Confessions of a Western Wino: California Gold: The Mission of San Juan Capistrano

The Mission Historical Placard

I am fascinated with the California Mission system. I'm captivated with the idea of non-American societies existing on land that today we can hardly think of as anything but American. Spanish Catholics building churches and compounds to house local indigenous tribes in modern day Orange County certainly fits this bill. All of this may have well been a million miles from General Washington and his Continentals who were busy with their own land battles at that same time. The Mission system history makes for a strong foundation to California's rich post-contact legacy.

The mission at San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1776 by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order. It was named for Giovanni da Capistrano, a 15th-century "warrior priest" and Crusader. None of the Spaniards involved in the construction of the mission concerned themselves much about the war taking place on the eastern side of the continent. They were doing the Lord's work, training priests, converting heathens, and attempting to expand the powers of a weakening Spain. San Juan Capistrano has the distinction of being home to the oldest building in California still in use, the Serra Chapel built in 1782. It is the only extant structure where it has been documented that Junipero Serra, founder of the first nine California missions, celebrated Mass.

A part of the original cemetery used

for workers on the mission.

Interesting tidbit: The criolla grape, or "Mission grape," was first planted at San Juan Capistrano in 1779. By 1783 the first wine produced in Alta California was from the Mission's winery, a precursor to the state's future wine power.

The natives kept at the mission were the Juaneño or Acjachemen tribe, a tribe who resided throughout present-day San Diego and Orange Counties. At the mission they grew wheat and barley and tended to sheep and goats, all while saying prayers and bowing to the Mission Fathers. In the mid-1800s, the Mission entered a period of gradual and crumbling decline after Mexican government secularization. After California became a state in 1850, efforts were made to restore the Mission to its former state. To this day, restoration efforts continue. During my visit there were several support buildings surrounded by scaffolding where stone walls were being re-plastered.

Looking up through the smoke hole

inside an Indian hut.

The mission was number 7 in the chain of 21 missions created. It was originally designed in the shape of a cross similar to many Catholic churches today. The church once held seven domes and a bell tower so tall it could be seen from ten miles away. Ivy covers the broken walls today. Faded willows sway over the running fountain in the quadrangle and a bevy of flowers fill the mission gardens. Walking into the chapel, my eyes were drawn to the artwork on the walls and the gilded altarpiece before the pews.

"Each year on St. Joseph's Day, March 19," one of the local tour guides said, "the mission celebrates the return of the cliff swallows from Argentina with a traditional Mexican fiesta."

The ivy-covered exterior.

A Mexican fiesta in a Spanish Mission that was once supported by people of the Acjachemen Nation. And today it is a wealthy part of the US. History sure spins a tangled web.