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departed Navidad and on the sixteenth of December landed in what he termed the “deepest harbor near land to lay anchor. ” He named the safe harbor for his Viceroy, the Conde de Monterey, and saw it as a profitable northern frontier port. He wrote that the magnificent harbor was rich with timber for shipbuilding, and a natural paradise with abundant shelter from wind. Despite these romantic tales of a harbor in Paradise, the new Viceroy of New Spain, Marqués de Montesclaros, did not trust Vizcaíno’s stories. A study written by Walton Bean, Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, suggests that the Viceroy’s distrust of Vizcaíno was so great that the expedition’s mapmaker, Martínez Palacios, was convicted of forgery and then hanged. San Francisco was destined to remain isolated and barren of discovery for nearly two hundred more years.

In New Spain, Jesuit missionaries had ruled the northwestern frontier regions dating back to late 1580, under the terms decreed by their King. These missionaries established settlements along the northern Baja peninsula, which were considered to be the most structured and disciplined of all the missions in New Spain. The Jesuits maintained their dominance in Baja until around the late 1760s, when the King ordered their expulsion, under suspicion that they would attempt to fragment the Spanish government and take power for themselves. The evictions of the Jesuits were delegated to Visitor-General Jośe de Gálvez, a special envoy of the King. His role was to conduct tribunals, and to restructure the political systems in various regions. Gálvez proposed to the King that a new governmental unit be established throughout the northwest. The new structure would be called a commandancy-general, and it was intended to expand Spanish territories up into the Californias. Gálvez claimed that the Europeans were starting to populate the northern lands beyond the Californias, and would soon begin a southward migration to establish their own rule.

In late 1768, Gálvez sent Captain Gaspar de Portolá on what he termed a “sacred expedition,” to establish colonies in the Californias. Father Junípero Serra, a catholic missionary, would accompany him to sanctify and establish the holy missions. Serra had been born in the village of Petra on the island of Majorca in 1713, the son of a poor farmer. His given name was Miguel, but he chose Junípero as his religious designation, naming himself for the closest companion of Saint Francis. Serra became a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Majorca, but left in his mid-thirties to pursue a more meaningful life as a foreign missionary. In Walton Bean’s fascinating interpretive history, the author described Serra:

“Through his life he was a vigorous, hard-driving man, never turning back from a task he had begun, always demanding the full measure from others as well as himself. In physical stature, Serra was short, not more than 5 feet 2 or 3 inches in height, but in courage and determination, he was a giant...”

Father Junípero Serra

A period engraving of Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo, founded in 1770.

Serra’s role in the colonization of California was most significant. He inspired the settler communities with missionary sermons that communicated divine principles and ethics. He would also establish the first Missions in San Diego (on July 16, 1769) and Monterey (which he founded on June 3, 1770, originally at what is known today as the Royal Presidio Chapel and then relocated to a site in Carmel in 1771, naming it Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo). Father Serra died in 1784, and is buried in the Basilica at the Mission in Carmel.

There were three vessels that made the sacred voyage to California. The San Carlos would serve as the flagship with Portolá commanding from her helm. The other ships, the San Jose and San Antonio, were filled with livestock and other goods to be used in establishing the colonies. These vessels transported some of the furniture and other artifacts from Portolá’s expedition that