onverts usually were, there were not
wanting times when they turned about in sullen resistance. The annals
of some of the missions show a series of events that may well have
discouraged the most enthusiastic of missionaries. The unconverted
Indians, or "gentiles," of Southern California were heathens indeed,
and they made repeated attacks upon the missions by day, or stole their
stock or burned their houses by night. Volleys of arrows not
unfrequently greeted the priests on their return from morning mass.

In San Diego, faith in the power of gunpowder to hurt long preceded any
belief in the power of the cross to save. For a whole year after the
mission was founded, not a convert was made. The sole San Diego Indian
in Father Serra's service was a hired interpreter, who did not have a
particle of reverence for his employer's work. "In all these
missionary annals of the Northwest," says Bancroft, "there is no other
instance where paganism remained so long stubborn as in San Diego."

And the converts made at such cost of threats and promises were always
ready to backslide. It was hard to convert any unless they subjugated
all. The influence of the many outside would often stampede the few
within the fold.

In one of the numerous uprisings at San Diego the Fathers were
victorious over the Indians; the warriors were flogged, and thus
converted, and their four chiefs were condemned to death. The sentence
of death, according to Bancroft, read as follows:

"Deeming it useful to the service of God, the king, and the public
good, I sentence them to a violent death by musket shots, on the 11th
of April, at 9 A.M., the troops to be present at the execution, under
arms; and also all the Christian rancherias subject to the San Diego
Mission, that they may be warned to act righteously."

To the priests who were to assist at the last sacrament, the following
grim directions was given:

"You will co-operate for the good of their souls, in the understanding
that if they do not accept the salutary waters of holy baptism, they
die on Saturday morning; and if they do accept, they die all the same."

The character of the first great mission chief, Junipero Serra, is thus
summed up by Bancroft:

"All his energy and enthusiasm were directed to the performance of his
missionary duties as outlined in the regulations of his order and the
instruction of his superiors. Limping from mission to mission, with a
lame foot th