First Mass

Summer/Fall 1526

Documentation

• Gilbert J. Garraghan, S.J., "Catholic First Things in the United States," Mid-America: An Historical Review, vol. 21 (1939)
• Catholic Church in the United States - Wikipedia

Notes

This is universally recognized as the first Catholic Mass of any kind celebrated on the mainland of the United States. Because the celebrating friars belonged to the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), they naturally used their own unique liturgical format, the Dominican Rite, which had been universally mandated for all Dominican friars since the 13th century. The colony tragically collapsed after only three months due to disease, cold weather, and a slave rebellion, leading the survivors to abandon the site and return to Santo Domingo. Per Gilbert J. Garraghan, S.J. ("Catholic First Things in the United States," Mid-America, 1939), the two Dominicans landed with Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon's expedition on or about September 29, 1526, but the exact location of the mission they founded, San Miguel de Gualdape, was never settled among early historians. Garraghan surveys three competing identifications: Lowery (Spanish Settlements, I, 166), followed by Bolton (The Spanish Borderlands, 17), placed it on the Pedee River in South Carolina -- the location used for this entry. Shea (Catholic Church in the United States, I, 107, and in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, II, 241) instead placed it at the site of the future Jamestown, Virginia, an identification accepted with some reservation by O'Daniel and Kenny. Harrisse (Discovery of North America, 213) placed it on the lower Cape Fear River in North Carolina. Bourne (Spain in America, 140, n. 1) considered the location undeterminable with certainty. Given Shea's stature as a foundational figure in American Catholic historiography, the Virginia identification deserves real weight as an alternative to the South Carolina placement used here.