Mission San Rafael Arcángel

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**Mission San Rafael Arcángel**
Location	San Rafael, California
The reconstructed capilla (chapel) at Mission San Rafael Arcángel on a rainy day in December, 2004.
Name as Founded	La Misión del Gloriosísimo Príncipe San Rafael, Arcángel ^[1]
English Translation	The Mission of the Glorious Prince, Archangel Saint Raphael
Patron	The Glorious Prince Saint Raphael, Archangel ^[2]
Nickname(s)	"Mission of Bodily Healing" ^[3]
Founding Date	December 14, 1817 ^[4]
Founding Priest(s)	Father Vicente Francisco de Sarría ^[5]
Founding Order	Twentieth ^[2]
Military District	Fourth
Native Place Name(s)	'Anaguani ^[6]
Baptisms	1,821 ^[7]
Marriages	519 ^[7]
Burials	652 ^[7]
Secularized	1834 ^[2]
Returned to the Church	1855 ^[2]
Governing Body	Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco
Current Use	Chapel / Museum
California Historical Landmark	#220
Web Site	http://saintraphael.com

Mission San Rafael Arcángel was founded on December 14, 1817 as a medical asistencia ("sub-mission") of the Mission San Francisco de Asís as a hospital to treat sick Indians, making it Alta California's first sanitarium.^[8] The weather was much better in the North Bay, and helped the ill to get better. It was never intended to be a stand-alone mission, but nevertheless grew and was granted full mission status on October 19, 1822. Likewise, Mission San Francisco Solano was intended to be an adjunct of Mission San Rafael but developed into a full-blown mission in its own right.

1 Precontact
2 History
3 Notes
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Precontact

The current prevailing theory postulates that Paleo-Indians entered the Americas from Asia via a land bridge called "Beringia" that connected eastern Siberia with present-day Alaska (when sea levels were significantly lower, due to widespread glaciation) between about 15,000 to 35,000 years ago. The remains of Arlington Springs Man on Santa Rosa Island are among the traces of a very early habitation in California, dated to the last ice age (Wisconsin glaciation) about 13,000 years ago. The first humans are therefore thought to have made their homes among the southern valleys of California's coastal mountain ranges some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago; the earliest of these people are known only from archaeological evidence.^[9] The cultural impacts resulting from climactic changes and other natural events during this broad expanse of time were negligible; conversely, European contact was a momentous event, which profoundly affected California's native peoples.^[10]

[edit] History

Mission San Rafael Arcángel was one of the first missions turned over to the Mexican government in 1833. In 1840, there were 150 Indians still at the Mission. By 1844, Mission San Rafael Arcángel had been abandoned; what was left of the empty buildings was sold for $8,000 in 1846. The Mission was used by John C. Fremont as his headquarters during the battles to make California a United States possession (see Bear Flag Revolt). In 1847, a priest was once again living at the Mission. A new parish church was built near the old chapel ruins in 1861, and, in 1870, the rest of the ruins were removed to make room for the City of San Rafael. All that was left of the Mission was a single pear tree from the old Mission's orchard; it is for this reason that San Rafael is known as the "most obliterated of California's missions." ^[3] In 1949, Monsignor Thomas Kennedy rebuilt and restored the chapel.

Today the Mission San Rafael Arcángel sits next to the St. Raphael Parish of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, on the site of the original hospital in San Rafael, California. It is open to visitors and has a small museum and gift shop.

Interior of the capilla (chapel) at Mission San Rafael Arcángel taken May 10, 2008

[edit] Notes

^ Leffingwell, p. 157
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Krell, p. 295
^ ^a ^b Ruscin, p. 167
^ Yenne, p. 174
^ Ruscin, p. 196
^ Ruscin, p. 195
^ ^a ^b ^c Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
^ Ruscin, p. 169
^ Paddison, p. 333: The first undisputable archaeological evidence of human presence in California dates back to circa 8,000 BCE.
^ Jones and Klar 2005, p. 53: "Understanding how and when humans first settled California is intimately linked to the initial colonization of the Americas."

[edit] References

Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London.
Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, MD. ISBN 0-759-10872-2.
Krell, Dorothy (ed.) (1979). The California Missions: A Pictorial History. Sunset Publishing Corporation, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-376-05172-8.
Leffingwell, Randy (2005). California Missions and Presidios: The History & Beauty of the Spanish Missions. Voyageur Press, Inc., Stillwater, MN. ISBN 0-89658-492-5.
Paddison, Joshua (ed.) (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-890771-13-9.
Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA. ISBN 0-932653-30-8.
Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8.