Mission San Luis Rey de Francia ( es, Misión San Luis Rey de Francia) is a former Spanish mission in San Luis Rey, a

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

Oceanside, California Oceanside is a city on the South Coast of California, located in San Diego County. The city had a population of 167,086 at the 2010 census. The city is a popular tourist destination, owing to its historic landmarks, beaches, and architecture. ...

. This Mission lent its name to the Luiseño tribe of

Mission Indians Mission Indians are the indigenous peoples of California who lived in Southern California and were forcibly relocated from their traditional dwellings, villages, and homelands to live and work at 15 Franciscan missions in Southern California and ...

. At its prime, Mission San Luis Rey's structures and services compound covered almost , making it the largest of the Californian missions, along with its surrounding agricultural land. Multiple outposts were built in support of Mission San Luis Rey and placed under its supervision, including

San Antonio de Pala Asistencia The San Antonio de Pala Asistencia, or the "Pala Mission", was founded on June 13, 1816 as an asistencia or "sub-mission" to Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, some twenty miles inland upstream from the latter mission on the San Luis Rey River. ...

in 1816 and

Las Flores Estancia The Las Flores Estancia (also known as Las Flores Asistencia) was established in 1823 as an ''estancia'' ("station"). It was part of the Spanish missions, asistencias, and estancias system in Las Californias—Alta California. Las Flores Estanci ...

in 1823.

Spanish era

Antonio Peyri, Missionary at San Luis Rey

The full name of the mission is ''La Misión de San Luis, Rey de Francia'' (The Mission of Saint Louis, King of France). It was named for King

Louis IX of France Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the ...

. Its nickname is "King of the Missions". It was founded by padre Fermín Lasuén on June 12, 1798, the eighteenth of the twenty-one Spanish missions built in the

Alta California Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...

Province of the

Viceroyalty of New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Amer ...

.Yenne, p. 156 The current church, built in 1815, is the third church on this location. It is a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

, for its pristine example of a Spanish mission church complex. Today the mission complex functions as a parish church of the Diocese of San Diego as well as a museum and retreat center. Mission San Luis Rey De Francia raised about 26,000 cattle as well as goats, geese, and pigs. An early account of life at the Mission was written by one of its Native American

converts Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliatin ...

, Luiseño

Pablo Tac Pablo Tac (1822–1841) was a Luiseño (''Quechnajuichom'' also spelled "Qéchngawichum") Indian and indigenous scholar who provided a rare contemporary Native American perspective on the institutions and early history of Alta California. He cre ...

, in his work ''Indian Life and Customs at Mission San Luis Rey: A Record of California Mission Life by Pablo Tac, An Indian Neophyte'' (written c.1835 in Rome, later edited and translated in 1958 by Minna Hewes and Gordon Hewes). In his book, Tac lamented the rapid

population decline A population decline (also sometimes called underpopulation, depopulation, or population collapse) in humans is a reduction in a human population size. Over the long term, stretching from prehistory to the present, Earth's total human population ...

of his Luiseño people after the founding of the mission:

In Quechla not long ago there were 5,000 souls, with all their neighboring lands. Through a sickness that came to California, 2,000 souls died, and 3,000 were left.

The Mission-born,

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

-educated Tac wrote that his people initially attempted to bar the Spaniards from invading their Southern California lands. Pablo Tac went on to describe the preferential conditions and treatment the padres received:

In the mission of San Luis Rey de Francia the Fernandino father is like a king. He has his pages, alcaldes, majordomos, musicians, soldiers, gardens, ranchos, livestock....

Mexican era

The Luiseños Refusing to Work Under Captain Pablo de la Portillà

The first Peruvian Pepper Tree (''

Schinus molle ''Schinus molle'' (Peruvian pepper, also known as American pepper, Peruvian peppertree, escobilla, false pepper, rosé pepper, molle del Peru, pepper tree, (Archived bWebCite peppercorn tree, California pepper tree, pirul (in Mexican Spanish s ...

'') in California was planted here in 1830, now iconic, widely planted, and renamed the ''California Pepper tree'' in the state. After the Mexican secularization act of 1833 much of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia land was sold off. Indigenous peoples, previously forced to work on missions, were freed from direct subjugation in the mission system through this act. When Native people at San Luis Rey learned of their impending freedom, they proclaimed together: "We are free! We do not want to obey! We do not want to work!" and left the mission by the thousands, returning to their rural communities "which in some cases their forebears had left two generations earlier." During the Mexican–American War in

(1846–1847), the Mission was utilized as a military outpost by the United States Army. In July 1847, U.S. military governor of California

Richard Barnes Mason Richard Barnes Mason (January 16, 1797July 25, 1850) was an American military officer who was a career officer in the United States Army and the fifth military governor of California before it became a state. He came from a politically prominen ...

created an Indian sub-agency at Mission San Luis Rey, and his men took charge of the mission property in August, appointing Jesse Hunter from the recently arrived

Mormon Battalion The Mormon Battalion was the only religious unit in United States military history in federal service, recruited solely from one religious body and having a religious title as the unit designation. The volunteers served from July 1846 to July ...

as sub-agent. Battalion guide

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (February 11, 1805 – May 16, 1866) was a Native American-French Canadian explorer, guide, fur trapper, trader, military scout during the Mexican–American War, ''alcalde'' (mayor) of Mission San Luis Rey de Franc ...

, the Native American Shoshone child of Sacagawea who had traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition forty years earlier, was appointed by Mason as the

Alcalde Alcalde (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian '' cabildo'' (the municipal council) a ...

"within the District of San Diego, at or near San Luis Rey" in November 1847. Charbonneau resigned from the post in August, 1848, claiming that "because of his Indian heritage others thought him biased when problems arose between the Indians and the other inhabitants of the district."

American era

Mission San Luis Rey de Francia courtyard

With secularization of the mission in 1834, no religious services were held and the Luiseño were left behind by the fleeing

padres. The Mission's religious services restarted in 1893, when two Mexican priests were given permission to restore the Mission as a Franciscan college.Young, p. 18 Father Joseph O'Keefe was assigned as an interpreter for the monks. It was he who began to restore the old Mission in 1895. The ''cuadrángulo'' (quadrangle) and church were completed in 1905. San Luis Rey College was opened as a seminary in 1950, but closed in 1969. Episodes 2, 3, 4 and 12 of the Disney-produced ''

Zorro Zorro (Spanish language, Spanish for 'fox') is a fictional character created in 1919 by American pulp magazine, pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed a ...

'' TV series include scenes filmed in 1957 at San Luis Rey, which doubled for the Mission of San Gabriel; Disney added a skull and crossbones to the cemetery entrance. In 1998, Sir

Gilbert Levine Sir Gilbert Levine, GCSG (born January 22, 1948) is an American conductor. He is considered an "outstanding personality in the world of international music television." He has led the PBS concert debuts of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Phi ...

led members of the

Los Angeles Philharmonic The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at th ...

and, with the special permission of

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

, the ancient

Cappella Giulia The Cappella Giulia, officially the Reverend Musical Chapel Julia of the Sacrosanct Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican, is the choir of St. Peter's Basilica that sings for all solemn functions of the Vatican Chapter, such as Holy Mass, L ...

Choir of

St. Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal en ...

, in a series of concerts to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the mission. These festival concerts constituted the first-ever visit of this 500-year-old choir to the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term W ...

. The concerts were broadcast on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

's ''

Performance Today ''Performance Today'' is a Peabody Award-winning classical music radio program, first aired in 1987 and hosted since 2000 by Fred Child. It is the most listened-to daily classical music radio program in the United States, with 1.2 million listen ...

''. In February 2013, the

seismic retrofit Seismic retrofitting is the modification of existing built environment, structures to make them more resistant to seismology, seismic activity, ground motion, or soil failure due to earthquakes. With better understanding of seismic demand on stru ...

ting was completed. Today, Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is a working mission, cared for by the people who belong to the parish, with ongoing restoration projects. Mission San Luis Rey has a Museum, Visitors' Center, Retreat Center, gardens with the historic Pepper Tree, and the original small cemetery.Old Mission San Luis Rey Cemetery
/ref>

Notes

References

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External links

Official Mission San Luis Rey website

Official Mission San Luis Rey parish website

Open Access teaching unit on Pablo Tac's account of the conversion of the Saluiseños, in English and Spanish versions

Calisphere – California Digital Library
Early photographs, sketches, and land surveys of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia.
Elevation & Site Layout sketches of the Mission compound

Satellite image
from Google Maps
Early History of the California Coast, a National Park Service ''Discover Our Shared Heritage'' Travel Itinerary

Mission San Luis Rey – Pictures, videos and history
*
Mission San Luis Rey Cemetery
at Find a Grave {{DEFAULTSORT:Mission San Luis Rey De Francia

San Luis Rey de Francia Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is anchor ...