Making Parallel Histories out of Spanish Missions

This chapter explores the mission celebrations that developed in Southern California, among newly arrived Anglo settlers and tourists, and between the 1880s and World War I. It talks about mission writers who celebrated the Spanish Franciscans that were led by Junípero Serra and founded missions in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It also argues that the celebrations in the Midwest elevated Catholic missionaries to the status of regional and national founding fathers in ways that naturalized U.S. territorial expansion. The chapter mentions the Serra celebrations that contended with the recent history of violence in Southern California. It describes the war with Mexico and ongoing violence against Mexicans, as well as the murder and displacement of Native Americans.

Making a Founding Father out of a French Jesuit

This chapter explores the development in the upper Midwest from the 1870s to the 1910s of a commemorative culture focusing on Jacques Marquette, the French Jesuit missionary who explored the Mississippi with Louis Jolliet in 1673. It analyzes commemorative culture, with particular attention to race and commerce where Marquette was most often described as the “first white man” of the Midwest. It also explains the idea of a common whiteness and broadly defined Christianity that allowed Marquette's admirers to argue that he was essentially similar to other national founding figures. The chapter ends with an examination of the way Marquette's elevation as a regional founder intersected with the growing midwestern economy. It demonstrates how Marquette is not only recognized as a regional symbol and brand but also how his pious example was mobilized to provide a spiritual gloss to the materialism of a developing center of industry and commerce.