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Updated: June 1, 2025
With such a resolution as this, Portolá could not cope. Joseph, the holy patron of the expedition. Fervently day by day Serra prayed. On the fourth day the eager watchers saw the vessel approach.
No converted Indians, no monumental missions, no exploration and colonization no civilization! The ship had been delayed on account of the rough voyage it encountered. And chivalrous Portola, filled with even greater reverence for the humble priest Junipero Serra, whom his lofty soul had always appreciated, once more gathered his forces, and started anew in search of Monterey.
Padre Serra went with the land expedition under the command of Portolá. A barefooted friar, clad in a rough cloak confined by a rope at the waist, looks comfortable enough in the cool shade of an Italian cathedral; but the garb of the Franciscan order is ill-fitted to the peculiarities of the California mesa.
But as his greatest wish was to preach to those in unknown places he was glad to be chosen to explore Alta or Upper California. Marching by land from Loreto, a Mission of Lower California, Father Serra, with Governor Portola and his soldiers, reached San Diego in 1769. Here he planted the first Mission on California ground.
1769 November 2, 1769, the present Bay of San Francisco is discovered, from a hill, by some soldiers in the party of Gaspar de Portola, who had led an expedition northward from San Diego, to search for Monterey. 1770 June 3, 1770, the mission of San Carlos Borromeo de Monterey is founded. Three other missions follow, to September, 1772.
Soon they came down the "Bear Gulch" to San Francisquito Creek, at the point where Searsville once stood, before the great Potolá Reservoir covered its traces and destroyed its old landmark, the Portolá Tavern. They entered what is now the University Campus, on which columns of ascending smoke showed the presence of many camps of Indians. These Indians were not friendly.
He had also determined that the Missions of the peninsula should do their share to help in the founding of the new Missions, and Serra approved and helped in the work. When Galvez arrived, he found Gaspar de Portolá acting as civil and military governor, and Fernando Javier Rivera y Moncada, the former governor, commanding the garrison at Loreto.
He brought orders to the Governor of California, Don Gaspar de Portolá, that he should send a vessel in search of the ports of San Diego and of Monterey, on the supposed island, or peninsula, of Upper California, once found by Vizcaino, but lost for a century and a half. There they were to establish colonies and missions of the Holy Catholic Church.
Surely this was not the fault of good Don Jose Galvez, but it might have met a tragic fate; thus thought the discouraged land and sea forces; and Governor Portola was too good a soldier not to know that the best course to follow was to start at once back to Mexico and abandon the glorious dream, before starvation and death overtook everyone of them.
They seem to lead temperate lives on various seeds and on fish which they catch from their rafts of tule which are formed like a canoe." The second day after the departure of Portola and his party, Sunday, July 16, Padre Serra felt that the glorious moment for which he had so long prayed had at length arrived.
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