The disastrous effect of the order of secularization upon the Indians, as well as the Missions themselves, has been referred to in a special chapter. Here I wish to give, in brief, a clearer idea of the present condition of the Indians than was there possible. In the years 1833-1837 secularization actually was accomplished. The knowledge that it was coming had already done much injury. The Pious Fund, which then amounted to upwards of a half-million dollars, was confiscated by the Mexican government. The officials said it was merely "borrowed." This practically left the Indians to their own resources. A certain amount of land and stock were to be given to each head of a family, and tools were to be provided. Owing to the long distance between California and the City of Mexico, there was much confusion as to how the changes should be brought about. There have been many charges made, alleging that the padres wilfully allowed the Mission property to go to ruin, when they were deprived of its control. This ruin would better be attributed to the general demoralization of the times than to any definite policy. For it must be remembered that the political conditions of Mexico at that time were most unsettled. None knew what a day or an hour might bring forth. All was confusion, uncertainty, irresponsibility. And in the mêlée Mission property and Mission Indians suffered.
What was to become of the Indians? Imagine the father of a family--that had no mother--suddenly snatched away, and all the property, garden, granary, mill, storehouse, orchards, cattle, placed in other hands. What would the children do?
So now the Indians, like bereft children, knew not what to do, and, naturally, they did what our own children would do. Led by want and hunger, some sought and found work and food, and others, alas, became thieves. The Mission establishment was the organized institution that had cared for them, and had provided the work that supported them. No longer able to go and live "wildly" as of old, they were driven to evil methods by necessity unless the new government directed their energies into right channels. Few attempted to do this; hence the results that were foreseen by the padres followed.
July 7, 1846, saw the Mexican flag in California hauled down, and the Stars and Stripes raised in its place; but as far as the Indian was concerned, the change was for the worse instead of the better. Indeed, it may truthfully be said that the policies of the three governments, Spanish, Mexican, and American, have shown three distinct phases, and that the last is by far the worst.
Our treatment of these Indians reads like a hideous nightmare. Absolutely no forceful and effective protest seems to have been made against the indescribable wrongs perpetrated. The gold discoveries of 1849 brought into the country a class of adventurers, gamblers, liquor sellers, and camp followers of the vilest description. The Indians became helpless victims in the hands of these infamous wretches, and even the authorities aided to make these Indians "good."
Bartlett, who visited the country in 1850 to 1853, tells of meeting with an old Indian at San Luis Rey who spoke glowingly of the good times they had when the padres were there, but "now," he said, "they were scattered about, he knew not where, without a home or protectors, and were in a miserable, starving condition." Of the San Francisco Indians he says:
"They are a miserable, squalid-looking set, squatting or lying about the corners of the streets, without occupation. They have now no means of obtaining a living, as their lands are all taken from them; and the Missions for which they labored, and which provided after a sort for many thousands of them, are abolished. No care seems to be taken of them by the Americans; on the contrary, the effort seems to be to exterminate them as soon as possible."
According to the most conservative estimates there were over thirty thousand Indians under the control of the Missions at the time of secularization in 1833. To-day, how many are there? I have spent long days in the different Mission localities, arduously searching for Indians, but oftentimes only to fail of my purpose. In and about San Francisco, there is not one to be found. At San Carlos Borromeo, in both Monterey and the Carmelo Valley, except for a few half-breeds, no one of Indian blood can be discovered. It is the same at San Miguel, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara. At Pala, that romantic chapel, where once the visiting priest from San Luis Rey found a congregation of several hundreds awaiting his ministrations, the land was recently purchased from white men, by the United States Indian Commission, as a new home for the evicted Palatingwa Indians of Warner's Ranch. These latter Indians, in recent interviews with me, have pertinently asked: "Where did the white men get this land, so they could sell it to the government for us? Indians lived here many centuries before a white man had ever seen the 'land of the sundown sea.' When the 'long-gowns' first came here, there were many Indians at Pala. Now they are all gone. Where? And how do we know that before long we shall not be driven out, and be gone, as they were driven out and are gone?"
At San Luis Rey and San Diego, there are a few scattered families, but very few, and most of these have fled far back into the desert, or to the high mountains, as far as possible out of reach of the civilization that demoralizes and exterminates them.
A few scattered remnants are all that remain.
Let us seek for the real reason why.
The system of the padres was patriarchal, paternal. Certain it is that the Indians were largely treated as if they were children. No one questions or denies this statement. Few question that the Indians were happy under this system, and all will concede that they made wonderful progress in the so-called arts of civilization. From crude savagery they were lifted by the training of the fathers into usefulness and productiveness. They retained their health, vigor, and virility. They were, by necessity perhaps, but still undeniably, chaste, virtuous, temperate, honest, and reasonably truthful. They were good fathers and mothers, obedient sons and daughters, amenable to authority, and respectful to the counsels of old age.
All this and more may unreservedly be said for the Indians while they were under the control of the fathers. That there were occasionally individual cases of harsh treatment is possible. The most loving and indulgent parents are now and again ill-tempered, fretful, or nervous. The fathers were men subject to all the limitations of other men. Granting these limitations and making due allowance for human imperfection, the rule of the fathers must still be admired for its wisdom and commended for its immediate results.
Now comes the order of secularization, and a little later the domination of the Americans. Those opposed to the control of the fathers are to set the Indians free. They are to be "removed from under the irksome restraint of cold-blooded priests who have held them in bondage not far removed from slavery"!! They are to have unrestrained liberty, the broadest and fullest intercourse with the great American people, the white, Caucasian American, not the dark-skinned Mexican!!!
What was the result. Let an eye-witness testify:
"These thousands of Indians had been held in the most rigid discipline by the Mission Fathers, and after their emancipation by the Supreme Government of Mexico, had been reasonably well governed by the local authorities, who found in them indispensable auxiliaries as farmers and harvesters, hewers of wood and drawers of water, and besides, the best horse-breakers and herders in the world, necessary to the management of the great herds of the country. These Indians were Christians, docile even to servility, and excellent laborers. Then came the Americans, followed soon after by the discovery of, and the wild rush for, gold, and the relaxation for the time being of a healthy administration of the laws. The ruin of this once happy and useful people commenced. The cultivators of vineyards began to pay their Indian peons with aguardiente, a real 'firewater.' The consequence was that on receiving their wages on Saturday evening, the laborers habitually met in great gatherings and passed the night in gambling, drunkenness, and debauchery. On Sunday the streets were crowded from morning until night with Indians,--males and females of all ages, from the girl of ten or twelve to the old man and woman of seventy or eighty.
"By four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, Los Angeles Street, from Commercial to Nigger Alley, Aliso Street from Los Angeles to Alameda, and Nigger Alley, were crowded with a mass of drunken Indians, yelling and fighting: men and women, boys and girls using tooth and nail, and frequently knives, but always in a manner to strike the spectator with horror.
"At sundown, the pompous marshal, with his Indian special deputies, who had been confined in jail all day to keep them sober, would drive and drag the combatants to a great corral in the rear of the Downey Block, where they slept away their intoxication. The following morning they would be exposed for sale, as slaves for the week. Los Angeles had its slave-mart as well as New Orleans and Constantinople,--only the slaves at Los Angeles were sold fifty-two times a year, as long as they lived, a period which did not generally exceed one, two, or three years under the new dispensation. They were sold for a week, and bought up by vineyard men and others at prices ranging from one to three dollars, one-third of which was to be paid to the peon at the end of the week, which debt, due for well-performed labor, was invariably paid in aguardiente, and the Indian made happy, until the following Monday morning, he having passed through another Saturday night and Sunday's saturnalia of debauchery and bestiality. Those thousands of honest, useful people were absolutely destroyed in this way."
In reference to these statements of the sale of the Indians as slaves, it should be noted that the act was done under the cover of the law. The Indian was "fined" a certain sum for his drunkenness, and was then turned over to the tender mercies of the employer, who paid the fine. Thus "justice" was perverted to the vile ends of the conscienceless scoundrels who posed as "officers of the law."
Charles Warren Stoddard, one of California's sweetest poets, realized to the full the mercenary treatment the Missions and the Indians had received, and one of the latest and also most powerful poems he ever wrote, "The Bells of San Gabriel," deals with this spoliation as a theme. The poem first appeared in Sunset Magazine, the Pacific Monthly, and with the kind consent of the editor I give the last stanza.
"Where are they now, O tower!
The locusts and wild honey?
Where is the sacred dower
That the Bride of Christ was given?
Gone to the wielders of power,
The misers and minters of money;
Gone for the greed that is their creed--
And these in the land have thriven.
What then wert thou, and what art now,
And wherefore hast thou striven?
REFRAIN
And every note of every bell
Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!
In the tower that is left the tale to tell
Of Gabriel, the Archangel."
To-day, the total Indian population of Southern California is reported as between two and three thousand. It is not increasing, and it is good for the race that it is not. Until the incumbency by W.A. Jones of the Indian Commissionership in Washington, there seems to have been little or no attempt at effective protection of the Indians against the land and other thefts of the whites. The facts are succinctly and powerfully stated by Helen Hunt Jackson in her report to the government, and in her Glimpses of California and the Missions. The indictment of churches, citizens, and the general government, for their crime of supineness in allowing our acknowledged wards to be seduced, cheated, and corrupted, should be read by every honest American; even though it make his blood seethe with indignation and his nerves quiver with shame.
In my larger work on this subject I published a table from the report of the agent for the "Mission-Tule" Consolidated Agency, which is dated September 25, 1903.
This is the official report of an agent whom not even his best friends acknowledge as being over fond of his Indian charges, or likely to be sentimental in his dealings with them. What does this report state? Of twenty-eight "reservations"--and some of these include several Indian villages--it announces that the lands of eight are yet "not patented." In other words, that the Indians are living upon them "on sufferance." Therefore, if any citizen of the United States, possessed of sufficient political power, so desired, the lands could be restored to the public domain. Then, not even the United States Supreme Court could hold them for the future use and benefit of the Indians.
On five of these reservations the land is "desert," and in two cases, "subject to intense heat" (it might be said, to 150 degrees, and even higher in the middle of summer); in one case there is "little water for irrigation."
In four cases it is "poor land," with "no water," and in another instance there are "worthless, dry hills;" in still another the soil is "almost worthless for lack of water!"
In one of the desert cases, where there are five villages, the government has supplied "water in abundance for irrigation and domestic use, from artesian wells." Yet the land is not patented, and the Indians are helpless, if evicted by resolute men.
At Cahuilla, with a population of one hundred fifty-five, the report says, "mountain valley; stock land and little water. Not patented."
At Santa Isabel, including Volcan, with a population of two hundred eighty-four, the reservation of twenty-nine thousand eight hundred forty-four acres is patented, but the report says it is "mountainous; stock land; no water."
At San Jacinto, with a population of one hundred forty-three, the two thousand nine hundred sixty acres are "mostly poor; very little water, and not patented."
San Manuel, with thirty-eight persons, has a patent for six hundred forty acres of "worthless, dry hills."
Temecula, with one hundred eighty-one persons, has had allotted to its members three thousand three hundred sixty acres, which area, however, is "almost worthless for lack of water."
Let us reflect upon these things! The poor Indian is exiled and expelled from the lands of his ancestors to worthless hills, sandy desert, grazing lands, mostly poor and mountainous land, while our powerful government stands by and professes its helplessness to prevent the evil. These discouraging facts are enough to make the just and good men who once guided the republic rise from their graves. Is there a remnant of honor, justice, or integrity, left among our politicians?
There is one thing this government should have done, could have done, and might have done, and it is to its discredit and disgrace that it did not do it; that is, when the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferred the Indians from the domination of Mexico to that of the United States, this government "of, for, and by" the people, should have recognized the helplessness of its wards and not passed a law of which they could not by any possibility know, requiring them to file on their lands, but it should have appointed a competent guardian of their moral and legal rights, taking it for granted that occupancy of the lands of their forefathers would give them a legal title which would hold forever against all comers.
In all the Spanish occupation of California it is doubtful whether one case ever occurred where an Indian was driven off his land.
In rendering a decision on the Warner's Ranch Case the United States Supreme Court had an opportunity offered it, once for all to settle the status of all American Indians. Had it familiarized itself with the laws of Spain, under which all Spanish grants were made, it would have found that the Indian was always considered first and foremost in all grants of lands made. He must be protected in his right; it was inalienable. He was helpless, and therefore the officers of the Crown were made responsible for his protection. If subordinate officers failed, then the more urgent the duty of superior officers. Therefore, even had a grant been made of Warner's Ranch in which the grantor purposely left out the recognition of the rights of the Indians, the highest Spanish courts would not have tolerated any such abuse of power. This was an axiom of Spanish rule, shown by a hundred, a thousand precedents. Hence it should have been recognized by the United States Supreme Court. It is good law, but better, it is good sense and common justice, and this is especially good when it protects the helpless and weak from the powerful and strong.
In our dealings with the Indians in our school system, we are making the mistake of being in too great a hurry. A race of aborigines is not raised into civilization in a night. It will be well if it is done in two or three generations.
Contrast our method with that followed by the padres. Is there any comparison? Yes! To our shame and disgrace. The padres kept fathers and mothers and children together, at least to a reasonable degree. Where there were families they lived--as a rule--in their own homes near the Missions. Thus there was no division of families. On the other hand, we have wilfully and deliberately, though perhaps without malice aforethought (although the effect has been exactly the same as if we had had malice), separated children from their parents and sent them a hundred, several hundred, often two or three thousand miles away from home, there to receive an education often entirely inappropriate and incompetent to meet their needs. And even this sending has not always been honorably done. Vide the United States Indian Commissioner's report for 1900. He says:
"These pupils are gathered from the cabin, the wickiup, and the tepee. Partly by cajolery and partly by threats; partly by bribery and partly by fraud; partly by persuasion and partly by force, they are induced to leave their homes and their kindred to enter these schools and take upon themselves the outward semblance of civilized life. They are chosen not on account of any particular merit of their own, not by reason of mental fitness, but solely because they have Indian blood in their veins. Without regard to their worldly condition; without any previous training; without any preparation whatever, they are transported to the schools--sometimes thousands of miles away--without the slightest expense or trouble to themselves or their people.
"The Indian youth finds himself at once, as if by magic, translated from a state of poverty to one of affluence. He is well fed and clothed and lodged. Books and all the accessories of learning are given him and teachers provided to instruct him. He is educated in the industrial arts on the one hand, and not only in the rudiments but in the liberal arts on the other. Beyond the three r's he is instructed in geography, grammar, and history; he is taught drawing, algebra and geometry, music and astronomy and receives lessons in physiology, botany, and entomology. Matrons wait on him while he is well, and physicians and nurses attend him when he is sick. A steam laundry does his washing, and the latest modern appliances do his cooking. A library affords him relaxation for his leisure hours, athletic sports and the gymnasium furnish him exercise and recreation, while music entertains him in the evening. He has hot and cold baths, and steam heat and electric light, and all the modern conveniences. All the necessities of life are given him, and many of the luxuries. All of this without money and without price, or the contribution of a single effort of his own or of his people. His wants are all supplied almost for the wish. The child of the wigwam becomes a modern Aladdin, who has only to rub the government lamp to gratify his desires.
"Here he remains until his education is finished, when he is returned to his home--which by contrast must seem squalid indeed--to the parents whom his education must make it difficult to honor, and left to make his way against the ignorance and bigotry of his tribe. Is it any wonder he fails? Is it surprising if he lapses into barbarism? Not having earned his education, it is not appreciated; having made no sacrifice to obtain it, it is not valued. It is looked upon as a right and not as a privilege; It is accepted as a favor to the government and not to the recipient, and the almost inevitable tendency is to encourage dependency, foster pride, and create a spirit of arrogance and selfishness. The testimony on this point of those closely connected with the Indian employees of the service would, it is believe, be interesting."
So there the matter stands. Nothing of any great importance was really done to help the Indians except the conferences at Mohonk, N.Y., until, in 1902, the Sequoya League was organized, composed of many men and women of national prominence, with the avowed purpose "to make better Indians." In its first pronunciamento it declared:
"The first struggle will be not to arouse sympathy but to inform with slow patience and long wisdom the wide-spread sympathy which already exists. We cannot take the Indians out of the hands of the National Government; we cannot take the National Government into our own hands. Therefore we must work with the National Government in any large plan for the betterment of Indian conditions.
"The League means, in absolute good faith, not to fight, but to assist the Indian Bureau. It means to give the money of many and the time and brains and experience of more than a few to honest assistance to the Bureau in doing the work for which it has never had either enough money or enough disinterested and expert assistance to do in the best way the thing it and every American would like to see done."
Monday, March 1, 2010
SANTA CLARA DE ASIS
Rivera delayed the founding of San Francisco and Santa Clara for reasons of his own; and when, in September, 1776, he received a letter from Viceroy Bucareli, in which were references clearly showing that it was supposed by the writer that they were already established, he set to work without further delay, and went with Padre Peña, as already related. The Mission was duly founded January 12, 1777. A square of seventy yards was set off and buildings at once begun. Cattle and other Mission property were sent down from San Francisco and San Carlos, and the guard returned. But it was not long before the Indians developed an unholy love for contraband beef, and Moraga and his soldiers were sent for to capture and punish the thieves. Three of them were killed, but even then depredations occasionally continued. At the end of the year there had been sixty-seven baptisms, including eight adults, and twenty-five deaths.
The present is the third site occupied by Santa Clara. The Mission was originally established some three miles away, near Alviso, at the headwaters of the San Francisco Bay, near the river Guadalupe, on a site called by the Indians So-co-is-u-ka (laurel wood). It was probably located there on account of its being the chief rendezvous of the Indians, fishing being good, the river having an abundance of salmon trout. The Mission remained there only a short time, as the waters rose twice in 1779, and washed it out. Then the padres removed, in 1780-1782, and built about 150 yards southwest of the present broad-gauge (Southern Pacific) depot, where quite recently traces were found of the old adobe walls. They remained at this spot, deeming the location good, until an earthquake in 1812 gave them considerable trouble. A second earthquake in 1818 so injured their buildings that they felt compelled to move to the present site, which has been occupied ever since. The Mission Church and other buildings were begun in 1818, and finally dedicated in 1822. The site was called by the Indians Gerguensun--the Valley of the Oaks.
On the 29th of November, 1777, the pueblo of San José was founded. The padres protested at the time that it was too near the Mission of Santa Clara, and for the next decade there was constant irritation, owing to the encroachments of the white settlers upon the lands of the Indians. Complaints were made and formally acted upon, and in July, 1801, the boundaries were surveyed, as asked for by the padres, and landmarks clearly marked and agreed upon so as to prevent future disputes.
In 1800 Santa Clara was the banner Mission for population, having 1247. Live-stock had increased to about 5000 head of each (cattle and horses), and crops were good.
In 1802, August 12, a grand high altar, which had been obtained in Mexico, was consecrated with elaborate ceremonies.
Padre Viader, the priest in charge, was a very muscular and athletic man; and one night, in 1814, a young gentile giant, named Marcelo, and two companions attacked him. In the rough and tumble fight which ensued the padre came out ahead; and after giving the culprits a severe homily on the sin of attacking a priest, they were pardoned, Marcelo becoming one of his best and most faithful friends thereafter. Robinson says Viader was "a good old man, whose heart and soul were in proportion to his immense figure."
In 1820 the neophyte population was 1357, stock 5024, horses 722, sheep 12,060. The maximum of population was reached in 1827, of 1464 souls. After that it began rapidly to decline. The crops, too, were smaller after 1820, without any apparent reason.
In 1837 secularization was effected by Ramon Estrada. In 1839-1840 reports show that two-thirds of the cattle and sheep had disappeared. The downfall of the Mission was very rapid. The neophyte population in 1832 was 1125, in 1834 about 800, and at the end of the decade about 290, with 150 more scattered in the district
CHURCH OF SANTA CLARA.
On the site of old Mission of Santa Clara.
The total of baptisms from 1777 to 1874 is 8640, of deaths 6950.
The old register of marriages records 3222 weddings from January 12, 1778, to August 15, 1863.
In 1833 Padre Viader closed his missionary service of nearly forty years in California by leaving the country, and Padre Francisco García Diego, the prefect of the Zacatecan friars, became his successor. Diego afterwards became the first bishop of California.
In July, 1839, a party called Yozcolos, doubtless after their leader, attacked the neophytes guarding the Santa Clara wheat-fields, killing one of them. The attackers were pursued, and their leader slain, and the placing of his head on a pole seemed to act as a deterrent of further acts for awhile.
In December of the same year Prado Mesa made an expedition against gentile thieves in the region of the Stanislaus River. He was surprised by the foe, three of his men killed, and he and six others wounded, besides losing a number of his weapons. This Indian success caused great alarm, and a regular patrol was organized to operate between San José and San Juan Missions for the protection of the ranches. This uprising of the Indians was almost inevitable. Deprived of their maintenance at the Missions, they were practically thrown on their own resources, and in many cases this left them a prey to the evil leadership of desperate men of their own class.
Santa Clara was one of the Missions immediately affected by the decree of Micheltorena, of March 29, 1843, requiring that the padres reassume the management of the temporalities. They set to work to gather up what fragments they could find, but the flocks and herds were "lent" where they could not be recovered, and one flock of 4000 sheep--the padre says 6000--were taken by M.J. Vallejo, "legally, in aid of the government."
Pio Pico's decree of June 5, 1845, affected Santa Clara. Andrés Pico made a valuation of the property at $16,173. There were then 130 ex-neophytes, the live-stock had dwindled down to 430 cattle, 215 horses, and 809 sheep. The padre found it necessary to write a sharp letter to the alcalde of San José on the grog-shops of that pueblo, which encouraged drinking among his Indians to such extent that they were completely demoralized.
March 19, 1851, the parish priest, who was a cultivated and learned Jesuit, and who had prepared the way, succeeded in having the Santa Clara College established in the old Mission buildings. On the 28th of April, 1855, it was chartered with all the rights and privileges of a university. In due time the college grew to large proportions, and it was found imperative either to remove the old Mission structure completely, or renovate it out of all recognition. This latter was done, so that but little of the old church remains.
In restoring it in 1861-1862 the nave was allowed to remain, but in 1885 it was found necessary to remove it. Its walls were five feet thick. The adobe bricks were thrown out upon the plaza behind the cross.
The present occupation of Santa Clara as a university as well as a church necessitated the adaptation of the old cloisters to meet the modern conditions. Therefore the casual visitor would scarcely notice that the reception-room into which he is ushered is a part of the old cloisters. The walls are about three feet thick, and are of adobe. In the garden the beams of the cloister roofs are to be seen.
The old Mission vineyard, where the grapes used to thrive, is now converted into a garden. A number of the old olive trees still remain. Of the three original bells of the Mission, two still call the faithful to worship. One was broken and had to be recast in San Francisco.
On the altar, there are angels with flambeaux in their hands, of wooden carving. These are deemed the work of the Indians. There are also several old statues of the saints, including San Joaquin, Santa Ana, San Juan Capistrano, and Santa Colette. In the sodality chapel, also, there are statues of San Francisco and San Antonio. The altar rail of the restored Santa Clara church was made from the beams of the old Mission. These were of redwood, secured from the Santa Cruz mountains, and, I believe, are the earliest specimens of redwood used for lumber in California The rich natural coloring and the beauty of the grain and texture have improved with the years The old octagonal pulpit, though not now used is restored and honored, standing upon a modern pedestal.
Santa Clara was noted for the longevity of some of its Indians. One of them, Gabriel, who died in 1891 or 1892 at the hospital in Salinas, claimed he was a grandfather when Serra came in 1767. He must have been over 150 years old when he died. Another, Inigo, was known to be 101 years of age at his death.
In a room in the college building is gathered together an interesting collection of articles belonging to the old Mission. Here are the chairs of the sanctuary, processional candlesticks, pictures, and the best bound book in the State--an old choral. It rests on a stand at the end of the room. The lids are of wood, covered with thick leather and bound in very heavy bronze, with bosses half an inch high. Each corner also has bronze protuberances, half an inch long, that stand out on the bottom, or edge of the cover, so that they raise the whole book. The volume is of heaviest vellum and is entirely hand-written in red and black; and though a century or more has passed since it was written it is clear and perfect, has 139 pages. The brothers of the college have placed this inscription over it: "Ancient choral, whose wooden cover, leather bound and covered in bronze, came, probably, originally from Spain, and has age of some 500 years."
In a case which extends across the room are ancient vestments, the key of the old Mission, statuary brackets from the ancient altar, the altar bell, crown of thorns from the Mission crucifix, altar card-frames, and the rosary and crucifix that once belonged to Padre Magin Catalá.
Padre Catalá, the good man of Santa Clara, is deemed by the leaders of the Catholic Church in California to be worthy the honors and elevation of sainthood, and proceedings are now in operation before the highest Court of the Church in Rome to see whether he is entitled to these posthumous honors. The Franciscan historian for California, Father Zephyrin Englehardt, has written a book entitled The Holy Man of Santa Clara, in which not only the life of Padre Catalá is given, but the whole of the procedure necessary to convince the Church tribunal of his worth and sainthood. The matter is not yet (1913) settled.
On the walls are some of the ancient paintings, one especially noteworthy. It is of Christ multiplying the loaves and fishes (John vi. II). While it is not a great work of art, the benignity and sweetness of the Christ face redeem it from crudeness. With upraised right hand he is blessing the loaves which rest in his left hand, while the boy with the fishes kneels reverently at his feet.
The University of Santa Clara is now rapidly erecting its new buildings, in a modified form of Mission architecture, to meet its enlarging needs The buildings, when completed, will present to the world a great institution of learning--the oldest west of the Rocky Mountains--well equipped in every department for the important labor in the education of the Catholic youth of California and the west that it has undertaken.
THE INDIANS UNDER THE PADRES
The first consideration of the padres in dealing with the Indians was the salvation of their souls. Of this no honest and honorable man can hold any question. Serra and his coadjutors believed, without equivocation or reserve, the doctrines of the Church. As one reads his diary, his thought on this matter is transparent. In one place he thus naïvely writes: "It seemed to me that they (the Indians) would fall shortly into the apostolic and evangelic net."
This accomplished, the Indians must be kept Christians, educated and civilized. Here is the crucial point. In reading criticisms upon the Mission system of dealing with the Indians, one constantly meets with such passages as the following: "The fatal defect of this whole Spanish system was that no effort was made to educate the Indians, or teach them to read, and think, and act for themselves."
To me this kind of criticism is both unjust and puerile. What is education? What is civilization?
Expert opinions as to these matters vary considerably, and it is in the very nature of men that they should vary. The Catholics had their ideas and they sought to carry them out with care and fidelity. How far they succeeded it is for the unprejudiced historians and philosophers of the future to determine. Personally, I regard the education given by the padres as eminently practical, even though I materially differ from them as to some of the things they regarded as religious essentials. Yet in honor it must be said that if I, or the Church to which I belong, or you and the Church to which you belong, reader, had been in California in those early days, your religious teaching or mine would have been entitled, justly, to as much criticism and censure as have ever been visited upon that of the padres. They did the best they knew, and, as I shall soon show, they did wonderfully well, far better than the enlightened government to which we belong has ever done. Certain essentials stood out before them. These were, to see that the Indians were baptized, taught the ritual of the Church, lived as nearly as possible according to the rules laid down for them, attended the services regularly, did their proper quota of work, were faithful husbands and wives and dutiful children. Feeling that they were indeed fathers of a race of children, the priests required obedience and work, as the father of any well-regulated American household does. And as a rule these "children," though occasionally rebellious, were willingly obedient.
Under this régime it is unquestionably true that the lot of the Indians was immeasurably improved from that of their aboriginal condition. They were kept in a state of reasonable cleanliness, were well clothed, were taught and required to do useful work, learned many new and helpful arts, and were instructed in the elemental matters of the Catholic faith. All these things were a direct advance.
It should not be overlooked, however, that the Spanish government provided skilled laborers from Spain or Mexico, and paid their hire, for the purpose of aiding the settlers in the various pueblos that were established. Master mechanics, carpenters, blacksmiths, and stone masons are mentioned in Governor Neve's Rules and Regulations, and it is possible that some of the Indians were taught by these skilled artisans. Under the guidance of the padres some of them were taught how to weave. Cotton was both grown and imported, and all the processes of converting it, and wool also, into cloth, were undertaken with skill and knowledge.
At San Juan Capistrano the swing and thud of the loom were constantly heard, there having been at one time as many as forty weavers all engaged at once in this useful occupation.
San Gabriel and San Luis Rey also had many expert weavers.
At all the Missions the girls and women, as well as the men, had their share in the general education. They had always been seed gatherers, grinders, and preparers of the food, and now they were taught the civilized methods of doing these things. Many became tailors as well as weavers; others learned to dye the made fabrics, as in the past they had dyed their basketry splints; and still others--indeed nearly all--became skilled in the delicate art of lace-making and drawn-work. They were natural adepts at fine embroidery, as soon as the use of the needle and colored threads was shown them, and some exquisite work is still preserved that they accomplished in this field. As candy-makers they soon became expert and manifested judicious taste.
To return to the men. Many of them became herders of cattle, horses and sheep, teamsters, and butchers. At San Gabriel alone a hundred cattle were slaughtered every Saturday as food for the Indians themselves. The hides of all slain animals were carefully preserved, and either tanned for home use or shipped East. Dana in Two Years Before the Mast gives interesting pictures of hide-shipping at San Juan Capistrano. A good tanner is a skilled laborer, and these Indians were not only expert makers of dressed leather, but they tanned skins and peltries with the hair or fur on. Indeed I know of many wonderful birds' skins, dressed with the feathers on, that are still in perfect preservation. As workers in leather they have never been surpassed. Many saddles, bridles, etc., were needed for Mission use, and as the ranches grew in numbers, they created a large market. It must be remembered that horseback riding was the chief method of travel in California for over a hundred years. Their carved leather work is still the wonder of the world. In the striking character of their designs, in the remarkable adaptation of the design, in its general shape and contour, to the peculiar form of the object to be decorated,--a stirrup, a saddle, a belt, etc.,--and in the digital and manual dexterity demanded by its execution, nothing is left to be desired. Equally skilful were they in taking the horn of an ox or mountain sheep, heating it, and then shaping it into a drinking-cup, a spoon, or a ladle, and carving upon it designs that equal those found upon the pottery of the ancient world.
Shoemaking was extensively carried on, for sale on the ranches and to the trading-vessels. Tallow was tried out by the ton and run into underground brick vaults, some of which would hold in one mass several complete ship-loads. This was quarried out and then hauled to San Pedro, or the nearest port, for shipment. Sometimes it was run into great bags made of hides, that would hold from five hundred to a thousand pounds each, and then shipped.
Many of the Indians became expert carpenters, and a few even might be classed as fair cabinet-makers. There were wheelwrights and cart-makers who made the "carretas" that are now the joy of the relic-hunter. These were clumsy ox-carts, with wheels made of blocks, sawed or chopped off from the end of a large round log; a big hole was then bored, chiseled, or burned through its center, enabling it to turn on a rude wooden axle. Soap or tallow was sometimes used as a lubricant. This was the only wheeled conveyance in California as late as 1840. Other Indians did the woodwork in buildings, made fences, etc. Some were carvers, and there are not a few specimens of their work that will bear comparison with the work of far more pretentious artisans.
Many of them became' blacksmiths and learned to work well in iron. In the Coronel Collection in the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce are many specimens of the ironwork of the San Fernando neophytes. The work of this Mission was long and favorably known as that of superior artisans. The collection includes plough-points, anvils, bells, hoes, chains, locks and keys, spurs, hinges, scissors, cattle-brands, and other articles of use in the Mission communities. There are also fine specimens of hammered copper, showing their ability in this branch of the craftsman's art. As there was no coal at this time in California, these metal-workers all became charcoal-burners.
Bricks of adobe and also burned bricks and tiles were made at every Mission, I believe, and in later years tiles were made for sale for the houses of the more pretentious inhabitants of the pueblos. As lime and cement were needed, the Indians were taught how to burn the lime of the country, and the cement work then done remains to this day as solid as when it was first put down.
Many of them became expert bricklayers and stone-masons and cutters, as such work as that found at San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, San Carlos, Santa Inés, and other Missions most eloquently testifies.
It is claimed that much of the distemper painting upon the church walls was done by the Indians, though surely it would be far easier to believe that the Fathers did it than they. For with their training in natural design, as shown in their exquisite baskets, and the work they accomplished in leather carving, I do not hesitate to say that mural decorations would have been far more artistic in design, more harmonious in color, and more skilfully executed if the Indians had been left to their own native ability.
A few became silversmiths, though none ever accomplished much in this line. They made better sandal-makers, shoemakers, and hatters. As horse-trainers they were speedily most efficient, the cunning of their minds finding a natural outlet in gaining supremacy over the lower animal. They braided their own riatas from rawhide, and soon surpassed their teachers in the use of them. They were fearless hunters with them, often "roping" the mountain lion and even going so far as to capture the dangerous grizzly bears with no other "weapon," and bring them down from the mountains for their bear and bull fights. As vaqueros, or cowboys, they were a distinct class. As daring riders as the world has ever seen, they instinctively knew the arts of herding cattle and sheep, and soon had that whole field of work in their keeping. "H.H.," in Ramona, has told what skilled sheep-shearers they were, and there are Indian bands to-day in Southern California whose services are eagerly sought at good wages because of their thoroughness, skill and rapidity.
Now, with this list of achievements, who shall say they were not educated? Something more than lack of education must be looked for as the reason for the degradation and disappearance of the Indian, and in the next chapter I think I can supply that missing reason.
At the end of sixty years, more than thirty thousand Indian converts lodged in the Mission buildings, under the direct and immediate guidance of the Fathers, and performed their allotted daily labors with cheerfulness and thoroughness. There were some exceptions necessarily, but in the main the domination of the missionaries was complete.
It has often been asked: "What became of all the proceeds of the work of the Mission Indians? Did the padres claim it personally? Was it sent to the mother house in Mexico?" etc. These questions naturally enter the minds of those who have read the criticisms of such writers as Wilson, Guinn, and Scanland. In regard to the missionaries, they were under a vow of poverty. As to the mother house, it is asserted on honor that up to 1838 not even as much as a curio had been sent there. After that, as is well known, there was nothing to send. The fact is, the proceeds all went into the Indian Community Fund for the benefit of the Indians, or the improvement of their Mission church, gardens, or workshops. The most careful investigations by experts have led to but one opinion, and that is that in the early days there was little or no foundation for the charge that the padres were accumulating money. During the revolution it is well known that the Missions practically supported the military for a number of years, even though the padres, their wards, and their churches all suffered in consequence.
THE INDIANS AT THE COMING OF THE PADRES
It is generally believed that the California Indian in his original condition was one of the most miserable and wretched of the world's aborigines. As one writer puts it:
"When discovered by the padres he was almost naked, half starved, living in filthy little hovels built of tule, speaking a meagre language broken up into as many different and independent dialects as there were tribes, having no laws and few definite customs, cruel, simple, lazy, and--in one word which best describes such a condition of existence--wretched. There are some forms of savage life that we can admire; there are others that can only excite our disgust; of the latter were the California Indians."
This is the general attitude taken by most writers of this later day, as well as of the padres themselves, yet I think I shall be able to show that in some regards it is a mistaken one. I do not believe the Indians were the degraded and brutal creatures the padres and others have endeavored to make out. This is no charge of bad faith against these writers. It is merely a criticism of their judgment.
The fact that in a few years the Indians became remarkably competent in so many fields of skilled labor is the best answer to the unfounded charges of abject savagery. Peoples are not civilized nor educated in a day. Brains cannot be put into a monkey, no matter how well educated his teacher is. There must have been the mental quality, the ability to learn; or even the miraculous patience, perseverance, and love of the missionaries would not have availed to teach them, in several hundred years, much less, then, in the half-century they had them under their control, the many things we know they learned.
The Indians, prior to the coming of the padres, were skilled in some arts, as the making of pottery, basketry, canoes, stone axes, arrow heads, spear heads, stone knives, and the like. Holder says of the inhabitants of Santa Catalina that although their implements were of stone, wood, or shell "the skill with which they modelled and made their weapons, mortars, and steatite ollas, their rude mosaics of abalone shells, and their manufacture of pipes, medicine-tubes, and flutes give them high rank among savages." The mortars found throughout California, some of which are now to be seen in the museums of Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc., are models in shape and finish. As for their basketry, I have elsewhere[2] shown that it alone stamps them as an artistic, mechanically skilful, and mathematically inclined people, and the study of their designs and their meanings reveal a love of nature, poetry, sentiment, and religion that put them upon a superior plane.
Indian Basketry, especially the chapters on Form, Poetry, and Symbolism.
Cabrillo was the first white man so far as we know who visited the Indians of the coast of California. He made his memorable journey in 1542-1543. In 1539, Ulloa sailed up the Gulf of California, and, a year later, Alarcon and Diaz explored the Colorado River, possibly to the point where Yuma now stands. These three men came in contact with the Cocopahs and the Yumas, and possibly with other tribes.
Cabrillo tells of the Indians with whom he held communication. They were timid and somewhat hostile at first, but easily appeased. Some of them, especially those living on the islands (now known as San Clemente, Santa Catalina, Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Cruz), were superior to those found inland. They rowed in pine canoes having a seating capacity of twelve or thirteen men, and were expert fishermen. They dressed in the skins of animals, were rude agriculturists, and built for themselves shelters or huts of willows, tules, and mud.
The principal written source of authority for our knowledge of the Indians at the time of the arrival of the Fathers is Fray Geronimo Boscana's Chinigchinich: A Historical Account, etc., of the Indians of San Juan Capistrano. There are many interesting things in this account, some of importance, and others of very slight value. He insists that there was a great difference in the intelligence of the natives north of Santa Barbara and those to the south, in favor of the former. Of these he says they "are much more industrious, and appear an entirely distinct race. They formed, from shells, a kind of money, which passed current among them, and they constructed out of logs very swift and excellent canoes for fishing."
Of the character of his Indians he had a very poor idea. He compares them to monkeys who imitate, and especially in their copying the ways of the white men, "whom they respect as beings much superior to themselves; but in so doing, they are careful to select vice in preference to virtue. This is the result, undoubtedly, of their corrupt and natural disposition."
Of the language of the California Indians, Boscana says there was great diversity, finding a new dialect almost every fifteen to twenty leagues.
They were not remarkably industrious, yet the men made their home utensils, bows and arrows, the several instruments used in making baskets, and also constructed nets, spinning the thread from yucca fibres, which they beat and prepared for that purpose. They also built the houses.
The women gathered seeds, prepared them, and did the cooking, as well as all the household duties. They made the baskets, all other utensils being made by the men.
The dress of the men, when they dressed at all, consisted of the skins of animals thrown over the shoulders, leaving the rest of the body exposed, but the women wore a cloak and dress of twisted rabbit-skins. I have found these same rabbit-skin dresses in use by Mohave and Yumas within the past three or four years.
The youths were required to keep away from the fire, in order that they might learn to suffer with bravery and courage. They were forbidden also to eat certain kinds of foods, to teach them to bear deprivation and to learn to control their appetites. In addition to these there were certain ceremonies, which included fasting, abstinence from drinking, and the production of hallucinations by means of a vegetable drug, called pivat (still used, by the way, by some of the Indians of Southern California), and the final branding of the neophyte, which Boscana describes as follows: "A kind of herb was pounded until it became sponge-like; this they placed, according to the figure required, upon the spot intended to be burnt, which was generally upon the right arm, and sometimes upon the thick part of the leg also. They then set fire to it, and let it remain until all that was combustible was consumed. Consequently, a large blister immediately formed, and although painful, they used no remedy to cure it, but left it to heal itself; and thus, a large and perpetual scar remained. The reason alleged for this ceremony was that it added greater strength to the nerves, and gave a better pulse for the management of the bow." This ceremony was called potense.
The education of the girls was by no means neglected.
"They were taught to remain at home, and not to roam about in idleness; to be always employed in some domestic duty, so that, when they were older, they might know how to work, and attend to their household duties; such as procuring seeds, and cleaning them--making 'atole' and 'pinole,' which are kinds of gruel, and their daily food. When quite young, they have a small, shallow basket, called by the natives 'tucmel,' with which they learn the way to clean the seeds, and they are also instructed in grinding, and preparing the same for consumption."
When a girl was married, her father gave her good advice as to her conduct. She must be faithful to her wifely duties and do nothing to disgrace either her husband or her parents. Children of tender years were sometimes betrothed by their parents. Padre Boscana says he married a couple, the girl having been but eight or nine months old, and the boy two years, when they were contracted for by their parents.
Childbirth was natural and easy with them, as it generally is with all primitive peoples. An Indian woman has been known to give birth to a child, walk half a mile to a stream, step into it and wash both herself and the new-born babe, then return to her camp, put her child in a yakia, or basket cradle-carrier, sling it over her back, and start on a four or five mile journey, on foot, up the rocky and steep sides of a canyon.
A singular custom prevailed among these people, not uncommon elsewhere. The men, when their wives were suffering their accouchement, would abstain from all flesh and fish, refrain from smoking and all diversions, and stay within the Kish, or hut, from fifteen to twenty days.
The god of the San Juan Indians was Chinigchinich, and it is possible, from similarity in the ways of appearing and disappearing, that he is the monster Tauguitch of the Sabobas and Cahuillas described in The Legend of Tauguitch and Algoot.[3] This god was a queer compound of goodness and evil, who taught them all the rites and ceremonies that they afterwards observed.
THE MISSIONS FOUNDED BY PADRE JUNIPERO SERRA
San Diego Mission founded, Serra was impatient to have work begun elsewhere. Urging the governor to go north immediately, he rejoiced when Portolá, Crespí, Rivera, and Pages started, with a band of soldiers and natives. They set out gaily, gladly. They were sure of a speedy journey to the Bay of Monterey, discovered by Cabrillo, and seen again and charted by Vizcaino, where they were to establish the second Mission.
Strange to say, however, when they reached Monterey, in the words of Scripture, "their eyes were holden," and they did not recognize it. They found a bay which they fully described, and while we to-day clearly see that it was the bay they were looking for, they themselves thought it was another one. Believing that Vizcaino had made an error in his chart, they pushed on further north. The result of this disappointment was of vast consequence to the later development of California, for, following the coast line inland, they were bound to strike the peninsula and ultimately reach the shores of what is now San Francisco Bay. This was exactly what was done, and on November 2, 1769, one of Portolá's men, ascending ahead of the others to the crest of a hill, caught sight of this hitherto unknown and hidden body of water. How he would have shouted had he understood! How thankful and joyous it would have made Portolá and Crespí and the others. For now was the discovery of that very harbor that Padre Serra had so fervently hoped and prayed for, the harbor that was to secure for California a Mission "for our father Saint Francis." Yet not one of them either knew or seemed to comprehend the importance of that which their eyes had seen. Instead, they were disheartened and disappointed by a new and unforeseen obstacle to their further progress. The narrow channel (later called the Golden Gate by Frémont), barred their way, and as their provisions were getting low, and they certainly were much further north than they ought to have been to find the Bay of Monterey, Portolá gave the order for the return, and sadly, despondently, they went back to San Diego.
On the march south, Portolá's mind was made up. This whole enterprise was foolish and chimerical. He had had enough of it. He was going back home, and as the "San Antonio" with its promised supplies had not yet arrived, and the camp was almost entirely out of food, he announced the abandonment of the expedition and an immediate return to Lower California.
Now came Serra's faith to the fore, and that resolute determination and courage that so marked his life. The decision of Portolá had gone to his heart like an arrow. What! Abandon the Missions before they were fairly begun? Where was their trust in God? It was one hundred and sixty-six years since Vizcaino had been in this port, and if they left it now, when would another expedition be sent? In those years that had elapsed since Vizcaino, how many precious Indian souls had been lost because they had not received the message of salvation? He pleaded and begged Portolá to reconsider. For awhile the governor stood firm. Serra also had a strong will. From a letter written to Padre Palou, who was left behind in charge of the Lower California Missions, we see his intention: "If we see that along with the provisions hope vanishes, I shall remain alone with Father Juan Crespí and hold out to the last breath."
With such a resolution as this, Portolá could not cope. Yielding to Serra's persuasion, he consented to wait while a novena (a nine days' devotional exercise) was made to St. Joseph, the holy patron of the expedition. Fervently day by day Serra prayed. On the day of San José (St. Joseph) a high mass was celebrated, and Serra preached. On the fourth day the eager watchers saw the vessel approach. Then, strange to say, it disappeared, and as the sixth, seventh and eighth days passed and it did not reappear again, hope seemed to sink lower in the hearts of all but Serra and his devoted brother Crespí. On the ninth and last day--would it be seen? Bowing himself in eager and earnest prayer Serra pleaded that his faith be not shamed, and, to his intense delight, doubtless while he prayed, the vessel sailed into the bay.
Joy unspeakable was felt by every one. The provisions were here, the expedition need not be abandoned; the Indians would yet be converted to Holy Church and all was well. A service of thanksgiving was held, and happiness smiled on every face.
With new energy, vigor, and hope, Portolá set out again for the search of Monterey, accompanied by Serra as well as Crespí. This time the attempt was successful. They recognized the bay, and on June 3, 1770, a shelter of branches was erected on the beach, a cross made ready near an old oak, the bells were hung and blessed, and the services of founding began. Padre Serra preached with his usual fervor; he exhorted the natives to come and be saved, and put to rout all infernal foes by an abundant sprinkling of holy water. The Mission was dedicated to San Carlos Borromeo.
Thus two of the long desired Missions were established, and the passion of Serra's longings, instead of being assuaged, raged now all the fiercer. It was not long, however, before he found it to be bad policy to have the Missions for the Indian neophytes too near the presidio, or barracks for the soldiers. These latter could not always be controlled, and they early began a course which was utterly demoralizing to both sexes, for the women of a people cannot be debauched without exciting the men to fierce anger, or making them as bad as their women. Hence Serra removed the Missions: that of San Diego six miles up the valley to a point where the ruins now stand, while that of San Carlos he re-established in the Carmelo Valley.
The Mission next to be established should have been San Buenaventura, but events stood in the way; so, on July 14, 1771, Serra (who had been zealously laboring with the heathen near Monterey), with eight soldiers, three sailors, and a few Indians, passed down the Salinas River and established the Mission of San Antonio de Padua. The site was a beautiful one, in an oak-studded glen, near a fair-sized stream. The passionate enthusiasm of Serra can be understood from the fact that after the bells were hung from a tree, he loudly tolled them, crying the while like one possessed: "Come, gentiles, come to the Holy Church, come and receive the faith of Jesus Christ!" Padre Pieras could not help reminding his superior that not an Indian was within sight or hearing, and that it would be more practical to proceed with the ritual. One native, however, did witness the ceremony, and he soon brought a large number of his companions, who became tractable enough to help in erecting the rude church, barracks and houses with which the priests and soldiers were compelled to be content in those early days.
The present is the third site occupied by Santa Clara. The Mission was originally established some three miles away, near Alviso, at the headwaters of the San Francisco Bay, near the river Guadalupe, on a site called by the Indians So-co-is-u-ka (laurel wood). It was probably located there on account of its being the chief rendezvous of the Indians, fishing being good, the river having an abundance of salmon trout. The Mission remained there only a short time, as the waters rose twice in 1779, and washed it out. Then the padres removed, in 1780-1782, and built about 150 yards southwest of the present broad-gauge (Southern Pacific) depot, where quite recently traces were found of the old adobe walls. They remained at this spot, deeming the location good, until an earthquake in 1812 gave them considerable trouble. A second earthquake in 1818 so injured their buildings that they felt compelled to move to the present site, which has been occupied ever since. The Mission Church and other buildings were begun in 1818, and finally dedicated in 1822. The site was called by the Indians Gerguensun--the Valley of the Oaks.
On the 29th of November, 1777, the pueblo of San José was founded. The padres protested at the time that it was too near the Mission of Santa Clara, and for the next decade there was constant irritation, owing to the encroachments of the white settlers upon the lands of the Indians. Complaints were made and formally acted upon, and in July, 1801, the boundaries were surveyed, as asked for by the padres, and landmarks clearly marked and agreed upon so as to prevent future disputes.
In 1800 Santa Clara was the banner Mission for population, having 1247. Live-stock had increased to about 5000 head of each (cattle and horses), and crops were good.
In 1802, August 12, a grand high altar, which had been obtained in Mexico, was consecrated with elaborate ceremonies.
Padre Viader, the priest in charge, was a very muscular and athletic man; and one night, in 1814, a young gentile giant, named Marcelo, and two companions attacked him. In the rough and tumble fight which ensued the padre came out ahead; and after giving the culprits a severe homily on the sin of attacking a priest, they were pardoned, Marcelo becoming one of his best and most faithful friends thereafter. Robinson says Viader was "a good old man, whose heart and soul were in proportion to his immense figure."
In 1820 the neophyte population was 1357, stock 5024, horses 722, sheep 12,060. The maximum of population was reached in 1827, of 1464 souls. After that it began rapidly to decline. The crops, too, were smaller after 1820, without any apparent reason.
In 1837 secularization was effected by Ramon Estrada. In 1839-1840 reports show that two-thirds of the cattle and sheep had disappeared. The downfall of the Mission was very rapid. The neophyte population in 1832 was 1125, in 1834 about 800, and at the end of the decade about 290, with 150 more scattered in the district
CHURCH OF SANTA CLARA.
On the site of old Mission of Santa Clara.
The total of baptisms from 1777 to 1874 is 8640, of deaths 6950.
The old register of marriages records 3222 weddings from January 12, 1778, to August 15, 1863.
In 1833 Padre Viader closed his missionary service of nearly forty years in California by leaving the country, and Padre Francisco García Diego, the prefect of the Zacatecan friars, became his successor. Diego afterwards became the first bishop of California.
In July, 1839, a party called Yozcolos, doubtless after their leader, attacked the neophytes guarding the Santa Clara wheat-fields, killing one of them. The attackers were pursued, and their leader slain, and the placing of his head on a pole seemed to act as a deterrent of further acts for awhile.
In December of the same year Prado Mesa made an expedition against gentile thieves in the region of the Stanislaus River. He was surprised by the foe, three of his men killed, and he and six others wounded, besides losing a number of his weapons. This Indian success caused great alarm, and a regular patrol was organized to operate between San José and San Juan Missions for the protection of the ranches. This uprising of the Indians was almost inevitable. Deprived of their maintenance at the Missions, they were practically thrown on their own resources, and in many cases this left them a prey to the evil leadership of desperate men of their own class.
Santa Clara was one of the Missions immediately affected by the decree of Micheltorena, of March 29, 1843, requiring that the padres reassume the management of the temporalities. They set to work to gather up what fragments they could find, but the flocks and herds were "lent" where they could not be recovered, and one flock of 4000 sheep--the padre says 6000--were taken by M.J. Vallejo, "legally, in aid of the government."
Pio Pico's decree of June 5, 1845, affected Santa Clara. Andrés Pico made a valuation of the property at $16,173. There were then 130 ex-neophytes, the live-stock had dwindled down to 430 cattle, 215 horses, and 809 sheep. The padre found it necessary to write a sharp letter to the alcalde of San José on the grog-shops of that pueblo, which encouraged drinking among his Indians to such extent that they were completely demoralized.
March 19, 1851, the parish priest, who was a cultivated and learned Jesuit, and who had prepared the way, succeeded in having the Santa Clara College established in the old Mission buildings. On the 28th of April, 1855, it was chartered with all the rights and privileges of a university. In due time the college grew to large proportions, and it was found imperative either to remove the old Mission structure completely, or renovate it out of all recognition. This latter was done, so that but little of the old church remains.
In restoring it in 1861-1862 the nave was allowed to remain, but in 1885 it was found necessary to remove it. Its walls were five feet thick. The adobe bricks were thrown out upon the plaza behind the cross.
The present occupation of Santa Clara as a university as well as a church necessitated the adaptation of the old cloisters to meet the modern conditions. Therefore the casual visitor would scarcely notice that the reception-room into which he is ushered is a part of the old cloisters. The walls are about three feet thick, and are of adobe. In the garden the beams of the cloister roofs are to be seen.
The old Mission vineyard, where the grapes used to thrive, is now converted into a garden. A number of the old olive trees still remain. Of the three original bells of the Mission, two still call the faithful to worship. One was broken and had to be recast in San Francisco.
On the altar, there are angels with flambeaux in their hands, of wooden carving. These are deemed the work of the Indians. There are also several old statues of the saints, including San Joaquin, Santa Ana, San Juan Capistrano, and Santa Colette. In the sodality chapel, also, there are statues of San Francisco and San Antonio. The altar rail of the restored Santa Clara church was made from the beams of the old Mission. These were of redwood, secured from the Santa Cruz mountains, and, I believe, are the earliest specimens of redwood used for lumber in California The rich natural coloring and the beauty of the grain and texture have improved with the years The old octagonal pulpit, though not now used is restored and honored, standing upon a modern pedestal.
Santa Clara was noted for the longevity of some of its Indians. One of them, Gabriel, who died in 1891 or 1892 at the hospital in Salinas, claimed he was a grandfather when Serra came in 1767. He must have been over 150 years old when he died. Another, Inigo, was known to be 101 years of age at his death.
In a room in the college building is gathered together an interesting collection of articles belonging to the old Mission. Here are the chairs of the sanctuary, processional candlesticks, pictures, and the best bound book in the State--an old choral. It rests on a stand at the end of the room. The lids are of wood, covered with thick leather and bound in very heavy bronze, with bosses half an inch high. Each corner also has bronze protuberances, half an inch long, that stand out on the bottom, or edge of the cover, so that they raise the whole book. The volume is of heaviest vellum and is entirely hand-written in red and black; and though a century or more has passed since it was written it is clear and perfect, has 139 pages. The brothers of the college have placed this inscription over it: "Ancient choral, whose wooden cover, leather bound and covered in bronze, came, probably, originally from Spain, and has age of some 500 years."
In a case which extends across the room are ancient vestments, the key of the old Mission, statuary brackets from the ancient altar, the altar bell, crown of thorns from the Mission crucifix, altar card-frames, and the rosary and crucifix that once belonged to Padre Magin Catalá.
Padre Catalá, the good man of Santa Clara, is deemed by the leaders of the Catholic Church in California to be worthy the honors and elevation of sainthood, and proceedings are now in operation before the highest Court of the Church in Rome to see whether he is entitled to these posthumous honors. The Franciscan historian for California, Father Zephyrin Englehardt, has written a book entitled The Holy Man of Santa Clara, in which not only the life of Padre Catalá is given, but the whole of the procedure necessary to convince the Church tribunal of his worth and sainthood. The matter is not yet (1913) settled.
On the walls are some of the ancient paintings, one especially noteworthy. It is of Christ multiplying the loaves and fishes (John vi. II). While it is not a great work of art, the benignity and sweetness of the Christ face redeem it from crudeness. With upraised right hand he is blessing the loaves which rest in his left hand, while the boy with the fishes kneels reverently at his feet.
The University of Santa Clara is now rapidly erecting its new buildings, in a modified form of Mission architecture, to meet its enlarging needs The buildings, when completed, will present to the world a great institution of learning--the oldest west of the Rocky Mountains--well equipped in every department for the important labor in the education of the Catholic youth of California and the west that it has undertaken.
THE INDIANS UNDER THE PADRES
The first consideration of the padres in dealing with the Indians was the salvation of their souls. Of this no honest and honorable man can hold any question. Serra and his coadjutors believed, without equivocation or reserve, the doctrines of the Church. As one reads his diary, his thought on this matter is transparent. In one place he thus naïvely writes: "It seemed to me that they (the Indians) would fall shortly into the apostolic and evangelic net."
This accomplished, the Indians must be kept Christians, educated and civilized. Here is the crucial point. In reading criticisms upon the Mission system of dealing with the Indians, one constantly meets with such passages as the following: "The fatal defect of this whole Spanish system was that no effort was made to educate the Indians, or teach them to read, and think, and act for themselves."
To me this kind of criticism is both unjust and puerile. What is education? What is civilization?
Expert opinions as to these matters vary considerably, and it is in the very nature of men that they should vary. The Catholics had their ideas and they sought to carry them out with care and fidelity. How far they succeeded it is for the unprejudiced historians and philosophers of the future to determine. Personally, I regard the education given by the padres as eminently practical, even though I materially differ from them as to some of the things they regarded as religious essentials. Yet in honor it must be said that if I, or the Church to which I belong, or you and the Church to which you belong, reader, had been in California in those early days, your religious teaching or mine would have been entitled, justly, to as much criticism and censure as have ever been visited upon that of the padres. They did the best they knew, and, as I shall soon show, they did wonderfully well, far better than the enlightened government to which we belong has ever done. Certain essentials stood out before them. These were, to see that the Indians were baptized, taught the ritual of the Church, lived as nearly as possible according to the rules laid down for them, attended the services regularly, did their proper quota of work, were faithful husbands and wives and dutiful children. Feeling that they were indeed fathers of a race of children, the priests required obedience and work, as the father of any well-regulated American household does. And as a rule these "children," though occasionally rebellious, were willingly obedient.
Under this régime it is unquestionably true that the lot of the Indians was immeasurably improved from that of their aboriginal condition. They were kept in a state of reasonable cleanliness, were well clothed, were taught and required to do useful work, learned many new and helpful arts, and were instructed in the elemental matters of the Catholic faith. All these things were a direct advance.
It should not be overlooked, however, that the Spanish government provided skilled laborers from Spain or Mexico, and paid their hire, for the purpose of aiding the settlers in the various pueblos that were established. Master mechanics, carpenters, blacksmiths, and stone masons are mentioned in Governor Neve's Rules and Regulations, and it is possible that some of the Indians were taught by these skilled artisans. Under the guidance of the padres some of them were taught how to weave. Cotton was both grown and imported, and all the processes of converting it, and wool also, into cloth, were undertaken with skill and knowledge.
At San Juan Capistrano the swing and thud of the loom were constantly heard, there having been at one time as many as forty weavers all engaged at once in this useful occupation.
San Gabriel and San Luis Rey also had many expert weavers.
At all the Missions the girls and women, as well as the men, had their share in the general education. They had always been seed gatherers, grinders, and preparers of the food, and now they were taught the civilized methods of doing these things. Many became tailors as well as weavers; others learned to dye the made fabrics, as in the past they had dyed their basketry splints; and still others--indeed nearly all--became skilled in the delicate art of lace-making and drawn-work. They were natural adepts at fine embroidery, as soon as the use of the needle and colored threads was shown them, and some exquisite work is still preserved that they accomplished in this field. As candy-makers they soon became expert and manifested judicious taste.
To return to the men. Many of them became herders of cattle, horses and sheep, teamsters, and butchers. At San Gabriel alone a hundred cattle were slaughtered every Saturday as food for the Indians themselves. The hides of all slain animals were carefully preserved, and either tanned for home use or shipped East. Dana in Two Years Before the Mast gives interesting pictures of hide-shipping at San Juan Capistrano. A good tanner is a skilled laborer, and these Indians were not only expert makers of dressed leather, but they tanned skins and peltries with the hair or fur on. Indeed I know of many wonderful birds' skins, dressed with the feathers on, that are still in perfect preservation. As workers in leather they have never been surpassed. Many saddles, bridles, etc., were needed for Mission use, and as the ranches grew in numbers, they created a large market. It must be remembered that horseback riding was the chief method of travel in California for over a hundred years. Their carved leather work is still the wonder of the world. In the striking character of their designs, in the remarkable adaptation of the design, in its general shape and contour, to the peculiar form of the object to be decorated,--a stirrup, a saddle, a belt, etc.,--and in the digital and manual dexterity demanded by its execution, nothing is left to be desired. Equally skilful were they in taking the horn of an ox or mountain sheep, heating it, and then shaping it into a drinking-cup, a spoon, or a ladle, and carving upon it designs that equal those found upon the pottery of the ancient world.
Shoemaking was extensively carried on, for sale on the ranches and to the trading-vessels. Tallow was tried out by the ton and run into underground brick vaults, some of which would hold in one mass several complete ship-loads. This was quarried out and then hauled to San Pedro, or the nearest port, for shipment. Sometimes it was run into great bags made of hides, that would hold from five hundred to a thousand pounds each, and then shipped.
Many of the Indians became expert carpenters, and a few even might be classed as fair cabinet-makers. There were wheelwrights and cart-makers who made the "carretas" that are now the joy of the relic-hunter. These were clumsy ox-carts, with wheels made of blocks, sawed or chopped off from the end of a large round log; a big hole was then bored, chiseled, or burned through its center, enabling it to turn on a rude wooden axle. Soap or tallow was sometimes used as a lubricant. This was the only wheeled conveyance in California as late as 1840. Other Indians did the woodwork in buildings, made fences, etc. Some were carvers, and there are not a few specimens of their work that will bear comparison with the work of far more pretentious artisans.
Many of them became' blacksmiths and learned to work well in iron. In the Coronel Collection in the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce are many specimens of the ironwork of the San Fernando neophytes. The work of this Mission was long and favorably known as that of superior artisans. The collection includes plough-points, anvils, bells, hoes, chains, locks and keys, spurs, hinges, scissors, cattle-brands, and other articles of use in the Mission communities. There are also fine specimens of hammered copper, showing their ability in this branch of the craftsman's art. As there was no coal at this time in California, these metal-workers all became charcoal-burners.
Bricks of adobe and also burned bricks and tiles were made at every Mission, I believe, and in later years tiles were made for sale for the houses of the more pretentious inhabitants of the pueblos. As lime and cement were needed, the Indians were taught how to burn the lime of the country, and the cement work then done remains to this day as solid as when it was first put down.
Many of them became expert bricklayers and stone-masons and cutters, as such work as that found at San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, San Carlos, Santa Inés, and other Missions most eloquently testifies.
It is claimed that much of the distemper painting upon the church walls was done by the Indians, though surely it would be far easier to believe that the Fathers did it than they. For with their training in natural design, as shown in their exquisite baskets, and the work they accomplished in leather carving, I do not hesitate to say that mural decorations would have been far more artistic in design, more harmonious in color, and more skilfully executed if the Indians had been left to their own native ability.
A few became silversmiths, though none ever accomplished much in this line. They made better sandal-makers, shoemakers, and hatters. As horse-trainers they were speedily most efficient, the cunning of their minds finding a natural outlet in gaining supremacy over the lower animal. They braided their own riatas from rawhide, and soon surpassed their teachers in the use of them. They were fearless hunters with them, often "roping" the mountain lion and even going so far as to capture the dangerous grizzly bears with no other "weapon," and bring them down from the mountains for their bear and bull fights. As vaqueros, or cowboys, they were a distinct class. As daring riders as the world has ever seen, they instinctively knew the arts of herding cattle and sheep, and soon had that whole field of work in their keeping. "H.H.," in Ramona, has told what skilled sheep-shearers they were, and there are Indian bands to-day in Southern California whose services are eagerly sought at good wages because of their thoroughness, skill and rapidity.
Now, with this list of achievements, who shall say they were not educated? Something more than lack of education must be looked for as the reason for the degradation and disappearance of the Indian, and in the next chapter I think I can supply that missing reason.
At the end of sixty years, more than thirty thousand Indian converts lodged in the Mission buildings, under the direct and immediate guidance of the Fathers, and performed their allotted daily labors with cheerfulness and thoroughness. There were some exceptions necessarily, but in the main the domination of the missionaries was complete.
It has often been asked: "What became of all the proceeds of the work of the Mission Indians? Did the padres claim it personally? Was it sent to the mother house in Mexico?" etc. These questions naturally enter the minds of those who have read the criticisms of such writers as Wilson, Guinn, and Scanland. In regard to the missionaries, they were under a vow of poverty. As to the mother house, it is asserted on honor that up to 1838 not even as much as a curio had been sent there. After that, as is well known, there was nothing to send. The fact is, the proceeds all went into the Indian Community Fund for the benefit of the Indians, or the improvement of their Mission church, gardens, or workshops. The most careful investigations by experts have led to but one opinion, and that is that in the early days there was little or no foundation for the charge that the padres were accumulating money. During the revolution it is well known that the Missions practically supported the military for a number of years, even though the padres, their wards, and their churches all suffered in consequence.
THE INDIANS AT THE COMING OF THE PADRES
It is generally believed that the California Indian in his original condition was one of the most miserable and wretched of the world's aborigines. As one writer puts it:
"When discovered by the padres he was almost naked, half starved, living in filthy little hovels built of tule, speaking a meagre language broken up into as many different and independent dialects as there were tribes, having no laws and few definite customs, cruel, simple, lazy, and--in one word which best describes such a condition of existence--wretched. There are some forms of savage life that we can admire; there are others that can only excite our disgust; of the latter were the California Indians."
This is the general attitude taken by most writers of this later day, as well as of the padres themselves, yet I think I shall be able to show that in some regards it is a mistaken one. I do not believe the Indians were the degraded and brutal creatures the padres and others have endeavored to make out. This is no charge of bad faith against these writers. It is merely a criticism of their judgment.
The fact that in a few years the Indians became remarkably competent in so many fields of skilled labor is the best answer to the unfounded charges of abject savagery. Peoples are not civilized nor educated in a day. Brains cannot be put into a monkey, no matter how well educated his teacher is. There must have been the mental quality, the ability to learn; or even the miraculous patience, perseverance, and love of the missionaries would not have availed to teach them, in several hundred years, much less, then, in the half-century they had them under their control, the many things we know they learned.
The Indians, prior to the coming of the padres, were skilled in some arts, as the making of pottery, basketry, canoes, stone axes, arrow heads, spear heads, stone knives, and the like. Holder says of the inhabitants of Santa Catalina that although their implements were of stone, wood, or shell "the skill with which they modelled and made their weapons, mortars, and steatite ollas, their rude mosaics of abalone shells, and their manufacture of pipes, medicine-tubes, and flutes give them high rank among savages." The mortars found throughout California, some of which are now to be seen in the museums of Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc., are models in shape and finish. As for their basketry, I have elsewhere[2] shown that it alone stamps them as an artistic, mechanically skilful, and mathematically inclined people, and the study of their designs and their meanings reveal a love of nature, poetry, sentiment, and religion that put them upon a superior plane.
Indian Basketry, especially the chapters on Form, Poetry, and Symbolism.
Cabrillo was the first white man so far as we know who visited the Indians of the coast of California. He made his memorable journey in 1542-1543. In 1539, Ulloa sailed up the Gulf of California, and, a year later, Alarcon and Diaz explored the Colorado River, possibly to the point where Yuma now stands. These three men came in contact with the Cocopahs and the Yumas, and possibly with other tribes.
Cabrillo tells of the Indians with whom he held communication. They were timid and somewhat hostile at first, but easily appeased. Some of them, especially those living on the islands (now known as San Clemente, Santa Catalina, Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Cruz), were superior to those found inland. They rowed in pine canoes having a seating capacity of twelve or thirteen men, and were expert fishermen. They dressed in the skins of animals, were rude agriculturists, and built for themselves shelters or huts of willows, tules, and mud.
The principal written source of authority for our knowledge of the Indians at the time of the arrival of the Fathers is Fray Geronimo Boscana's Chinigchinich: A Historical Account, etc., of the Indians of San Juan Capistrano. There are many interesting things in this account, some of importance, and others of very slight value. He insists that there was a great difference in the intelligence of the natives north of Santa Barbara and those to the south, in favor of the former. Of these he says they "are much more industrious, and appear an entirely distinct race. They formed, from shells, a kind of money, which passed current among them, and they constructed out of logs very swift and excellent canoes for fishing."
Of the character of his Indians he had a very poor idea. He compares them to monkeys who imitate, and especially in their copying the ways of the white men, "whom they respect as beings much superior to themselves; but in so doing, they are careful to select vice in preference to virtue. This is the result, undoubtedly, of their corrupt and natural disposition."
Of the language of the California Indians, Boscana says there was great diversity, finding a new dialect almost every fifteen to twenty leagues.
They were not remarkably industrious, yet the men made their home utensils, bows and arrows, the several instruments used in making baskets, and also constructed nets, spinning the thread from yucca fibres, which they beat and prepared for that purpose. They also built the houses.
The women gathered seeds, prepared them, and did the cooking, as well as all the household duties. They made the baskets, all other utensils being made by the men.
The dress of the men, when they dressed at all, consisted of the skins of animals thrown over the shoulders, leaving the rest of the body exposed, but the women wore a cloak and dress of twisted rabbit-skins. I have found these same rabbit-skin dresses in use by Mohave and Yumas within the past three or four years.
The youths were required to keep away from the fire, in order that they might learn to suffer with bravery and courage. They were forbidden also to eat certain kinds of foods, to teach them to bear deprivation and to learn to control their appetites. In addition to these there were certain ceremonies, which included fasting, abstinence from drinking, and the production of hallucinations by means of a vegetable drug, called pivat (still used, by the way, by some of the Indians of Southern California), and the final branding of the neophyte, which Boscana describes as follows: "A kind of herb was pounded until it became sponge-like; this they placed, according to the figure required, upon the spot intended to be burnt, which was generally upon the right arm, and sometimes upon the thick part of the leg also. They then set fire to it, and let it remain until all that was combustible was consumed. Consequently, a large blister immediately formed, and although painful, they used no remedy to cure it, but left it to heal itself; and thus, a large and perpetual scar remained. The reason alleged for this ceremony was that it added greater strength to the nerves, and gave a better pulse for the management of the bow." This ceremony was called potense.
The education of the girls was by no means neglected.
"They were taught to remain at home, and not to roam about in idleness; to be always employed in some domestic duty, so that, when they were older, they might know how to work, and attend to their household duties; such as procuring seeds, and cleaning them--making 'atole' and 'pinole,' which are kinds of gruel, and their daily food. When quite young, they have a small, shallow basket, called by the natives 'tucmel,' with which they learn the way to clean the seeds, and they are also instructed in grinding, and preparing the same for consumption."
When a girl was married, her father gave her good advice as to her conduct. She must be faithful to her wifely duties and do nothing to disgrace either her husband or her parents. Children of tender years were sometimes betrothed by their parents. Padre Boscana says he married a couple, the girl having been but eight or nine months old, and the boy two years, when they were contracted for by their parents.
Childbirth was natural and easy with them, as it generally is with all primitive peoples. An Indian woman has been known to give birth to a child, walk half a mile to a stream, step into it and wash both herself and the new-born babe, then return to her camp, put her child in a yakia, or basket cradle-carrier, sling it over her back, and start on a four or five mile journey, on foot, up the rocky and steep sides of a canyon.
A singular custom prevailed among these people, not uncommon elsewhere. The men, when their wives were suffering their accouchement, would abstain from all flesh and fish, refrain from smoking and all diversions, and stay within the Kish, or hut, from fifteen to twenty days.
The god of the San Juan Indians was Chinigchinich, and it is possible, from similarity in the ways of appearing and disappearing, that he is the monster Tauguitch of the Sabobas and Cahuillas described in The Legend of Tauguitch and Algoot.[3] This god was a queer compound of goodness and evil, who taught them all the rites and ceremonies that they afterwards observed.
THE MISSIONS FOUNDED BY PADRE JUNIPERO SERRA
San Diego Mission founded, Serra was impatient to have work begun elsewhere. Urging the governor to go north immediately, he rejoiced when Portolá, Crespí, Rivera, and Pages started, with a band of soldiers and natives. They set out gaily, gladly. They were sure of a speedy journey to the Bay of Monterey, discovered by Cabrillo, and seen again and charted by Vizcaino, where they were to establish the second Mission.
Strange to say, however, when they reached Monterey, in the words of Scripture, "their eyes were holden," and they did not recognize it. They found a bay which they fully described, and while we to-day clearly see that it was the bay they were looking for, they themselves thought it was another one. Believing that Vizcaino had made an error in his chart, they pushed on further north. The result of this disappointment was of vast consequence to the later development of California, for, following the coast line inland, they were bound to strike the peninsula and ultimately reach the shores of what is now San Francisco Bay. This was exactly what was done, and on November 2, 1769, one of Portolá's men, ascending ahead of the others to the crest of a hill, caught sight of this hitherto unknown and hidden body of water. How he would have shouted had he understood! How thankful and joyous it would have made Portolá and Crespí and the others. For now was the discovery of that very harbor that Padre Serra had so fervently hoped and prayed for, the harbor that was to secure for California a Mission "for our father Saint Francis." Yet not one of them either knew or seemed to comprehend the importance of that which their eyes had seen. Instead, they were disheartened and disappointed by a new and unforeseen obstacle to their further progress. The narrow channel (later called the Golden Gate by Frémont), barred their way, and as their provisions were getting low, and they certainly were much further north than they ought to have been to find the Bay of Monterey, Portolá gave the order for the return, and sadly, despondently, they went back to San Diego.
On the march south, Portolá's mind was made up. This whole enterprise was foolish and chimerical. He had had enough of it. He was going back home, and as the "San Antonio" with its promised supplies had not yet arrived, and the camp was almost entirely out of food, he announced the abandonment of the expedition and an immediate return to Lower California.
Now came Serra's faith to the fore, and that resolute determination and courage that so marked his life. The decision of Portolá had gone to his heart like an arrow. What! Abandon the Missions before they were fairly begun? Where was their trust in God? It was one hundred and sixty-six years since Vizcaino had been in this port, and if they left it now, when would another expedition be sent? In those years that had elapsed since Vizcaino, how many precious Indian souls had been lost because they had not received the message of salvation? He pleaded and begged Portolá to reconsider. For awhile the governor stood firm. Serra also had a strong will. From a letter written to Padre Palou, who was left behind in charge of the Lower California Missions, we see his intention: "If we see that along with the provisions hope vanishes, I shall remain alone with Father Juan Crespí and hold out to the last breath."
With such a resolution as this, Portolá could not cope. Yielding to Serra's persuasion, he consented to wait while a novena (a nine days' devotional exercise) was made to St. Joseph, the holy patron of the expedition. Fervently day by day Serra prayed. On the day of San José (St. Joseph) a high mass was celebrated, and Serra preached. On the fourth day the eager watchers saw the vessel approach. Then, strange to say, it disappeared, and as the sixth, seventh and eighth days passed and it did not reappear again, hope seemed to sink lower in the hearts of all but Serra and his devoted brother Crespí. On the ninth and last day--would it be seen? Bowing himself in eager and earnest prayer Serra pleaded that his faith be not shamed, and, to his intense delight, doubtless while he prayed, the vessel sailed into the bay.
Joy unspeakable was felt by every one. The provisions were here, the expedition need not be abandoned; the Indians would yet be converted to Holy Church and all was well. A service of thanksgiving was held, and happiness smiled on every face.
With new energy, vigor, and hope, Portolá set out again for the search of Monterey, accompanied by Serra as well as Crespí. This time the attempt was successful. They recognized the bay, and on June 3, 1770, a shelter of branches was erected on the beach, a cross made ready near an old oak, the bells were hung and blessed, and the services of founding began. Padre Serra preached with his usual fervor; he exhorted the natives to come and be saved, and put to rout all infernal foes by an abundant sprinkling of holy water. The Mission was dedicated to San Carlos Borromeo.
Thus two of the long desired Missions were established, and the passion of Serra's longings, instead of being assuaged, raged now all the fiercer. It was not long, however, before he found it to be bad policy to have the Missions for the Indian neophytes too near the presidio, or barracks for the soldiers. These latter could not always be controlled, and they early began a course which was utterly demoralizing to both sexes, for the women of a people cannot be debauched without exciting the men to fierce anger, or making them as bad as their women. Hence Serra removed the Missions: that of San Diego six miles up the valley to a point where the ruins now stand, while that of San Carlos he re-established in the Carmelo Valley.
The Mission next to be established should have been San Buenaventura, but events stood in the way; so, on July 14, 1771, Serra (who had been zealously laboring with the heathen near Monterey), with eight soldiers, three sailors, and a few Indians, passed down the Salinas River and established the Mission of San Antonio de Padua. The site was a beautiful one, in an oak-studded glen, near a fair-sized stream. The passionate enthusiasm of Serra can be understood from the fact that after the bells were hung from a tree, he loudly tolled them, crying the while like one possessed: "Come, gentiles, come to the Holy Church, come and receive the faith of Jesus Christ!" Padre Pieras could not help reminding his superior that not an Indian was within sight or hearing, and that it would be more practical to proceed with the ritual. One native, however, did witness the ceremony, and he soon brought a large number of his companions, who became tractable enough to help in erecting the rude church, barracks and houses with which the priests and soldiers were compelled to be content in those early days.
MY DADS "GREEN FAMILY" PART TWO
Born Feb. 6, 1916, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Green grew up on the west side of Chicago. (Although his birth certificate lists his first name as Irvin, he went by Irving). He attended St. John's University but dropped out after two years to work during the Depression.
After working for his father's paint contracting company, he went into the sheet-metal business with a partner.
They made hydraulic presses and pressed records.
"In those days, 10-inch records sold for at least 79 cents," Green said in the Desert Sun interview. "We were pressing them for others, and we decided to press them for ourselves."
When the use of shellac was restricted during World War II, Green's company produced an innovative plastic record.
"It actually was an unbreakable 10-inch record, whereas shellac was breakable," he said. "That's what started us in the music business. We knew how to make the record, and there was a tremendous shortage of records at the time."
In 1952, Green and five other record industry chief executives formed the Recording Industry Assn. of America, whose mission was to "foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes its members' creativity and financial vitality."
As a record producer and distributor, Green was known for allowing artists to own their copyrights.
"I said, 'I want to stay in the recording business. Let them have their own publishing," he told the Desert Sun. "That's what brought some artists to us, I think. They knew we weren't in any side business. That travels in the industry quite quick. I did not publish any of the music we recorded. I just felt, let them own their own and I would show them how to copyright."
After Green sold Mercury in the late 1960s, his grandson said, he continued to run the label for five years.
He then turned his hobby of building homes into a second career.
In partnership with developer Bill Levitt (of Levittown, Pa., fame), he built 18,000 homes in southern Iran.
When the Shah of Iran was driven out of the country in 1979, Green and Levitt's company was taken over by the new government and Green and his associates were provided safe passage back to the United States.
Green then started Landau Development in Palm Springs, which has built hundreds of homes in the area.
Green continued to make weekly site inspections until about a week before he died, his grandson said.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Temple Isaiah, 332 W. Alejo Road, Palm Springs.
In addition to Ross, Green is survived by his wife, Pamela; two daughters, Roberta Hunt and Kelli Ross; two other grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Marvin's sister provides this link to the Palm Springs Desert Sun newspaper. In it is a story about Irvin Green the founder and the owner of MERCURY RECORDS--a pioneer, who among other things "invented," developed and refined aggressive product promotion.
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?s_site=thedesertsun&p_multi=DSSB
&p_product=DSSB&p_
theme=gannett&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=irvin%20AND%20green&s_
dispstring=irvin%20green%20AND%20date()&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no
"Musical Pioneer--Mercury founder instrumental in breaking barriers. Irvin Green of Palm Springs is still doing what he loves as he turns 90 years old today. 'I like to put something together and build it,' he says at his modest office near the Palm Springs Police Department. 'It's an interesting activity' He's talking about the real estate development business. . . . [But] Green started Mercury Records in 1944. . . . Recording legend Quincy Jones said Green broke racial barriers with him . . . . Green attributes his egalitarian attitude to growing up in the poor west side of Chicago with all types of people."
Irv Green was indeed a pioneer. Among other innovations was his MERCURY RECORDS Classical Division. A group of people that included Wilma Cozart, the Division's head in the 1950s and '60s and the first female record-producer. This Division was arguably the most creative in American recorded classical music and even today its production is available on CD.
Its Music Director, Harold Lawrence, has written many stories for my RECOLLECTIONS. They provide first-hand accounts of the record-biz in the 1960s. Read them in my JOURNAL OF RECORDED MUSIC 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11. And his wife Mary Morris Lawrence photographed many of the Mercury artists. Check out her work at MOSTLY MARY MORRIS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Record-lore has it that Mercury Records was set up by Chicago business men to produce records for the Juke boxes in their bars---ONLY IN AMERICA.
After working for his father's paint contracting company, he went into the sheet-metal business with a partner.
They made hydraulic presses and pressed records.
"In those days, 10-inch records sold for at least 79 cents," Green said in the Desert Sun interview. "We were pressing them for others, and we decided to press them for ourselves."
When the use of shellac was restricted during World War II, Green's company produced an innovative plastic record.
"It actually was an unbreakable 10-inch record, whereas shellac was breakable," he said. "That's what started us in the music business. We knew how to make the record, and there was a tremendous shortage of records at the time."
In 1952, Green and five other record industry chief executives formed the Recording Industry Assn. of America, whose mission was to "foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes its members' creativity and financial vitality."
As a record producer and distributor, Green was known for allowing artists to own their copyrights.
"I said, 'I want to stay in the recording business. Let them have their own publishing," he told the Desert Sun. "That's what brought some artists to us, I think. They knew we weren't in any side business. That travels in the industry quite quick. I did not publish any of the music we recorded. I just felt, let them own their own and I would show them how to copyright."
After Green sold Mercury in the late 1960s, his grandson said, he continued to run the label for five years.
He then turned his hobby of building homes into a second career.
In partnership with developer Bill Levitt (of Levittown, Pa., fame), he built 18,000 homes in southern Iran.
When the Shah of Iran was driven out of the country in 1979, Green and Levitt's company was taken over by the new government and Green and his associates were provided safe passage back to the United States.
Green then started Landau Development in Palm Springs, which has built hundreds of homes in the area.
Green continued to make weekly site inspections until about a week before he died, his grandson said.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Temple Isaiah, 332 W. Alejo Road, Palm Springs.
In addition to Ross, Green is survived by his wife, Pamela; two daughters, Roberta Hunt and Kelli Ross; two other grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Marvin's sister provides this link to the Palm Springs Desert Sun newspaper. In it is a story about Irvin Green the founder and the owner of MERCURY RECORDS--a pioneer, who among other things "invented," developed and refined aggressive product promotion.
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?s_site=thedesertsun&p_multi=DSSB
&p_product=DSSB&p_
theme=gannett&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=irvin%20AND%20green&s_
dispstring=irvin%20green%20AND%20date()&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no
"Musical Pioneer--Mercury founder instrumental in breaking barriers. Irvin Green of Palm Springs is still doing what he loves as he turns 90 years old today. 'I like to put something together and build it,' he says at his modest office near the Palm Springs Police Department. 'It's an interesting activity' He's talking about the real estate development business. . . . [But] Green started Mercury Records in 1944. . . . Recording legend Quincy Jones said Green broke racial barriers with him . . . . Green attributes his egalitarian attitude to growing up in the poor west side of Chicago with all types of people."
Irv Green was indeed a pioneer. Among other innovations was his MERCURY RECORDS Classical Division. A group of people that included Wilma Cozart, the Division's head in the 1950s and '60s and the first female record-producer. This Division was arguably the most creative in American recorded classical music and even today its production is available on CD.
Its Music Director, Harold Lawrence, has written many stories for my RECOLLECTIONS. They provide first-hand accounts of the record-biz in the 1960s. Read them in my JOURNAL OF RECORDED MUSIC 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11. And his wife Mary Morris Lawrence photographed many of the Mercury artists. Check out her work at MOSTLY MARY MORRIS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Record-lore has it that Mercury Records was set up by Chicago business men to produce records for the Juke boxes in their bars---ONLY IN AMERICA.
GREAT UNCLE IRVIN GREEN REMEMBERED
According to Bruce Fressier of the Desert Sun, Irvin Green, the Palm Springs-based co-founder of Mercury Records, age 90, died of natural causes at 5 a.m. Saturday at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
Green was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier, co-founding Mercury in 1944 - turning it into the first independent record company to become a major label.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views. "I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
According to Bruce Fressier of the Desert Sun, Irvin Green, the Palm Springs-based co-founder of Mercury Records, age 90, died of natural causes at 5 a.m. Saturday at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
Green was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier, co-founding Mercury in 1944 - turning it into the first independent record company to become a major label.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views. "I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
Co-founder of Mercury Records dies at 90
PALM SPRINGS, Calif., July 3 (UPI) -- Irvin Green, who co-founded Mercury Records and helped launch black recording artists through a jukebox network, has died in Palm Springs, Calif.
He was 90.
Green helped start Mercury in 1944, making it into a major record label by formulating a novel distribution strategy, the Palm Springs Desert Sun said. While the major record companies used network radio, Green promoted jazz, R&B and country western songs through a jukebox network.
He was able to get music played nationally that had previously been known only locally, the Desert Sun reported.
Green built and promoted a "black sound" by backing such greats as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. Mercury helped Louis Armstong get his first No. 1 hit with "Hello Dolly."
Green died of natural causes Saturday morning at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
He is survived by his wife, Pamela.
Monday, July 3, 2006
Mercury Records Founder Irving Green Dies
Irving Green, who founded Mercury Records in 1944 and helped form the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1952, died Saturday, July 1, in Palm Springs, CA. He was 90.
During his long and illustrious career in both the recording and television industries, Green worked with such legendary artists as Nat King Cole, Vic Damone, Tony Martin, The Platters, Alfred Newman, Patti Page, Leslie Gore and Merv Griffin. The Grammy Hall of Fame contains 14 songs from the Mercury Library.
In 1956, Green also began the successful and lucrative practice of licensing songs to television shows, when a song by one of his Mercury artists, Frankie Laine, became the theme song for the long-running Western series Rawhide! In 1964 Green broke new ground when he hired Quincy Jones as VP/Head of R&B, making Jones the first African-American executive ever hired by a white-owned record label.
Earlier this year, Green was honored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and inducted into the NARAS Gold Circle, marking 50 years of service to the television industry.
Green is survived by his wife, Pamela, his two daughters, Kelly Ross and Roberta Hunt, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
— Kevin Carter, R&R CHR/Pop Editor
Irvin Green helped break color barriers
Michelle Yee, The Desert SunIrvin Green, founder of Mercury Records, poses at his home in Palm Springs on Jan. 24.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
more obituaries
No obituaries for Sunday, July 2, 2006
Obituaries for Saturday, July 1, 2006
Obituaries for Friday, June 30, 2006
Obituaries for Thursday, June 29, 2006
Your Voice
Have something to say about it? Join the conversation in Talk of the Day
Bruce Fessier
The Desert Sun
July 2, 2006 July 2, 2006
Irvin Green, the Palm Springs-based co-founder of Mercury Records, was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier.
Green, 90, died of natural causes at 5 a.m. Saturday at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs said his wife, Pamela, who was by his side.
Green co-founded Mercury in 1944 and turned it into the first independent record company to become a major label by using alternative distribution sources.
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green became one of the first inductees in the Gold Circle of the Pacific Southwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in April with other local residents such as Merv Griffin and Paul Burke.
Attracting success
Green was honored for his 1948 aid to Ed Sullivan in booking Mercury artists who were the first blacks to appear on a popular regional telecast.
http://teetimes.thedesertsun.com/beattheheat.asp?CID=BHBA01TDSHe also arranged for Laine to sing on Nat "King" Cole's TV show in 1957, marking the first duet by a white and black man on national TV.
Rancho Mirage resident Jack Rael, who managed Patti Page when she became the first singer to overdub her voice on a national hit on "Tennessee Waltz" for Mercury, said Mercury's Chicago base helped Green attract artists who weren't accepted by major labels on the coasts.
"I went to Mercury because that was the only successful record company where I could drive my small car," said Rael, who was a Milwaukee-based musician before discovering Page in Tulsa, Ok.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views.
"I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
When the U.S. entered World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt restricted shellac for use by the military, so Green's firm invented plastic records. They turned out to be sturdier than shellac and business boomed.
Green gave his first releases to jukebox operators and that got his recordings played in cities before they got on the radio.
With A&R man Mitch Miller finding hit songs for the likes of Laine and Page, Mercury soon opened an office in New York.
A true visionary
"Needless to say, he created what started out as a small independent label and blossomed into one of the major labels in the industry," said Len Levy, a Rancho Mirage resident who headed Epic Records from 1961 until just before Green merged Mercury with Polygram in 1969.
"As the head of that label, he had a major impact as pop music is concerned. He was involved in so many different facets, it's really hard to pinpoint or marginalize the things he did."
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
Green bought a 1936 multi-level home in Palm Springs in the early 1970s and began a new career as a builder. He teamed with Bill Levitt, who invented tract homes in Levittown, Penn., to build 18,000 homes in Iran with a new irrigation design.
The project collapsed when the Shah of Iran was deposed and Green had to flee Iran hiding in the back of a car. But he built a development company in Palm Springs, started Landau Development and finished 52 homes in Rancho Mirage last year alone.
He was still making weekly site inspections at his Landau homes in Cathedral City last spring.
Jones called him a visionary.
"It didn't matter what it was," Jones said. "He understood it."
Services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at Temple Isaiah in Palm Springs followed by a public reception at his daughter Kelli Ross' Palm Springs home.
Besides Kelli and his wife, Pamela, Green is survived by his daughter Roberta Hunt from Wisconsin, three grandchildren and six great-granchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to Pets on Parade at 927 Village Square South, Palm Springs, 92-262. Pets on Parade is a July 16 benefit for Animal Samaritans and The Pegasus Riding Academy for the Handicapped.
Green was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier, co-founding Mercury in 1944 - turning it into the first independent record company to become a major label.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views. "I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
According to Bruce Fressier of the Desert Sun, Irvin Green, the Palm Springs-based co-founder of Mercury Records, age 90, died of natural causes at 5 a.m. Saturday at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
Green was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier, co-founding Mercury in 1944 - turning it into the first independent record company to become a major label.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views. "I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
Co-founder of Mercury Records dies at 90
PALM SPRINGS, Calif., July 3 (UPI) -- Irvin Green, who co-founded Mercury Records and helped launch black recording artists through a jukebox network, has died in Palm Springs, Calif.
He was 90.
Green helped start Mercury in 1944, making it into a major record label by formulating a novel distribution strategy, the Palm Springs Desert Sun said. While the major record companies used network radio, Green promoted jazz, R&B and country western songs through a jukebox network.
He was able to get music played nationally that had previously been known only locally, the Desert Sun reported.
Green built and promoted a "black sound" by backing such greats as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. Mercury helped Louis Armstong get his first No. 1 hit with "Hello Dolly."
Green died of natural causes Saturday morning at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
He is survived by his wife, Pamela.
Monday, July 3, 2006
Mercury Records Founder Irving Green Dies
Irving Green, who founded Mercury Records in 1944 and helped form the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1952, died Saturday, July 1, in Palm Springs, CA. He was 90.
During his long and illustrious career in both the recording and television industries, Green worked with such legendary artists as Nat King Cole, Vic Damone, Tony Martin, The Platters, Alfred Newman, Patti Page, Leslie Gore and Merv Griffin. The Grammy Hall of Fame contains 14 songs from the Mercury Library.
In 1956, Green also began the successful and lucrative practice of licensing songs to television shows, when a song by one of his Mercury artists, Frankie Laine, became the theme song for the long-running Western series Rawhide! In 1964 Green broke new ground when he hired Quincy Jones as VP/Head of R&B, making Jones the first African-American executive ever hired by a white-owned record label.
Earlier this year, Green was honored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and inducted into the NARAS Gold Circle, marking 50 years of service to the television industry.
Green is survived by his wife, Pamela, his two daughters, Kelly Ross and Roberta Hunt, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
— Kevin Carter, R&R CHR/Pop Editor
Irvin Green helped break color barriers
Michelle Yee, The Desert SunIrvin Green, founder of Mercury Records, poses at his home in Palm Springs on Jan. 24.
IRVIN GREEN ARTISTS
Artists who recorded for Mercury Records under Irvin Green and their representative hits:
Frankie Laine, "That's My Desire," "Rawhide"
Patti Page, "Tennessee Waltz," "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window"
Sarah Vaughan, "My Funny Valentine," "Embraceable You"
Dinah Washington, "Harbor Lights," "What A Difference A Day Makes"
Charlie Parker, "Charlie Parker With Strings" CD
Dizzy Gillespie (Phillips Records), "No More Blues," "Desafinado"
Vic Damone, "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again"
Louis Armstrong, "Hello, Dolly!"
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
The Platters: "Only You," 'The Great Pretender"
Brook Benton, "It's Just A Matter of Time," "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" with Dinah Washington
The Big Bopper, "Shantilly Lace"
Lesley Gore, "It's My Party," "You Don't Own Me"
The Smothers Brothers, "Aesop's Fables," "Mom Always Liked You Best"
The Four Seasons (on Phillips) "Dawn (Go Away)," "Rag Doll"
more obituaries
No obituaries for Sunday, July 2, 2006
Obituaries for Saturday, July 1, 2006
Obituaries for Friday, June 30, 2006
Obituaries for Thursday, June 29, 2006
Your Voice
Have something to say about it? Join the conversation in Talk of the Day
Bruce Fessier
The Desert Sun
July 2, 2006 July 2, 2006
Irvin Green, the Palm Springs-based co-founder of Mercury Records, was remembered by friends as a recording pioneer who helped break popular music's color barrier.
Green, 90, died of natural causes at 5 a.m. Saturday at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs said his wife, Pamela, who was by his side.
Green co-founded Mercury in 1944 and turned it into the first independent record company to become a major label by using alternative distribution sources.
While the four majors - RCA, Columbia, Decca and Capitol - promoted their mainstream music through network radio, Mercury distributed jazz, R&B and country western tunes not licensed for network radio through a jukebox network, allowing him to gain national distribution for music that previously had only regional success.
Mercury pioneered a "black sound" by promoting such black artists as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and the Platters. It recorded Louis Armstrong's first No. 1 hit in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!"
It also scored hits by white pop singers such as Vic Damone and the Four Seasons and more folksy artists like Frankie Laine, Patti Page, and Flatt and Scruggs.
Mercury became the first major label to hire a black top executive when Green made Quincy Jones a vice president in charge of artists and repertoire. "Irvin has a broad taste," Jones said in an interview with The Desert Sun in February before Green's 90th birthday. "It was across the board and I think that's what we shared - that diversified taste."
Green became one of the first inductees in the Gold Circle of the Pacific Southwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in April with other local residents such as Merv Griffin and Paul Burke.
Attracting success
Green was honored for his 1948 aid to Ed Sullivan in booking Mercury artists who were the first blacks to appear on a popular regional telecast.
http://teetimes.thedesertsun.com/beattheheat.asp?CID=BHBA01TDSHe also arranged for Laine to sing on Nat "King" Cole's TV show in 1957, marking the first duet by a white and black man on national TV.
Rancho Mirage resident Jack Rael, who managed Patti Page when she became the first singer to overdub her voice on a national hit on "Tennessee Waltz" for Mercury, said Mercury's Chicago base helped Green attract artists who weren't accepted by major labels on the coasts.
"I went to Mercury because that was the only successful record company where I could drive my small car," said Rael, who was a Milwaukee-based musician before discovering Page in Tulsa, Ok.
Green said growing up among all types of people in the poor west side of Chicago gave him his egalitarian views.
"I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said in an interview with The Desert Sun in January, "and that stayed with me forever."
Green attended St. John's University in New York for two years before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and went into sheet metal with a partner. They built hydraulic presses and made records.
When the U.S. entered World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt restricted shellac for use by the military, so Green's firm invented plastic records. They turned out to be sturdier than shellac and business boomed.
Green gave his first releases to jukebox operators and that got his recordings played in cities before they got on the radio.
With A&R man Mitch Miller finding hit songs for the likes of Laine and Page, Mercury soon opened an office in New York.
A true visionary
"Needless to say, he created what started out as a small independent label and blossomed into one of the major labels in the industry," said Len Levy, a Rancho Mirage resident who headed Epic Records from 1961 until just before Green merged Mercury with Polygram in 1969.
"As the head of that label, he had a major impact as pop music is concerned. He was involved in so many different facets, it's really hard to pinpoint or marginalize the things he did."
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappell music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said.
Green bought a 1936 multi-level home in Palm Springs in the early 1970s and began a new career as a builder. He teamed with Bill Levitt, who invented tract homes in Levittown, Penn., to build 18,000 homes in Iran with a new irrigation design.
The project collapsed when the Shah of Iran was deposed and Green had to flee Iran hiding in the back of a car. But he built a development company in Palm Springs, started Landau Development and finished 52 homes in Rancho Mirage last year alone.
He was still making weekly site inspections at his Landau homes in Cathedral City last spring.
Jones called him a visionary.
"It didn't matter what it was," Jones said. "He understood it."
Services will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at Temple Isaiah in Palm Springs followed by a public reception at his daughter Kelli Ross' Palm Springs home.
Besides Kelli and his wife, Pamela, Green is survived by his daughter Roberta Hunt from Wisconsin, three grandchildren and six great-granchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to Pets on Parade at 927 Village Square South, Palm Springs, 92-262. Pets on Parade is a July 16 benefit for Animal Samaritans and The Pegasus Riding Academy for the Handicapped.
All about "The Green's" part one
Irvin Green of Palm Springs is still doing what he loves as he turns 90 years old today.
"I like to put something together and build it," he says at his modest office near the Palm Springs Police Department. "It's an interesting activity."
He's talking about the real estate development business. He built 52 beautiful homes in Rancho Mirage last year. He built 18,000 homes in Iran with the founder of Levittown, Pa., before fleeing the country when the Shah of Iran was deposed.
He still goes on weekly site inspections with his project foreman to his Landau homes in Cathedral City.
But history may say Green's greatest construction project was the recording industry, which he molded like multi-colored clay after World War II.
Green started Mercury Records in 1944. It was the fifth major label in the United States after RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca and Capitol. Most significantly, it was the first that didn't depend upon network radio play to promote its recordings. That meant it could have national hits with music the networks couldn't play: "Race records," as the industry pejoratively called the blues and black jazz, and "hillbilly music," as it deprecatingly called country and western songs.
"I think we were very instrumental in breaking down some of the color line," Green said in another interview in the 1936, multi-level, Mideast-flavored home he's owned since the '70s. "We had no color line. Artists like Dinah Washington or the Platters or Clyde McPhatter, we had no color restrictions of any kind."
The Pacific Southwest region of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will honor Green for his multiracial promotion of musicians April 23 in a ceremony at the La Quinta Resort, it was announced Friday at a birthday party for Green at the Palm Springs Tennis Club.
Board member Robin Montgomery said he will be inducted into its Gold Circle, recognizing 50 years of service to television.
http://gcirm.thedesertsun.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/entertainment.thedesertsun.com/clubs/story.html/378714838/300x250_1/OasDefault/GCI_USAT_Doyles_060601_300x250/image004.gif/34373864623032613434383739343430FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" http://gcirm.thedesertsun.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/entertainment.thedesertsun.com/clubs/story.html/378714838/300x250_1/OasDefault/GCI_USAT_Doyles_060601_300x250/image004.gif/34373864623032613434383739343430Green didn't serve 50 years in the TV industry, but Montgomery said he convinced his friend, Ed Sullivan, to present jazz and blues on his early "Toast of the Town" variety series, and arranged for his recording star Frankie Laine to become the first white performer to sing with an African American host of a national TV show, Nat King Cole, in 1957.
"In Irv's case, an exception was made as he has never been lauded for the emancipation of African-American musicians onto television," she said.
'Love at first sight'
Recording legend Quincy Jones said Green broke racial barriers with him, too. They met while Jones was arranging songs for Mercury recording artist Dinah Washington.
"It was like love at first sight at a Dinah Washington session," he said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. "That was in the '50s. Later on, I became an artist on the label and in the South of France, we hooked up and started to hang out. It just grew and grew and grew. We started to travel together.
"What he did was show me there's a music business. When I first met Irvin, I said, 'We're going to stay in Europe and we're going to make it because the music is good.' I used to get in trouble with the business side, and he said, 'It's called a music business. I'm going to see to it that you understand all sides.'"
"He said, 'I'll make you to the point where you never fear the corporations again in your life.' And not many people tell young black musicians that. In New York at that time, it was exploitation all the way. Irvin was like my big brother."
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappel music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said. "He had magazine publishing, too, with Liberty. It's ironic because I ended up being the founder of Vibe magazine. There are just a few people who will teach you what that's about."
But Green said a secret to his success at Mercury was not publishing his artists' music.
"I said, 'I want to stay in the recording business. Let them have their own publishing,'" said Green. "A lot of times the artist got screwed anyway, but not by me. That's what brought some artists to us, I think. They knew we weren't in any side business. That travels in the industry quite quick. I did not publish any of the music we recorded. I just felt, let them own their own and I would show them how to copyright."
Humble beginnings
Green attributes his egalitarian attitude to growing up in the poor west side of Chicago with all types of people.
"I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said, "and that stayed with me forever."
Gangsters ran Chicago as Green was growing up in Prohibition, but they didn't intrude on Green's business.
"When they were kids, I was a kid, so they let me completely alone because I was their buddy," Green said. "Anybody who would say something about me - 'Oh, no. That's our friend, leave him alone.' I had no problems."
Green attended two years at St. John's University before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and then went into sheet metal with a partner. They made hydraulic presses and pressed records.
"In those days, 10-inch records sold for at least 79 cents," he said. "We were pressing them for others and we decided to press them for ourselves."
When the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt restricted the use of shellac for military reasons. So Green's firm invented plastic records.
"It actually was an unbreakable 10-inch record, whereas shellac was breakable," Green said. "That's what started us in the music business. We knew how to make the record and there was a tremendous shortage of records at the time."
The Chicago-based head of the American Federation of Musicians, Jimmy Petrillo, called a musicians strike in 1942 that halted all recordings except for a cappella vocals through 1944. But, after the strike and the war, Green found a distribution network that didn't depend upon network radio for marketing.
"What I did, I used all the jukebox guys, like Wurlitzer distributors, because we made records and they were the first people to use them," Green said. "I made my distributor the distributor that had a jukebox route. So, if they had a 200-box route, you know the first 200 records went on their boxes. The competition, Victor, Decca and Columbia, they didn't have that privilege."
The big band era died quickly when eight swing bands folded in the first weeks of 1946, but Mercury prospered by signing talent from regional bands that didn't quite fit the swing mold.
Chicago native Frankie Laine sounded black but also sounded convincing on western material. He charted with "We'll Be Together" for Mercury in 1945 and became huge with "That's My Desire" in 1947.
Patti Page was singing for a radio station in Tulsa, Okla., when her manager, Rancho Mirage resident Jack Rael, took her to Chicago and got her signed to Mercury. She also could sing swing or country, as she proved with the mega-hit "Tennessee Waltz." She and Mercury gained fame for being the first to overdub vocals on a popular record.
Mercury's roster soon included bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, pop singers Vic Damone and Merv Griffin, classical artists and jazz players such as Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Nina Simone, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Gerry Mulligan, many of whom he took on tour as a partner on Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic series. He signed Louis Armstrong just before he had his first No. 1 hit with "Hello, Dolly!" in 1964.
"Irvin has a broad taste," said Jones. "That's why he had all those (vocalist) girls. He had everybody, man. It was across the board and I think that's what we shared, that diversified taste."
Green let Jones lead a dream big band on a tour of Europe in the early 1960s that turned into a nightmare. Jones ran out of money in Finland. Green sent funds to help everyone get home.
After that, Green made him the first black vice president of a major record company. Jones initially just worked with the jazz artists, but, soon answered a challenge to actually make some money for the label.
"They said, 'Why don't you make a hit record?' I said, 'It's not a big deal.' Because jazz musicians, there was a syndrome there," Jones said. "And the first record I had out was (Lesley Gore's) 'It's My Party.' I was trying to get her to change her name and I had to go to Tokyo for three weeks. I said, 'We'll fix it when I get back.' So, as soon as I got back it was No. 1. We did it, man. We had 19 hits in four years. Unbelievable."
Green started his next careers after Mercury merged with Polygram in 1969. Looking back, he admits some mistakes. He passed on Elvis Presley when Col. Tom Parker offered him to Mercury for $35,000, including publishing rights.
But he acknowledges some impact in bringing blues and R&B into popular music. Decca had the first great R&B artist in Louis Jordan before Mercury got him, and Atlantic had the best, led by Ray Charles. But Mercury, including the Platters and the Diamonds, probably did the most to blur the line between white and black groups.
"It all became rhythm & blues," Green said. "That beat was first introduced through the black R&B, and that followed into all the pop records. The whites loved it. It wasn't just that sweet ballad of the year before. We all want to tap our foot."
"I like to put something together and build it," he says at his modest office near the Palm Springs Police Department. "It's an interesting activity."
He's talking about the real estate development business. He built 52 beautiful homes in Rancho Mirage last year. He built 18,000 homes in Iran with the founder of Levittown, Pa., before fleeing the country when the Shah of Iran was deposed.
He still goes on weekly site inspections with his project foreman to his Landau homes in Cathedral City.
But history may say Green's greatest construction project was the recording industry, which he molded like multi-colored clay after World War II.
Green started Mercury Records in 1944. It was the fifth major label in the United States after RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca and Capitol. Most significantly, it was the first that didn't depend upon network radio play to promote its recordings. That meant it could have national hits with music the networks couldn't play: "Race records," as the industry pejoratively called the blues and black jazz, and "hillbilly music," as it deprecatingly called country and western songs.
"I think we were very instrumental in breaking down some of the color line," Green said in another interview in the 1936, multi-level, Mideast-flavored home he's owned since the '70s. "We had no color line. Artists like Dinah Washington or the Platters or Clyde McPhatter, we had no color restrictions of any kind."
The Pacific Southwest region of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will honor Green for his multiracial promotion of musicians April 23 in a ceremony at the La Quinta Resort, it was announced Friday at a birthday party for Green at the Palm Springs Tennis Club.
Board member Robin Montgomery said he will be inducted into its Gold Circle, recognizing 50 years of service to television.
http://gcirm.thedesertsun.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/entertainment.thedesertsun.com/clubs/story.html/378714838/300x250_1/OasDefault/GCI_USAT_Doyles_060601_300x250/image004.gif/34373864623032613434383739343430FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" http://gcirm.thedesertsun.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/entertainment.thedesertsun.com/clubs/story.html/378714838/300x250_1/OasDefault/GCI_USAT_Doyles_060601_300x250/image004.gif/34373864623032613434383739343430Green didn't serve 50 years in the TV industry, but Montgomery said he convinced his friend, Ed Sullivan, to present jazz and blues on his early "Toast of the Town" variety series, and arranged for his recording star Frankie Laine to become the first white performer to sing with an African American host of a national TV show, Nat King Cole, in 1957.
"In Irv's case, an exception was made as he has never been lauded for the emancipation of African-American musicians onto television," she said.
'Love at first sight'
Recording legend Quincy Jones said Green broke racial barriers with him, too. They met while Jones was arranging songs for Mercury recording artist Dinah Washington.
"It was like love at first sight at a Dinah Washington session," he said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. "That was in the '50s. Later on, I became an artist on the label and in the South of France, we hooked up and started to hang out. It just grew and grew and grew. We started to travel together.
"What he did was show me there's a music business. When I first met Irvin, I said, 'We're going to stay in Europe and we're going to make it because the music is good.' I used to get in trouble with the business side, and he said, 'It's called a music business. I'm going to see to it that you understand all sides.'"
"He said, 'I'll make you to the point where you never fear the corporations again in your life.' And not many people tell young black musicians that. In New York at that time, it was exploitation all the way. Irvin was like my big brother."
Jones said one of Green's many accomplishments was buying the Chappel music publishing catalog for $42 million in 1962 and selling it 12 years later for $110 million.
"It's worth about a half-billion dollars now," Jones said. "He had magazine publishing, too, with Liberty. It's ironic because I ended up being the founder of Vibe magazine. There are just a few people who will teach you what that's about."
But Green said a secret to his success at Mercury was not publishing his artists' music.
"I said, 'I want to stay in the recording business. Let them have their own publishing,'" said Green. "A lot of times the artist got screwed anyway, but not by me. That's what brought some artists to us, I think. They knew we weren't in any side business. That travels in the industry quite quick. I did not publish any of the music we recorded. I just felt, let them own their own and I would show them how to copyright."
Humble beginnings
Green attributes his egalitarian attitude to growing up in the poor west side of Chicago with all types of people.
"I was brought up in a mixed neighborhood," he said, "and that stayed with me forever."
Gangsters ran Chicago as Green was growing up in Prohibition, but they didn't intrude on Green's business.
"When they were kids, I was a kid, so they let me completely alone because I was their buddy," Green said. "Anybody who would say something about me - 'Oh, no. That's our friend, leave him alone.' I had no problems."
Green attended two years at St. John's University before having to get a job during the Depression. He worked in his father's paint contracting business and then went into sheet metal with a partner. They made hydraulic presses and pressed records.
"In those days, 10-inch records sold for at least 79 cents," he said. "We were pressing them for others and we decided to press them for ourselves."
When the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt restricted the use of shellac for military reasons. So Green's firm invented plastic records.
"It actually was an unbreakable 10-inch record, whereas shellac was breakable," Green said. "That's what started us in the music business. We knew how to make the record and there was a tremendous shortage of records at the time."
The Chicago-based head of the American Federation of Musicians, Jimmy Petrillo, called a musicians strike in 1942 that halted all recordings except for a cappella vocals through 1944. But, after the strike and the war, Green found a distribution network that didn't depend upon network radio for marketing.
"What I did, I used all the jukebox guys, like Wurlitzer distributors, because we made records and they were the first people to use them," Green said. "I made my distributor the distributor that had a jukebox route. So, if they had a 200-box route, you know the first 200 records went on their boxes. The competition, Victor, Decca and Columbia, they didn't have that privilege."
The big band era died quickly when eight swing bands folded in the first weeks of 1946, but Mercury prospered by signing talent from regional bands that didn't quite fit the swing mold.
Chicago native Frankie Laine sounded black but also sounded convincing on western material. He charted with "We'll Be Together" for Mercury in 1945 and became huge with "That's My Desire" in 1947.
Patti Page was singing for a radio station in Tulsa, Okla., when her manager, Rancho Mirage resident Jack Rael, took her to Chicago and got her signed to Mercury. She also could sing swing or country, as she proved with the mega-hit "Tennessee Waltz." She and Mercury gained fame for being the first to overdub vocals on a popular record.
Mercury's roster soon included bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, pop singers Vic Damone and Merv Griffin, classical artists and jazz players such as Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Nina Simone, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Gerry Mulligan, many of whom he took on tour as a partner on Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic series. He signed Louis Armstrong just before he had his first No. 1 hit with "Hello, Dolly!" in 1964.
"Irvin has a broad taste," said Jones. "That's why he had all those (vocalist) girls. He had everybody, man. It was across the board and I think that's what we shared, that diversified taste."
Green let Jones lead a dream big band on a tour of Europe in the early 1960s that turned into a nightmare. Jones ran out of money in Finland. Green sent funds to help everyone get home.
After that, Green made him the first black vice president of a major record company. Jones initially just worked with the jazz artists, but, soon answered a challenge to actually make some money for the label.
"They said, 'Why don't you make a hit record?' I said, 'It's not a big deal.' Because jazz musicians, there was a syndrome there," Jones said. "And the first record I had out was (Lesley Gore's) 'It's My Party.' I was trying to get her to change her name and I had to go to Tokyo for three weeks. I said, 'We'll fix it when I get back.' So, as soon as I got back it was No. 1. We did it, man. We had 19 hits in four years. Unbelievable."
Green started his next careers after Mercury merged with Polygram in 1969. Looking back, he admits some mistakes. He passed on Elvis Presley when Col. Tom Parker offered him to Mercury for $35,000, including publishing rights.
But he acknowledges some impact in bringing blues and R&B into popular music. Decca had the first great R&B artist in Louis Jordan before Mercury got him, and Atlantic had the best, led by Ray Charles. But Mercury, including the Platters and the Diamonds, probably did the most to blur the line between white and black groups.
"It all became rhythm & blues," Green said. "That beat was first introduced through the black R&B, and that followed into all the pop records. The whites loved it. It wasn't just that sweet ballad of the year before. We all want to tap our foot."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
