Decisive Battles - Marathon (Greece vs Persia)

Some Celibate lost his mind again!

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The new deputy Minister of Education and Religions of Greece said that the procedure of exemption from the subject of Religion (or better Orthodox Indoctrination) should be simplified. She said that it is not acceptable to write on an official document what a child isn't. Until know the parents should state, in order to achieve the exemption, that the pupil is not Christian Orthodox. She said that, that shouldn't be stated. It should be enough to state, that they just don't want their child to attend these lessons.
The Greek Theocrat talked haughtily about a ... lady talking nonsense and she has no right about that. It came to her head. Only the Greek Constitution is responsible for these matters.
He said that in the Greek Constitution is stated that they (who is we?) should have national, Christian, Greek-Christian education.
He probably thinks the Constitution is under his jurisdiction.

Through Junípero Serra, the history of Christian Mission! D

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Serra the Saint: Why Not?
Deborah A. Miranda

We are told that Junipero Serra is being canonized because he brought Christianity to California Indigenous Peoples. If that were all he had brought to us, perhaps I could find it in my heart to forgive Pope Francis’ decision. If Serra had brought us the choice of Christianity—with no punishment for choosing to remain faithful to our own religions—perhaps I could understand the Pope’s decision. But Serra did not just “bring” us Christianity; he imposed it, he forced it, he violated us with it, giving us no choice in the matter.

Missionization, for California Indians, was more like indoctrination in an abusive cult than spiritual grace. Natives who resisted or refused conversion were beaten, imprisoned, starved, exiled or driven from their homelands—usually by soldiers, at the behest of priests. Catholicism was the stealth weapon of Spanish colonization; a “moral” reason for conquest, to protect lands Spain wanted for itself from Russians moving south from Alaska. In addition to Christianity, the Spaniards brought disease, including their own special brand of syphilis that not only sterilized Native women, but caused birth defects, blindness and death. A pre-contact population of close to one million dropped to 250,000-300,000 in less than 70 years. These numbers, these statistics, are human beings. Our Ancestors. Our relatives. Our families. The missionaries’ efforts directly caused generations of historical trauma to California Indians from which we still have not recovered (loss of indigenous religion, culture, languages, art, land, health, psychological well-being and sovereignty were direct results of Serra’s missionization efforts).

In other historical contexts, this kind of abuse of power is called genocide, a crime against humanity. It is certainly about as far away from sainthood as anything I can imagine, and the Catholic Church’s stated intentions to honor Serra with canonization indicates that it has learned nothing, and does not understand that it needs to learn: violently enforced religion is not missionization, it is terrorism.

RELATED: Disrobing Junipero Serra: Saint or Monster?

RELATED: Father Serra’s Sainthood: Sanctifying a Legacy of Domination

Why, then, is Serra’s canonization seemingly imminent? After the church rape scandals in the past couple of decades, Serra may be seen by many in the Vatican as someone whose reputation is above all of that, having lived prior to and not affected by the legal cases still going on. And this canonization is definitely seen, within Vatican circles, as having taken too long already—Serra was beatified in 1988, which raised protests from Native peoples and, along with the then-necessity of a second miracle—may have put things on the back burner until now.

Native Americans do not think Junipero Serra should be canonized because of his treatment of their ancestors. (San Juan Capistrano Historical Society)
Native Americans do not think Junipero Serra should be canonized because of his treatment of their ancestors. (San Juan Capistrano Historical Society)

Meanwhile, Pope Francis' participation in the fast-tracking of the double canonization last year (of his predecessors, Popes John Paul XXIII and John II) should serve as a red flag, indicating a lack of judgment and sensitivity toward the suffering not just of Native Americans and their Ancestors, but of Catholics themselves, particularly those who were sexually abused and whose Church covered up the crimes. As Barbie Latza Nadeau writes, Pope John II not only protected one of the priests involved (“Legionnaires of Christ founder Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, who sexually abused seminarians, fathered several children and even abused his own son”), but actually rallied around him. In addition, “In many ways,” says Nadeau, “John Paul II laid the groundwork for his own fast track to sainthood back in 1983 when he dismissed the office of the advocatus diabolus, or devil’s advocate. Until then, all causes for saints had to be scrutinized by a canon lawyer, called the Promoter Fidei, who studied each saint’s worthiness. John Paul … would not likely have made the cut based on his record on the child abuse scandal.” Indeed, with the new rules for sainthood no longer requiring two miracles, Serra’s canonization does seem likely to happen soon.

Serra, many of his supporters have argued, was simply “a man of his times.” In other words, colonization happens, and we should not blame those caught up in it. But that has a flip side to it: if Serra was, in fact, “a man of his times” in 1769 when he founded the first California mission in San Diego, he should have known better: Bartolome de las Casas knew better in 1552 when he published “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,” and spent his entire life working for the freedom of Indians and return of their lands (a wealthy man, a priest, and former Indian slave-holder); a document Serra and all priests in training would have read and debated.

Padre Antonio Horra knew better in 1799 when he protested soldiers’ rapes and beatings of Indian converts at his California mission. The Church officials in California and Mexico sent poor Padre Horra home saying he had gone insane from the stress of missionization and his inability to deal with the hardships of The New World. Mission websites state that “Padre Antonio de la Concepcion Horra (1767-?) became a problem almost from the very beginning. Then-President of the missions, Padre Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, assigned Padre Horra to work with the experienced missionary Padre Buenaventura Sitjar, for the founding of Mission San Miguel. Less than a month after the July 25, 1797 founding, Padre Horra began showing signs of insanity … ‘Two surgeons at Monterey examined Horra and declared him insane; the governor made it official, and Horra was returned to Mexico. From there, Padre Horra was returned to Spain on July 8, 1804.”

However, there is another, rarely heard side to this story: “The treatment shown to the Indians is the most cruel … For the slightest things they receive heavy floggings, are shackled, and put in the stocks, and treated with so much cruelty that they are kept whole days without a drink of water,” Horra wrote in his own defense, adding that charges of insanity were false and brought against him because of his serious charges against of cruelty by priests and soldiers, and mismanagement of Church resources (Bancroft 587). In closing, Horra asked to be sent back to Spain because he feared for his life—not because of wild Indians, but due to his own Franciscan brethren.

Many letters, diaries and records of others traveling in California during Serra’s tenure and afterwards left behind testimonies of the brutality brought on by the missions. In 1786, French explorer Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse observed that during his visit to Mission Carmel a mere three years after Serra’s death, “Everything reminded us of a habitation in Saint Domingo, or any other West Indian slave colony. The men and women are assembled by the sound of the bell, one of the religious conducts them to their work, to church, and to all other exercises. We mention it with pain, the resemblance to a slave colony is so perfect, that we saw men and women loaded with irons, others in the stocks; and at length the noise of the strokes of a whip struck our ears.” Other visitors in the same era noted that Indians were even beaten with a whip or cane when they did not “attend worship”—not simply going to services, but actually paying attention to the service and necessary responses. These people saw through “the eyes of their time” and what they saw disturbed them deeply. Serra knew, too.

In 1988, the last time canonization of Serra came up, protests from California Indians was loud and immediately. “He is as responsible for what happened to American Indians as Hitler was responsible for what happened to the Jews,” Jeannette Costo told The Chicago Tribune.

This comparison is often dismissed out of hand as hyperbole, yet there is something to it: when Serra supporters write that “he was a man of his times, part of an inevitable colonization and expansion of European powers,” I often wonder, would we accept that as an excuse for Hitler, as well? Wasn’t he just another power-hungry European leader who went to war for more territory?

More recently, retired Bishop Francis A. Quinn apologized to the Miwok Indians during a Mass at the Church of St. Raphael in San Rafael California; Bishop Quinn admitted that missionaries “took the Indian out of the Indian,” and imposed “a European Catholicism upon the natives.” He also admitted that mission soldiers and priests had raped Indian women and enforced missionary rules with brutal and violent punishments. Perhaps most stunning, Bishop Quinn agreed with what some of us have long known: that Indians were civilized, had forms of religion, education, art, governance and agricultural knowledge long before the Spanish arrived bent on conversion and their own version of civilization.

And still more recently, Bishop Richard Garcia asked forgiveness from the Diocese of Monterey (in December 2012) when he offered a formal apology for the abuses of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Ohlone/Costanoan Indians, one of several tribes taken into Mission Carmel.

RELATED: California Bishop Will Apologize to Amah Mutsun Tribal Band

A clear thread of protest from within the Catholic Church itself runs parallel to the protests of California Indians, although each has often been in danger of erasure by the powers that wish to control the narrative.

So is it any wonder that California Indians, and many of our allies, feel that Serra’s canonization is a mistake that will only cause further damage to our struggle to return from the aftermath of genocide—a struggle which in large part depends upon our ability to challenge and expose the Mission Mythology that supports past injustices?

As I write this, my mind is already leaping ahead to the hate mail and comments sure to follow. In the comment section of a November 2013 issue of an article about Junipero Serra in The Guardian, I saw this typical thread:

Serra the Saint Message Thread
Serra the Saint Message Thread

The sheer inability of people to do their own research, or lacking that, to critically examine the arguments of the “research” they do read (or imagine they read), stuns me. Obviously, our California Indian Ancestors not only survived “the ravages of Mother Nature,” but had a deeply spiritual connection with the cycles and our responsibilities to the beings around us; we did not need a “refuge” “against” nature, because we had spent thousands of years working with our world and understood what was required for an equitable relationship. I’ve seen far, far more vicious threads in the past few days. On the New York Times comment section after an article in which I was quoted (along with two other California Indians), someone named Richard M wrote, “I hate to be blunt, but it must be said: ‘Prominent Native Americans’ here equals ‘usual handful of professional left-wing activists.’” I replied with my academic and tribal credentials, gave him a few hard facts about missions, and told him to educate himself. I refrained from his own brand of blunt simply because, as an Indian, I’ve learned that I cannot stoop to the level of haters without losing what little credibility I have.

So I don’t fool myself into thinking that I am going to change the minds of haters, or of the people who think this debate is highly amusing and not worth their time, because “it’s all water under the bridge now, just move on.” But I do feel strongly that as one of the few descendants of the Indians who survived the missions, I have a responsibility to my Ancestors and to my own descendants to speak up and try to create a clearer understand about why Junipero Serra’s canonization would be another historical flogging of California Indians. No, Serra was not the only one involved. Yes, he was part of an intricate machine run by the Spanish Crown’s political desires, the Spanish military’s might, and the Vatican’s multiple ambitions to convert and acquire both souls and wealth. But Serra was also a man who, like many before him, was faced with a choice: go along with the program, achieve his own personal goals, and ignore the larger crimes—or take a stand against inherently inhumane and unchristian acts against a people who were obviously vulnerable to diseases and technologies far different from their own.

Serra made his choice. And in my eyes, that choice does not make him a saint, or anything close to it. Why not canonize Mother Teresa? Why not Archbishop Romero, who died defending Indigenous Peoples from poverty and injustice? Why honor and elevate a man who allowed himself to close his eyes and continue to head an organization that was clearly destroying souls faster than it could “save” them? This is what I want to bring to the attention of those who are willing to consider the more difficult sides of this debate: when we believe in Mission Mythology, or even simply just allow it to continue to exist, unchallenged, we accept that cruelty and injustice is allowable, inevitable, and profitable.

But that will come back to bite you, and those you love, one day.

This story originally appeared on the blog Bad NDNs, and has been republished here with permission.

Deborah Miranda is a Native American writer and poet. Her father is from the Esselen and Chumash people, native to the Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez/Monterery, California area and her mother was of French and Jewish ancestry. Miranda earned a B.S. in Teaching Moderate Special Needs from Wheelock College in 1983 and earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 2001. She is currently John Lucian Smith Jr. Memorial Professor of English at Washington and Lee University, where she teaches Creative Writing (poetry), Native American Literatures, Women’s Literature, Poetry as Literature, and composition. She is also the author of "Bad Indians: ATribal Memoir," a mixed-genre story of her ancestors' survival of the California missions.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/01/26/serra-saint-why-not-158863

Through Junípero Serra, the history of Christian Mission! C

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Denouncing Serra Canonization, Mother and Son 'Walk for the Ancestors'

650-mile journey of remembrance will stop at each of California's 21 missions

Caroline Ward-Holland and her son, Kagen Holland, wanted to address the controversial canonization of the 18th century missionary Junípero Serra in their own way.

Thus, while Pope Francis called for Serra's sainthood during a mass attended by thousands on Wednesday at a Washington D.C. basilica, the two descendents of the Tataviam tribe from Santa Clarita, California proceeded to march 650 miles from Sonoma to San Diego.

Along their "Walk for the Ancestors," as it is called, the pair plans to visit each of the state's 21 missions "to honor the Indigenous ancestors who suffered and perished in the Mission system and assert California Indian rejection of sainthood for Junipero Serra," who is credited with bringing Christianity to the region by imposing it on the Indigenous population.

Caroline and Kagen set out on September 7 and expect to walk through mid-November when they will conclude the pilgrimage at Mission San Diego de Alcala, the first mission founded in 1769 by Serra.

"I want to follow in the footsteps of the ancestors. They will speak to us. I want my relatives and ancestors to know that we will never forget their suffering and the many atrocities they endured. Wherever their villages were, I want to walk there," Ward-Holland told Indian Country.

On Wednesday, the walkers arrived at Mission San Carlos in Carmel where a Day of Mourning protest was held.

Caroline and Kagen are not alone. Native Americans and their supporters across the nation, and world, have expressed outrage over the beatification of the Spanish-born Serra.

Numerous California Indian nations and Native American organizations have issued statements opposing the canonization and calling on the Pope to reverse it, though the Vatican has so far failed to issue a response.

In a column Wednesday, Simon Moya-Smith, a journalist and citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation, quoted Pope Francis' own speech given in July to Indigenous populations in Bolivia.

"I say this to you with regret: Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God," Francis said. "I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America."

Moya-Smith then poses the question: Why, "in the face of such encouraging words," is Pope Francis set to canonize someone "documented as being an extreme and unapologetic abuser of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Coast"?

Citing scholars who documented Serra's abuse, Moya-Smith continues:

    Serra would brutally beat and whip men, women and children in order to force obedience among the Indians. Castillo also writes that Serra celebrated the demise of Indian children, referring to their deaths as a "harvest."

    That's not all. Castillo says that Indians who did not voluntarily enter Serra's missions were kidnapped and then held captive within the mission's parapets, where they were subjected to an "unforgiving regimen that would ultimately claim the lives of 62,000 Indians and devastate their civilizations, including the extinction of a number of small tribes."

"Unfortunately, though, this form of exaltation is nothing new," Moya-Smith adds. "Indeed, the celebration of aggressive Christian conquest by religious zealots is evident the world over, especially here in the United States."

Speaking to Democracy Now on Wednesday, Valentin Lopez, chair of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, also highlighted the brutal history of the mission system. "In total," Lopez said, "over 150,000 California Indians died under this system that Junípero Serra developed."

In a statement on Wednesday, Corrina Gould, member of the Chochenyo Ohlone tribe and co-founder Indian People Organizing for Change, minced no words when addressing Serra's legacy. "The canonization of Serra is not complicated or complex. It's fairly simple," Gould said. "My ancestors were enslaved at this concentration camp created by Serra for his own ego, for the Spanish crown and for the Catholic Empire. Serra didn’t save us. We already had our own religion! In fact, we were the ones that were civilized and it was Serra that introduced us to Hell."

Through Junípero Serra, the history of Christian Mission! B

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Pope Francis Should Not Be Canonizing Junipero Serra

The pillager of California's natives has enough memorials already—and his sainthood has no place in the contemporary Catholic Church.

Father Junipero Serra, the controversial figure who led the charge by the Catholic church to found a chain of missions in California, is set to be canonized today by Pope Francis in Washington, D.C. "He was the evangelizer of the West in the United States," Francis told reporters in January, when he first announced his decision to canonize Serra.

Serra, who was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca in 1713 and founded nine of California's 21 missions, will become a saint with only one miracle to has name—the curing of a 78-year-old nun with lupus—because he has been "venerated as a saint" for centuries, according to the Pope. (Canonization traditionally requires proof of two miracles.) A slick website set up by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agrees with Francis: "Long loved in California, Serra will be revered by the whole world as a symbol of heroic sacrifice and evangelization."*

“Sacrifice and evangelization” aren't Serra's only legacies. In his biography of Junipero Serra, historian Steven Hackel recalls Serra's paternalistic attitude toward the Native Americans he came to convert: "An ideal father, Serra believed, 'because he loves him with fatherly love, he teaches [his child] to obey; when he fails in anything, he scolds him and punishes him, so that the son corrects his deviations.'" Native Americans, in other words, were to be treated like children who required discipline and obedience. There was no hint of understanding that Serra and his gang were intruding on someone else's land and culture. They traveled the spine of California with one goal; to convert every Native American they encountered. Once converted, some of the children were taught to read and write, and all were instructed in the traditions and rituals of the Catholic church.

"Conversion was not compulsory; rather, Indians chose freely to join the Church and the mission after a period of catechesis," says the L.A. Archdiocese website. This statement runs in direct opposition to Hackel's account, which recalls an episode in which Serra gave gifts to a 15-year-old Indian boy encouraging him to convert, telling the boy that those who were baptized would receive clothing from the church. In a place whose native people had almost no material comforts, holding out the promise of clothing and gifts for converts qualifies as coercion.

Forced conversion should cast a sufficient shadow over Serra's legacy. But he also oversaw a regime of violence against Native Americans: They were brutalized by Spanish soldiers at the Presidios of each Mission and, sometimes, by the missionaries themselves. Women were raped and left on their own to care for their children and, perhaps most devastatingly, tens of thousands of Native Americans were killed by exposure to disease, harsh labor conditions, and lack of access to medical care: Condemning the “pagan” practices of local doctors, missionaries barred practitioners from tending to their native community, and smallpox did worse than decimate the population—it killed up to one-third of Native Americans living around the missions. The suffering was more than physical: Native American culture, which had once thrived all over California, lost some of its central figures to disease and its rituals to Catholicism. Junipero Serra, who was so revered by Spanish and Mexican settlers, had become the figurehead of anti-Native sentiment. This is, in part, why the practice of sainthood is so dangerous: It enshrines in permanent glory a deeply imperfect person. It seems a bit of a surprise, too, that Pope Francis, whose empathetic reputation precedes him, should be the one presiding over Serra’s sainthood. Francis’ care for the poor and marginalized is well-documented, and it feels dissonant that he seems to have turned a deaf ear to the suffering and anger of so many native Americans.


To be declared a saint means, among other things, that you “reign in eternal glory," according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, and that the Catholic Church holds you in a position of honor. Serra was a committed evangelist and has come to be known as the Father of California, connecting settlements throughout the state that had previously had no contact with one another. If you've ever driven state highway 101, you've likely seen the cast-iron bells marking the historic El Camino Real, the route Serra took as he founded the first missions. There are schools and roads named after Father Serra, and even a gin called Junípero, a reference both to Serra and the berry that gives the clear alcohol its flavor. Serra has already secured a vaunted position in California state history. The question now is what his place will be in the life of the church. He will be sainted, but will he be venerated in the hearts of individual Catholics? Or will they, troubled by his colonial legacy, stand in solidarity with their Native American peers?

Kagen Ward and Caroline Ward-Hollard are hoping for the latter. The mother-and-son team are descendants of the Tataviam tribe from the Santa Clarita Valley, and they have already begun their Walk for the Ancestors, a months-long journey over the 650 miles of road connecting the mission system. The two start their days burning sage to cleanse themselves and then begin their methodical journey, welcoming visitors along the way, to the next mission. There, they meet with Native Americans from other tribes—Ohlone, Miwok, Pomo—and spend time in prayer and conversation. They have declared today a Day of Mourning and are calling on supporters to wear black. They will meet at 12 p.m. in the cemetery at San Carlos Borromeo Mission in Carmel, where there will also be a live-stream of Serra's canonization.

Serra's bones lie beneath the floor of the basilica at the Carmel Mission. The basilica has large arched ceilings and thick wood pews, and the gilded reredos features carved images of the Archangel Michael and the crucified Christ, among others. The figures look down toward the floor where a striking portrait of Junipero Serra leans against a balcony atop his final resting place. "Fr. Junipero Serra, Apostol de California," reads his tombstone.

A few yards outside the basilica is the cemetery. Most marked graves contain the bodies of Mexican missionaries or church officials and their loved ones. Ringing the cemetery's north side are a series of mostly unmarked graves stuck with small wooden crosses and decorated with abalone shells. These are the graves of some of the Native Americans who died at the Carmel Mission. For those whose graves are long forgotten, a plaque remains to placate: "In memory of the Christian Indians and Spaniards who were interred in this cemetery between the years 1771–1833."

*Update — September 23, 2015: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated where Junipero Serra was born; he was born on Mallorca.

Through Junípero Serra, the history of Christian Mission! A

The Greek article where I was informed about the matter is here.

It is up to the Pope, because he is Catholicism, to canonise Junípero Serra or not. A saint for the Christians doesn't mean anything for the others. However the same, as narrated in the interview, happened to all our ancestors, no matter who they were. The inhabitants of Armenia, the Roman Empire, Europe were in the place of the Native Americans.

Robert Senkewicz, professor of history at Santa Clara University and an expert on early California history was interviewed by the National Catholic Reporter. The whole article is here.
I will copy, paste and highlight the parts I find most educating.

What was the purpose of the missions?

They inevitably had a double purpose. Under the Spanish system, the missionaries were paid by the government, so missionaries were both church and state functionaries.

From the point of view of the church, the purpose of the missions was to spread the Gospel to those who had not been baptized.

From the point of view of the state, the missions were institutions aimed at assimilating the native peoples, making them citizens of the empire. That meant, among other things, learning European-style agriculture, becoming a Catholic, and living in a congregated pueblo-type arrangement, just like people in Spain.

A great deal of the tension in the mission system stemmed from this double purpose, for these two aims did not always coexist easily with each other.

 Why did the Indians actually go to the missions?

Native people entered the missions in California for a variety of reasons. No doubt some were genuinely interested in Catholicism. Others presented their sick children for baptism in hopes that the priest might be able to cure them.

Some came because there was food at the missions. That was important because what was going on in California was that the Spanish military and missionaries brought large numbers of horses, mules, burros, sheep and goats with them. These animals inevitably and quickly destroyed the plants, acorn and berries that had sustained a traditional way of life for centuries. They also drove away the game the native peoples had traditionally hunted.

The presence of the Spanish colonial enterprise very quickly rendered it almost impossible for the traditional native ways of life to be maintained. So, some people came into the mission system because their traditional ways of life and sustenance was being destroyed by the  colonial invaders.

Would you say then that the Indians were enslaved by the missionaries?

Coercion and force were part of the mission system, but I wouldn't say that they were enslaved. Slavery is a specific legal system. To use it in an American context equates with the way Africans were treated in the American South, and it was a very different kind of situation. Indians were definitely regarded as inferior. But they were regarded not as property, but as people.

What was Serra’s attitude and behavior toward the Indians?

His attitude and behavior were frankly and explicitly paternalistic. Along with probably 99 percent of the people in Europe at the time, he thought that non-Europeans were inferior to Europeans. There was a big debate in the early Spanish empire about whether or not the native peoples were fully rational beings or not.

By the time Serra got to the New World, many Spanish thinkers believed that the native peoples of the Americas were in a state of "natural infancy," that they were children. Serra shared that view and he basically had a paternalistic attitude towards them.

That paternalistic attitude could, at times, result in a behavior which anybody today would find very hard to justify. If people left the mission without permission, they were pursued and hunted by soldiers and other Indians. If they were brought back, the normal punishment was flogging. What the Spanish military and missionaries thought they were doing was punishing children to make them understand how they should behave.

Were Indians converted at the missions?

It's pretty clear that at the beginning the native peoples did what Europeans, the so-called "barbarians,"  had done a millennium earlier. They interpreted Christianity through their own traditional ways, through their own traditional deities and spirituality. So, what resulted in the missions was a mix, a syncretism, a new melding of traditional indigenous California spirituality and imported Spanish and Mexican Catholic spirituality.

Over time, some missionaries understood this and accepted it. Others were very impatient with it. Serra was most likely somewhere in the middle.

 Did Serra like the Indians?

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He was most unhappy when he had to deal with soldiers and governors. Serra never met a military governor that he liked. He dealt with three of them and disliked each one more than the previous one.

He also tended to be unhappy when he had to deal with his religious superiors back in Mexico City. He would sometimes think that they didn't understand what he was trying to do. His superiors often thought he was too impatient and too reckless in establishing so many missions so quickly. Maybe that criticism came with the territory. Indeed, the Jesuit missionary in Arizona, Eusebio Kino, experienced similar strictures from his own superiors.

At one point, Serra complained about all this: "I'm spending half of my life at a desk writing reports." He was clearly upset at all of the effort he had to put into such activity.    

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..

 Were Indians exploited to support the mission system?

Yes. As the mission system developed over time it became a different kind of place after Serra's death in 1784 as a result of a couple of circumstances.

In 1810, the independence insurgency in Mexico under Miguel Hidalgo and Juan María Morelos broke out. If you were the viceroy at the time, you were going to do everything that you could to defeat this insurgency. So the supply ship, which every year had come up from Mexico to California, stopped coming because all resources were being diverted to fighting Hidalgo and Morelos.

All of the sudden, California was not getting its regular replenishment of supplies. The institutions in California that were best equipped to deal with this situation were the missions because by that time, they were pretty skilled at growing food.

They also had  blacksmiths, carpenters and other skilled personnel. Some of these skilled laborers were Indians, who had learned from Mexican craftsmen at the missions, and who would pass on those skills to their own children. So the missions became the economic engines of California from about 1810 increasingly onward.

The result was the missions began to reach farther and farther away from the coast to get more native people to keep up production levels. By the early 1820s, the missionaries were almost ranchers as much as they were missionaries. They were selling their hides and tallow to American and British merchants who were trading up and down the coast.

The missionaries would have definitely not described themselves as ranchers, but I think that’s what happened. And ranching concerns and missionary activity did not always coexist well together.

For instance, peoples' freedom of movement within the mission compound became more restricted. An example was that young girls and women were locked up at night because the missionaries thought, not without reason, that some soldiers would rape them if they were unprotected.

But putting so many individuals together in an enclosed and often cramped space created a very unhealthy environment. Young girls and women were especially vulnerable to imported diseases to which they had not developed any immunities. For this and other reasons, such as heavy workload, the death rate in the missions was very high and it increased over time.
Obviously, the missionaries didn't know about germ theory, or anything like that. But, they knew people were dying in great numbers because they were doing the funerals, and they kept very full records of all sacramental matters. Some were extremely upset, while others appear to have contented themselves with the assurance that this simply meant that more souls were going to heaven. It is very jarring and infuriating to read those words today.

Did the Franciscans or the church get rich through the missions? Did any of the profits from the missions go back to Mexico or Spain?

In the quarter century after 1810, the missions generated considerable income. But close study of the financial system and of the mission account books indicates pretty clearly that the overwhelming amount of this income, more than 90 percent, went directly back into mission enterprises, especially clothing for the native peoples and liturgical, catechetical and sacramental supplies. Very little was retained in Mexico City or went back to Spain.

Given all of this, what about the issue of Serra’s canonization?

I’m an historian, not a theologian. But I have tried to follow the debate and I do know a number of native Californians who are very opposed to the canonization of Fr. Serra. Many of their arguments are deeply reasoned, well articulated, passionate and personal.

I think that many of the arguments rest upon two concerns. First, the concern that canonizing Serra is by implication approving the entire mission system, including all of the punishments, diseases and deaths that were a part of that system. The second concern is that to canonize Serra is to justify and whitewash the church's role in colonial expansion -- as it were, to bless the European expansion into the Americas and the horrible loss of native lives and land that was part and parcel of that process.

FYROP: Former Yugoslavian Republic of Paionia

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Archaeology Magazine Letter to the Editor by Professor Stephen G. Miller
in ancient macedonian ethnicity, E-mails from readers / by Admin / on March 1, 2009 at 2:37 am /

Archaeology Magazine Letter to the Editor by Professor Stephen G. Miller

Editor, Archaeology Magazine
36-36 33rd Street
Long Island City, NY 11106
U.S.A.
Dear Sir,
             I opened the January/February issue of Archaeology today and eagerly turned to “A Letter from Macedonia” only to discover that it was actually a letter from ancient Paionia – the land north of Mt. Barmous and Mt. Orbelos.  Livy’s account of the creation of the Roman province of Macedonia (45.29.7 and 12) makes clear that the Paionians lived north of those mountains (which form today the geographically natural northern limits of Greece) and south of the Dardanians who were in today’s Kosovo.  Strabo (7. frag 4) is even more succinct in saying that Paionia was north of Macedonia and the only connection from one to the other was (and is today) through the narrow gorge of the Axios (or Vardar) River.   In other words, the land which is described by Matthew Brunwasser in his “Owning Alexander” was Paionia in antiquity.
ancient macedonia map Archaeology Magazine Letter to the Editor by Professor Stephen G. Miller
While it is true that those people were subdued by Philip II, father of Alexander, in 359 B.C. (Diodorus Siculus 16.4.2), they were never Macedonians and never lived in Macedonia.  Indeed, Demosthenes (Olynthian 1.23) tells us that they were “enslaved” by the Macedonian Philip and clearly, therefore, not Macedonians.  Isokrates (5.23) makes the same point.  Likewise, for example, the Egyptians who were subdued by Alexander may have been ruled by Macedonians, including the famous Cleopatra, but they were never Macedonians themselves, and Egypt was never called Macedonia (and so far as I can tell does not seek that name today).
            Certainly, as Thucydides (2.99) tells us, the Macedonians had taken over “a narrow strip of Paionia extending along the Axios river from the interior to Pella and the sea”.  One might therefore understand if the people in the modern republic centered at Skopje called themselves Paionians and claimed as theirs the land described by Thucydides.
But why, instead, would the modern people of ancient Paionia try to call themselves Macedonians and their land Macedonia?  Mr. Brunwasser (p. 55) touches on the Greek claims  “that it implies ambitions over Greek territory” and he notes that “the northern province of Greece is also called Macedonia.”  Leaving aside the fact that the area of that northern province of modern Greece has been called Macedonia for more than 2,500 years (see, inter alios, Herodotus 5.17; 7.128, et alibi), more recent history shows that the Greek concerns are legitimate.  For example, a map produced in Skopje in 1992 shows clearly the claim that Macedonia extends from there to Mt. Olympus in the south;  that is, combining the ancient regions of Paionia and Macedonia into a single entity.
  irridentist map Archaeology Magazine Letter to the Editor by Professor Stephen G. Miller
The same claim is explicit on a pseudo-bank note of the Republic of Macedonia which shows, as one of its monuments, the White Tower of Thessalonike, in Greece.
bank note white tower Archaeology Magazine Letter to the Editor by Professor Stephen G. Miller
There are many more examples of calendars, Christmas cards, bumper-stickers, etc., that all make the same claim.
            Further, Mr. Brunwasser has reported with approval (International Herald Tribune 10/1/08) the work of the “Macedonian Institute for Strategic Research 16:9”, the name of which refers “to Acts 16:9, a verse in the New Testament in which a Macedonian man appears to the Apostle Paul begging him: ‘Come over into Macedonia, and help us.’”  But where did Paul go in Macedonia?  Neapolis (Kavala), Philippi, Amphipolis, Apollonia, Thessaloniki, and Veroia (Acts 16:11-17:10) all of which are in the historic Macedonia, none in Paionia.  What claim is being made by an Institute based in Skopje that names itself for a trip through what was Macedonia in antiquity and what is the northern province of Greece today?
            I wonder what we would conclude if a certain large island off the southeast coast of the United States started to call itself Florida, and emblazoned its currency with images of Disney World and distributed maps showing the Greater Florida.
            Certainly there was no doubt of the underlying point of “Macedonia” in the mind of  U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius on December 26, 1944, when he wrote:
“The Department [of State] has noted with considerable apprehension increasing propaganda rumors and semi-official statements in favor of an autonomous Macedonia, emanating principally from Bulgaria, but also from Yugoslav Partisan and other sources, with the implication that Greek territory would be included in the projected state. This government considers talk of Macedonian ”nation”, Macedonian “Fatherland”, or Macedonian “national consciousness” to be unjustified demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece.”
                        [Source: U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations vol viii, Washington, D.C., Circular Airgram (868.014/26Dec1944)]
            Mr. Brunwasser (a resident of Bulgaria), however, goes on to state, with apparent distain, that Greece claims “Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) . . . as Greek.”
            This attitude mystifies me.  What is there to “claim”?  Alexander’s great-great-great grandfather, Alexander I, was certified as Greek at Olympia and, in the words of the father of history “I happen to know that [the forefathers of Alexander] are Greek” (Herodotus 5.22).  Alexander’s father, Philip, won several equestrian victories at Olympia and Delphi (Plutarch, Alexander 4.9; Moralia 105A), the two most Hellenic of all the sanctuaries in ancient Greece where non-Greeks were not allowed to compete.  If Philip was Greek, wasn’t his son also Greek?
            When Euripides – who died and was buried in Macedonia (Thucydides apud Pal. Anth. 7.45; Pausanias 1.2.2; Diodorus Siculus 13.103) – wrote his play Archelaos in honor of the great-uncle of Alexander, did he write it in Slavic?  When he wrote the Bacchai while at the court of Archelaos did he not write it in Greek even as it has survived to us?  Or should we imagine that Euripides was a “Macedonian” who wrote in Slavic (at a date when that language is not attested) which was translated into Greek?
            What was the language of instruction when Aristotle taught Alexander?  What language was carried by Alexander with him on his expedition to the East?  Why do we have ancient inscriptions in Greek in settlements established by Alexander as far away as Afghanistan, and none in Slavic?  Why did Greek become the lingua franca in Alexander’s empire if he was actually a “Macedonian”?  Why was the New Testament written in Greek rather than Slavic?
            On page 57 of the so-called “Letter from Macedonia” there is a photograph of the author standing “before a bronze statue of Alexander the Great in the city of Prilep.”
Prilep statue Archaeology Magazine Letter to the Editor by Professor Stephen G. Miller
The statue is patently modern, but the question is whether the real historic Alexander could have read the Slavic inscription beneath his feet.  Given the known historic posterity of Slavic to Greek, the answer is obvious.
            While Mr.  Brunwasser’s reporting of the archaeological work in Paionia is welcome, his adoption and promotion of the modern political stance of its people about the use of the name Macedonia is not only unwelcome, it is a disservice to the readers of Archaeology who are, I imagine, interested in historic fact.  But then, the decision to propagate this historical nonsense by Archaeology – a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America – is a disservice to its own reputation.
            Let it be said once more:  the region of ancient Paionia was a part of the Macedonian empire.  So were Ephesos and Tyre and Palestine and Memphis and Babylon and Taxila and dozens more.  They may thus have become “Macedonian” temporarily, but none was ever “Macedonia”.
            Allow me to end this exegesis by making a suggestion to resolve the question of the modern use of the name “Macedonia.”  Greece should annex Paionia – that is what Philip II did in 359 B.C.  And that would appear to be acceptable to the modern residents of that area since they claim to be Greek by appropriating the name Macedonia and its most famous man. Then the modern people of this new Greek province could work on learning to speak and read and write Greek, hopefully even as well as Alexander did.
 Sincerely,
 Stephen G. Miller
 Professor Emeritus,
 University of California, Berkeley

PS:  For a more complete examination of the ancient evidence regarding Paionia, see I. L. Merker, “The Ancient Kingdom of Paionia,” Balkan Studies 6 (1965) 35-54

cc: C. Brian Rose, President, Archaeological Institute of America
      Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States of America
      Dora Bakoyiannis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece
      Antonis Samaras, Minister of Culture of Greece
      Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Enlargement
      Erik Meijer, Member, European Parliament