Hispanic Catholicism in Transitional California: The Life of José González Rubio, O.F.M. (1804-1875) by Michael Charles Neri (review)

BOOK REVIEWS657 Abandonment might have saved Garces. Instead, Commandant General Teodoro de Croix endorsed a low-budget compromise: two isolated, makeshift communities, each with two Franciscan missionaries, ten soldiers, ten farmers, and five laborers, all with their dependents, set out in the winter of 1780-81 on the California side of the Colorado across from today'sYuma,Arizona. Using quotations to good effect, Santiago conveys the growing tension as two or three thousand Quechans, fewer than two hundred colonists, and four Franciscans jostled to survive in a spare environment. Although some Spaniards feared trouble, everyone relied on Father Garces to keep the peace. When the Quechan uprising erupted inJuly, 1781, it closely resembled a hundred others, down to the scheming, vindictive Hispanicized native interpreter who turned on his former masters. During the massacre, after scores of men, women, and children had been killed or taken captive, Salvador Palma allegedly ordered that Garces be spared. Francisco Xavier refused to listen. Hence, the overland road to California was closed. Several punitive expeditions failed to humble the Quechans or capture their rebellious leaders. Spanish officials masked their shame in the boast that thirty armed men could force passage anytime they chose, but they never did. John L. Kessell University ofNew Mexico Hispanic Catholicism in Transitional California: The Life ofJosé Gonzalez Rubio, O.EM. (1804-1875). By Michael Charles Neri. [Academy of American Franciscan History: Monograph Series, Volume 14.] (Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History. 1997. Pp. xii, 175. $30.00.) While historians and the reading public have long been familiar with Archbishop Jean B. Lamy's troubles with his native New Mexican clergy, similar episodes developed in the Pacific West after American conquest. Two Spanishborn bishops in Gold Rush California attempted to introduce greater regularity in clerical discipline and in the religious traditions practiced by Mexican Catholics. Joseph Sadoc Alemany archbishop of San Francisco, and Thaddeus Amat, bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles, faced monumental challenges in establishing their respective sees. Their unfortunate clashes with certain members of their flocks have attracted only passing scholarly attention, principally because of the more irenic resolution of the most drastic conflict in Santa Barbara. These pacific results were due in large measure to the efforts of the cleric who is the subject of this fine biography. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, José González Rubio entered the Franciscan Order, was ordained in 1827, and later affiliated with the friars' missionary college of Our Lady of Guadalupe of Zacatecas for assignment to the Alta Cali- 658BOOK REVIEWS fornia missions. He held numerous administrative posts in California between 1833 and his death in 1875, and was secretary to the first bishop of the Californias in 1842. Upon that prelate's demise, González Rubio assumed administration of the diocese and negotiated a turbulent interregnum, 1846 to 1850, when the United States seized California in the war with Mexico, followed by massive immigration with the discovery of gold in 1848. With few priests, little money, and enormous needs for ministry, the Franciscan "administrator of the miter" capably managed as best he could to serve a vast multi-national flock. The author makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of the history of the West and of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States in his careful explanation of the complexities that González Rubio resolutely faced. Neri explains the social and economic catastrophes that befell Spanish-speaking Catholics with the imposition of American legal, political, and economic systems . He notes how these jarring changes coincided with the more rigorous religious discipline introduced with the arrival of the hierarchy in San Francisco and Monterey-Los Angeles. Ironically, the man who had labored hardest to preserve the Church during the earlier years of turmoil found himself the object of the ire of his new bishop,Thaddeus Amat. Neri offers a balanced and even-handed account of the origins of the serious disagreements Amat found with the Franciscan community in Santa Barbara, where González Rubio resided and served. Even when Amat suspended the Franciscan's priestly faculties, González Rubio never publicly criticized the ordinary of the diocese. This priest's action contrasted with his clerical counterpart in Taos, José Antonio Martinez...