Junípero Serra founded the first permanent Catholic mission in California at San Diego in 1769.
Serra was a Spanish Franciscan friar born in 1713 on the island of Mallorca. He became a missionary in New Spain and later led the Franciscan effort to establish missions in Alta California, a region then under Spanish rule.
On 16 July 1769, Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá. He went on to establish or oversee missions along the California coast, including missions at Monterey, San Antonio, San Gabriel, and San Francisco. The mission system sought to convert and settle Indigenous peoples, but it also involved coercion, disease, forced labor, and major cultural disruption.
Pope Francis canonized Serra in Washington, D.C., in 2015. His legacy remains contested, so descriptions of his missionary work should acknowledge both the Catholic institutions he founded and the harm experienced by Native communities.