The entrance of the Spanish into California and the founding of the Franciscan mission system has been described in many books both by those sympathetic apologists for the missions and the Spanish as bringing “civilization” to barbarous rude savages lacking any knowledge of God (Englehardt 1912, and others) and by those who disapproved of the mission system but approved of the Spanish conquest of California (Bancroft 1884, 1886, and others). The Indian cultures which were destroyed by the Spanish and later American settlers have also been described many times, first by those who unquestioningly accepted the Spanish view of these people as simply taking what nature produced. This viewpoint gives justification to the conquerors because “they could use the land better.” More recently a number of researchers have been reading the Spanish descriptions of what they actually saw and have ignored the Spanish assumptions, but read the descriptions of the environment with the ecological knowledge necessary to recognize the existence of a man-made environment, not a “natural” environment. They have discovered evidence of complex hierarchical stratified social Systems which were ignored because the Spanish assumed they were not present (Kehoe 1981, Shipek 1981a). Others interviewed surviving Indians and have explored areas of Indian knowledge never explored before simply because it was assumed that they had no such knowledge. For example, it has been discovered that all groups had the knowledge of and worshipped a high creator God whose name was so sacred that it must not be mentioned except in the proper sacred areas and during the sacred ceremonies dedicated to the Creator.

When the first European visitors arrived on the shores of California, they found the Indians to be poor and the country sparsely settled. The natives lived in semi-permanent villages of brush shelters and huts. Though hunters and gatherers, they sometimes practiced a form of protoagriculture. Social groups were fragmented by complex language differences. Often extremely hostile and suspicious of strangers, they were nonetheless attracted to the culture brought in by the newcomers.

In most cases the Europeans discovered that the Indians fit their own preconceptions. Missionaries found them eager for conversion. Sophisticates saw them as ignorant and brutish. Kindly people considered them to be warm and friendly. To soldiers they seemed fierce and hostile. Catholic visitors to the missions were frequently impressed with their piety. Protestants often thought their faith was but a thin veneer overlying an undiminished paganism. It is nearly impossible to generalize about the observations of Europeans. Indians in the same place were often described in totally contradictory ways by successive parties of visitors. And this same diversity of opinion exists among historians today.

The missionary effort of the Church has been sometimes judged rather harshly and often quite unfairly. This is not to deny that missionaries have somehow always shared with their contemporaries not only the human goodness, idealism, and heroism of their times but also the ignorance, paternalism, racism, and imperialism that happened to be a part of the age itself. Above all, missionaries have been repeatedly caught in the questionable marriage between Church and State. It is, of course, easy to pass judgment on past mistakes in light of our present-day knowledge, attitudes, opportunities, and general cultural and social context and to forget that a generation or two from now it will be our turn to be similarly criticized and condemned for what is impossible for us to know or to appreciate in our times. Junípero Serra, despite the shortcomings that might be pointed out regarding his missionary methods, was certainly one of the greatest frontiersmen the Americas have ever seen, one of the greatest friends the American Indians have ever known, and one of the greatest missionary saints the Church has ever produced.