Pirates Come Back to San Juan Capistrano

Forget the swallows. Mission San Juan Capistrano will be raided by pirates today in a fierce battle re-creating an event from 183 years ago.

Actors dressed as ragged buccaneers will storm the gates, while others portraying Spanish soldiers will repel them. The 7-year-old event is the brainchild of Gerald J. Miller, executive director of the mission and a lifelong history buff.

“We’ve had lots of very interesting things happen at the mission,” he said. “I don’t know how many towns you can name that have been sacked and burned by pirates, but this is definitely one of them.”

When Miller took over operations at the mission in 1992, the former investment banker found it in desperate need of repairs and deeply in debt. On the business side, he reduced the staff size and revamped the gift shop. He also began reading up on the mission’s past for inspiration to bring in more visitors and revenue.

The well-known swallows festival, celebrated each March for nearly 60 years, was drawing increasingly smaller crowds as the migratory birds, which once had flocked to the mission, stopped arriving so predictably and began nesting elsewhere--such as the nearby Mission Viejo mall.

The Pirates Festival, the first in a series of programs Miller started, “was a conscious effort to increase our outreach to the community by celebrating those events that are part of our heritage,” he said.

On the last Saturday of each month, the staff and many visitors dress in costumes representative of the Spanish colonial period, during which California’s chain of coastal missions was founded. Each year around Presidents Day, volunteers reenact the 1865 signing by Abraham Lincoln of documents returning ownership of Mission San Juan Capistrano to the Catholic Church, from which it had been appropriated by the Mexican government in 1833. Every October, Russian History Day commemorates the 1768 attempt by that country to occupy what is now Northern California.

But it was the sacking and burning of the town on Dec. 14, 1818, that most captured Miller’s imagination. Hippolyte Bouchard, commander of two pirate ships, had sailed from Hawaii, making stops in Monterey and Santa Barbara. By the time he and his crew reached San Juan Capistrano, they were sorely in need of provisions.

“The messenger had been sent under a flag of truce to demand supplies from the mission town,” Miller wrote in a recent account of the event. “The messenger came back with his tail between his legs. Bouchard’s demands were turned down flat with a promise that if the pirates didn’t shove off, they would be met with ‘an immediate supply of shot and shell.’ ”

That retort turned out to be mostly bravado. When the infuriated pirates attacked, the defenders fired only a few rounds before retreating to the hills. The pirates stayed for four days, plundering the town and enjoying the abundant stores of wine they discovered at the mission.

Part of that saga will be reenacted at today’s festival, which starts at noon. At 4 p.m., the pirates will arrive at the mission gates. Folk dancing, a modern ballet titled “Pirates Prance,” a costume contest and food will be featured.

Miller said his aim is to make the mission “a dynamic place rather than a static museum. The mission belongs to everybody. We want people to know that it is their heritage.”