Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities,

the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis foundations.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory.

Welcome to the show. I'm Brian Balla.

I'm Ed Ayers.

And I'm Nathan Connolly. This week we're marking the beginning of Lent by talking about the history of Catholics in America.

And we're going to start today's show, talking about the most recent American to be canonized by the church, Huniporo Sera.

Sera biographer Stephen Hackel says the Spanish missionary isn't an obvious choice for a saint. He's a polarizing figure, even among Catholics.

Many people see him as an exemplar of life of Catholic devotion. Others see him sort of as California's Columbus, as the person who's responsible for all the ills and tragedies of the period of European conquest and afterwards.

Huniporo Sera first arrived in California in 1769 after spending two decades as a missionary in Spanish, Mexico.

Spain was interested in colonizing Upper California, the region north of Baja California on the Pacific coast.

And Sera is an extraordinarily ambitious missionary. He's very experienced. And he spearheads Spain's movement into what is now the state of California.

Sera's northward journey also included what he saw as a spiritual goal.

He wants to work with Indians who have never been baptized, who have never spoken Spanish, who he thinks are sort of like children in the Garden of Eden.

And it isn't until 1769 that he actually meets Indians, who he believes fit that description. And he is so overcomy, he essentially kisses the ground and he says they're just like Adam before the fall.

Sera went on to build nine Catholic missions across California, believing the natives could only become proper Catholics if they worked and served in his missions.

The converted Indians attended mass and catechism under the watchful eye of mission priests and were forced to adopt European-style farming.

And within this system, Sera was a tough administrator.

Sera was not a warm and fuzzy guy. I mean, he was a very, very, very hard-headed, aggressive imperial priest.

The Indians and the missions were expected above all to obey. They had to ask their friars permission just to leave the premises.

If Indians strayed, if they left the mission to visit relatives who hadn't been baptized, they could be punished with a flogging with blows.

And this was upsetting, distressing, painful, offensive, and unacceptable. But Sera believes that this is absolutely necessary for the development as sort of civilized Catholic individuals.

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