Father Engelhardt is the author of "Franciscans in California," 1897, but the present work is to be much more extended. The first volume contains an account of the origin of missions, and an account of Franciscan labors in North and South America. It deals briefly with the early voyages to the California coast, and at length (on the annalistic plan) with the Jesuit, Franciscan, and Dominican periods in Lower California.
The claim of the book is that it has been "compiled from original sources, for the purpose of furnishing full and accurate information in plain language and as concisely as clearness would permit." To substantiate this claim, an earnest and honest effort has been made by the author. His resources, however, though respectable, have not been ample. In the whole volume there is hardly an authority cited which has not long been known to the student of California history. There are no citations from manuscripts or books in the Bancroft collection (for two years accessible at Berkeley), nor from national or private collections in the East, nor from the Mexican or Spanish archives. The author has relied chiefly upon such classic standards in his field as Venegas (Noticia de la California), Baegert (Nachrichten von der Californischen Halbinsel), and Palou (Noticias de la Nueva California.)
But the volume is not without its justification. From its pages it is evident that Father Engelhardt has made some use of the archives of California, kept in the Surveyor General's office in San Francisco, and destroyed by the earthquake fire of 1906. He, moreover, by reason of his connection with Santa Barbara, has been able to avail himself of the valuable Santa Barbara Mission archives, repository, among other things, of the originals of letters by Jóse de Gálvez and Fermin Francisco Lasuen. Use has been made of the material (not known to Bancroft) relating to the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino to the port of Monterey (A. D. 1602-1603) which was copied for the late Mr. Adolph Sutro from the archives at Seville,—material which, both in Spanish and English, may now be consulted in the Sutro volume of the publications of the Historical Society of Southern California. Use likewise has been made of the translations of important Spanish documents published by Mr. Charles F. Lummis in the "Land of Sunshine" and in "Out West," from 1897 to 1903.
Apropos of Venegas, Baegert, and Palou, Father Engelhardt's book derives value from the care with which the works of these historians have been re-explored. Details of mission life in the peninsula are elaborately set forth. Indeed, upon the subject of missionary toil among the Indians, the author has been able to shed light from his own personal experience. Naïf rather than critical though the book must be called, it contains, besides the narrative, matters of interest such as definitions of ecclesiastical and conventual terms; Consag's map of the California peninsula; a map of the Indian tribes of Mexico and Lower California; a map of Sonora and the peninsula (Venegas), dated 1757, and facsimiles of the signatures of Viceroy Bucarely, of Caballero de Croix, of Governors Barry, Fages, Borica and Arrillaga, of Guardian Verger, and of Francisco Palou. There is a series of appendices treating of The First Vicar Apostolic in the New World, The First Bishop of Florida, The Right of Missionaries to be supported, Apostolic Colleges, Indian Veracity, Power of Spanish Kings over the Church in America, etc. And last, but not least, there is a full index.
IRVING B. RICHMAN .
How to cite:
"The Missions and Missionaries of California", Volume 012, Number 4, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 313 - 315. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v012/n4/review_11.html
[Accessed Thu Dec 4 17:18:41 CST 2008]
