page_title: Junípero Serra
section_title: Monterey
hierarchical_section_title: Junípero Serra / President of missions of the Californias / Monterey
caption_attribution_description: English: Father Ramon Mestres (1865-1930) standing in front of the remains of the Vizcaíno-Serra Oak on the grounds of the Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo in Monterey, California
context_page_description: Junípero Serra y Ferrer, O.F.M., was a Roman Catholic Spanish priest and friar of the Franciscan Order. He is credited with establishing the Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He later founded a mission in Baja California and the first nine of 21 Spanish missions in California from San Diego to San Francisco, in what was then Spanish-occupied Alta California in the Province of Las Californias, New Spain.
  Serra was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 25 September 1988 in the Vatican City. Amid denunciations from Native American tribes who accused Serra of presiding over a brutal colonial subjugation, Pope Francis canonized Serra on 23 September 2015 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., during his first visit to the United States. Serra's missionary efforts earned him the title of "Apostle of California".
  In the years since his canonization, his reputation and missionary work during the Spanish occupation have been condemned by critics who point to beatings and abuse of Native American converts.
context_section_description: 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."
  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."
  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. 
  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.
  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.
  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."
  On July 9, the San Antonio set sail from Monterey, bound for Mexico. Aboard were Port
caption: The Vizcaíno-Serra Oak, in Monterey, where Sebastián Vizcaíno celebrated mass in 1602 and Serra celebrated mass in 1770.
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