About A Cross of Thorns
I was first prompted to consider writing this book 2004 when I wrote an op-ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle criticizing a proposed U.S. Senate bill to provide $10 million in matching federal funds to help restore the Missions. The Senate version of the bill mistakenly described the Missions as places where the Indian and Spanish cultures lovingly melded to create California’s early lifestyle.
In that op-ed, I described the Missions as little more than death camps run by Franciscan friars where thousands of California’s Indians perished. My goal was not to oppose the restorations but rather to advocate that, if the bill was approved, the truth regarding the treatment of the Indians—including the great numbers who died—be clearly described at each of the Mission sites.
The reaction to the article astounded me as numerous readers overwhelmingly supported what I had written. One elementary school teacher told me she had refused to teach her pupils anything about the Missions because she knew how the Indians had suffered within them. Others praised my piece saying: “It’s about time the truth was told about the Missions.”
Shortly after the publication of the op-ed, I learned it had been read in its entirety into the United States Congressional Record by then-Congressman Jim Gibbons of Nevada (later Governor Gibbons of Nevada) who cautioned that, in the wake of my op-ed, care should be taken in the wording of the bill in view of the suffering endured by the Indians. All language praising the Missions was removed when the House passed the bill that was subsequently signed by President George W. Bush.
Having my article read into the Congressional Record was the final factor that solidified my resolve to write this book.
ELIAS CASTILLO
Craven Street Books
A Cross of Thorns is available from major bookstores and in electronic format or you may order it directly from the publisher,
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Author Elias Castillo 1939-2020
In writing A Cross of Thorns, Elias Castillo spent more than eight years meticulously researching historic documents including diaries and letters written by Saint Junipero Serra and padres Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, Francisco Palou, and Mariano Payeras. Castillo’s goal was to write a book that would shatter the myth that California's missions were pleasant places where Indians and friars lived in harmony. Instead, his goal was to help readers understand the forces that ultimately destroyed native communities and cultures that had existed for thousands of years and led to the deaths of more than 60,000 California Indians.
Released in 2015, A Cross of Thorns drew praise from Indian groups and major publications, and now is being taught in classes at the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, Monterey State University, Sonoma State University and Oklahoma State University plus several California community colleges.
Elias Castillo was a three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and earned 13 journalism awards in a career that included reporting for the Associated Press and the San Jose Mercury News. Under a grant from National Geographic magazine, he led the first scientific exploration of Mexico’s vast Copper Canyon, located in one of the most isolated areas of North America.
Castillo was born in Mexicali, Mexico, where his step-grandfather, Jose Severo Castillo, a renowned newspaper publisher, exposed political corruption. As a journalist, Elias Castillo reported frequently on criminal organizations, politics and immigration issues in Mexico and spoke to audiences at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club and the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. He co-authored a chapter in the book Organized Crime & Democratic Governability: Mexico and the U.S.- Mexican Borderlands (University of Pittsburgh Press).
Castillo earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from San Jose State University.
