Juan Crespi
Encyclopedia
Father Juan Crespí was a Majorcan missionary and explorer of Las Californias
. He entered the Franciscan
order at the age of seventeen. He came to America in 1749, and accompanied explorers Francisco Palóu
and Junípero Serra
. In 1767 he went to the Baja Peninsula and was placed in charge of the Misión La Purísima Concepción de Cadegomó
. In 1769 he joined the expedition
of Gaspar de Portolà
and traveled by land, while Father Serra accompanied the mission supplies aboard ship and arrived 8 days later to occupy Monterey; he authored the first written account of actual interaction between Franciscan friars and the indigenous population after his expedition traveled through the region known today as Orange County
on July 22 of that year. He was chaplain of the expedition to the North Pacific conducted by Juan José Pérez Hernández
in 1774. His diaries, first published in H. E. Bolton's Fray Juan Crespi (1927, repr. 1971), and published in the original Spanish with facing page translations as A Description of Distant Roads: Original Journals of the First Expedition into California, 1796-1770 (2001) provided valuable records of these expeditions. One chapel he built, at the Misión San Francisco del Valle de Tilaco
in Landa
, is reported as still standing.
Crespi traveled extensively through California. The diary he maintained for those journeys and explorations are the primary documentation for a California that no longer exists. His journals were an assignment from his superior, Junipero Serra, to provide useful knowledge to Spain for the future colonizing of California. (Green 2009)
The Crespi journals were first transcribed in portions of Father Francisco Palóu’s Noticias de la Nueva California written in 1783. It was published in 1857 by the Government of Mexico as part of a collection of historical documents. Hubert Eugene Bolton, professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley first examined the historical documents in the mid Nineteen Twenties. Bolton translated and published both Palóu’s New California (1926)and the transcribed diaries in Fray Juan Crespi: Missionary Explored of the Pacific Coast 1769-1774(1927). The transcriptions in both publications were not the words of the original texts of Crespi, but of subsequent edits by Serra and Palóu. The edited versions remain close to the actual journals but do not retain all of the descriptions captured by Juan Crespi. A recent translation of the original Crespi journals was finally published in 2001 by Alan K. Brown, PhD., long time authority on the Spanish Borderlands history of the American Southwest. Dr. Brown’s informative introduction, as well as newly found previously unpublished sections of the famous journals, gives a more accurate account of what Crespi had seen and accomplished. The complete journals do not exist as a whole. The known original documents written by Crespi’s own hand that were studied by Brown are several holograph texts and a manuscript codex. They are located in curation facilities in Mexico City, Rome, and Seville. Two biographies exist by Fray Salustiano Vicedo and Bartomeu Font Obrador, but both are only available in Spanish. The Brown book is the most succinct volume available on the life of Father Juan Crespi. The average Californian, probably unaware of it, is accustomed and familiar with the vast legacy left behind by Crespί and the Portola Expedition. To the archaeologist, ethnographer, and historian of early California his journals are unsurpassed in their significance as primary historic documents detailing the state and conditions of prehistoric California.(Green 2009)
Life of Father Juan Crespί
Fortunate was Juan Crespί in many ways. He was born in Palma, on the Island of Majorca, Spain on March 1, 1721. His parents were Joan Crespί and Joana Fiol, they belonged to the parish of San Juame. He was from a modest family, but they made available to young Juan a good education. One of his earliest schoolmates was another boy from Palma named Francisco Palóu. Little did each know the roles that they would eventually play together in both the history of the Franciscan Order and that of the New World, particularly California. Together they entered the Franciscan Order in 1738 and in 1740 began a class in philosophy being taught by Fray Junipero Serra. Serra made a call to his condiscίpulos, his fellow students as he called them, to join him as missionaries in the New World. Five answered the call, Crespί and Palou among them. He set sail from Parma on September 4, 1749, making stops in Cadiz, Puerto Rico and finally arriving in Mexico in early 1750. The earliest known writings of Crespί are a letter he mailed from Cadiz to his friends and family:
'“The letter ends ‘Adios, Adios, adios…’ the long-drawn out leave taking of an emigrant who knows he can never return home. At the time of boarding, a port official wrote the only recorded description of Crespi: a middling tall person with black hair and blue eyes.” (Brown p.6)
Once in Mexico Crespί joined Serra and other Franciscans at the Colegio de San Fernando in Mexico City. This would become the central support center for the administration of the Franciscans in the Indies. Serra became Presidente of the College. Juan Crespί’s first missionary exploits took him deep into the Sierra Gorda, a rugged mountainous region in Northern Mexico. Prior missionaries had failed to establish any lasting missions in the Sierra Gorda. Five missions were established there by the Franciscans. Crespi founded and built the eastern one Misión San Francisco de Tilaco. This amazingly beautiful structure still stands and its’ architecture is a blend of Baroque and native folklorico images. It is a protected World Heritage site.
Events began to unfold that would have great impacts on the life of Crespί and his fellow Franciscans. Primarily due to political reasons, Spain expelled all Jesuits from there territories in 1767. The newly arrived Governor of New Spain, Gaspar de Portola’s first order of business was to escort the expelled Jesuits onto ships that would deport them. With reported tears in his eyes, he ushered the priests onto ships at Loreto and sent them out of the Spanish realm. Serra and his “Grey Cloaked” Franciscans would assume the Jesuits role in the missions they had founded in Baja California. Crespί left the Sierra Gorda and arrived in Loreto on April 1, 1768. He was assigned by Serra to the Misión Purisima Concepcion de Cadegomó. But he would not be there for long. The Bourbon King Carlos III of Spain and his Visitor-General of New Spain, Jose de Gálvez, wanted to counter the advancement of the Russian Empire in the North Pacific. To do so they would rely on the accounts of the former pearl fisherman and adventurer Sebastián Vizcaίno, who plied those waters in 1602 in search of a new port to one day settle. A Discalced Carmelite, Fr. Antonio de la Ascensión was Vizcaίno’s chaplain on the voyage and his reports told of a superior harbor which they had named Monterey. One hundred and sixty seven years later Monterey would be the goal of a new expedition.
Galvez was intent on pushing the Spanish Empire northward. With Portola as leader he organized an expeditionary force that would attempt to meet his goals. The initial land expedition would begin from Loreto, three supply ships set sail from San Blas on the Mexican mainland and two land parties departed. The first led by Fernando de Rivera y Moncada with Crespi, a second land party with Portola and Serra would follow. They left Southern Baja California on February 26, 1769. Rivera and Crespi leaped frog from one watering hole to another until they arrived at the bay of San Diego on May 14. By the first of July all parties had arrived at San Diego except one of the packet boats, which was never heard from again.
The final members of the land expedition, 67 in all, were arranged for the march to Monterey. The members that history recalls were: Portolá, the Captain and leader; Sergeant José Ortega the scout and the one credited with the “discovery” of San Francisco Bay; Lieutenant Pedro Fages, a commissioned Spanish officer, called “el Oso” for he relished a good fight with a grizzly, a true Conquistador in every essence of the word; Miguel Costansó, the Spanish engineer who also maintained a journal and helped map the route; Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, the buffcoat soldier born in New Spain who brought up the rear of the guard; and the two Friars Juan Crespί and Francisco Gómez, they would act as chaplains for the Expedition and tend to the spiritual needs of the group as well as Crespί’s duties of keeping an accurate journal and making navigational observations using both astrolabe and compass. Along with these individuals were six Catalonian volunteers, experienced European soldiers; twenty five native born leather jacket soldiers “soldados de cuera” serving under Rivera, considered some of the best seasoned horsemen of their time; muleteers to keep watch over the herds of horses and pack mules; Mission Indians from Baja to serve as guides and interpreters as well as California Indians that they encountered along the way and followed the column.(Green 2009)
Armed with picks, axes, shovels, crowbars and machetes they carved a trail north from San Diego along the coast and then inland into present day Orange County. Just north of San Onofre near the present day beach community of San Clemente, the group took notice of two sick and dying baby girls. Father Gómez and Crespί, fearing for their souls, made the first baptisms in California. In Crespi’s diary he relates what happened:
“as well as he could with her clutched to her mother’s breast, Father Fray Francisco Gomez baptized her; she was named Marίa Magdalena, and I have no doubt she will die and that in passing by we have won this souls passage to Heaven…another little girl about two and a half years old…had been burned and was feeling very sick, so that I took the measure of baptizing her…I christened this one…naming her Margarita. God take both of them into Heaven. (Crespί-July 22, 1769)
The Expedition continued northward, passing the Santa Ana River, and there they experienced quite a large earthquake. Crespί named the watercourse El Dulcίsimo Nombre de Jesús, del Rίo de los Temblores, the Most Sweet Name of Jesus, of the River of Earthquakes. Following Indian guides and Ortega’s path finding, they entered into the Los Angeles Basin passing herds of antelope and meeting bands of the Tongva or Gabrieleño Indians. On August 2, 1769, at a good sized river that ran through a lush valley across the plain, Crespί commented on the potential of the area:
'“A grand spot to become in time a good-sized mission…and so we have proclaimed it the river and valley of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula , Our Lady of the Angels of the Portiuncula…” (Crespί -p. 339)
How right Crespί was for that area today is still called Los Angeles and home to over 9 million people. Ever northward, the Portola Expedition passed the La Brea tar pits and then 3 days later found its way through the Sepulveda Pass into another valley, the San Fernando:
“We went over a high pass and down into very large and wide-stretching valley. We came to a large pool of fresh water (there are turtles in it) lying along its skirts upon its south, we came upon two very large villages of very friendly, tractable heathens; men, women, and children they must have come very close to two hundred souls…” (Crespί p. 351)
They “set up camp under a very large live oak”~ ”paramos el real bajo de un grande enzino…” The Indian village became known as the village of Encino, very near to the Carmelite High School that bears his name. The pool of fresh water still springs forth and is located in Rancho Los Encinos State Historic Park.
The comment about the turtles is very interesting. It only appears as a marginal note on the original field draft manuscript, but not in the version translated by Herbert Eugene Bolton’s in 1927. That version is taken from the edited copy put forth by Palou in his “Noticias de la Nueva California”. This is due to the fact that Palou had edited the journals so as to be more straight forward to their intended audience the politicians and Royals of Spain. Many of the details were omitted from those later versions of the diaries of the Expedition. Crespί initially received criticism from Palou and Serra on his verbiage. In 1771, after recently reviewing the original drafts by Crespί, Serra was still opinionated about their form. “Serra’s most urgent need was for a document that could reach and impress an audience” (Brown p. 85) His criticism was this:
“ He belabors the topic, but on some occasions when I tried to hold him back while he was writing the journal, so he would not linger over details, repetitions and superlatives, immediately he became upset and asked, was he, or not, to tell the matter as it was and as it happened? In my opinion, what it needs in order to be published is for someone to take on the task of shortening it by a certain amount and of giving it a more natural and flowing style…”(Brown p. 84)
But in fact Crespί was doing as he was instructed by recording all details of the Expedition. In Brown’s translation of the previously unpublished field draft and subsequent personal revisions, we are able to read all of these details. We also learn from Crespί’s remarks about the Indians at this village and the use of native musical instruments:
“Here at this village we see very well carven wooden flutes that they play on…” (Crespί P. 355)
These are some of the priceless windows his original journals give us. Seemingly meaningless details, as perceived by his superiors, were left out of the first publications. But to the modern researcher, let alone descendants of those Native peoples, they are invaluable. Serra began to realize this prior to his death. He became aware of the power of the information contained in the journals. (Green 2009)
The Expedition made its’ way out of the San Fernando Valley and followed the Santa Clara river to its mouth near Ventura. Here the company met the industrious Chumash. They stayed in Chumash county until north of San Luis Obispo. Crespi became very fond of the area and all of its inhabitants and future converts. He had hopes to personally find a mission here, but that never materialized for him. The goal of the Expedition was to find the famed port of Monterey. But it eluded them entirely, or what they perceived it to be eluded them. They wandered through the rugged Santa Lucia Mountains and then into the Santa Cruz Mountains. Here a strange new tree was encountered. Crespί wrote of the significant discovery on October 8, 1769:
“The scouts came back from exploring what had been seeming to be pines, which they were not, but instead very straight very thick trees, quite tall, with a short slight leaf. Some said they were savins; however, they are not so to my understanding, since the wood is red; but they are not junipers either. Whether or not they may be savins, who can tell; if so, however they are not like any others that we have seen elsewhere.” (Brown p. 557)
The initial journey of the Portola Expedition in 1769 failed to recognize the harbor of Monterey, but in one of the greatest ironies in Western History they did recognize and discover a far greater harbor for Spain and all posterity, San Francisco Bay.
“This harbor is of great size, with what must be a bight of three or four leagues across, having rather the shape of a very large bay, so that all the navies of Spain could fit within it.” (Brown p. 591)
The tired and scurvy worn group made their way back to San Diego surviving on mules by January 24, 1770. Again they made their way north to certify the discovery of San Francisco Bay and make one last final attempt to locate Monterey Bay. This they did on May 24. A presidio and a mission were founded. Mission San Carlos de Borromeo became the second California Mission, founded by Fr. Junipero Serra.
Crespί continued his travels at Serra’s request. He went with Pedro Fages and others to reconnoiter and map the East Bay, or the other coast, “La Contra Costa” of San Francisco Bay in 1772. That expedition discovered the Sacramento Delta and the San Joaquin River. Crespi mistakenly assumed it was one river and called it accordingly, “The Great River of St. Francis”. It was thought at the time that it could be the elusive Northwest Passage. He was also at fault for miss calculations due to his worn and battered mapping instruments. His erroneous map, still managed though to give an illustrious image of the Bay Area.(Green 2009)
This journey also confirmed the inaccessibility of the northern environs of the Bay and Pt. Reyes from the south. It was Juan Crespί that afterwards suggested settling San Francisco on the southern side of the Bay in order to be closer to Monterey. News of this reached King Carlos himself. Madrid ordered the immediate settling of the harbor. “This was an amazing degree of influence for a modest friar to have exerted upon imperial operations that entailed almost unthinkable effort and expense.” (Brown p. 103)
Serra again sent Crespί on one last adventure during the summer of 1774. Crespί went on board the Spanish ship Santiago with Captain Juan Pérez to scout the Northwest Coast, in another effort to thwart other European advances into the region. Older and none too keen of sea travels, Crespί along with Fr. Tomás de la Peña, reached Canadian waters near Queen Charlotte Island. They ship encountered the Haida people and traded with them on the edge of Nootka Sound. They never made land fall and returned to Monterey in late August of that year. Brown notes that Crespί’s writing became shaky and often missed days of entry in the journal. The Friar was now in his mid Fifties and the culmination of arduous travel, bouts of scurvy, and life on the frontier were adding up. (Brown p. 101)
Juan Crespί was a facet of Spanish Colonialism, a system that relied upon both Church and Military to go forth into the unsettled realms of New Spain. In doing so they would be achieving several aims: strategically positioning themselves in a Presidio staffed with military to counter other European powers, settlement of new areas within a Pueblo made up of Mexican born Spaniards, and the conversion of the indigenous population at the Missions to the Roman Catholic faith. This was the expression of the enlightened Spanish Catholic Monarch, Carlos III’s concept of imperialism. Crespi was an exceptional missionary. Trained by Serra and seasoned in the Sierra Gorda missions and the wilds of California, he excelled at what he was expected to do. After his many travels for God and Crown he was able to settle at Mission San Carlos in Carmel and focus his attention at creating a self supporting agrarian society. He grew tomatoes and grain and other staples, some successfully some not. The fruits of Serra and Crespί’s labors were slow in coming. Baptisms were few and far between in those early years. Primarily they were the youth of the Indian population. They included interested young men of the tribes and children, some who were sick. Adults were more hesitant to join the Mission and were initially enticed by food and beads. When the crops failed converts were at a minimum. The Padres realized the strength of the native shell bead economy and took advantage of that in enticing Indians to build and then worship in the Missions. (Hylkema 2009) The stark reality to the California Indians was that the Mission Period ushered in by Serra, Palou and Crespί was the beginning of the end of their way of life. Disease and mistreatment killed many. Notwithstanding the good efforts made by those original missionaries, the deaths were outnumbering the baptisms. Crespί was definitely aware of this. The original intention of Serra was to create a population of “gente de razon”, or men of reason made up of the indigenous population. As time went on it became harder to achieve this goal. And the later Missionaries were not as tolerant as Serra and his condiscίpulos. The old ways would not mesh with the new and systematically the cultures of the Esselen and Ohlone, as well as other Mission Indians, began to be forgotten.(Green 2009)
Yet those early years for Crespί must have been rewarding at Carmel. He had come so far travelling thousands of miles half way around the World. He and Serra we’re working together to create their vision. Regardless of the inadequacies of the Spanish bureaucracy, they managed as best as they could and were successful in many ways. New towns were being established that would rise to become California’s largest cities, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose. The last journey made by Father Juan was to Mission Dolores in San Francisco during the Fall of 1781 to see his old school mate Father Palou. Serra and Crespί both made the trip. Serra most likely knew that Crespί was nearing his end. It was an opportunity to see an area that he had only known as an explorer now becoming a Mission settlement and to reminisce with Serra and Palou about their past, there accomplishments, their continued visions for the future. They spent eleven days there and then made their way back to Monterey. On the way they had the opportunity to assist in the laying of the corner stone for the new Mission Santa Clara. Serra and Crespί’s dreams were becoming reality. Back in Carmel the old Majorcan priest began to succumb to cardiac and circulatory problems. The primitive remedies available did no good. Crespί received his Viaticum for his final journey and on the first day of 1782, passed from this earth. Serra himself made the entry into the death registry. He acknowledged himself as “once his teacher, and lastly his fellow for many years.” (Brown p. 106) The Requiem was conducted and he was buried in the sanctuary near the main alter of the existing church. Years later his remains were moved to the present church and Fr. Juan Crespί now lies at the foot of the altar at “Mission Carmel”.(Green 2009)
Palou after Crespί’s death wrote endearingly of his friend:
'He was adorned with merits and exercised in the virtues which he had practiced from his youth…I always knew him to be extremely exemplary. Among his companions he was known by the name of “Blessed” or “Mystic”. He persevered in this manner for the rest of his life, with a dovelike simplicity. He was possessed of a most profound humility. All of us that knew him and had dealings with him piously believe that he went directly to God…The cries of the [of the neophytes at his funeral]…demonstrated the love they had for him as a father." (Geiger p.54)
Father Junipero Serra lived another year and a half after Crespί’s passing. He began to realize during this time of the importance and the significance of’s Crespί journals and perhaps all of the minor details included by Crespi that at first seemed so useless. He invoked Palou to make them available and publish them. Three days before his death, Serra spoke to Palou:
“Oh, if only the Religious of our holy Province [i.e., the friars of the Franciscan Province of Majorca] who knew the late Father Fray Juan Crespi were to see what he wrought and the great success he achieved, how many would be inspired to come here! Merely reading the journals [kept by Father Fray Juan during the explorations he accompanied] would suffice to move no few of them to leave homeland and native province, and take up the voyage to come and labor in this vineyard of the Lord.”
Serra’s final dying request was made directly to Palou:
"…looking straight at me, he said: I want you to bury me in the Mission church really close (cerquita) beside Father Fray Juan Crespi.” (Brown p3-4)
Father Juan Crespί and the Beatified Father Junipero Serra still lie together, “cerquita”, at Mission San Carlos de Borromeo, now declared a Minor Basilica by Pope John Paul II, near the Rio Carmelo that they had long sought.
Historic Legacy
Father Juan Crespί was perhaps the one individual most responsible for what became the settlement pattern of California. He was assigned the task numerous times to use his knowledge to suggest good locations for future settlement. He identified and named the location of Los Angeles and he suggested that the intended settlement to be named San Francisco be on the south side of the Golden Gate. His recommendations for various other potential towns and places for mission sites stretch from San Juan Capistrano to Encino, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo to Santa Cruz and beyond.
The historic legacy left by Crespί and the Portola Expedition is seen all over California. Dozens of places retain the original names given by the explorers. As infrastructure was developed, planners chose names that represented the area and its history. Mountains, canyons, parks, highways, towns, streets, shopping centers and schools were named after Portola and members of the Expedition.
For people today in California these names become permanent identifiers of many of the places associated with the California landscape. The Ortega Highway, Portola Valley, Portola Redwoods State Park, Junipero Serra Peak, Crespi Carmelite High School, to name a few. Even the San Diego Padres Major League Baseball team evokes the Franciscan fathers image.(Green 2009)
Las Californias
The Californias, or in — - was the name given by the Spanish to their northwestern territory of New Spain, comprising the present day states of Baja California and Baja California Sur on the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico; and the present day U.S. state of California in the United States of...
. He entered the Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
order at the age of seventeen. He came to America in 1749, and accompanied explorers Francisco Palóu
Francisco Palóu
Francesc Palou was a Franciscan missionary, administrator, and historian on the Baja California peninsula and in Alta California. Father Palou's made significant contributions to the Alta California and Baja California mission systems...
and Junípero Serra
Junípero Serra
Blessed Junípero Serra, O.F.M., , known as Fra Juníper Serra in Catalan, his mother tongue was a Majorcan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California of the Las Californias Province in New Spain—present day California, United States. Fr...
. In 1767 he went to the Baja Peninsula and was placed in charge of the Misión La Purísima Concepción de Cadegomó
Misión La Purísima Concepción de Cadegomó
Mission La Purísima, was founded about 100 kilometers west of Loreto in Baja California Sur, by the Jesuit missionary Nicolás Tamaral in 1720. By 1735 it had been moved to a new location at the Cochimí ranchería known as Cadegomó, meaning "arroyo of the carrizos", about 30 kilometers south of the...
. In 1769 he joined the expedition
Portola expedition
250px|right|Point of San Francisco Bay DiscoveryThe Portolá Expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá from July 14, 1769 to January 24, 1770. It was the first recorded Spanish land entry and exploration of present day California, United States...
of Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar de Portolà i Rovira was a soldier, governor of Baja and Alta California , explorer and founder of San Diego and Monterey. He was born in Os de Balaguer, province of Lleida, in Catalonia, Spain, of Catalan nobility. Don Gaspar served as a soldier in the Spanish army in Italy and Portugal...
and traveled by land, while Father Serra accompanied the mission supplies aboard ship and arrived 8 days later to occupy Monterey; he authored the first written account of actual interaction between Franciscan friars and the indigenous population after his expedition traveled through the region known today as Orange County
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
on July 22 of that year. He was chaplain of the expedition to the North Pacific conducted by Juan José Pérez Hernández
Juan José Pérez Hernández
Juan José Pérez Hernández , often simply Juan Pérez, was an 18th century Spanish explorer. He was the first European to sight, examine, name, and record the islands near present-day British Columbia, Canada...
in 1774. His diaries, first published in H. E. Bolton's Fray Juan Crespi (1927, repr. 1971), and published in the original Spanish with facing page translations as A Description of Distant Roads: Original Journals of the First Expedition into California, 1796-1770 (2001) provided valuable records of these expeditions. One chapel he built, at the Misión San Francisco del Valle de Tilaco
Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda
The Franciscan Missions of the Sierra Gorda in the Mexican state of Querétaro were declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 2003. They are credited to Junípero Serra of the Franciscan Order, who also founded important missions in Alta California....
in Landa
Landa de Matamoros
Landa de Matamoros is a town and municipality located in the northwest of the state of Querétaro in central Mexico. It is part of the Sierra Gorda region, which consists of rugged mountains, canyons and wide diversity of flora and fauna, with the municipality's flora representing about 25% of all...
, is reported as still standing.
Crespi traveled extensively through California. The diary he maintained for those journeys and explorations are the primary documentation for a California that no longer exists. His journals were an assignment from his superior, Junipero Serra, to provide useful knowledge to Spain for the future colonizing of California. (Green 2009)
The Crespi journals were first transcribed in portions of Father Francisco Palóu’s Noticias de la Nueva California written in 1783. It was published in 1857 by the Government of Mexico as part of a collection of historical documents. Hubert Eugene Bolton, professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley first examined the historical documents in the mid Nineteen Twenties. Bolton translated and published both Palóu’s New California (1926)and the transcribed diaries in Fray Juan Crespi: Missionary Explored of the Pacific Coast 1769-1774(1927). The transcriptions in both publications were not the words of the original texts of Crespi, but of subsequent edits by Serra and Palóu. The edited versions remain close to the actual journals but do not retain all of the descriptions captured by Juan Crespi. A recent translation of the original Crespi journals was finally published in 2001 by Alan K. Brown, PhD., long time authority on the Spanish Borderlands history of the American Southwest. Dr. Brown’s informative introduction, as well as newly found previously unpublished sections of the famous journals, gives a more accurate account of what Crespi had seen and accomplished. The complete journals do not exist as a whole. The known original documents written by Crespi’s own hand that were studied by Brown are several holograph texts and a manuscript codex. They are located in curation facilities in Mexico City, Rome, and Seville. Two biographies exist by Fray Salustiano Vicedo and Bartomeu Font Obrador, but both are only available in Spanish. The Brown book is the most succinct volume available on the life of Father Juan Crespi. The average Californian, probably unaware of it, is accustomed and familiar with the vast legacy left behind by Crespί and the Portola Expedition. To the archaeologist, ethnographer, and historian of early California his journals are unsurpassed in their significance as primary historic documents detailing the state and conditions of prehistoric California.(Green 2009)
Life of Father Juan Crespί
Fortunate was Juan Crespί in many ways. He was born in Palma, on the Island of Majorca, Spain on March 1, 1721. His parents were Joan Crespί and Joana Fiol, they belonged to the parish of San Juame. He was from a modest family, but they made available to young Juan a good education. One of his earliest schoolmates was another boy from Palma named Francisco Palóu. Little did each know the roles that they would eventually play together in both the history of the Franciscan Order and that of the New World, particularly California. Together they entered the Franciscan Order in 1738 and in 1740 began a class in philosophy being taught by Fray Junipero Serra. Serra made a call to his condiscίpulos, his fellow students as he called them, to join him as missionaries in the New World. Five answered the call, Crespί and Palou among them. He set sail from Parma on September 4, 1749, making stops in Cadiz, Puerto Rico and finally arriving in Mexico in early 1750. The earliest known writings of Crespί are a letter he mailed from Cadiz to his friends and family:
'“The letter ends ‘Adios, Adios, adios…’ the long-drawn out leave taking of an emigrant who knows he can never return home. At the time of boarding, a port official wrote the only recorded description of Crespi: a middling tall person with black hair and blue eyes.” (Brown p.6)
Once in Mexico Crespί joined Serra and other Franciscans at the Colegio de San Fernando in Mexico City. This would become the central support center for the administration of the Franciscans in the Indies. Serra became Presidente of the College. Juan Crespί’s first missionary exploits took him deep into the Sierra Gorda, a rugged mountainous region in Northern Mexico. Prior missionaries had failed to establish any lasting missions in the Sierra Gorda. Five missions were established there by the Franciscans. Crespi founded and built the eastern one Misión San Francisco de Tilaco. This amazingly beautiful structure still stands and its’ architecture is a blend of Baroque and native folklorico images. It is a protected World Heritage site.
Events began to unfold that would have great impacts on the life of Crespί and his fellow Franciscans. Primarily due to political reasons, Spain expelled all Jesuits from there territories in 1767. The newly arrived Governor of New Spain, Gaspar de Portola’s first order of business was to escort the expelled Jesuits onto ships that would deport them. With reported tears in his eyes, he ushered the priests onto ships at Loreto and sent them out of the Spanish realm. Serra and his “Grey Cloaked” Franciscans would assume the Jesuits role in the missions they had founded in Baja California. Crespί left the Sierra Gorda and arrived in Loreto on April 1, 1768. He was assigned by Serra to the Misión Purisima Concepcion de Cadegomó. But he would not be there for long. The Bourbon King Carlos III of Spain and his Visitor-General of New Spain, Jose de Gálvez, wanted to counter the advancement of the Russian Empire in the North Pacific. To do so they would rely on the accounts of the former pearl fisherman and adventurer Sebastián Vizcaίno, who plied those waters in 1602 in search of a new port to one day settle. A Discalced Carmelite, Fr. Antonio de la Ascensión was Vizcaίno’s chaplain on the voyage and his reports told of a superior harbor which they had named Monterey. One hundred and sixty seven years later Monterey would be the goal of a new expedition.
Galvez was intent on pushing the Spanish Empire northward. With Portola as leader he organized an expeditionary force that would attempt to meet his goals. The initial land expedition would begin from Loreto, three supply ships set sail from San Blas on the Mexican mainland and two land parties departed. The first led by Fernando de Rivera y Moncada with Crespi, a second land party with Portola and Serra would follow. They left Southern Baja California on February 26, 1769. Rivera and Crespi leaped frog from one watering hole to another until they arrived at the bay of San Diego on May 14. By the first of July all parties had arrived at San Diego except one of the packet boats, which was never heard from again.
The final members of the land expedition, 67 in all, were arranged for the march to Monterey. The members that history recalls were: Portolá, the Captain and leader; Sergeant José Ortega the scout and the one credited with the “discovery” of San Francisco Bay; Lieutenant Pedro Fages, a commissioned Spanish officer, called “el Oso” for he relished a good fight with a grizzly, a true Conquistador in every essence of the word; Miguel Costansó, the Spanish engineer who also maintained a journal and helped map the route; Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, the buffcoat soldier born in New Spain who brought up the rear of the guard; and the two Friars Juan Crespί and Francisco Gómez, they would act as chaplains for the Expedition and tend to the spiritual needs of the group as well as Crespί’s duties of keeping an accurate journal and making navigational observations using both astrolabe and compass. Along with these individuals were six Catalonian volunteers, experienced European soldiers; twenty five native born leather jacket soldiers “soldados de cuera” serving under Rivera, considered some of the best seasoned horsemen of their time; muleteers to keep watch over the herds of horses and pack mules; Mission Indians from Baja to serve as guides and interpreters as well as California Indians that they encountered along the way and followed the column.(Green 2009)
Armed with picks, axes, shovels, crowbars and machetes they carved a trail north from San Diego along the coast and then inland into present day Orange County. Just north of San Onofre near the present day beach community of San Clemente, the group took notice of two sick and dying baby girls. Father Gómez and Crespί, fearing for their souls, made the first baptisms in California. In Crespi’s diary he relates what happened:
“as well as he could with her clutched to her mother’s breast, Father Fray Francisco Gomez baptized her; she was named Marίa Magdalena, and I have no doubt she will die and that in passing by we have won this souls passage to Heaven…another little girl about two and a half years old…had been burned and was feeling very sick, so that I took the measure of baptizing her…I christened this one…naming her Margarita. God take both of them into Heaven. (Crespί-July 22, 1769)
The Expedition continued northward, passing the Santa Ana River, and there they experienced quite a large earthquake. Crespί named the watercourse El Dulcίsimo Nombre de Jesús, del Rίo de los Temblores, the Most Sweet Name of Jesus, of the River of Earthquakes. Following Indian guides and Ortega’s path finding, they entered into the Los Angeles Basin passing herds of antelope and meeting bands of the Tongva or Gabrieleño Indians. On August 2, 1769, at a good sized river that ran through a lush valley across the plain, Crespί commented on the potential of the area:
'“A grand spot to become in time a good-sized mission…and so we have proclaimed it the river and valley of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula , Our Lady of the Angels of the Portiuncula…” (Crespί -p. 339)
How right Crespί was for that area today is still called Los Angeles and home to over 9 million people. Ever northward, the Portola Expedition passed the La Brea tar pits and then 3 days later found its way through the Sepulveda Pass into another valley, the San Fernando:
“We went over a high pass and down into very large and wide-stretching valley. We came to a large pool of fresh water (there are turtles in it) lying along its skirts upon its south, we came upon two very large villages of very friendly, tractable heathens; men, women, and children they must have come very close to two hundred souls…” (Crespί p. 351)
They “set up camp under a very large live oak”~ ”paramos el real bajo de un grande enzino…” The Indian village became known as the village of Encino, very near to the Carmelite High School that bears his name. The pool of fresh water still springs forth and is located in Rancho Los Encinos State Historic Park.
The comment about the turtles is very interesting. It only appears as a marginal note on the original field draft manuscript, but not in the version translated by Herbert Eugene Bolton’s in 1927. That version is taken from the edited copy put forth by Palou in his “Noticias de la Nueva California”. This is due to the fact that Palou had edited the journals so as to be more straight forward to their intended audience the politicians and Royals of Spain. Many of the details were omitted from those later versions of the diaries of the Expedition. Crespί initially received criticism from Palou and Serra on his verbiage. In 1771, after recently reviewing the original drafts by Crespί, Serra was still opinionated about their form. “Serra’s most urgent need was for a document that could reach and impress an audience” (Brown p. 85) His criticism was this:
“ He belabors the topic, but on some occasions when I tried to hold him back while he was writing the journal, so he would not linger over details, repetitions and superlatives, immediately he became upset and asked, was he, or not, to tell the matter as it was and as it happened? In my opinion, what it needs in order to be published is for someone to take on the task of shortening it by a certain amount and of giving it a more natural and flowing style…”(Brown p. 84)
But in fact Crespί was doing as he was instructed by recording all details of the Expedition. In Brown’s translation of the previously unpublished field draft and subsequent personal revisions, we are able to read all of these details. We also learn from Crespί’s remarks about the Indians at this village and the use of native musical instruments:
“Here at this village we see very well carven wooden flutes that they play on…” (Crespί P. 355)
These are some of the priceless windows his original journals give us. Seemingly meaningless details, as perceived by his superiors, were left out of the first publications. But to the modern researcher, let alone descendants of those Native peoples, they are invaluable. Serra began to realize this prior to his death. He became aware of the power of the information contained in the journals. (Green 2009)
The Expedition made its’ way out of the San Fernando Valley and followed the Santa Clara river to its mouth near Ventura. Here the company met the industrious Chumash. They stayed in Chumash county until north of San Luis Obispo. Crespi became very fond of the area and all of its inhabitants and future converts. He had hopes to personally find a mission here, but that never materialized for him. The goal of the Expedition was to find the famed port of Monterey. But it eluded them entirely, or what they perceived it to be eluded them. They wandered through the rugged Santa Lucia Mountains and then into the Santa Cruz Mountains. Here a strange new tree was encountered. Crespί wrote of the significant discovery on October 8, 1769:
“The scouts came back from exploring what had been seeming to be pines, which they were not, but instead very straight very thick trees, quite tall, with a short slight leaf. Some said they were savins; however, they are not so to my understanding, since the wood is red; but they are not junipers either. Whether or not they may be savins, who can tell; if so, however they are not like any others that we have seen elsewhere.” (Brown p. 557)
The initial journey of the Portola Expedition in 1769 failed to recognize the harbor of Monterey, but in one of the greatest ironies in Western History they did recognize and discover a far greater harbor for Spain and all posterity, San Francisco Bay.
“This harbor is of great size, with what must be a bight of three or four leagues across, having rather the shape of a very large bay, so that all the navies of Spain could fit within it.” (Brown p. 591)
The tired and scurvy worn group made their way back to San Diego surviving on mules by January 24, 1770. Again they made their way north to certify the discovery of San Francisco Bay and make one last final attempt to locate Monterey Bay. This they did on May 24. A presidio and a mission were founded. Mission San Carlos de Borromeo became the second California Mission, founded by Fr. Junipero Serra.
Crespί continued his travels at Serra’s request. He went with Pedro Fages and others to reconnoiter and map the East Bay, or the other coast, “La Contra Costa” of San Francisco Bay in 1772. That expedition discovered the Sacramento Delta and the San Joaquin River. Crespi mistakenly assumed it was one river and called it accordingly, “The Great River of St. Francis”. It was thought at the time that it could be the elusive Northwest Passage. He was also at fault for miss calculations due to his worn and battered mapping instruments. His erroneous map, still managed though to give an illustrious image of the Bay Area.(Green 2009)
This journey also confirmed the inaccessibility of the northern environs of the Bay and Pt. Reyes from the south. It was Juan Crespί that afterwards suggested settling San Francisco on the southern side of the Bay in order to be closer to Monterey. News of this reached King Carlos himself. Madrid ordered the immediate settling of the harbor. “This was an amazing degree of influence for a modest friar to have exerted upon imperial operations that entailed almost unthinkable effort and expense.” (Brown p. 103)
Serra again sent Crespί on one last adventure during the summer of 1774. Crespί went on board the Spanish ship Santiago with Captain Juan Pérez to scout the Northwest Coast, in another effort to thwart other European advances into the region. Older and none too keen of sea travels, Crespί along with Fr. Tomás de la Peña, reached Canadian waters near Queen Charlotte Island. They ship encountered the Haida people and traded with them on the edge of Nootka Sound. They never made land fall and returned to Monterey in late August of that year. Brown notes that Crespί’s writing became shaky and often missed days of entry in the journal. The Friar was now in his mid Fifties and the culmination of arduous travel, bouts of scurvy, and life on the frontier were adding up. (Brown p. 101)
Juan Crespί was a facet of Spanish Colonialism, a system that relied upon both Church and Military to go forth into the unsettled realms of New Spain. In doing so they would be achieving several aims: strategically positioning themselves in a Presidio staffed with military to counter other European powers, settlement of new areas within a Pueblo made up of Mexican born Spaniards, and the conversion of the indigenous population at the Missions to the Roman Catholic faith. This was the expression of the enlightened Spanish Catholic Monarch, Carlos III’s concept of imperialism. Crespi was an exceptional missionary. Trained by Serra and seasoned in the Sierra Gorda missions and the wilds of California, he excelled at what he was expected to do. After his many travels for God and Crown he was able to settle at Mission San Carlos in Carmel and focus his attention at creating a self supporting agrarian society. He grew tomatoes and grain and other staples, some successfully some not. The fruits of Serra and Crespί’s labors were slow in coming. Baptisms were few and far between in those early years. Primarily they were the youth of the Indian population. They included interested young men of the tribes and children, some who were sick. Adults were more hesitant to join the Mission and were initially enticed by food and beads. When the crops failed converts were at a minimum. The Padres realized the strength of the native shell bead economy and took advantage of that in enticing Indians to build and then worship in the Missions. (Hylkema 2009) The stark reality to the California Indians was that the Mission Period ushered in by Serra, Palou and Crespί was the beginning of the end of their way of life. Disease and mistreatment killed many. Notwithstanding the good efforts made by those original missionaries, the deaths were outnumbering the baptisms. Crespί was definitely aware of this. The original intention of Serra was to create a population of “gente de razon”, or men of reason made up of the indigenous population. As time went on it became harder to achieve this goal. And the later Missionaries were not as tolerant as Serra and his condiscίpulos. The old ways would not mesh with the new and systematically the cultures of the Esselen and Ohlone, as well as other Mission Indians, began to be forgotten.(Green 2009)
Yet those early years for Crespί must have been rewarding at Carmel. He had come so far travelling thousands of miles half way around the World. He and Serra we’re working together to create their vision. Regardless of the inadequacies of the Spanish bureaucracy, they managed as best as they could and were successful in many ways. New towns were being established that would rise to become California’s largest cities, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose. The last journey made by Father Juan was to Mission Dolores in San Francisco during the Fall of 1781 to see his old school mate Father Palou. Serra and Crespί both made the trip. Serra most likely knew that Crespί was nearing his end. It was an opportunity to see an area that he had only known as an explorer now becoming a Mission settlement and to reminisce with Serra and Palou about their past, there accomplishments, their continued visions for the future. They spent eleven days there and then made their way back to Monterey. On the way they had the opportunity to assist in the laying of the corner stone for the new Mission Santa Clara. Serra and Crespί’s dreams were becoming reality. Back in Carmel the old Majorcan priest began to succumb to cardiac and circulatory problems. The primitive remedies available did no good. Crespί received his Viaticum for his final journey and on the first day of 1782, passed from this earth. Serra himself made the entry into the death registry. He acknowledged himself as “once his teacher, and lastly his fellow for many years.” (Brown p. 106) The Requiem was conducted and he was buried in the sanctuary near the main alter of the existing church. Years later his remains were moved to the present church and Fr. Juan Crespί now lies at the foot of the altar at “Mission Carmel”.(Green 2009)
Palou after Crespί’s death wrote endearingly of his friend:
'He was adorned with merits and exercised in the virtues which he had practiced from his youth…I always knew him to be extremely exemplary. Among his companions he was known by the name of “Blessed” or “Mystic”. He persevered in this manner for the rest of his life, with a dovelike simplicity. He was possessed of a most profound humility. All of us that knew him and had dealings with him piously believe that he went directly to God…The cries of the [of the neophytes at his funeral]…demonstrated the love they had for him as a father." (Geiger p.54)
Father Junipero Serra lived another year and a half after Crespί’s passing. He began to realize during this time of the importance and the significance of’s Crespί journals and perhaps all of the minor details included by Crespi that at first seemed so useless. He invoked Palou to make them available and publish them. Three days before his death, Serra spoke to Palou:
“Oh, if only the Religious of our holy Province [i.e., the friars of the Franciscan Province of Majorca] who knew the late Father Fray Juan Crespi were to see what he wrought and the great success he achieved, how many would be inspired to come here! Merely reading the journals [kept by Father Fray Juan during the explorations he accompanied] would suffice to move no few of them to leave homeland and native province, and take up the voyage to come and labor in this vineyard of the Lord.”
Serra’s final dying request was made directly to Palou:
"…looking straight at me, he said: I want you to bury me in the Mission church really close (cerquita) beside Father Fray Juan Crespi.” (Brown p3-4)
Father Juan Crespί and the Beatified Father Junipero Serra still lie together, “cerquita”, at Mission San Carlos de Borromeo, now declared a Minor Basilica by Pope John Paul II, near the Rio Carmelo that they had long sought.
Historic Legacy
Father Juan Crespί was perhaps the one individual most responsible for what became the settlement pattern of California. He was assigned the task numerous times to use his knowledge to suggest good locations for future settlement. He identified and named the location of Los Angeles and he suggested that the intended settlement to be named San Francisco be on the south side of the Golden Gate. His recommendations for various other potential towns and places for mission sites stretch from San Juan Capistrano to Encino, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo to Santa Cruz and beyond.
The historic legacy left by Crespί and the Portola Expedition is seen all over California. Dozens of places retain the original names given by the explorers. As infrastructure was developed, planners chose names that represented the area and its history. Mountains, canyons, parks, highways, towns, streets, shopping centers and schools were named after Portola and members of the Expedition.
For people today in California these names become permanent identifiers of many of the places associated with the California landscape. The Ortega Highway, Portola Valley, Portola Redwoods State Park, Junipero Serra Peak, Crespi Carmelite High School, to name a few. Even the San Diego Padres Major League Baseball team evokes the Franciscan fathers image.(Green 2009)