, they come across a couple having sex in an open field; Alice chastises them, but she is ignored. At the royal court, the King of Hearts converses with Alice, speaking with her about self-empowerment and ignoring the judgements of others; he ultimately seduces her.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: The Queen of Hearts suddenly appears, catching Alice and the King in bed together. A hurried trial is held and Alice is "convicted" of being a virgin. As punishment, the Queen orders Alice to have sex with her. A number of sexual escapades ensue among various characters as Alice prepares to carry out her sentence, including a brief lesbian encounter between Alice and the Queen's maids. Alice and the Queen engage in lesbian sex, but, as a result of the cunnilingus she receives from Alice, the Queen experiences an orgasm so strong, it briefly incapacitates her. The Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit assist Alice in escaping the Queen, who pursues her to no avail.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: Waking from her dream and thereby returning to the real world, Alice meets William again. Having experienced a sexual awakening while in Wonderland, Alice accepts William's advances and they have sex in the library. In a closing sequence, Alice travels through Wonderland naked before she and William set off toward their new home, where they live "happily ever after".


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: Actor and director Jason Williams conceived the idea of producing an adult reimagining of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, proposing that it be an "X-rated musical" following in the style of the sex comedy "Flesh Gordon", in which he had starred. Williams pitched the film to producer William Osco, who liked the idea, hired comedian Bucky Searles to write the screenplay and songs, and raised $100,000 for the production.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: Production took place in New York City. Williams ran an ad in the "Village Voice" seeking auditions for an "X-rated musical", instructing that applicants "must be able to sing and dance". Williams was too busy with other aspects of the production to direct the picture, so Bud Townsend was hired as director. Townsend, whom Williams had met auditioning for his horror film "Terror at Red Wolf Inn", was a prolific director of television commercials. Though Townsend had never directed a sex film before, he was hired to helm "Alice in Wonderland", along with his wife, Patty, who served as the script supervisor. The dancing was choreographed by Buddy Schwab, a successful choreographer with Broadway credits. The film was initially going to be shot on 16mm film, but Townsend talked the producers into filming on 35mm film.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: Juliet Graham auditioned for the role of Alice, but was offered the role of the Queen of Hearts instead, which she accepted. Through a modeling agency, Kristine De Bell was cast as Alice. The 20-year-old fashion model had a background in musical theater, and could sing and dance. Many of the actors were regulars of New York's porn scene, while others were prominent film and television character actors such as Larry Gelman, a friend of the screenwriter, who agreed to play the White Rabbit if he didn't have to appear nude, and if his wife and children could be flown out to New York on the production's budget. The auditions for singing and dancing performers primarily emphasized the actors' dancing abilities, as the producers planned to re-record most of the singing with professional singers.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: The film was shot in just ten days in either June or July 1975. During filming, most of the actors stayed in the house used in the picture. A scratch track of the film's musical numbers was used for the actors to lip synch to during filming.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: The initial plan was to produce the film as hardcore, but once filming commenced Williams said, "The vision for the film rapidly started expanding. We had these big sets, elaborate design, and we had this big opportunity. So we had this relatively short shooting schedule and we didn't have much time to go in and do a lot of close-up stuff that you need for hardcore," so the sex scenes were filmed in wide shots. De Bell performed in an unsimulated lesbian sex scene with Juliet Graham.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: Cast and crew described Osco as being an intimidating figure, with Juliet Graham saying that Osco threatened not to pay her if she didn't spend an evening in his hotel room, and she did, but didn't have sex with him, telling Osco she was the girlfriend of porn actor Jamie Gillis. Osco convinced De Bell to allow him to film her performing oral sex on Osco, saying it was necessary for the film.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: The film's budget was entirely spent on filming, and the production company Kaleidoscope Films provided $250,000 to $300,000 for the film's post-production. Musician and composer Peter Matz re-recorded the film's songs in full orchestral arrangements, and post-production was completed by the end of 1975.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: The film's premiere was held on Times Square in 1976, at an event attended by Andy Warhol. It was well-received, but the producers could not interest a distributor because of an unwillingness to release a sex film, so Williams and Osco decided to form a new company to distribute it, calling it General National, explaining, "At that time, there was a company called 'National General' [...] so if we just call ourselves 'General National' everybody will think it's the same damn big company, and we'll get treated in the same way." For the general release, three minutes were removed, and the MPAA gave it a R rating. Concurrent with the film's release, De Bell appeared on the cover of "Playboy". Osco sold the foreign distribution rights to multiple distributors within the same territories, telling each distributor they had exclusive distribution rights.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: The film grossed over $90million globally. According to De Bell the film grossed over $100million, and although she told an interviewer she had 1% ownership of the film she did not see any of the profits.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: In October 1976, lawyers for the Taconic Park Commission threatened a lawsuit against Osco after finding out he had filmed on historical sites without permission. A month later, the film was reviewed by film critic Roger Ebert, who wrote, "Maybe because I went with low expectations, I found the movie a pleasant surprise. And its most pleasant surprise is its star, Kristine De Bell, who projects such a freshness and naivete that she charms us even in scenes where some rather alarming things are going on. I think she has a future in the movies, and not just Xmovies, either; there's an openness to her expression, a directness to her acting, that's genuinely appealing."


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: Williams and Osco planned to make an adult film based on "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" as a follow-up, but it was not produced. Subsequently, Williams, Osco and De Bell made the film "The Great American Girl Robbery" (a.k.a. "Cheerleaders' Wild Weekend"). Williams and Osco also planned to produce an "American Graffiti"-style film, and "Pee Wee Pigskin", a "Bad News Bears"-inspired football film with children.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: After "Alice in Wonderland" was released as softcore, Osco re-edited the film as hardcore, inserting explicit penetration shots that were not part of the original filming, including the footage of De Bell performing oral sex on Osco, which was edited into the Mad Hatter sequence. Subsequently, multiple people in the production, as well as Kaleidoscope Films, sued Osco, who had not paid some of them and had stolen money from others. Kaleidoscope ended up owning the rights to the film as a result of the lawsuit. Osco had prints of the film stolen so he could redistribute it without the owners' permission. The film's R-rated and hardcore versions were distributed on VHS, and in 2007, Subversive Cinema released a DVD containing the softcore and hardcore versions of the film.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: Because of the film's title, its poster was required to include a warning that it was not to be confused with other "traditional" Alice in Wonderland film adaptations and that this particular film could only be seen by adults.


title: Alice in Wonderland (1976 film)

text: In January 2004, Osco produced and directed an off-Broadway musical adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" at the Kirk Theatre, New York. The stage production, entitled "Alice in Wonderland: An Adult Musical Comedy", features an original score by TayWah and advertising that it is "for mature audiences only" and "contains full nudity". The show is set in a trailer park in Weehawken, New Jersey and follows Alice's sexual awakening as she "escapes her boyfriend's advances and mother's drunken rants" into a new erotic world.