Abattre ou défendre les statues de Fr. Junipero Serra, « père fondateur », saint « hispanique » et « père génocide »

Abstract

Like other statues in the same year, those of California missionary Junipero Serra were targeted by hostile demonstrations, with inscriptions and stains of red paint symbolizing the blood and crimes of the man and the system he represents. Yet this man, who led the evangelization effort in Upper California in the late 18th century was canonized in 2015. This canonization, the fruit of a long effort, was carried through by the first Latin American Pope, Francis, who clearly integrated it into a sequence of defending Mexicans and Mexican-Americans against the attacks from the Republican Party and in particular Donald Trump, who had just launched his campaign. This canonization can thus be understood as an effort to value the original Spanish contribution to the construction of what would later become the United States. With this choice, Pope Francis went against his own policy further south, where he had proposed an apology from the Catholic Church for the violence against the indigenous populations during the Conquest and colonization. Yet, for the groups, especially indigenous ones, that have targeted the statues and denounced his canonization, Serra is the representative of a system that contributed to the cultural and physical destruction of indigenous societies, not only through evangelization but more generally through the forced colonial system of missions and forced labor. Serra's figure is illuminating of the intertwined conflicts, tensions, and dominations still active today, linked to the imperial and colonial legacies of American nation-building.

Keywords

• United States
• Native Americans
• California
• Missions
• Colonization