Relacion historica de la vida y apostolicas tareas del venerable padre Fray Junipero Serra (An Historical Account of the Life and Apostolic Works of the Venerable Father Friar Junipero Serra)

Mexico City: Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1787. First edition. Hardcover. Very good-. Quarto. Collation: [pi]4, [asterisk]10, [1]-43 [in fours] (= 372 leaves). [28], 344 pp., woodcut initial; 2 leaves of engraved plates (1 folded: map). Contemporary vellum (soiled), manuscript title at spine (faded). Endleaves expertly renewed; faint soiling and embrowning at map folds, 2-inch tear through inner margin blank area of map expertly repaired with Japan paper. Text clean and crisp with only occasional mild toning and foxing, else a very good copy with very good map.

First edition (second issue) of what has been called "the most noted of all books relating to California" (Hill). In 1767 the Jesuits were deported from New Spain and the region of California and "were replaced by the Franciscans, who immediately began to establish a series of missions ranging from Baja California as far north as Monterey. In 1768 José de Gálvez, the viceroy general of New Spain, went to the California peninsula where he drew up a master plan to prevent the Russians from taking possession of the western coast of North America. Attempting to bring northern California, known as Alta California, under Spanish control, Gálvez enlisted the aid of Junípero Serra, father-president of the Franciscan mission" (Schwarz & Ehrenberg). The Relacion Historica is based largely on letters sent by Serra (1713-1784) to his brother Franciscan Francisco Palóu (1723-1789), and provide "not only an account of the founding of the missions but interesting details of the various Indian tribes, their manners and customs, together with descriptions of the country" (Sabin). The folding engraved map by Diego Troncoso depicts the extent of European settlement in present-day California eighteen years after the Spanish occupation of California in 1769. It locates nine of the twenty-one missions founded by Serra, along with the four presidios (garrisons) at San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco. "The map is one of the earliest known maps to show a boundary between the two Californias. This line, just below San Diego, demarks the religious jurisdictions of the Dominicans (Antigua) and Franciscan (Nueva) religious orders" (Newman).

Francisco Palóu (1723-1789) followed Serra from Mallorca, serving as his lieutenant throughout most of his more than forty years as a Franciscan missionary. His Noticias de Nueva California, a history of the California missions from 1767 to 1784, "constituted the first general history ever written of the founding of Alta California, or New California, as he loved to call it" (Bolton).

Issue points: First edition, second issue (variant with catchword "PRO-" at end of the "Indice"); "a expensas de Don Miguel Gonzalez Calderon ..." appears on title page; "Mar pacifico" appears on the map. The engraved plate facing the opening of the main text depicts Serra, holding a crucifix, surrounded by members of the indigenous population who have converted Roman Catholicism. Full title and imprint: Relacion historica de la vida y apostolicas tareas del venerable padre Fray Junipero Serra y de las misiones que fundó en la California Septentrional, y nuevos establecimientos de Monterey. Escrita por el R.P.L. Fr. Francisco Palou, guardian actual del Colegio apostólico de S. Fernando de México, y discípulo del venerable fundador: dirigida a su Santa provincia de la regular observancia de Nrô. S.P.S. Francisco de la isla de Mallorca. A expensas de Don Miguel Gonzalez Calderon, sindico de dicho apostolico colegio. Impresa en México, en la imprenta de don Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1787.

References: Cowan & Cowan, Bibliography of the History of California, 1510-1930, vol. 2, p. 472; Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages (2nd ed.) 1289; W. Howes, U.S.iana (1994 ed.) P 56J; T. Medina, Imprenta en México (1539-1821) 7731A; W. Newman, California 49: Forty-Nine Maps of California from the Sixteenth Century to the Present 17; Palau y Dulcet (2nd ed.) 210789F; F. Palóu. H. E. Bolton (ed.), Historical Memoirs of New California (Berkeley, 1926); M. M. Rocq, California Local History (2nd ed.) 17074; Sabin 58392; Schwartz & Ehrenberg, The Mapping of America, p. 174; Streeter Americana 2450; H. R. Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 168; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West 208; Zamorano 80, 59. (Inventory #: 54160)