During the latter half of the 18th century, the Spanish government embarked upon an ambitious plan to establish a string of missions up the coast of California, stretching from the Baja Peninsula up to Monterey Bay in the north. Though these missions were to be managed by the Franciscans, the Spaniards’ motive was not entirely evangelical—for many years the Russians had been extending their explorations down the Pacific coast of North America, such that Spain’s King Carlos III feared their encroachment upon lands claimed by Spain in Alta California (today’s U.S. state of California). This land had been claimed by Spain since the Vizcaino expedition of 1603, which had discovered Monterey Bay. Spanish settlement since Vizcaino’s visit had been sluggish, however; as late as the 1760s the Spaniards still had no permanent settlements north of the Baja Peninsula. King Carlos’s plan of establishing a chain of Franciscan missions up the coast of Alta California would not only bring the region’s natives under Spanish influence, but would create a string of outposts tying the farflung territory into the broader network of Spanish missions and outposts strecthing down to Mexico City. This ambitious plan would lead to the founding—and destruction—of the first of California’s historic Spanish missions at San Diego de Alcalá.
The Portolá Expedition
In 1768, the Governor of the Californias Don Gaspar de Portolá was dispatched by the Viceroy of New Spain on an expedition of exploration and settlement up the coast of Baja California. Portolá’s objective was Monterey Bay, which had not been visited by Spain since 1603. Portolá was ordered to found two missions, one at Monterey in the north, and another at San Diego Bay, at the southern end of the territory. These two missions being established, the Spaniards could then fill in the middle, establishing missions roughly two days’ journey apart up the coastline. For the founding of the missions, Portolá brought along none other than St. Junipero Serra, the famed Franciscan missionary who would serve as the founder and administrator of the new missions.
Portolá and Fr. Serra came to San Diego Bay in July of 1769 and founded the mission San Diego de Alcalá. Besides serving as Spain’s southern outpost in Alta California, mission San Diego would minister to the natives of the Kumeyaay tribe who inhabited the region. Fr. Serra entrusted the day to day oversight of the missions to Fray Luis Jayme, who had only just arrived from Spain and was entirely new to the missions.
Hard Life at Mission San Diego
San Diego de Alcalá was a brutal crash course in missionary life, and Fr. Jayme would endure many hardships. Fr. Jayme was aided by only two padres, as well as a handful of Spanish troops who lived in the presidio, a small fortified structure serving as barracks and administrative center located a few miles from the mission. Beyond these, Jayme depended upon the good will of the Kumeyaay to survive.
It was a rough start. In Fr. Jayme’s first year, flash lood waters from the San Diego River destroyed the entire crop. The second year he ordered seeds planted further from the river banks, but water was so scarce that the second year’s crop perished from lack of moisture. In 1773 it was decided that the mission had to be moved further inland, and the entire settlement was relocated to its current site four away. The mission was thus still unsettled five years after its founding. When St. Junipero Serra arrived to check on Fr. Jayme in January of 1774, the adobe church at the new site was still not complete, and Serra was told that the entire mission had been suviving on half rations since the preceding summer.
Though abundant water at the new site made agriculture easier, the harvests were still small, scarcely enough to support the mission staff and soldiers let alone the growing ranks of Kumeyaay converts who came to live on the mission grounds. This scarcity of resources would prove a major problem in how the Franciscans interacted with the natives. Typically, converts would live on site to learn Christian living from the padres and be educated in the trades. But by 1775 there were over 400 baptized Kumeyaay (whom the friars called Diegueños), most of whom who could not live at San Diego. Instead, the friars sent the Diegueños to live in surrounding settlements, where they were observed and led in prayer by the better-catechized among them. Nevertheless, this was a system bound to cause mischief, as without the continual oversight of the friars, the Diegueños contiually lapsed back into their pagan lifeways. Fr. Jayme and his attendants continually wrestled with their converts to maintain the most basic standards of Christian morality.
Rising Tensions
The disciplinary problems among the Diegueños would lead to the uprising that ultimately destroyed the mission in 1775. On October 2, Fr. Jayme and his associate Fr. Vincent Fuster allowed some natives to go for a day’s excursion into the nearby hills under the leadership of two brothers, Carlos and Francisco, Diegueño chiefs who served as leaders of the converts. On the road, the brothers met and robbed two elderly non-Christian women of their bags of seeds and fish. The women made a complaint to the padres about the brothers’ behavior. When Carlos and Francisco heard about this, they fled during the night, fearing to be disciplined for their thievery. A handful of other discontents joined them in the wilderness.
While Fr. Jayme was busy dealing with the natives, most of the soldiers were dispatched from the mission to help build a second mission further up the coast, what would become San Juan Capistrano. Fr. Jayme was thus left relatively unprotected at San Diego, his only defense being a tiny garrison of four soldiers left behind.
At first Fr. Jayme thought little of the brothers’ flight. After all, Indian converts were notoriously inconsistent, and it was not unusual for them to come and go as fancy struck them. But what Fr. Jayme did not know was that the brothers had spent the better part of October roving up and down the coast inciting revolt. The brothers’ turn to rebellion was incited by another incident at the mission, in which Fr. Vincent Fuster had a few Diegueños flogged for participating in a pagan dance. By October 1775, the Diegueño settlements were clustered uncomfortably close to the mission, and an atmosphere of disorder was emerging. The padres sternly warned the Diegueños to move their settlement away from the walls of the mission; Fr. Fuster had even threatened to set fire to their huts if they refused. In anger, many of the villagers had fled and joined the brothers.
In the following days the padres were warned of danger several times. Fr. Jayme sent a native interpreter into the hills to plead with Carlos and Francisco to return. The interpreter returned empty-handed, but told Fr. Jayme that there was a plot afoot to burn the mission and massacre the missionaries and soldiers. Fr. Jayme simply refused to believe it. He had labored for over five years among the Kumeyaay and made hundreds of converts. He loved the Indians too much to believe the story. He went so far as to punish those who reported it as spreaders of falsehood. Fr. Jayme’s incredulity would prove fatal.
Fire and Blood in San Diego
By the end of the month Carlos and Francisco’s supporters had swollen to between six hundred and one thousand. They resolved to attack San Diego on the next full moon. Half their number would surround the mission, the other half would move up the valley and attack the presidio. All Spaniards were to be killed. A group of native women would accompany the men to plunder the mission buildings and carry whatever they could into the hills.
The attack unfolded on the evening of November 4, 1775. It was a clear, moonlit night. Hundreds of Indians surrounded the mission shortly past midnight, undetected by the friars. They first took control of the huts of the Christian Indians and threatened them with death if they made noise or tried to escape. Meanwhile, others crept into the church and began removing the holy statues of the Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph, handing them to the women to be carried off. They broke into the chests that held the vestments and sacred furnishings as well. Surprisingly enough, not even the sound of this ransacking awoke the few soldiers on hand, who were sound asleep in their quarters. The Spaniards were not awakened until one of the attackers set fire to the mission buildings.
Fr. Vincent Fuster is the primary eyewitness to the events of Nov. 4. Fuster recounts that, upon realizing what was happening, he rushed to the soldiers’ barracks where he found them already firing their muskets. All mission staff had gathered there for protection, save Fr. Jayme, who was nowhere to be found. Fr. Fuster saw one of the soldiers slumped on the floor, gravely wounded. The carpenter, a man named Urcelino, grabbed a musket and began firing. He was soon pierced by an arrow. Urcelino cried out, “Ha, Indian, you have killed me! God forgive you!” Though he survived the initial attack, Ureclino would succumb to his wound and died five days later.
Fr. Jayme, meanwhile, had walked out of his quarters into the commotion. The padre seemed calm, unperturbed even. He walked with his customary tranquility, arms outstretched in greeting. “Love God, my childen,” he admonished them. The Indians were in no mood for his piety; they seized him and threw him into a nearby ditch. There they stripped him down to his underwear, shot him with over a dozen arrows, then finished him off by pulverizing his face with stones and clubs.
The defenders eventually congregated in the mission kitchen, which became the object of the most furious attack of the Indians. Writing to St. Junipero Serra three days later, Fr. Fuster said:
It is impossible to estimate for Your Reverence the number of arrows that were aimed at my head and which terminated their flight in the adobes, but thanks be to God not a single one hit me. (1)
At one point, an arrow actually struck the cushion Fr. Fuster was using to shield his face. Many other times the defenders were endangered by the firebrands hurled by the Indians. Many fell dangerously close to the soldiers’ powder stores.
The attack continued throughout the night. The soldiers made vows to fast and hear Masses if they should be delivered, and Fr. Fuster encouraged recourse to God and the Blessed Virgin. “So long did the night seem that it appeared like the enduring pains of Purgatory,” Fuster wrote. (2) To the beleagurd Spaniards, it seemed as if Mary was granting their petitions:
And it seems that the Holy Mother sensibly heard our supplications, for many times I took the burning firebrands right off the top of the powder bag. In this place where I was, I received a terrible blow from a stone which hit me on the shoulder and though I felt the pain of the blow, I tried not to show it outwardly in order not to afflict the others with me nor did I say anything about it until after two days when it became necessary to apply some ointment of oil. (3)
Fortunately for the defenders, the Indians gave off the attack at the rising of the sun and moved off into the hills. The second group of natives that was supposed to attack the presidio had never materialized, fearing the wrath of the soldiers and likely unaware of how few were actually on the premises. Had both bands convened simultaneously upon the kitchen the defenders surely would have been wiped out.
The Aftermath
As soon as the attack was over, Fr. Fuster went off to search for Fr. Jayme. The dead padre was found in the ditch by those who went to find water. Fr. Fuster describes the harrowing scene:
Great was my sorrow when I laid my eyes upon his person for I saw him totally disfigured. I realized his death had been a most cruel one which indeed was to the liking of the barbarians. I saw that he was entirely naked except for the drawers that he wore, his chest and body pitted like a sieve from the savage blows…of the clubs and stones. Finally, I recognized him as Father Luis only insofar as my eyes noted the whiteness of his skin and the tonsure of his head. It is fortunate that they did not scalp him as is customary among thes barbarians when they kill their enemies. Hardly had I looked at my departed Father and companion when I fainted, nor did I return to my senses for some time. Who knows what would have happened to me if the [Christian] Indian women, when they saw me fall on the body of the deceased Father, had not caught me in their arms. (4)
Besides Fr. Luis Jayme, one of the blacksmiths had been killed; as noted above, the carpenter Urcelino also died from his wounds a few days later. The survivors took their dead and retired to the presidio. Fr. Fuster walked the entire four mile journey beside the stretcher bearing the body of his friend. Their funerals were held on November 6 (today, Fr. Luis Jayme is entombed beside the altar in the present church). Afterwards, Fr. Fuster sent soldiers back to the mission to scavenge whatever could be salvaged—door hinges, agricultural tools, and any wheat that had not been burned. Almost everything else had been destroyed though.
St. Junipero Serra returned to the site in 1776 to oversee its rebuilding. The reestablishment of the mission proved long and arduous for the same reasons its initial construction had been so challening. It took over two years for the mission to regain some semblance of normalcy; the new church was not completed until 1790. From 1778 to 1795, the mission focused on horse and mule breeding rather than evangelism, provisioning other missions in Alta and Baja California an average of sixteen animals per year. After it’s regular mission activities resumed in the 1797, San Diego de Alcalá saw a record number of conversions recorded when 565 baptisms were performed, swelling the total number of the Catholic Diegueño community to over 1400.
Today, San Diego de Alcalá continues as a functioning parish, having been a constant feature of Catholic life in southern California for over two centuries. No doubt, the blood of Fr. Luis Jayme was not shed in vain.
(1) Don DeNevi & Noel Francis Moholy, Junipero Serra (Harper Row: San Francisco, 1985), 151
(2) Ibid., 152
(3) Ibid.
(4) Ibid., 153
Phillip Campbell, “The 1775 Burning of San Diego de Alcalá,” Unam Sanctam Catholicam, Octobr 27, 2025. Available online at https://unamsanctamcatholicam.com/2025/10/the-1775-burning-of-san-diego-de-alcala