With Anza to California, 1775–1776: The Journal of Pedro Font, O.F.M (review)

“On the whole,” admitted the late Alan K. Brown, “it is impossible at times not to dislike Father Font” (p. 39). It is not the specters of racism, sexism, or homophobia of our own day—which we would expect from Pedro Font—but rather the friar’s open disclosure of his difficult personality. He is petty, peevish, jealous, critical, and complaining, and at the same time keenly observant, dutiful, and meticulous. To the surprise of his readers then and now, he simply lets it all hang out. He scruples not at all to call a fart a fart (nor does Brown hesitate to translate it so).

Font, accomplished Franciscan and a Catalonian by birth, served as chaplain and “cosmographer” on the famed trek of Juan Bautista de Anza in 1775–76 shepherding colonists overland from Sonora to California. The friar preached, sang, played his psaltery, observed and recorded latitude, described everything that piqued his curiosity, deftly drafted maps and mountain profiles, and kept daily field notes. At the conclusion of the eventful, eight-month round-trip, he prepared a shortened version of his field notes, both in draft and as the clear copy he sent to his superiors. A year later, he had a book-length “final text” ready.

Brown’s volume is a tour de force of historical editing. He combines creatively all of Font’s versions, taking into account “the multitude of additions, corrections, and deletions,” to present for the first time a unified and fluid translation “incorporating all of the information that he found worth recording” (p. 71). Font’s commentaries clearly offered in hindsight, not on the trail, are presented in smaller type (surely for economic reasons). Where such asides go on at length (occasionally with as many as forty long lines on a page), it can be hard on the reader’s eyes. Such musings, however, often are captivating, as when Font anguishes over why God has allowed “the ignorance, misfortune and wretchedness in which the Indians whom I saw all along the way as far as San Francisco harbor live” (p.138). Brown’s informative footnotes are set in even smaller type. An extensive table, “The Days’ Marches: Distances and Bearings in the Three Texts and in Anza’s Journal,” forms a concluding appendix. Most days the friar, sick much of the time, reckoned they had gone farther than the soldier.

This landmark edition calls to mind a similarly rich primary source by Font’s equally condescending Franciscan contemporary, Francisco Atanasio Domínguez, edited by Eleanor B. Adams and Fray Angélico Chávez as The Missions of New Mexico, 1776 (Albuquerque, 1956). Although both friars offer much not contained elsewhere in the documentary record, Font’s focus is on Spain’s newest far-northwestern colony whereas Domínguez’s is on the oldest. The contrasts and similarities are revealing.

Sadly, editor and translator Brown died in September 2009, with his monumental manuscript in “next-to-last draft” (p. 13), but Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz skillfully saw it through to publication.

As for the Indians’ flatulence, Font portrays them seated on the ground, lifting a haunch and letting the dust fly. Once, when lighting Anza’s cigar, an Indian “standing very seriously in front of him with the match stick in his hand, let out a formidable fart, and although the commander told him that was not something that was done, he kept smiling quite undisturbed” (p. 135).Thereby, we learn as much about the friar as about his subject.