Junípero Serra (1713-1784), a Spanish priest, founded nine of the 21 Spanish missions of California, set up to bring Native Americans to Christ. He has been called the last conquistador, a destroyer of cultures. Next week when Pope Francis visits the US, he will make Serra an official saint of the Catholic Church.
Serra was born Miquel Joseph Serre (Miguel José Sierra in Castilian Spanish) on the island of Majorca. He became a Franciscan brother and took the name of Junípero, after Brother Juniper, a follower of St Francis of Assisi. Serra later became a priest and a philosophy professor.
In 1749, he was sent to Mexico City. He walked from the coast to the city. Along the way he injured his foot, maybe a snake bit him. He had a bad foot for the rest of his life.
Throughout the 1750s and 1760s he was a missionary in what is now Mexico, particularly among the Pame Indians and in Baja (Lower) California.
In 1769, Spain feared that Russia would claim Alta (Upper) California (now just called California). So it set up presidios (forts), pueblos (settlements) and missions along the coast. Serra helped to set up and run the missions.
Pope John Paul II:
“Relying on the divine power of the message he proclaimed, Father Serra led the native peoples to Christ.”
In fact, Serra went with soldiers to round up people, forcing them to stay and work at the missions. Each mission had a church, a school – and a whipping post. Those who would not work were whipped. As you can imagine, there were uprisings at the missions and attempts by Native Americans to free their people from them.
Serra wanted to change not just their religion, but their names, their languages and their way of life.
The missions were, in effect, re-education camps. They turned the Native Americans who lived along the coast of California – the Kumeyaay, Tongva, Juaneño, Chumash and Ohlone peoples – into labourers for the gente de razón, the “people of reason” – aka, the Spanish and their hangers-on.
Serra converted thousands – yet tens of thousands died. When he arrived in California there were 65,000 Native Americans. By 1832, only a fourth were left: 17,000.
His defenders say that Serra stood up for Native Americans. He did complain to the authorities that he would have more success if soldiers stopped raping Native women and children, both at the missions and beyond. There was an official policy against rape, but official policy was carried out by soldiers. Little changed. Soldiers regularly got away with rape and murder.
At the National Statuary Hall at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, the state of California is represented by a statue of Serra (pictured above). Some in California want it changed to a statue of astronaut Sally Ride.
As to Pope Francis, he has apologized to Native Americans about the way the Catholic Church has treated them. But making Serra into Saint Junípero makes that apology ring hollow.
Feast day: July 1st.
– Abagond, 2015.
Update (June 20th 2020): Serra’s statue in San Francisco was toppled yesterday on Juneteenth as part of the wave of protests set off by the police killing of George Floyd. See the video on Twitter.
See also:
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Abagond, I HAVE to ask you again — Whoare you???
Your knowledge of the world and ALL its history enthralls and amazes me! I always learn something I’d never known with just aboutEVERY post you write!! Thank you so much for sharing!
“In 1769, Spain feared that Russia would claim Alta (Upper) California (now just called California). So it set up presidios (forts), pueblos (settlements) and missions along the coast. Serra helped to set up and run the missions.”
This caught me up immediately, because I studied Russian at the “Presidio” in Monterey and never once questioned what it, and the juxtaposition of both actually meant (I was also deeply into my “colonized mind,” at the time, which is probably why I didn’t)!
I just want to thank you for the education you keep delivering on the regular, to this old-head! I ‘preciate ya so much!!!
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@Lord of Mirkwood…“Abagond himself admitted here that Father Serra spoke up against this maltreatment. All he wanted to do was change the culture and religion of the native Californians; he had no desire to annihilate them as human beings.”
What part of “changing the culture and religion of the Native Americans” do you NOT understand as “annihilating” them asTHEIR OWN HUMAN BEINGS??
Contrary to European mythology, everybody doesn’t want to be, nor have to be — like “white Mike!” {SMMFH}
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Great information but Serra should not be made into a saint of any kind. He did terrible things to the Native Americans. In my opinion he was evil. Having the Natives whipped and not protecting the women where they were sexually molested. This is despicable behavior for a so called man of God.
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This sounds like Manifest Destiny
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Serre wanted to change their religion,their names,languages, their way of life. That reminds me of what they did to the Aboriginal people in Australia kidnapping the children from parents changing their names to white names forcing their way of life on them. This is evil.
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If Father Serra had laid his life down in protection of California natives then maybe saint hood could be considered. But he did not. His love was the Church and the Spanish Empire.
His complaints show the hypocrisy of his mission. Would Christ have shown up and destroyed the identity of the people he is supposedly “saving” ?
Empires build on conquest and that means destroying the identity of the people you conquered. It means violence, theft and rape.
We see some of that with Rome but Rome wasn’t about destroying other religions or identities. They just taxed them.
It was the expansion of Eurocentric Empires that added a Christian identify which contributed to the genocidal behavior of colonialism.
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” All he wanted to do was change the culture and religion of the native Californians; he had no desire to annihilate them as human beings.”
This seems like you’re minimizing destroying everything about a people. If the Chinese took over Ireland and made sure the Irish took on Chinese language, names, religion, dress and schools of thought I wonder if you’d still see it as being so.
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@ LOM
Conversion by the lash and whipping post? You seriously agree with this method? I suppose that at least this time they weren’t burning people alive at the stake, as they did a few centuries prior.
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Oh no, not the catholic church!!!
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@Lord of Mirkwood
That sounds so innocuous, so…innocent. As if the well-meaning priest had no idea that his “mission” for Christ would have such dire consequences on the native population.
Missionaries have done far more to destroy native cultures than bombs and guns ever did.
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But official policy was enforced by soldiers, maybe?
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These Europeans never came as guests, never. They came as intruders and interferers.
To this day , they have never stopped.
@All
We have a present intruder and interferer amidst us. This squatter on Original Peoples’ land. This know-it-all Uriah Heepish interloper: He sees NOTHING wrong at all with the Original Inhabitants having their culture annihilated by the Catholic Church.
“All he wanted to do was change the culture and religion of the native Californians; he had no desire to annihilate them as human beings.”
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Yeah, my mom would take us to Mission San Juan Capistrano back in the day. (Apparently encroachment by Europeans has chased the swallows away in recent years.)
As far as the acculturation of Natives go? That’s still going on in Cali. My mom was sent from Oregon to the Judson Accademy in Scottsdale, Az for hers and many tribal youth are sent to Riverside’s Sherman Indian High School for theirs these days. The schools’ traditional Pow-Wows have been replaced with Christian prayer services as of a few years ago.
When it comes to European conquests, the Natives get no love.
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It took me a while to recover from Catholic indoctrination. From a very young age I started questioning the Church. Stupidly, (but what do children know) I thought religion was about love. When I figured out it was the antipodean of, nothing could convince me of ANY religion. And also the priests and nuns, by their own attitude toward us brown heathens inoculated me against Catholicism. The Californian were not as lucky as I was.
We used to watch “Cowboys and Indian” films as children, and always cheered for the “Red Indians”. When I was ten years old, I came across a heart-wrenching black and white photograph of about twenty young girls- they were Indigenous Americans. They were dressed in western clothes. I think they were in a boarding school. The sadness in their eyes still haunts today.
Whilst I have a different history,I identify with the loss of these people- the Kumeyaay, Tongva, Juaneño, Chumash and Ohlone peoples as I (my people) also lost our language, customs, religion, names and way of life. That alienation.
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This cheap sticking- plaster of half an apology only reflects the spiritual poverty of the Catholic church. It is but one of the manifold examples of this acardiac and morally bankrupt institution.
In comparison with other philosophies, like Buddhism and the rich teachings of Taoism and the spiritual and religious practices of hunter- gatherers and Indigenous Peoples, and African spirituality and philosophy, Christianity, including and especially Catholicism, leaves a lot to be desired.
Christian morality, especially Catholic morality, which is oxymoronic and has very little to offer the contemporary world. In fact, it subverts moral debate. I would go so far as to that religious (Catholic) morality is not only irrelevant, but anti-moral.
Our great questions and problems of the twenty-first century are about human rights: on-going oppression, imminent nuclear wars, wars, gender violence, colonialism, imperialism, technological arms race, poverty, rampant human rights abuses, genocide, cultural annihilation, iniquitous disparities between rich and poor, environmental racism against Indigenous People, and on and on, while the “First World” churchgoers, decry pre-marital sex, divorce, homosexuality and contraception and hand- wring if abortion is permissible even if there was no consent. By distracting attention from what really matters and focussing on minutiae, the Catholic church does more harm than good.
Religion is not only anti-moral, it is most times immoral.
That long, long catalogue of horrors of the Catholic church- its pogroms against Jews, the Spanish Inquisition, the incestuous relationship with slavery and colonialism, the wholesale cultural annihilation of a whole continent, allies of Fascist and Nazi dictatorships, silence on apartheid, proponents of vivisectionism, its tacit approval of paedophilia , preaching that masturbation is worse than rape because at least the latter can result in pregnancy, its dismal contribution to the AIDS crisis and on and on and on.
If Catholic church was at all sorry for its sins, they would give away ALL its BILLIONS of EUROS to its victims and dissolve itself as an institution.
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“The Irish have been dehumanized, brutalized, and tossed about beyond anything anyone here could imagine. My ancestors were FORCED to come to America in order to escape the oppression.
……
There’s nothing wrong with spreading Catholicism;”
@Mirky,
Ahhh… I see you’re still up to your standard revisionist WHITE look at history, as seen through your ‘Irish’ lens.
Interesting how you say that your ancestors were FORCED to Amerikkka to escape oppression. However, it’s much more interesting (actually, telling) that after they arrived here, instead of siding with THE OPPRESSED, your ancestors opted to side with the oppressors by engaging Black people as their enemies.
So here you are now, trying to pass yourself off as an ally when in reality you are anything but! Real allies aren’t full of reasons and excuses – and attitude. A true ally knows when to STFU and listen – a trait you apparently don’t have.
Somehow you think that Black people here can’t see through you, and the bullsh’t you’re peddling. Your tiring presence here will culmiinate as more and more commenters will begin to NOT engage you, at all. It’s a good thing you have your own blog to retreat to, yes? lol
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@Uglyblackjohn
You try to hope that crap is not happening today and then you get that wake up call. Why do they still hate the natives after all these years? The goal must be to wipe them out.
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Interesting how the commenter who screams the loudest about the past persecution of his own people seems wilfully obtuse when it comes to seeing the persecution carried out by Serra.
Like Fan points out, it is so very Irish of him, the oppressed turning oppressor.
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@Fan …
*applause*
So beyond tired of hearing his “but the Irish” bull. The Irish were not forced to come here. They CHOSE to come here. They were willing to sell themselves into indentured servitude to come here.
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@ taotesan
“That long, long catalogue of horrors of the Catholic church- its pogroms against Jews, the Spanish Inquisition, the incestuous relationship with slavery and colonialism, the wholesale cultural annihilation of a whole continent, allies of Fascist and Nazi dictatorships, silence on apartheid, proponents of vivisectionism, its tacit approval of paedophilia , preaching that masturbation is worse than rape because at least the latter can result in pregnancy, its dismal contribution to the AIDS crisis and on and on and on.”
All that is irrelelvant if you believe the teaching to be true.
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Considering ‘Columbus’, the severer of native ears, noses, and appendages got a holiday why not celebrate all evil white people? We need a Hitler a day.
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@ Kartoffel
“All that is irrelelvant if you believe the teaching to be true.”
Kartoffel, your question is ambiguous. I did not understand it. Why would it be irrelevant?
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A beliver bleivies in his faith because he thinks it is true. Crimes committed by people with the same faith, even when justified with that faith and committed by clergymen can not change that.
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“Pope Francis on Saturday praised the zeal of an 18th-century Franciscan missionary he will make a saint when he visits the United States this fall but whom Native Americans say brutally converted indigenous people to Christianity.”
Native Americans have protested in California, saying the friar should be criticized for what they contend was his role in wiping out native populations in a campaign to impose Catholicism. They contend he enslaved converts and that missionaries like him helped spread diseases like smallpox which decimated their people”.
.”Such zeal excites us,” Francis said.”
“The soon-to-be saint also helped defend “indigenous people against abuses by the colonizers,” Francis contended.”
Native Americans are outraged that Serra is becoming a saint, blaming him and other missionaries for nearly eradicating their culture.
“No Indians pray to Serra here,” said Ron Andrade, a member of the La Jolla Indian Reservation and director of the Los Angeles City and County Native American Indian Commission.
When Spanish missionaries moved up the coast in their quest for new souls, “we moved inland, we moved away from the churches,” Andrade said in a phone interview about Francis’ honoring Serra. “(Serra knew) by destroying the culture and the lifestyle (of Native Americans), they would die.”
When Spanish missionaries moved up the coast in their quest for new souls, “we moved inland, we moved away from the churches,” Andrade said in a phone interview about Francis’ honoring Serra. “(Serra knew) by destroying the culture and the lifestyle (of Native Americans), they would die.”
The missionary work was done to “acquire land and souls, whether they were alive or dead,” Andrade said. He also lamented that the pope “didn’t sent out his bishops to ask if there was anything to be ashamed of” about Serra.
In Francis’ homily, the church’s first Latin American pope expressed awe for the likes of Serra, saying “I wonder if today we are able to respond with the same generosity and courage” in leaving comfortable lives to proclaim God to those who haven’t “experienced the embrace of his mercy.”
Before celebrating Mass at the seminary with Francis, Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl dismissed concerns that canonizing Serra could be a divisive act offending Native Americans.
“The message of the Holy Father is reconciliation,” Wuerl said.
Native Americans, including inter-tribal council members in California, have been lobbying for the removal of a statue of Serra from the U.S. Capitol.
_ Excerpts from the Gazette.__
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Mirkwood “The pagan Romans were way worse than any Catholic empire. They massacred civilians, especially in Greece, and actively persecuted Christians for 300 years.”
I think both were equally evil. Lets not forget about the Spanish inquisition where 10,000 of people were burnt at the stake. records are scant but estimates that up to 30,000 women, mostly midwives, were burnt at the stake for witch craft.
Again you want to deflect to the Irish and try to show similarity between their treatment and those of the first nations. While its true the British attempted to destroy Irish identify religion and nationalism played more of a role then race which led to the sectarian violence. After Cromwell’s demises thousands of Irish protestants fled to America. While the Irish and some Catholic’s were discriminated against it was nothing like the treatment non whites received.
I also wish to point out that protestants treated first nation people no better. Jonathan Edwards known for “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, delivered infected small pox blankets to the locale Indians to help wipe them out as he saw that as Gods will. He would later die from doing this because in his twisted mind God was protecting him from the infection. He traveled about giving his famous sermon which resulted in a rash of suicides within the communities where he preached.
The “founding fathers” saw that the “separation of church and state” as a way to avoid sectarian violence. It also helped solidify whites in America and strengthened white supremacy.
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@Kartoffel
I always think it is a very good idea to speak out against the powerful. Speaking out against crimes against humanity is never irrelevant. Just as the post above against the Kumeyaay, Tongva, Juaneño, Chumash and Ohlone peoples
I do not have faith or what have you or believe in any white construct whatsoever.
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@Fan Of: Applause, Applause 👏👏👏
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Lotr wrote: ‘My ancestors have been forced to eat dirt by the English Crown since 1169. From the medieval conquests, to Oliver Cromwell’s annihilation, to the Potato Famine, they have been made to toil the land and send all their produce to the English nobleman’s manor…’
Yeah dude, and your extended family solved that by… moving to greater nyc. Cant u understand it yet.
‘Hey if a few fish n chips joints got to get taken out to make your point, you gotta do what you gotta do, right?’
Name that quote
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@ taotesan
Your post I commented on I understood as saying that the crimes commited by the Catholic clergy or in the name of Catholicism should deter Catholics from their faith. I just wanted to point out why that is illogical. The crimes can’t deter believers from their faith and the abscence of crimes wouldn’t convince any non-believers.
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“Sharina @ So beyond tired of hearing his “but the Irish” bull. The Irish were not forced to come here. They CHOSE to come here. They were willing to sell themselves into indentured servitude to come here.”
Linda says,
Sharina, you know I am the LAST person on this blog who would defend LOM, so please don’t read anything I’m about to say, as me “supporting” his bullsh’t.
that being said,
the Irish did not come to the Americas voluntarily before the 1800s. (some did as indentured servants, along with English) but the majority were forced here to the Americas.
The British sent them first to the Caribbean and used them as slave labour. That’s why in Montserrat, the people have a high number of admixture of African and Irish. (Rihanna’s paternal white grandmother is a descendant of these Irish slaves in Barbados)
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1993-05-23/news/9302130335_1_irish-history-irish-group-irish-americans
“Cromwell`s British invaders shipped as many as 130,000 Irish to colonies in the Americas and the West Indies as slaves and indentured servants in the early 1600s, historians say. At least a thousand of them wound up on Montserrat, a British dependency 27 miles southwest of Antigua, toiling on sugar plantations with African slaves.
In the mid-1600s, a majority of the islanders were Irish, and many of 11,000 who live there now speak with a lilt descended from the Gaelic language.
Marriages among the Irish and African slaves and the mingling of their diverse heritages produced a unique culture where racism could never arise.”
The British hated the Irish, and pursued a policy of “unofficial” ethnic cleansing. In the 1800s, many of them opted to “immigrate” to America because of the Potato Famine, which the British used as a means to purposely starve the Irish people
and British landlords illegally evicted Irish tenants from property in Northern Ireland, as a way to take the land.
We have to remember that the British government/ upper class treated the America’s like a dumping ground and penal colony and they shipped all their undesirables to the new colonies.
that’s why when England lost the War with the 13 Colonies (American Revolution), they started sending their lower class and criminals to Australia because they couldn’t use America anymore.
That’s why I don’t understand why so many white Americans don’t realize that if their ancestors got here before 1800s, many of them were kicked out of Europe as involuntary un-wanteds sent to the America’s to work and/or die– at least the Australians know it and admit it.
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Sharina,
I’m glad you are not fooled by the typical tactics of Eurocentric’s and racists, who try to used the Irish experience as an excuse to diminish and belittle the experience of the black, brown and Native people.
Once the Irish realized that America already had n’gers and they were no longer at the very bottom of the ladder,
they did everything in their power to try and assist “white” Americans to subdue and keep black people in their place
They were never allies of black people in the USA.
The Divide Between Blacks and the Irish
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2010/03/st_patricks_day_the_divide_between_blacks_and_the_irish.1.html
“The Irish who immigrated to America in the 18th and 19th centuries were fleeing caste oppression and a system of landlordism that made the material conditions of the Irish peasant comparable to those of an American slave.
They commonly found themselves thrown together with free Negroes. Blacks and the Irish fought each other and the police, socialized and occasionally intermarried, and developed a common culture of the lowly.
In 1841, 60,000 Irish in Ireland issued an address to their compatriots in America, calling upon them to join with the abolitionists in the struggle against slavery.
Six months after the address, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote what may be the saddest words ever written about the Irish diaspora:
“Even to this hour, not a single Irishman (in America) has come forward, either publicly or privately, to express his approval of the address, or to avow his determination to abide by its sentiments.”
Irish attitudes toward the free Negro in the North led them to oppose abolition of slavery
In August 1862, a largely Irish mob in Brooklyn attacked the black employees, chiefly women and children, who were working in a tobacco factory.
Some have pointed to competition for jobs as the cause of Irish animosity toward blacks.”
I don’t think historical events should be compared because it marginalizes the heinousness and ugliness of the tragedies surrounding each event.
The Irish people in Ireland, suffered greatly and their descendants “get it” and they have allied themselves with black causes around the world.
The Irish-Americans and their descendants, said “f’ck solidarity” — they chose to be enforcers of “whiteness” because they quickly realized that this was their way up the ladder.
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Sharina, side note:
in the late 1700s, is where you start to see more Irish people choose to come to the America’s as indentured servants and immigrants due to famine or political unrest.
In the Caribbean, the Irish men worked as Overseers on the plantations and many were able to become landowners.
In 1794 Alejandro O’Reilly from Co. Meath, an officer in the service of Spain, recommended Irish emigration to Cuba as a tonic for that island’s sluggish economy, and in 1765 he reorganised Puerto Rico’s defences in collaboration with his compatriot Colonel Thomas O’Daly, chief engineer in San Juan.
At the same time Nicholas Tuite, born into an Irish family in Montserrat, became a leading planter in St Croix, then a Danish colony, importing Irish overseers to manage his seven estates and Irish Dominicans to minister to his staff.
Contemporary accounts confirm that Jamaica, attracted large numbers of Irish people with promises of generous land grants and religious tolerance. Here, as in Antigua and Montserrat, a minority made a successful transition from servant to slave-owning planter.”
http://emigrant.scoilpac.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=85293&Itemid=17
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@Linda
I view your comments as I always do. A learning opportunity.
I am not sure where I read it, but it stated about 300,000 came as indentured. While millions came here free. I will try to find the source, but I viewed the millions as coming here as doing so by choice. I was not aware they were dumped here.
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Linda said “the Irish did not come to the Americas voluntarily before the 1800s. (some did as indentured servants, along with English) but the majority were forced here to the Americas.”
That statement contradicts my own families history. My Irish ancestors came from Ulster Ireland in 1734. His son would fight against the British in the American revolution. They purchased their first slaves in the late 1700’s.
I don’t believe my families history is unique. I think its probable that 1000’s of Irish protestants came to America as free men to avoid being a religious minority in Ireland.
I’m not contradicting the rest of the history that you have shown.
Mirkwood problem is his using the Irish example as a constant deflection to mask his own racism.
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@ Linda
Here is the link, but let us discuss more on the Irish thread for I fear the off-topic hammer is coming.
http://www.academia.edu/9475964/The_Myth_of_Irish_Slaves_in_the_Colonies
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* isn’t unique
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Michael,
I agree with your assessment of the Irish Protestants… I should have differentiated between the Irish Catholics vs Protestants
I almost made a reference to the Protestants but I did not want to go too far, I was derailing the topic enough 🙂
and don’t get me wrong, Irish Catholics also came as voluntary immigrants but that was after they were initially sent over as involuntary slave and servants, political prisoners
or they were forced to flee from religious persecution and poverty/starvation exacerbated by the English government.
Also, many English lower class and criminals were treated the same way, they were involuntarily “immigrated” by the British government.
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Sharina,
I will post on the Irish thread but I want to say this,
the white Nationalist use what happened to the Irish Catholics as a way to diminish the experience of black Americans and slavery because that is part of their Racist agenda–
to say and do Anything to continue to marginalize the suffering of black/African people in the America’s
but what they neglect to say in their middle of their Half-Lies, is that
The Irish in the Americas were Never held as slaves for LIFE nor were their children or grandchildren BORN into slavery.
Nothing can top that piece of bullsh’t and the other indignities suffered by the Africans in the Americas.
If Irish slavery in North America was on Par with African slavery,
then I want to read the stories about the Irish men and women being stripped naked and having their butt-cheeks spread wide open for a crowd of buyers to view
I want to read about the Irish men who had their penises cut off, their arms/legs cut off, and their heads left on a stick, as a warning to other Irish slaves
and I want to see the records for these indignities happening in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, like it did to the black slaves.
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Sharina,
here is an article discussing the differences between Irish/ European slaves/servants versus African slave/servants in North America
I posted here instead
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@Gen
Is that how you view what the Han did to the Manchu, who have pretty much fully converted to Han language, names, culture, education, etc.? That is pretty much the Han policy towards all ethnic minorities.
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@LoM
And what did Europeans do to Indigenous Americans for over 500 years in North America?
What did the Spanish all across the Americas do to Africans, Native Americans and Asians for hundreds of years?
Why incorrectly invoke the “we were not so bad, look at them” argument?
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..Having previously lived in Cali for a significant amount of time, I am more than familiar with the name Junipero Serra (even had friends who went to a grade school of the same namesake)-and I do not approve of him or any other Spanish missionary being inducted into “sainthood”.
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@ jefe
I don’t know anything about the Manchu prior to the Han. I thought during the last dynasty of China, it was the Manchu that forced the Han to get the weird hair cut where the frontal lobe was shaved and long ponytail was sustained.
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@TBD
That is not what I mean.
I am not talking about prior dynasties, but two contemporary ethnic groups (the “Han” and the “Manchu”). The Manchu, as a distinct ethnic group in the 21st century, has all but disappeared. Only a handful of scholars have attempted maintain its distinct cultural elements.
A century ago, there were still remnants of a distinct Manchu identity (with its separate language and culture), but most modern day descendants of the Manchu have taken on Han identity.
The question is whether other distinct ethnic groups in China will do the same.
Maybe a similar analogy would be if the Irish, Scottish or Welsh became English.
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So, the American Irish decided to adopt “whiteness” lol.
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[…] Junípero Serra (1713-1784), a Spanish priest, founded nine of the 21 Spanish missions of California, set up to bring Native Americans to Christ. He has been called the last conquistador, a destroyer of cultures. …Serra went with soldiers to round up people, forcing them to stay and work at the missions. Each mission had a church, a school – and a whipping post. Those who would not work were whipped. As you can imagine, there were uprisings at the missions and attempts by Native Americans to free their people from them.Serra wanted to change not just their religion, but their names, their languages and their way of life.The missions were, in effect, re-education camps. They turned the Native Americans who lived along the coast of California – the Kumeyaay, Tongva, Juaneño, Chumash and Ohlone peoples – into labourers for the gente de razón, the “people of reason” – aka, the Spanish and their hangers-on.Serra converted thousands – yet tens of thousands died. When he arrived in California there were 65,000 Native Americans. By 1832, only a fourth were left: 17,000.Continue reading […]
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Just one favorable comment on Wikipedia:
Iris Engstrand, professor and chair of the Department of History at the University of San Diego, described him as
much nicer to the Indians, really, than even to the governors. He didn’t get along too well with some of the military people, you know. His attitude was, ‘Stay away from the Indians’. I think you really come up with a benevolent, hard-working person who was strict in a lot of his doctrinal leanings and things like that, but not a person who was enslaving Indians, or beating them, ever….He was a very caring person and forgiving. Even after the burning of the mission in San Diego, he did not want those Indians punished. He wanted to be sure that they were treated fairly…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun%C3%ADpero_Serra
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“So, the American Irish decided to adopt “whiteness” lol.”
And not amazingly – with absolutely no exceptions!! NOT ONE Irish American, circa 1841, went on record with a public affirmation (of “yea”) for standing in solidarity with Black people. If I were Irish (I’m glad I’m not) that’s got to be an embarrassing and terrible legacy to have an association with. But who (white) loses sleep over this type of legacy? Anyone?
Such is the lure and power of WHITENESS – I guess. It fu’ks up whatever and everyone it touches!
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OFF TOPIC: Irish people who have nothing to do with Junipero Serra or racism in California.
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The following is based on “The Psychopathic Racial Personality and Other Essays” (1984) by the late Dr Bobby E. Wright, an American clinical psychiatrist who was based in Chicago:
The psychopathic racial personality is a psychological disorder common to most white people.
They act in a psychopathic way towards blacks AND Indigenous Americans (My insertion)
• self-centered.
• disregard for the rights of others.
• unfeeling.
• almost complete absence of ethical and moral development.
• get angry when their integrity is called into question.
• unable to accept blame or learn from experience.
• take advantage of blacks (AND Indigenous Americans) without any guilt, anxiety or threat to their self-esteem.
1. Whites have no moral feelings that you can appeal to. They know the difference between right and wrong but just do not care.
2. There is no known cure for psychopaths.
Brackets and insertions are mine.
Source : Abagond
I have cut and pasted which I thought most pertinent to the commenter who has total lack of respect, empathy and regards for the Original Peoples suffering. And the Catholic church’s attitude towards the victims. He lives on their land where he enjoys uninspected and unearned privileges which are still denied to them and Black People. As white man he does not have any moral or otherwise authority to tell the Indigenous People what to do.
Serra’s conversion and cultural annihilation of the Californians are crimes against humanity.
The most urgent and pressing issues facing the USA today are the restoration of ALL and FULL rights to ALL Indigenous Peoples. And giving the land back. And the FULL restoration of ALL and FULL rights to ALL African Americans. And Reparations.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
Show me a link or source who said wall street and corporate america played a part in what happened to Native Americans? Did any of those things exist during those time periods for blame to be placed? You blame white people greed on everything but white people.
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@LOM
People only refute what they don’t agree with. Thus me refuting your claim that wall street and corporate America did not exist back then. You writing a long paragraph explaining the existence of the wealthy does not change the fact that you tried to lay blame on groups that did not even exist.
It will be illogical or just plain dumb for anyone to “refute” or start a debate over something they agree with. Does that make sense to you?
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Mirkwood
Both Protestants and Catholics used Christianity to justify conquest.
“is that the Catholic Church was NOT the enemy of oppressed peoples! No one has yet to refute my evidence above, showing that the Vatican was, in fact, pro-Native American.”
The Spanish monarchs had the Catholic church’s blessing. Conquest benefited the church as much as the State.
All religions seek new converts and have no problems using coercion.
Christianity was used to destroy the indigenous identify of the peoples they conquered. Christianity replaced that identity with the idea that servitude was a virtue.
Christianity commands servants to obey their masters and emphasizes the idea that a person was born into a particular place in society, that it is all “Gods will” at play in the world. “Gods will” is the perfect deflection for individuals as well as nations in taking responsibility for their actions.
Any religion that starts a believer off on their knees works well with statist oppression.
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@Michael Jon Barker
Well said.
@Lord of Mirkwood
You should read one of the many papal bulls that permitted the conquest of people in newly found lands, starting with pope Alexander VI’s bull addressed to Ferdinand.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
A convenient excuse, but one none the less.
For starters I never gave a specific date, so you now going from “Wall Street business giants did not exist in 1770, but wealthy oligarchs most certainly did.” to “What I meant by my comment about Wall Street and corporate America did not pertain to the 1770s specifically.” Only highlighted you skipping from one excuse to the next.
What I did say or ask was “Show me a link or source who said wall street and corporate america played a part in what happened to Native Americans?”
You then proceed with an excuse and list of excuses on how you believe they are responsible, but fail to provide any solid proof showing how they are responsible. I even asked you if any of those exist in which you danced around answering. Which goes back to what I originally said. You blame white people greed on everything but white people.
Wall Street is not a thinking entity. Cooperate America is not a thinking entity. But the white people that stood to gain from the destruction of Native America are thinking entities.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Either you did not read the post or did not understand it.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
From reading your comments, I doubt you deep down believe this bit about the 1% being the root of all evil. If you did, you would not have to be so morally blind when it comes to Whites and Catholics. In fact, it seems to be part of that very moral blindness, a dodge, not a core belief.
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I wonder what role, financial, strategy wise/ie power sharing the church had in fueling and financing imperialistic colonialistic expansionism missions maybe sorties is the word
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Catholic that is
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@Lord of Mirkwood
Giving me the definition of syn·ec·do·che seems to be your way of saying “I talked a lot of bs and have nothing left to say. So I will provide an irrelevant definition to dance around that fact”
“But the only people who stood to gain by the destruction of Native America and by slavery were the oligarchs.”—Funny because the Oligarchs are not the ones living off their land, destroying their culture, or shipping them off to school to train them to be more white.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
It is not any one thing you say but how they fit together. When the racism of Catholics, liberal Whites or yourself is brought into question, you become wilfully obtuse. If you thought it was all just Wall Street, there would be no need for that.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
The definition is irrelevant for quite a few reasons, but I will just provide one. What does a definition of what you now claim to be doing (after claiming to be doing several other things) have to do with the fact that wall street or corporate America did not exist then? You admitted it did not exist then, but continue to perpetuate the false idea that a nonexistent entity had a hand in the destruction of Native Americans when the true destroyer were white people? Looking at and quoting what you said alone does not indicate some use of syn·ec·do·che. What is does is indicate you deceitfully tried to lay claim to something that was false as the culprit. All the while trying to pull attention away from the fact that of the two questions you were asked. Neither were answered, but ignored or an attempt was made to deflect to your Wealthy people stance. Not once did you admit to having no such link. You partially answered the second question with wall street not existing, but still attempted a redirect for the answers you did not have. All in all I think you did an awesome job at proving what I said before. Blaming everyone and everything but white people.
Even if it was the very wealthy who proposed those things, it is not the very wealthy who is benefiting from those things alone. White people were then and still are now.
“Funny, this sounds a lot like arguments we’ve had before!”—Unless you are a reanimated sock puppet of another commenter, we have not had many arguments for them to be much of a before. We discussed you being a racist with proof and we discussed your dishonesty and double standards with the Norse. Did I miss an argument? 🙂
FYI just because you decided to change goal posts does not mean I have to go through the change with you.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
” what defines them first and foremost in society is their money.”—Wrong. Part of how they got rich is being white. So their skin color defines them first. The money is the added bonus, but they were not around during the 1700s so again you bring up people who did not exist to shuckle the blame for the average white people who had no problem labeling Natives as savages and killing them as if they were.
“Nope. Here’s how that comment should read: “We tried to lynch you and put you before the Volksgerichtshof, and we discussed how I refused to accept the overwhelming consensus among learned historians about Norse colonization of the Americas.”—Allow me to make some corrections. It should actually read: I tried to claim Africans arriving to America was impossible because black people can not possibly have such a desire. I told myself the “proof” was too flimsy but felt equally flimsy “proof” on Norse had merit. I used sources from historians that I thought fully backed me up, but had several passages that debunked what I said in which I ignored and continued to paint myself as a victim.
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I forgot to add: Several commenters provided proof of me being a racist, but I decided to call foul. How dare they show my racism.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
I know you are known for lying, but let us not cloud the thread with your fantasy.
The truth of what took place: Even though a source I provided clearly said ” Considering the many contacts described in the sagas, it is strange that so few Norse artifacts have been found in the many Native archeological sites that have been excavated in the Vinland region between Newfoundland and New England.” and “Still, some Arctic researchers remained skeptical. Most of the radiocarbon dates obtained by earlier archaeologists had suggested that Tanfield Valley was inhabited long before Vikings arrived in the New World.” I still chose to continue the charade that it was more valuable to look at stuff than two skeletons, because those blacks had not drive and using double standards was a reasonable excuse that no one would suspect. https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/africa-in-the-1400s/#comment-294236
I know the weathyle created racism, but I also know the average white perpetuate it. Not just those racist southerners you like to convince the world is the only average racist white person. 🙂
“Now, to try and pivot this thread back to the topic about which Abagond wrote: did you read my link about Catholics and Native peoples?”—Nothing I said was off topic. If it was abagond would have stopped me by now, but nice try at a deflective comment to avoid that you decided to take the comment off topic here:https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/juniper-serra/#comment-294512
Where you yelling off topic in hopes that Abagond would stop me before I made a counter to your ridiculousness?
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@Kiwi
Of course! We all know how the 1% did it. The natives would be better off had the 1% not existed.
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In L.A. County, we have a Catholic school named after Juniper Serra. The private school is well-known for its athletics, particularly football. Serra HS is 80% Black, 11% Polynesian (Tongan and Samoan), 5% Asian, 2% Brown Latino (Mexican, El Salvadoran and Guatemalan), 1.5% White and 0.5% other. My eldest son attended Serra High in his freshman and sophomore years. He currently attends Marcus Garvey High School (a self-funded private school) in South L.A.
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@Lord of Mirkwood
Wall Street and synecdoche are things you brought up. So you telling me to get on topic is laughable. Funny how it was not off topic several posts up when you thought you were going somewhere it is. To add a great more humor is YOU are declaring it off topic. Not abagond. So until he says otherwise I continue.
“That still doesn’t change my opinion of the South.”—My goal is not to change your opinion of the south. My goal is to point our how everyone under the sun because the boogie man of racism in your efforts to avoid your own racism, liberal racism. or now racism by Catholics. Frankly we can look at it as, if you agree with it then a little bit of racism means nothing. Lesser of the two evil type attitude. But if you do not agree with it then it become the omega racist.
What was done to natives by Junípero Serra was not more benevolent simply because you view him as benevolent. His actions were just as destructive and genocidal as the others. A different approach does not make it less so.
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becomes*
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@Lord of Mirkwood
“I can’t understand this sentence. Can you re-write it in English?”—Congratulations grammar nazi, but it changes little to the fact of what I said despite your deflective efforts. 🙂
I will gladly repeat it with clarity:
“My goal is to point out how everyone under the sun becomes the boogie man of racism in your efforts to avoid your own racism, liberal racism, or now racism by Catholics.”
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@Lord of Mirkwood
Just because you decide something is off topic after getting your a** handed to you, does not mean it is. Perhaps you are confusing abagond’s blog with yours.
As such I gave a rebuttal to things you brought up. Just because now you have nothing to say about those things and want to call foul does not mean I have to adhere to you.
Lastly I stated and I quote “What was done to natives by Junípero Serra was not more benevolent simply because you view him as benevolent. His actions were just as destructive and genocidal as the others. A different approach does not make it less so.” Considering the title of this post, I do believe that is very much on topic.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Please repost this link you keep talking about.
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..@sharinalr- You Rock! That is all..
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@Lord of Mirkwood
A few things, because exposing you it so fun.
1. The title of the post is Junipero Serra. That means you can discuss anything regarding him and it is on topic. As such that means you trying to make the topic Catholics and colonialism (even though you originally took it off topic) is your way of silencing because it shows how ignorant you really are on subject matters.
2. “Not once have you talked about the issue of Catholics and colonialism (the issue I brought up, the on-topic one) except for your comment about Junipero Serra,”—Quite a contradictory statement. If “not once” I had not brought up issues of Catholics and colonialism, then how is it possible to have that one comment about Junipero? Also if I am not mistaken Natives Americans were mentioned in this very post in which I have several posts on. So again you deeming something off topic is short of saying “I got nothing.”
3. “You have thus far failed to counteract any of the evidence I brought, but maybe you will now that I’ve put it up again.”—And I thus far don’t have to. Debating, debunking, or whatever name you want to give does not work by people have to discuss what you want them to. People choose what they want to address. Your reason for wanting me to address your link boils down to. You got your a** handed to you so you want me to address something you feel more solid in defending. That is great, but it does not change that above you made a false statement blaming the plight of Native Americans on “wall street” and “corporate America” that did not exist.
As to your source, I will thoroughly read it, but upon first glance a few things.
1. To explain and defend the faith.
2. No sources to Margaret Bunson essay
3. Nothing so far seem to contradict the brutality used at bringing these people to Jesus.
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@Mz.Nikita
🙂 thanks!
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@ Lord of Mirkwood:
Here is what your link says about Serra:
That is whitewashed history, in both senses of the word.
Serra himself practised forced labour that made them little better than slaves. He spoke out against rape, true, but was unable to safeguard them from it, even inside the missions. He himself was an agent of “the Spanish society that had suddenly been thrust upon them,” to which he then helped them to “adjust”. He himself was doing the thrusting, at gunpoint.
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Mirkwood
While its true that Capitalism and big business played a big role in the exploitation of some peoples in the early history of the U.S. it is also true that within that same time period millions of whites owned homes, lands, small businesses and farms. And these white people benefited just as equally from stolen native lands and slavery as did big business.
Your finger pointing to the 1%, Wall Street, class, conservatives, Southern Baptists and the Irish, allows you to insulate yourself and your history from racism.
The founding documents of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the Constitution, were made exclusively for white people; they are the building blocks upon which systemic and institutional racism is structured.
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“1-percenters are turning Mexican immigrants into indentured workers in California today.”
Source?
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“I’ve never pointed a finger at the Irish, that’s for sure.”
I’m talking about your inability to see your own racism and the part you play with it.
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“If socialism and the redistribution of wealth away from millionaires and billionaires doesn’t satisfy anyone here, what will?”
Reparations for Blacks and Native Americans. Whites have been grumpy lately but they don’t have the economic and societal barriers to climb over that others have.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Serra was a Franciscan. That means he took a vow of poverty. He was the opposite of a 1-percenter capitalist plutocrat. And yet he still used Natives as forced labour. He still persecuted them and destroyed their culture.
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Michael Jon Barker
He provided another source in which he interprets what it means. Not what it actually says.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
How nice, they allowed them to live – in their prison camps. Touching.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
There are other things in his journal that the National Catholic Reporter is not reporting.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
And some of them were kidnapped by Serra.
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I don’t see anything anti-Catholic here. It isn’t anti-Catholic to critique the Church for participating in colonialism and slavery. Some Catholic priests or officials may have wanted to ameliorate the suffering of people in colonized areas, but that doesn’t mean the Church didn’t support colonialism.
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“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.”
Your delusional Mirkwood.
An occupying force shows up bringing diseases and you think people who for the first time see a picture of a human crucified on a cross aren’t going to think the invaders aren’t seriously evil?
“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.”
California costal Indians were fisherman and boat builders. They hunted whales. West coast natives had extensive trade routes that ran as far north as Canada and west to Colorado.
http://www.santaynezchumash.org/history.html
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@ Kiwi
Yup. The way Serra’s story is told is through a White Saviour template, complete with standing up to evil Whites and happy darkies at the missions – you can almost hear them singing and clapping. Not a word about the kidnappings and uprisings. The attacks on the missions by Native Americans are seen as acts of savagery, not as attempts to free their own people.
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@Mikwood. Thanks for pointing that out I’m not as literate as I’d like to be.
What Kiwi said and I’ll add if you want to get correct info and history about Native Americans then get it directly from their sites that deal with their tribal history like the link I shared.
Whatever history you get from the Catholic Church is going to be written to favor the Catholic Church obviously.
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@Mirkwood.
When I’m on a computer this site signs me in on my Facebook account. When I’m on my phone it signs me in on this account. It should be preety obvious it’s no a socket pocket account lol.
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Using two versions of the same name does not make you a sock puppet.
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“Using two versions of the same name does not make you a sock puppet.”—Yes, but it makes a great deflection if your user name is Lord of Mirkwood.
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@Michael Barker
You did not need to explain. Most if not all of us realize that.
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@sharinalr
Well, that’s one thing he does well.
@Lord of Mirkwood
So you would have no problem if Native Americans went to Ireland, set up “missions” without permission, kidnapped your great-great-grandfather as a child, renamed him Abukcheech, dressed him in foreign clothing, made him learn to read and speak only Algonquian, and whipped him when he didn’t obey?
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I don’t know Mirkwood But I’m going to presume that idigenouse people know more about what their culture represents and what their history is then some anthropologist seated in a cubical in an Ivy League University somewhere.
The link I left you I thought delt with the Spanish rather graciously. It pointed out that many died from disease imported with the Spanish but makes no mention of the continued warfare against California Indians. Even if they exaggerated on their tribal numbers it doesn’t take away from the fact that they were reduced to under 3000.
This isn’t unique to California history. Where ever colonialism occurred., whether by the English, Spanish or other European nations, lots of death and destruction followed closely behind.
Their is this Western lens that views any culture that’s not “devloped” as primitive and lacking in things like trade, justice and a stable, healthy society. It’s presumed that idigenouse people’s were always sick and near sarvation. That somehow their quality of life was inferior and that Western values would improve their condition and make them “civilized”.
White people don’t liston nor take seriously what non white people say and think.
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————————————————————————————————-
abagond
Interesting how the commenter who screams the loudest about the past persecution of his own people seems wilfully obtuse when it comes to seeing the persecution carried out by Serra.
Like Fan points out, it is so very Irish of him, the oppressed turning oppressor
————————————————————————————————–.
I’m an Indian Catholic who lived in Kenya in the mid-sixties. The country obtained independence from Britain in December 1963. One Sunday my father drove into the Holy Family Cathedral car park so that our family could attend the evening Mass. We parked next to a white man who was reading one of the Sunday London papers that were flown in for the British expatriate community. There were other cars parked, many with whites seated in the driver’s seats. Obviously, they were the English protestant husbands of Irish Catholic wives who had gone in for Mass.
The then Irish parish priest comes along and tells us to take our car out of the car park as it is “closed”. The white man in the car next to us (obviously invisible to the priest as were the other cars with whites sitting in them) buries his nose in his newspaper and ignores this scene. Despite my mother and sister pleading with my father to take and park the car elsewhere, he refused, and I advised him to stay put.
“When you come back ( from HOLY MASS!!!) don’t be surprised to find your tires shredded!” shouted the priest as he moved away.
My father and I missed Mass that day, having to stand guard outside the car.
The Irish, oppressed in their own land, did very well in Britsh Kenya, thank you very much. They were allowed in all hotels,bars and could sit anywhere they wanted at theaters, cinemas and the racecourse; and could travel first class on the railways – unlike the Indians and Africans.
Some Indian Catholic families there would even be fearful of calling the white (usually Irish) parish priest on a sick call.
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Abagond, you are prescient (but you already knew that didn’t you??!) — http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/23/denouncing-serra-canonization-mother-and-son-walk-ancestors
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@ Deb
Thanks for the link.
The opposition to Serra among Native Americans goes back a long way. I knew he was going to be canonized as a saint this week, which is why I did the post on him ahead of the pope’s visit.
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@ Abagond…You’re welcome! Like so many things I don’t know (so-o-o damned much I never learned, and not enough time left in which to learn it all now! Sure am glad I’ve got you to turn to!😊), I was unaware of the depth of the Native American opposition to Serra. And as an ex-Catholic, neither the papal visit, nor canonization blow my dress up (never could understand why I had to go and confess to a middleman instead of talking straight to the big guy myself!).
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Francis wants to say sorry then make Serra a saint? And natives are still Catholics? 😔
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Update (June 20th 2020): Serra’s statue in San Francisco was toppled yesterday on Juneteenth as part of the wave of protests set off by the police killing of George Floyd. See the video on Twitter:
(https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/1274182715068133377)
I added a still of it to the post.
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Echo of the same wave of self-reflection about historic Western Catholic figures is taking place also in Europe: the statue of priest António Vieira, in Lisbon, was defaced recently, in the wake of the worldwide movement against racism. Portuguese authorities reacted, condemning those acts. Europe culture is in the crossroad of judgement of history.
See the Wikipedia article in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Ant%C3%B3nio_Vieira
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Today the same people that did these things(like Junipero Serra,Columbus,etc.) are on the move now,once again. Look up Opis Dei, the Jesuits, Knigjt of Malta, to name a few, and you’ll see their hands jammed up to their elbows in lots of pies,including America’s. Good going, for those who dumped over those statues–keep up the good work ! Sorry for these typos-I mean Opus Dei. 4 out of 5 Supreme Court justices are members as is Bill Barr. He’s been around a long time,causing all kinds of mayhem since at least Iran-Contra, as a “fixer”. Serra is the result of the Marco Polo expeditions during the 1200’s. Anyone from the Silk Road countries will tell you this. Rome has been after the Silk Road, to control it’s wealth and invade us nationals from that area, for 2,000 years minimum. .We had no way to warn the Native people here about all that stuff. Then Marco Polo, his role as a Vatican spy–rarely brought up in history books, he’s just the intrepid explorer. Columbus was obsessed with the Polos,and Marco Polo’s journals. He was determined to take up where they left off. And launch his own Crusader wars in Asia ! The Silk Road would be his own spoils of war, glory for the Spanish Crown,etc. That’s why those Papal Bulls really came about. With me and mine,in mind.
Unfortunately for Native Americans, they didn’t know that there has been an ongoing conflict between East and West, still being played out.
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