About this item
As one of America's most important missionaries, Junpero Serra is widely recognized as the founding father of California's missions. It was for that work that he was canonized in 2015 by Pope Francis. Less well known, however, is the degree to which Junpero Serra embodied the social, religious and artistic currents that shaped Spain and Mexico across the 18th century. Further, Serra's reception in American culture in the 19th and 20th centuries has often been obscured by the controversies surrounding his treatment of California's Indians. This volume situates Serra in the larger Spanish and Mexican contexts within which he lived, learned, and came of age. Offering a rare glimpse into Serra's life, these essays capture the full complexity of cultural trends and developments that paved the way for this powerful missionary to become not only California's most polarizing historical figure but also North America's first Spanish colonial saint.
About the Author
Steven W. Hackel is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of the award-winning Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California,1769-1850. He is the general editor of the Huntington Library's Early California Population Project and directs a project in digital history, the Early California Cultural Atlas. He is co-curator of the Huntington Library's exhibit, Junípero Serra and the Legacies of the California Missions. He lives in Pasadena, California.
