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To: pbear8
When I was in college I did research on Father Serra. When I say research I do not mean I googled him. I read primary-sourced information and at no time did I ever find anything to suggest that he tried to hurt the Indians in any way.

This was a young man who decided that he wanted to be a missionary when he had the opportunity to stay in Spain and be a professor.

He traveled to all the missions regularly to make sure they were operating well and that the Indians were being treated well.

His biggest headache was having to run interference with soldiers who wanted to do their own will and not comply with the rules established by Spain and the Franciscan order as to how the natives should be treated.

This was a man who when he heard that George Washington and his soldiers were suffering at Valley Forge he got up a collection of money and sent it to Washington.

The people who did the defacing are idiots.

10 posted on 09/28/2015 9:45:11 AM PDT by Slyfox (Will no one rid us of this meddlesome president?)
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To: Slyfox

***His biggest headache was having to run interference with soldiers who wanted to do their own will and not comply with the rules established by Spain and the Franciscan order as to how the natives should be treated.***

I believe the Indios in Santa Fe had the same problem, a power struggle between the secular authorities and the Church tore the Indians apart.
So they rebelled and threw the Spanish out, only to suffer at the hands of their enemies the Apaches and Comanches. The Spanish returned ten years later to a much diminished population of Indians who then looked upon the Spanish as protectors from the Apaches and Comanches.


15 posted on 09/28/2015 12:23:58 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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