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Guide to the Mission Santa Clara Manuscript Collection
R.G. 1
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Title: Mission Santa Clara Manuscript Collection
Identifier/Call Number: R.G. 1
Contributing Institution:
Santa Clara University Library Archives & Special Collections
Language of Material:
Spanish, some Latin, English, Catalan, French and Italian.
Physical Description:
21.11 linear feet,
39 boxes
Date: 1777-1903, 1958, 2002 (bulk 1777-1851)
Abstract: The Mission Santa Clara Manuscript Collection, 1777-1903, 1958, 2002 (bulk 1777-1851), consists of hundreds of manuscripts
written, collected and used by the Franciscans at Mission Santa Clara, from the founding of the Mission in 1777 until the
arrival of the Jesuits in 1851. The Franciscan missionaries wrote and collected numerous and diverse documents, including
sacramental records, account books, annual reports, letters, choirbooks, and instructions on health care and cuisine, among
others. The majority of the manuscripts are in Spanish. The collection is arranged into nine series: Series I: Sacramental
Records; Series II: Informes (Mission Reports); Series III: Fr. Viader’s Miscellany Book; Series IV: Ecclesiastical and Governmental
Correspondence; Series V: Secularization and the Formation of California’s First Diocese; Series VI: Personal Legal and Financial
Records; Series VII: Music Manuscripts; Series VIII: Alta California Manuscripts; and Series IX: Pictorial Materials, Ephemera
and Reproductions.
Physical Location: This collection is located in Santa Clara University Library's Archives & Special Collections.
The collection is open for research.
Materials in Archives & Special Collections may be subject to copyright. All requests for permission to publish from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the University Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Archives & Special
Collections as the owner of the physical materials, and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder,
which must also be obtained. Copyright restrictions also apply to digital reproductions of the original materials.
The Mission Santa Clara Manuscript Collection, Record Group 1, Santa Clara University Library Archives & Special Collections.
Guide created by Erin M. Louthen and Deborah Oropeza in 2014. Guide encoded by Erin M. Louthen in 2014. Revised guide created
by Deborah Oropeza and encoded by Shannon Hartman in 2015.
This project was generously funded by Michel and Mary Orradre, long-time benefactors and friends of Santa Clara University.
Mission Santa Clara was founded in January of 1777 by the Franciscan Friar Tomás de la Peña on the banks of the Guadalupe
River. The Mission relocated four times until it was finally established at the current site in 1825. Mission Santa Clara
was the eighth of 21 Franciscan missions established in Alta California (Upper California) throughout the years 1769-1823,
as Spain attempted to consolidate its power in the region as well as to evangelize its native population. These missions were
governed by the
Colegio de San Fernando in Mexico City until 1833, when Mission Santa Clara and other northern missions were entrusted to the
Colegio de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Zacatecas, Mexico.
Mission Santa Clara was established in the land of the Ohlone people; however, over time, other indigenous groups including
the Yokut and the Miwok joined the Mission. In 1823 the Indian population of Mission Santa Clara ascended to 1,395. The Franciscans
devoted themselves to their spiritual duties, in that they taught the Catholic doctrine and dispensed the sacraments to the
Indians (and also to those who lived in the pueblo of San José). But the Franciscan missionaries had other responsibilities,
for Mission Santa Clara was not only a church, it was an extensive and complex institution which included housing for the
missionaries, the Spanish troops, and the Indians; the kitchen; the cemetery; agricultural fields; grazing lands for the cattle;
a corral and slaughter yards; a tannery; a granary; manufacturing sites for textiles and adobe blocks, as well as a threshing
floor for the grain. By the 1830s Mission Santa Clara administered 80,000 acres of land, and it also owned thousands of heads
of major and minor livestock and produced substantial quantities of various crops.
The 1830s marked a definite transformation in the history of the California missions, including Mission Santa Clara, for in
1833 the Mexican government (Mexico had gained its independence from Spain in 1821) decided to secularize these missions.
Secularization intended to transfer the mission churches from the Franciscans to the secular, or diocesan, clergy, to appoint
a lay commissioner to administer the mission property, and to distribute some of the property among the population. Mission
Santa Clara was secularized in December of 1836. The Franciscans continued to direct the spiritual affairs of the mission
since there was no secular clergy to replace them, but the Mission’s vast landholdings were partitioned (benefitting mainly
the social elite). The Mission Santa Clara population rapidly fell, and by 1845 only 130 Indians remained.
In March of 1851, Bishop Joseph Alemany turned Mission Santa Clara over to Father John Nobili, S.J. The Jesuit was to act
as parish priest and to open the school that would become Santa Clara University.
Mission Santa Clara Manuscripts, Digital Collection:
http://content.scu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/msc
Mission Santa Clara Book Collection:
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf967nb3tr/
Mission Santa Clara Map Collection:
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6199n80r/
Papers of Arthur Dunning Spearman, S.J.:
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6r29n8f2/
Mission Santa Clara Daguerreotype, circa 1854:
http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt6x0nc7qk/?layout=metadata
“An Accurate Survey of Mission Santa Clara History, 1777-1851,” author unknown, circa 1890s. Santa Clara University Archives
& Special Collections, unpublished manuscript.
Spearman, Arthur Dunning, S.J. “Some Notes on the Archives of the University of Santa Clara, Past and Present,” 1957. Santa
Clara University Archives & Special Collections, typescript.
Ford, Henry Chapman. “History of the California Missions,” circa 1880s. Santa Clara University Archives & Special Collections,
manuscript, 9 volumes.
The collection is arranged into nine series: Series I: Sacramental Records; Series II: Informes (Mission Reports); Series
III: Fr. Viader’s Miscellany Book; Series IV: Ecclesiastical and Governmental Correspondence; Series V: Secularization and
the Formation of California’s First Diocese; Series VI: Personal Legal and Financial Records; Series VII: Music Manuscripts;
Series VIII: Alta California Manuscripts; and Series IX: Pictorial Materials, Ephemera and Reproductions.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Mission Santa Clara Manuscript Collection, 1777-1903, 1958, 2002 (bulk 1777-1851), consists of hundreds of manuscripts
written, collected and used by the Franciscans at Mission Santa Clara, from the founding of the Mission in 1777 until the
arrival of the Jesuits in 1851. The Franciscan missionaries wrote and collected numerous and diverse documents, including
sacramental records, account books, annual reports, letters, choirbooks, and instructions on health care and cuisine, among
others. The majority of the manuscripts are in Spanish.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Catalá, Magín, 1761-1830
Colegio Apostólico de Propaganda Fide de San Fernando
Durán, Narciso, 1776-1846
García Diego y Moreno, Francisco, 1785-1846
Murguía, Joseph, 1715-1784
Nobili, John, 1812-1856
Osio, Antonio María, 1800-1878
Peña Saravia, Tomás de la, 1743-1806
Santa Clara College (Calif.)
Santa Clara University (Calif.)
Serra, Junípero, 1713-1784
Viader, José, b. 1765
Account books
Alta California
Annual reports
Baptismal records
Burial records
California--Church history
California--History--To 1851--Archival resources
Confirmation records
Cooking--California--18th and 19th centuries
Correspondence
Franciscans--California
Franciscans-–Mexico--History
Indians of North America--Missions--California--Archival resources
Legal documents
Marriage records
Medicine--California--History
Mexico--History--18th century
Mexico--History--19th century
Missions, Spanish--California--History--Archival resources
Missions, Spanish--Economic aspects--California--Archival resources
Missions--California
Music--Manuscripts
Ohlone Indians--Missions--California
Santa Clara Mission--Archives
Secularization--Mexico--History--19th century