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Spanish missions in California

January 12, 2023

The Spanish missions in California (Spanish: Misiones españolas en California) formed a series of 21 religious outposts or missions established between 1769 and 1833 in what is now the U.S. state of California. The missions were established by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order to evangelize indigenous peoples backed by the military force of the Spanish Empire. The missions were part of the expansion and settlement of New Spain through the formation of Alta California, expanding the empire into the most northern and western parts of Spanish North America. Civilian settlers and soldiers accompanied missionaries and formed settlements like the Pueblo de Los Ángeles.[2]

The locations of the 21 Franciscan missions in Alta California.
A view of Mission San Juan Capistrano. At left is the façade of the first adobe church with its added espadaña; behind the campanario, or "bell wall" is the "Sacred Garden." The Mission has earned a reputation as the "Loveliest of the Franciscan Ruins."[1]

Indigenous peoples were forced into settlements called reductions,[3] disrupting their traditional way of life and negatively affecting as many as one thousand villages.[2] European diseases spread in the close quarters of the missions, causing mass death.[4] Abuse, malnourishment, and overworking were common.[5] At least 87,787 baptisms and 63,789 deaths occurred.[6] Indigenous peoples often resisted and rejected conversion to Christianity.[7] Some fled the missions while others formed rebellions.[7] Missionaries recorded frustrations with getting indigenous people to internalize Catholic scripture and practice.[7] Indigenous girls were taken away from their parents and housed at monjeríos.[8] The missions' role in destroying Indigenous culture has been described as cultural genocide.[5]

By 1810, Spain's king had been imprisoned by the French, and financing for military payroll and missions in California ceased.[9] In 1821, Mexico achieved independence from Spain, yet did not send a governor to California until 1824. The missions maintained authority over indigenous peoples and land holdings until the 1830s. At the peak of their influence in 1832, the coastal mission system controlled approximately one-sixth of Alta California.[10] The First Mexican Republic secularized the missions with the Mexican secularization act of 1833, which emancipated indigenous peoples from the missions. Mission lands were largely given to settlers and soldiers, along with a minority of indigenous people.[7]

The surviving mission buildings are the state of California's oldest structures and most-visited historic monuments, many of which were restored after falling into near disrepair in the early 20th century.They have become a symbol of California, appearing in many movies and television shows, and are an inspiration for Mission Revival architecture. Concerns have been raised by historians and Indigenous peoples of California about the way the mission period in California is taught in educational institutions and memorialized.[8] The oldest European settlements of California were formed around or near Spanish missions, including the four largest: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco.

Alta California mission planning, structure and culture

Coastal mission chain, planning and overview

Prior to 1754, grants of mission lands were made directly by the Spanish Crown. But, given the remote locations and the inherent difficulties in communicating with the territorial governments, power was transferred to the viceroys of New Spain to grant lands and establish missions in North America.[11] Plans for the Alta California missions were laid out under the reign of King Charles III, and came at least in part as a response to recent sightings of Russian fur traders along the California coast in the mid 1700s.[12] The missions were to be interconnected by an overland route which later became known as the Camino Real. The detailed planning and direction of the missions was to be carried out by Friar Junípero Serra, O.F.M. (who, in 1767, along with his fellow priests, had taken control over a group of missions in Baja California Peninsula previously administered by the Jesuits).

The Rev. Fermín Francisco de Lasuén took up Serra's work and established nine more mission sites, from 1786 through 1798; others established the last three compounds, along with at least five asistencias (mission assistance outposts).[13]

Shelved plans for additional mission chains

Work on the coastal mission chain was concluded in 1823, completed after Serra's death in 1784. Plans to build a twenty-second mission in Santa Rosa in 1827 were canceled.[notes 1]

The Rev. Pedro Estévan Tápis proposed establishing a mission on one of the Channel Islands in the Pacific Ocean off San Pedro Harbor in 1784, with either Santa Catalina or Santa Cruz (known as Limú to the Tongva residents) being the most likely locations, the reasoning being that an offshore mission might have attracted potential people to convert who were not living on the mainland, and could have been an effective measure to restrict smuggling operations.[14] Governor José Joaquín de Arrillaga approved the plan the following year; however, an outbreak of sarampión (measles) killing some 200 Tongva people coupled with a scarcity of land for agriculture and potable water left the success of such a venture in doubt, so no effort to found an island mission was ever made.

In September 1821, the Rev. Mariano Payeras, "Comisario Prefecto" of the California missions, visited Cañada de Santa Ysabel east of Mission San Diego de Alcalá as part of a plan to establish an entire chain of inland missions. The Santa Ysabel Asistencia had been founded in 1818 as a "mother" mission. However, the plan's expansion never came to fruition.

Mission sites, selection and layout

Main article: Architecture of the California missions
 
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, circa 1910. This mission is architecturally distinctive because of the strong Moorish lines exhibited.
 
The Missionaries as They Came and Went. Franciscans of the California missions donned gray habits, in contrast to the brown that is typically worn today.[15]

In addition to the presidio (royal fort) and pueblo (town), the misión was one of the three major agencies employed by the Spanish sovereign to extend its borders and consolidate its colonial territories. Asistencias ("satellite" or "sub" missions, sometimes referred to as "contributing chapels") were small-scale missions that regularly conducted Mass on days of obligation but lacked a resident priest;[16] as with the missions, these settlements were typically established in areas with high concentrations of potential native converts.[17] The Spanish Californians had never strayed from the coast when establishing their settlements; Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad was located farthest inland, being only some thirty miles (48 kilometers) from the shore.[18] Each frontier station was forced to be self-supporting, as existing means of supply were inadequate to maintain a colony of any size. California was months away from the nearest base in colonized Mexico, and the cargo ships of the day were too small to carry more than a few months’ rations in their holds. To sustain a mission, the padres required converted Native Americans, called neophytes, to cultivate crops and tend livestock in the volume needed to support a fair-sized establishment. The scarcity of imported materials, together with a lack of skilled laborers, compelled the missionaries to employ simple building materials and methods in the construction of mission structures.

 
A drawing of Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo prepared by Captain George Vancouver depicts the grounds as they appeared in November 1792. From A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World.

Although the missions were considered temporary ventures by the Spanish hierarchy, the development of an individual settlement was not simply a matter of "priestly whim." The founding of a mission followed longstanding rules and procedures; the paperwork involved required months, sometimes years of correspondence, and demanded the attention of virtually every level of the bureaucracy. Once empowered to erect a mission in a given area, the men assigned to it chose a specific site that featured a good water supply, plenty of wood for fires and building materials, and ample fields for grazing herds and raising crops. The padres blessed the site, and with the aid of their military escort fashioned temporary shelters out of tree limbs or driven stakes, roofed with thatch or reeds (cañas). It was these simple huts that ultimately gave way to the stone and adobe buildings that exist to the present.

The first priority when beginning a settlement was the location and construction of the church (iglesia). The majority of mission sanctuaries were oriented on a roughly east–west axis to take the best advantage of the sun's position for interior illumination; the exact alignment depended on the geographic features of the particular site. Once the spot for the church had been selected, its position was marked and the remainder of the mission complex was laid out. The workshops, kitchens, living quarters, storerooms, and other ancillary chambers were usually grouped in the form of a quadrangle, inside which religious celebrations and other festive events often took place. The cuadrángulo was rarely a perfect square because the missionaries had no surveying instruments at their disposal and simply measured off all dimensions by foot. Some fanciful accounts regarding the construction of the missions claimed that tunnels were incorporated in the design, to be used as a means of emergency egress in the event of attack; however, no historical evidence (written or physical) has ever been uncovered to support these assertions.[19][notes 2]

Franciscans and native conscription

 
An illustration depicts the death of the Rev. Luís Jayme by angry natives at Mission San Diego de Alcalá, November 4, 1775.[20] The independence uprising was the first of a dozen similar incidents that took place in Alta California during the Mission Period; however, most rebellions tended to be localized and short-lived due to the Spaniards' superior weaponry (native resistance more often took the form of non-cooperation (in forced labor), return to their homelands (desertion of forced relocation), and raids on mission livestock).[21][22][notes 3][23][notes 4]

The Alta California missions, known as reductions (reducciones) or congregations (congregaciones), were settlements founded by the Spanish colonizers of the New World with the purpose of totally assimilating indigenous populations into European culture and the Catholic religion. It was a doctrine established in 1531, which based the Spanish state's right over the land and persons of the Indies on the Papal charge to evangelize them. It was employed wherever the indigenous populations were not already concentrated in native pueblos. Indians were congregated around the mission proper through forced resettlement, in which the Spanish "reduced" them from what they perceived to be a free "undisciplined'" state with the ambition of converting them into "civilized" members of colonial society.[24] The civilized and disciplined culture of the natives, developed over 8,000 years, was not considered. A total of 146 Friars Minor, mostly Spaniards by birth, were ordained as priests and served in California between 1769 and 1845. Sixty-seven missionaries died at their posts (two as martyrs: Padres Luis Jayme and Andrés Quintana), while the remainder returned to Europe due to illness, or upon completing their ten-year service commitment.[25] As the rules of the Franciscan Order forbade friars to live alone, two missionaries were assigned to each settlement, sequestered in the mission's convento.[26] To these the governor assigned a guard of five or six soldiers under the command of a corporal, who generally acted as steward of the mission's temporal affairs, subject to the priests' direction.[27]

Indians were initially attracted into the mission compounds by gifts of food, colored beads, bits of bright cloth, and trinkets. Once a Native American "gentile" was baptized, they were labeled a neophyte, or new believer. This happened only after a brief period during which the initiates were instructed in the most basic aspects of the Catholic faith. But, while many natives were lured to join the missions out of curiosity and sincere desire to participate and engage in trade, many found themselves trapped once they were baptized.[28] On the other hand, Indians staffed the militias at each mission[29] and had a role in mission governance.

 
Georg von Langsdorff, an early visitor to California, sketched a group of Costeño dancers at Mission San José in 1806. "The hair of these people is very coarse, thick, and stands erect; in some it is powdered with down feathers," Langsdorff noted. "Their bodies are fantastically painted with charcoal dust, red clay, and chalk. The foremost dancer is ornamented all over with down feathers, which gives him a monkey-like appearance; the hindermost has had the whimsical idea of painting his body to imitate the uniform of a Spanish soldier, with his boots, stockings, breeches, and upper garments."[30]

To the padres, a baptized Indian person was no longer free to move about the country, but had to labor and worship at the mission under the strict observance of the priests and overseers, who herded them to daily masses and labors. If an Indian did not report for their duties for a period of a few days, they were searched for, and if it was discovered that they had left without permission, they were considered runaways. Large-scale military expeditions were organized to round up the escaped neophytes. Sometimes, the Franciscans allowed neophytes to escape the missions, or they would allow them to visit their home village. However, the Franciscans would only allow this so that they could secretly follow the neophytes. Upon arriving to the village and capturing the runaways, they would take back Indians to the missions, sometimes as many as 200 to 300 Indians.[31]

On one occasion," writes Hugo Reid, "they went as far as the present Rancho del Chino, where they tied and whipped every man, woman and child in the lodge, and drove part of them back.... On the road they did the same with those of the lodge at San Jose. On arriving home the men were instructed to throw their bows and arrows at the feet of the priest, and make due submission. The infants were then baptized, as were also all children under eight years of age; the former were left with their mothers, but the latter kept apart from all communication with their parents. The consequence was, first, the women consented to the rite and received it, for the love they bore their children; and finally the males gave way for the purpose of enjoying once more the society of wife and family. Marriage was then performed, and so this contaminated race, in their own sight and that of their kindred, became followers of Christ.[28]

A total of 20,355 natives were "attached" to the California missions in 1806 (the highest figure recorded during the Mission Period); under Mexican rule the number rose to 21,066 (in 1824, the record year during the entire era of the Franciscan missions).[32][notes 5] During the entire period of Mission rule, from 1769 to 1834, the Franciscans baptized 53,600 adult Indians and buried 37,000. Dr. Cook estimates that 15,250 or 45% of the population decrease was caused by disease. Two epidemics of measles, one in 1806 and the other in 1828, caused many deaths. The mortality rates were so high that the missions were constantly dependent upon new conversions.[28]

Young native women were required to reside in the monjerío (or "nunnery") under the supervision of a trusted Indian matron who bore the responsibility for their welfare and education. Women only left the convent after they had been "won" by an Indian suitor and were deemed ready for marriage. Following Spanish custom, courtship took place on either side of a barred window. After the marriage ceremony the woman moved out of the mission compound and into one of the family huts.[33] These "nunneries" were considered a necessity by the priests, who felt the women needed to be protected from the men, both Indian and de razón ("instructed men", i.e. Europeans). The cramped and unsanitary conditions the girls lived in contributed to the fast spread of disease and population decline. So many died at times that many of the Indian residents of the missions urged the priests to raid new villages to supply them with more women.[6]

Death rate at the missions

As of December 31, 1832 (the peak of the mission system's development) the mission padres had performed a combined total of 87,787 baptisms and 24,529 marriages, and recorded 63,789 deaths.[6] The death rate at the missions, particularly of children, was very high and the majority of children baptized did not survive childhood.[34][35] At Mission San Gabriel, for instance, three of four children died before reaching the age of two.[36]

The high rate of death at the missions have been attributed to several factors, including disease, torture, overworking, malnourishment, and cultural genocide.[5] Forcing native people into close quarters at the missions spread disease quickly. While being kept at the missions, native people were transitioned to a Spanish diet that left them more unable to ward off diseases, the most common being dysentery, fevers with unknown causes, and venereal disease.[4]

The death rate has been compared to that of other atrocities. American author and lawyer Carey McWilliams argued that "the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps."[37]

No. Name Baptisms and/or Indigenous population Deaths and/or remaining pop. Notes
1 Mission San Diego de Alcalá 6,638 baptisms total[34]

(2,685 children)[35]

 4,428 deaths toal[34] From 1810-1820, "the death rate among the neophytes was 77% of baptisms and 35% of the population." Only 34 families remained after the mission was secularized in 1833.[35]
2 Mission San Luis Rey de Francia 5,401 baptisms total (1,862 children)[35]

2,869 people in 1826[34]
3 Mission San Juan Capistrano 4,317 baptisms total (2,628 children)[35] 3,153 deaths total[35]
4 Mission San Gabriel Arcángel 7,854 baptisms total (2,459 children)[34]

1,701 people in 1817[34]

 5,656 deaths total (2,916 children)[34]

1,320 people in 1834[34]

 A missionary reported that three out of four children died at the mission before reaching the age of 2.[36]
5 Mission San Fernando Rey de España 1,367 children baptized

1,080 people in 1819[34]

 965 children died[34] "It was not strange that the fearful death rate both of children and adults at the missions sometimes frightened the neophytes into running away."[38]
6 Mission San Buenaventura 3,805 baptisms total (1,909 children)[35]

1,330 people in 1816[34]

 626 people remaining in 1834[35] Hubert Howe Bancroft estimated that there were about 250 people in 1840 remaining from the mission living in scattered communities.[35]
7 Mission Santa Barbara 1,792 people in 1803[34] 556 people remaining in 1834[34] "At such a rate it would not, even if mission rule had continued, have taken more than a dozen years to depopulate the mission."[34]
8 Mission Santa Inés 757 children baptized

770 people in 1816[34]

 519 children died

334 people remaining in 1834[34]
9 Mission La Purísima Concepción 1,492 children baptized total

1,520 people in 1804[34]

 902 children died

407 people in remaining in 1834[34]
10 Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa 2,608 baptisms total (1,331`children)

852 people in 1803[34]

 264 people remaining in 1834[34]
11 Mission San Miguel Arcángel 2,588 baptisms total

1,076 people in 1814[34]

 2,038 deaths total

599 people remaining in 1834[34]

 "The lowest death rate in any of the missions."[34]
12 Mission San Antonio de Padua 4,348 baptisms total (2,587 children)[34]

1,296 people in 1805[34]

 567 people remaining in 1834[34]
13 Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad 2,222 baptisms total

725 people in 1805[34]

 1,803 deaths total

300 people remaining[34]
14 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo 971 people in 1794, 758 in 1800, 513 in 1810, 381 in 1820[35] 150 people remaining in 1834[34] "At the rate of decrease under mission rule, a few more years would have produced... the extinction of the mission Indian."[34]
15 Mission San Juan Bautista 1,248 people in 1823[34] 850 people remaining in 1834[34] "The only mission whose population increased from 1810 to 1820. This was due to the fact that its numbers were recruited from the eastern tribes."[34] "The appalling smell from the graveyard saturated the entire Mission building."[4]
16 Mission Santa Cruz 2,466 baptisms total

644 people in 1798[34]

 2,034 deaths total

250 people remaining in 1834[34]
17 Mission Santa Clara de Asís 7,711 baptisms (3,177 children)

927 people in 1790, 1,464 in 1827[35]

 150 people remaining in 1834[35] Very sharp decline in the native population from 1827 to 1834. "The death rate at the mission was very high."[35]
18 Mission San José 6,737 baptisms total

1,754 people in 1820[34]

 5,109 deaths total[34]
19 Mission San Francisco de Asís 880 deaths in 1806 alone[39] "An epidemic [in 1806] had broken out in the Mission Dolores and a number of the Indians were transferred to San Rafael to escape the plague."[34]
20 Mission San Rafael Arcángel 1,873 baptisms total

1,140 people in 1828[34]

 698 deaths total

Less than 500 people remaining[34]
21 Mission San Francisco Solano 1,315 baptisms total

996 people in 1832[34]

 651 deaths total

About 550 people remaining[34]

Mission labor

At least 90,000 Indigenous peoples were kept in well-guarded mission compounds throughout the state as de facto slaves.[40] The policy of the Franciscans was to keep them constantly occupied. Bells were vitally important to daily life at any mission. The bells were rung at mealtimes, to call the Mission residents to work and to religious services, during births and funerals, to signal the approach of a ship or returning missionary, and at other times; novices were instructed in the intricate rituals associated with the ringing the mission bells. The daily routine began with sunrise Mass and morning prayers, followed by instruction of the natives in the teachings of the Roman Catholic faith. After a generous (by era standards) breakfast of atole, the able-bodied men and women were assigned their tasks for the day. The women were committed to dressmaking, knitting, weaving, embroidering, laundering, and cooking, while some of the stronger girls ground flour or carried adobe bricks (weighing 55 lb, or 25 kg each) to the men engaged in building. The men worked a variety of jobs, having learned from the missionaries how to plow, sow, irrigate, cultivate, reap, thresh, and glean. They were taught to build adobe houses, tan leather hides, shear sheep, weave rugs and clothing from wool, make ropes, soap, paint, and other useful duties.

 
"Ya Viene El Alba" ("The Dawn Already Comes"), typical of the hymns sung at the missions.[41]

The work day was six hours, interrupted by dinner (lunch) around 11:00 a.m. and a two-hour siesta, and ended with evening prayers and the rosary, supper, and social activities. About 90 days out of each year were designated as religious or civil holidays, free from manual labor. The labor organization of the missions resembled a slave plantation in many respects.[42][notes 6] Foreigners who visited the missions remarked at how the priests' control over the Indians appeared excessive, but necessary given the white men's isolation and numeric disadvantage.[43][notes 7] Subsequently, the Missions operated under strict and harsh conditions; A ‘light’ punishment would’ve been considered 25 lashings (azotes).[44] Indians were not paid wages as they were not considered free laborers and, as a result, the missions were able to profit from the goods produced by the Mission Indians to the detriment of the other Spanish and Mexican settlers of the time who could not compete economically with the advantage of the mission system.[45]

The Franciscans began to send neophytes to work as servants of Spanish soldiers in the presidios. Each presidio was provided with land, el rancho del rey, which served as a pasture for the presidio livestock and as a source of food for the soldiers. Theoretically the soldiers were supposed to work on this land themselves but within a few years the neophytes were doing all the work on the presidio farm and, in addition, were serving domestics for the soldiers. While the fiction prevailed that neophytes were to receive wages for their work, no attempt was made to collect the wages for these services after 1790. It is recorded that the neophytes performed the work "under unmitigated compulsion."[28]

In recent years, much debate has arisen about the priests' treatment of the Indians during the Mission period, and many believe that the California mission system is directly responsible for the decline of the native cultures.[43][notes 8] From the perspective of the Spanish priest, their efforts were a well-meaning attempt to improve the lives of the heathen natives.[46][notes 9][47][notes 10]

The missionaries of California were by-and-large well-meaning, devoted men...[whose] attitudes toward the Indians ranged from genuine (if paternalistic) affection to wrathful disgust. They were ill-equipped—nor did most truly desire—to understand complex and radically different Native American customs. Using European standards, they condemned the Indians for living in a "wilderness," for worshipping false gods or no God at all, and for having no written laws, standing armies, forts, or churches.[48]

Franciscan violence against native population

The Franciscan arrival to Alta California, saw a wave of torture, rape and murder towards the Native population of California. Native Californians, attracted to the Missions by the promise of food and gifts, would be banned from leaving and any form of escape would usually be met with a severe beating and chaining. Any form of Native rebellion would not be tolerated due to numerical disadvantage facing the Franciscans. When Native Women attempted to abort their unborn children - which they had conceived as a byproduct of rape, The Friars would have them beaten, chained in iron, shaved, and stipulated to stand in-front of the altar each mass with a decorated wooden newborn.[49] This trend of violence was due to the Franciscans' desire for a greater Hispanicized population in Alta California, both for protection against a foreign invasion and for a labor force to benefit the Spanish Empire. As a result a higher emphasis of Native reproduction was a duty taken on by the Spanish Fransicans. Tejana Born Feminist Historian, Antonia Castañeda reports in great detail of the treatment that would occur in Mission Santa Cruz:

“Father Olbes at Mission Santa Cruz ordered an infertile couple to have sexual intercourse in his presence because he did not believe they could not have children. The couple refused, but Olbes forcibly inspected the man's penis to learn ‘whether or not it was in good order’ and tried to inspect the woman's genitalia.13 She refused, fought with him, and tried to bite him. Olbes ordered that she be tied by the hands, and given fifty lashes, shackled, and locked up in the monjerío (women's dormitory). He then had a monigote made and commanded that she "treat the doll as though it were a child and carry it in the presence of everyone for nine days." While the woman was beaten and her sexuality demeaned, the husband, who had been intimate with another woman, was ridiculed and humiliated. A set of cow horns was tied to his head with leather thongs, thereby converting him into a cuckold, and he was herded to daily Mass in cow horns and fetters”.[50]

Franciscan Priests would also forbid any form of native culture in the Mission system. This would include but not be limited to, songs, dances, and ceremonies. They objectified the destruction of any form of morality, ideology or personality that characterized the Native life. Women, in particular, would face a higher degree of punishment. Those who did not comply with the Missions demands would be labeled a witch, dehumanizing them for further violence. Professor at the University of Chicago, Ramon Guttiriez states: “One can interpret the whole history of the persecution of Indian women as witches ... as a struggle over [these] competing ways of defining the body and of regulating procreation as the church endeavored to constrain the expression of desire within boundaries that clerics defined proper and acceptable."{ Gutierrez, "Sexual Mores and Behavior," 701.}[51]

Mission industries

 
A view of the Catalan forges at Mission San Juan Capistrano, the oldest existing facilities (circa 1790s) of their kind in the State of California. The sign at the lower right-hand corner proclaims the site as being "...part of Orange County's first industrial complex."

The goal of the missions was, above all, to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. Farming, therefore, was the most important industry of any mission. Barley, maize, and wheat were among the most common crops grown. Cereal grains were dried and ground by stone into flour. Even today, California is well known for the abundance and many varieties of fruit trees that are cultivated throughout the state. The only fruits indigenous to the region, however, consisted of wild berries or grew on small bushes. Spanish missionaries brought fruit seeds over from Europe, many of which had been introduced from Asia following earlier expeditions to the continent; orange, grape, apple, peach, pear, and fig seeds were among the most prolific of the imports. Grapes were also grown and fermented into wine for sacramental use and again, for trading. The specific variety, called the Criolla or Mission grape, was first planted at Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1779; in 1783, the first wine produced in Alta California emerged from the mission's winery. Ranching also became an important mission industry as cattle and sheep herds were raised.

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel unknowingly witnessed the origin of the California citrus industry with the planting of the region's first significant orchard in 1804, though the commercial potential of citrus was not realized until 1841.[52] Olives (first cultivated at Mission San Diego de Alcalá) were grown, cured, and pressed under large stone wheels to extract their oil, both for use at the mission and to trade for other goods. The Rev. Serra set aside a portion of the Mission Carmel gardens in 1774 for tobacco plants, a practice that soon spread throughout the mission system.[53][notes 11]

It was also the missions' responsibility to provide the Spanish forts, or presidios, with the necessary foodstuffs, and manufactured goods to sustain operations. It was a constant point of contention between missionaries and the soldiers as to how many fanegas[54] of barley, or how many shirts or blankets the mission had to provide the garrisons on any given year. At times these requirements were hard to meet, especially during years of drought, or when the much anticipated shipments from the port of San Blas failed to arrive. The Spaniards kept meticulous records of mission activities, and each year reports submitted to the Father-Presidente summarizing both the material and spiritual status at each of the settlements.

 
Natives utilize a primitive plow to prepare a field for planting near Mission San Diego de Alcalá.

Livestock was raised, not only for the purpose of obtaining meat, but also for wool, leather, and tallow, and for cultivating the land. In 1832, at the height of their prosperity, the missions collectively owned:

All these grazing animals were originally brought up from Mexico. A great many Indians were required to guard the herds and flocks on the mission ranches, which created the need for "...a class of horsemen scarcely surpassed anywhere."[27] These animals multiplied beyond the settler's expectations, often overrunning pastures and extending well-beyond the domains of the missions. The giant herds of horses and cows took well to the climate and the extensive pastures of the Coastal California region, but at a heavy price for the California Native American people. The uncontrolled spread of these new herds, and associated invasive exotic plant species, quickly exhausted the native plants in the grasslands,[56] and the chaparral and woodlands that the Indians depended on for their seed, foliage, and bulb harvests. The grazing-overgrazing problems were also recognized by the Spaniards, who periodically had extermination parties cull and kill thousands of excess livestock, when herd populations grew beyond their control or the land's capacity. Years with a severe drought did this also.

Mission kitchens and bakeries prepared and served thousands of meals each day. Candles, soap, grease, and ointments were all made from tallow (rendered animal fat) in large vats located just outside the west wing. Also situated in this general area were vats for dyeing wool and tanning leather, and primitive looms for weaving. Large bodegas (warehouses) provided long-term storage for preserved foodstuffs and other treated materials.

 
Mission Santa Barbara's lavandería was constructed by Chumash neophytes around 1806.

Each mission had to fabricate virtually all of its construction materials from local materials. Workers in the carpintería (carpentry shop) used crude methods to shape beams, lintels, and other structural elements; more skilled artisans carved doors, furniture, and wooden implements. For certain applications bricks (ladrillos) were fired in ovens (kilns) to strengthen them and make them more resistant to the elements; when tejas (roof tiles) eventually replaced the conventional jacal roofing (densely packed reeds) they were placed in the kilns to harden them as well. Glazed ceramic pots, dishes, and canisters were also made in mission kilns.

Prior to the establishment of the missions, the native peoples knew only how to utilize bone, seashells, stone, and wood for building, tool making, weapons, and so forth. The missionaries established manual training in European skills and methods; in agriculture, mechanical arts, and the raising and care of livestock. Everything consumed and otherwise utilized by the natives was produced at the missions under the supervision of the padres; thus, the neophytes not only supported themselves, but after 1811 sustained the entire military and civil government of California.[57] The foundry at Mission San Juan Capistrano was the first to introduce the Indians to the Iron Age. The blacksmith used the mission's forges (California's first) to smelt and fashion iron into everything from basic tools and hardware (such as nails) to crosses, gates, hinges, even cannon for mission defense. Iron in particular was a commodity that the mission acquired solely through trade, as the missionaries had neither the know-how nor technology to mine and process metal ores.

No study of the missions is complete without mention of their extensive water supply systems. Stone zanjas (aqueducts, sometimes spanning miles, brought fresh water from a nearby river or spring to the mission site. Open or covered lined ditches and/or baked clay pipes, joined together with lime mortar or bitumen, gravity-fed the water into large cisterns and fountains, and emptied into waterways where the force of the water was used to turn grinding wheels and other simple machinery, or dispensed for use in cleaning. Water used for drinking and cooking was allowed to trickle through alternate layers of sand and charcoal to remove the impurities. One of the best-preserved mission water systems is at Mission Santa Barbara.[58]

History

Beginning in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the Kingdom of Spain sought to establish missions to convert indigenous people in Nueva España (New Spain), which consisted of the Caribbean, Mexico, and most of what is now the Southwestern United States) to Roman Catholicism. This would facilitate colonization of these lands awarded to Spain by the Catholic Church, including that region later known as Alta California.[notes 12][notes 13][59][notes 14]

Early Spanish exploration

Only 48 years after Columbus discovered the Americas for Europe, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado set out from Compostela, New Spain on February 23, 1540, at the head of a large expedition. Accompanied by 400 European men-at-arms (mostly Spaniards), 1,300 to 2,000 Mexican Indian allies, several Indian and African slaves, and four Franciscan friars, he traveled from Mexico through parts of the southwestern United States to present-day Kansas between 1540 and 1542.[60][61] Two years later on 27 June 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo set out from Navidad, Mexico and sailed up the coast of Baja California and into the region of Alta California.[62]

Secret English claims

Unknown to Spain, Sir Francis Drake, an English privateer who raided Spanish treasure ships and colonial settlements, claimed the Alta California region as Nova Albion for the English Crown in 1579, a full generation before the first English landing in Jamestown in 1607. During his circumnavigation of the world, Drake anchored in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco, California, establishing friendly relations with the Coastal Miwok and claiming the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. However, Drake sailed back to England and England (and later Britain) never pressed for any sort of claim regarding the region.[63][64][65][66]

Russian exploration

However, it wasn't until 1741 that the Spanish monarchy of King Philip V was stimulated to consider how to protect his claims to Alta California. Philip was spurred on when the territorial ambitions of Tsarist Russia were expressed in the Vitus Bering expedition along the western coast on the North American continent.[67][68][notes 15][69][notes 16]

Spanish expansion

California represents the "high-water mark" of Spanish expansion in North America as the last and northernmost colony on the continent.[70] The mission system arose in part from the need to control Spain's ever-expanding holdings in the New World. Realizing that the colonies required a literate population base that the mother country could not supply, the Spanish government (with the cooperation of the Church) established a network of missions to convert the indigenous population to Christianity. They aimed to make converts and tax-paying citizens of those they conquered.[47][notes 17] To make them into Spanish citizens and productive inhabitants, the Spanish government and the Church required the indigenous people to learn Spanish language and vocational skills along with Christian teachings.[71]

Estimates for the pre-contact indigenous population in California are based on a number of different sources and vary substantially, from 133,000,[72] to 225,000,[73] to as high as 705,000 from more than 100 separate tribes or nations.[74][75][notes 18][notes 19]

On January 29, 1767, Spain's King Charles III ordered the new governor Gaspar de Portolá to forcibly expel the Jesuits, who operated under the authority of the Pope and had established a chain of fifteen missions on the Baja California Peninsula.[76][notes 20] Visitador General José de Gálvez engaged the Franciscans, under the leadership of Friar Junípero Serra, to take charge of those outposts on March 12, 1768.[77] The padres closed or consolidated several of the existing settlements, and also founded Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá (the only Franciscan mission in all of Baja California) and the nearby Visita de la Presentación in 1769. This plan, however, changed within a few months after Gálvez received the following orders: "Occupy and fortify San Diego and Monterey for God and the King of Spain."[78] The Church ordered the priests of the Dominican Order to take charge of the Baja California missions so the Franciscans could concentrate on founding new missions in Alta California.

Mission period (1769–1833)

 
The first recorded baptisms in Alta California were performed in "The Canyon of the Little Christians."[79]

On July 14, 1769 Gálvez sent the Portolá expedition out from Loreto to explore lands to the north. Leader Gaspar de Portolá was accompanied by a group of Franciscans led by Junípero Serra. Serra's plan was to extend the string of missions north from the Baja California peninsula, connected by an established road and spaced a day's travel apart. The first Alta California mission and presidio were founded at San Diego, the second at Monterey.[80]

En route to Monterey, the Rev. Francisco Gómez and the Rev. Juan Crespí came across a Native settlement wherein two young girls were dying: one, a baby, said to be "dying at its mother's breast," the other a small girl suffering of burns. On July 22, Gómez baptized the baby, naming her Maria Magdalena, while Crespí baptized the older child, naming her Margarita. These were the first recorded baptisms in Alta California.[81] Crespi dubbed the spot Los Cristianos.[79][notes 21] The group continued northward but missed Monterey Harbor and returned to San Diego on January 24, 1770. Near the end of 1769 the Portolá expedition had reached its most northerly point at present-day San Francisco. In following years, the Spanish Crown sent a number of follow-up expeditions to explore more of Alta California.

Spain also settled the California region with a number of African and mulatto Catholics, including at least ten of the recently re-discovered Los Pobladores, the founders of Los Angeles in 1781.[82]

 
Captain Fernando Rivera y Moncada violated ecclesiastical asylum at Mission San Diego de Alcalá on March 26, 1776 when he forcibly removed a 'neophyte' in direct defiance of the padres. Missionary Pedro Font later described the scene: "...Rivera entered the chapel with drawn sword...con la espada desnuda en la mano." Rivera y Moncada was subsequently excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for his actions.[83]

Structure

Each mission was to be turned over to a secular clergy and all the common mission lands distributed amongst the native population within ten years after its founding, a policy that was based upon Spain's experience with the more advanced tribes in Mexico, Central America, and Peru.[84] In time, it became apparent to the Rev. Serra and his associates that the natives on the northern frontier in Alta California required a much longer period of acclimatization.[27] None of the California missions ever attained complete self-sufficiency, and required continued (albeit modest) financial support from mother Spain.[85] Mission development was therefore financed out of El Fondo Piadoso de las Californias (The Pious Fund of the Californias, which originated in 1697 and consisted of voluntary donations from individuals and religious bodies in Mexico to members of the Society of Jesus) to enable the missionaries to propagate the Catholic Faith in the area then known as California. Starting with the onset of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810, this support largely disappeared, and missions and converts were left on their own. As of 1800, native labor had made up the backbone of the colonial economy.[86]

Arguably "the worst epidemic of the Spanish Era in California" was known to be the measles epidemic of 1806, wherein one-quarter of the mission Native American population of the San Francisco Bay Area died of the measles or related complications between March and May of that year.[87] In 1811, the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico sent an interrogatorio (questionnaire) to all of the missions in Alta California regarding the customs, disposition, and condition of the Mission Indians.[88] The replies, which varied greatly in the length, spirit, and even the value of the information contained therein, were collected and prefaced by the Father-Presidente with a short general statement or abstract; the compilation was thereupon forwarded to the viceregal government.[89][notes 22] The contemporary nature of the responses, no matter how incomplete or biased some may be, are nonetheless of considerable value to modern ethnologists.

 
Pablo Tac, who lived at Mission San Luis Rey in the 1820s and 1830s, penned this drawing depicting two young men wearing skirts of twine and feathers with feather decorations on their heads, rattles in their hands, and (perhaps) painted decorations on their bodies.[90]

Russian colonization of the Americas reached its southernmost point with the 1812 establishment of Fort Ross (krepost' rus), an agricultural, scientific, and fur-trading settlement located in present-day Sonoma County, California.[91] In November and December 1818, several of the missions were attacked by Hipólito Bouchard, "California's only pirate."[notes 23] A French privateer sailing under the flag of Argentina, Pirata Buchar (as Bouchard was known to the locals) worked his way down the California coast, conducting raids on the installations at Monterey, Santa Barbara, and San Juan Capistrano, with limited success.[92] Upon hearing of the attacks, many mission priests (along with a few government officials) sought refuge at Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, the mission chain's most isolated outpost. Ironically, Mission Santa Cruz (though ultimately ignored by the marauders) was ignominiously sacked and vandalized by local residents who were entrusted with securing the church's valuables.[93]

By 1819, Spain decided to limit its "reach" in the New World to Northern California due to the costs involved in sustaining these remote outposts; the northernmost settlement therefore is Mission San Francisco Solano, founded in Sonoma in 1823.[94][notes 24] The Chumash people revolted against the Spanish presence in 1824. The Chumash planned a coordinated rebellion at three missions. Due to an incident with a soldier at Mission Santa Inés, the rebellion began on Saturday, February 21. The Chumash withdrew from Mission Santa Inés upon the arrival of military reinforcements, then attacked Mission La Purisima from inside, forced the garrison to surrender, and allowed the garrison, their families, and the mission priest to depart for Santa Inés. The next day, the Chumash of Mission Santa Barbara captured the mission from within without bloodshed, repelled a military attack on the mission, and then retreated from the mission to the hills. The Chumash continued to occupy Mission La Purisima until a Mexican military unit attacked people on March 16 and forced them to surrender. Two military expeditions were sent after the Chumash in the hills; the first did not find them and the second negotiated with the Chumash and convinced a majority to return to the missions by June 28.[95]

An attempt to found a twenty-second mission in Santa Rosa in 1827 was aborted.[94][notes 25][notes 26][96][notes 27] In 1833 the final group of missionaries arrived in Alta California. These were Mexican-born (rather than Spaniards), and had been trained at the Apostolic College of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Zacatecas. Among these friars was Francisco García Diego y Moreno, who would become the first bishop of the Diocese of Both Californias. These friars would bear the brunt of the changes brought on by secularization and the U.S. occupation, and many would be marked by allegations of corruption.[97]

Secularization

Further information: Mexican secularization act of 1833

As the Mexican republic matured, calls for the secularization ("disestablishment") of the missions increased.[98][notes 28]

José María de Echeandía, the first native Mexican elected Governor of Alta California issued a "Proclamation of Emancipation" (or "Prevenciónes de Emancipacion") on July 25, 1826.[99] All Indians within the military districts of San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Monterey who were found qualified were freed from missionary rule and made eligible to become Mexican citizens. Those who wished to remain under mission tutelage were exempted from most forms of corporal punishment.[100][101][notes 29] By 1830 even the neophyte populations themselves appeared confident in their own abilities to operate the mission ranches and farms independently; the padres, however, doubted the capabilities of their charges in this regard.[102]

Accelerating immigration, both Mexican and foreign, increased pressure on the Alta California government to seize the mission properties and dispossess the natives in accordance with Echeandía's directive.[103][notes 30] Despite the fact that Echeandía's emancipation plan was met with little encouragement from the novices who populated the southern missions, he was nonetheless determined to test the scheme on a large scale at Mission San Juan Capistrano. To that end, he appointed a number of comisionados (commissioners) to oversee the emancipation of the Indians.[104] The Mexican government passed legislation on December 20, 1827 that mandated the expulsion of all Spaniards younger than sixty years of age from Mexican territories; Governor Echeandía nevertheless intervened on behalf of some of the missionaries to prevent their deportation once the law took effect in California.[105]

Governor José Figueroa (who took office in 1833) initially attempted to keep the mission system intact, but the Mexican Congress passed An Act for the Secularization of the Missions of California on August 17, 1833 when liberal Valentín Gómez Farías was in office.[106][notes 31]

The Act also provided for the colonization of both Alta and Baja California, the expenses of this latter move to be borne by the proceeds gained from the sale of the mission property to private interests.

For instance, after Mexican Independence, the Mexican government confiscated Franciscan lands and decommissioned them. This, however, did not see the end of Native plight since Further dislocation and abuse occurred under Mexican control. Most of the confiscated Franscians lands were given out as grants to white settlers or well connected Mexicans, while Native Californians continued to occupy the land as a labor force.[107]

Mission San Juan Capistrano was the very first to feel the effects of secularization when, on August 9, 1834 Governor Figueroa issued his "Decree of Confiscation."[108] Nine other settlements quickly followed, with six more in 1835; San Buenaventura and San Francisco de Asís were among the last to succumb, in June and December 1836, respectively.[109] The Franciscans soon thereafter abandoned most of the missions, taking with them almost everything of value, after which the locals typically plundered the mission buildings for construction materials. Former mission pasture lands were divided into large land grants called ranchos, greatly increasing the number of private land holdings in Alta California.

Rancho period (1834–1849)

Main article: Ranchos of California

In spite of this neglect, the Indian towns at San Juan Capistrano, San Dieguito, and Las Flores did continue on for some time under a provision in Gobernador Echeandía's 1826 Proclamation that allowed for the partial conversion of missions to pueblos.[110] According to one estimate, the native population in and around the missions proper was approximately 80,000 at the time of the confiscation; others claim that the statewide population had dwindled to approximately 100,000 by the early 1840s, due in no small part to the natives' exposure to European diseases, and from the Franciscan practice of cloistering women in the convento and controlling sexuality during the child-bearing age. (Baja California Territory experienced a similar reduction in native population resulting from Spanish colonization efforts there).[111]

 
Illuminated choir missals on display at Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in 1913.[112]

Pío de Jesús Pico, the last Mexican Governor of Alta California, found upon taking office that there were few funds available to carry on the affairs of the province. He prevailed upon the assembly to pass a decree authorizing the renting or the sale of all mission property, reserving only the church, a curate's house, and a building for a courthouse. The expenses of conducting the services of the church were to be provided from the proceeds, but there was no disposition made as to what should be done to secure the funds for that purpose. After secularization, Father-Presidente Narciso Durán transferred the missions' headquarters to Santa Bárbara, thereby making Mission Santa Bárbara the repository of some 3,000 original documents that had been scattered through the California missions. The Mission archive is the oldest library in the State of California that still remains in the hands of its founders, the Franciscans (it is the only mission where they have maintained an uninterrupted presence). Beginning with the writings of Hubert Howe Bancroft, the library has served as a center for historical study of the missions for more than a century. In 1895 journalist and historian Charles Fletcher Lummis criticized the Act and its results, saying:

Disestablishment—a polite term for robbery—by Mexico (rather than by native Californians misrepresenting the Mexican government) in 1834, was the death blow of the mission system. The lands were confiscated; the buildings were sold for beggarly sums, and often for beggarly purposes. The Indian converts were scattered and starved out; the noble buildings were pillaged for their tiles and adobes...[113]

California statehood (1850 and beyond)

 
Hugo Reid, an outspoken critic of the mission system and its effects on the native populations, at Rancho Santa Anita circa 1850.

Precise figures relating to the population decline of California indigenes are not available. One writer, Gregory Orfalea, estimates that pre-contact population was reduced by 33 percent during Spanish and Mexican rule, mostly through introduction of European diseases, but much more after the United States takeover in 1848. By 1870, the loss of indigenous lives had become catastrophic. Up to 80 percent died, leaving a population of about 30,000 in 1870. Orfalea claims that nearly half of the native deaths after 1848 were murder.[73]

In 1837–38, a major smallpox epidemic devastated native tribes north of San Francisco Bay, in the jurisdiction of Mission San Francisco Solano. General Mariano Vallejo estimated that 70,000 died from the disease.[114] Vallejo's ally, chief Sem-Yeto, was one of the few natives to be vaccinated, and one of the few to survive.

When the mission properties were secularized between 1834 and 1838, the approximately 15,000 resident neophytes lost whatever protection the mission system afforded them. While under the secularization laws the natives were to receive up to one-half of the mission properties, this never happened. The natives lost whatever stock and movable property they may have accumulated. When California became a U.S. state, California law stripped them of legal title to the land. In the Act of September 30, 1850, Congress appropriated funds to allow the President to appoint three Commissioners, O. M. Wozencraft, Redick McKee and George W. Barbour, to study the California situation and "...negotiate treaties with the various Indian tribes of California." Treaty negotiations ensued during the period between March 19, 1851 and January 7, 1852, during which the Commission interacted with 402 Indian chiefs and headmen (representing approximately one-third to one-half of the California tribes) and entered into eighteen treaties.[115]

California Senator William M. Gwin's Act of March 3, 1851 created the Public Land Commission, whose purpose was to determine the validity of Spanish and Mexican land grants in California.[116] On February 19, 1853 Archbishop J.S. Alemany filed petitions for the return of all former mission lands in the state. Ownership of 1,051.44 acres (4.2550 km2) (essentially exact area of land occupied by the original mission buildings, cemeteries, and gardens) was subsequently conveyed to the Church, along with the Cañada de los Pinos (or College Rancho) in Santa Barbara County comprising 35,499.73 acres (143.6623 km2), and La Laguna in San Luis Obispo County, consisting of 4,157.02 acres (16.8229 km2).[117] As the result of a U.S. government investigation in 1873, a number of Indian reservations were assigned by executive proclamation in 1875. The commissioner of Indian affairs reported in 1879 that the number of Mission Indians in the state was down to around 3,000.[118]

Legacy and Native American controversy

Main articles: California mission clash of cultures and Population of Native California

There is controversy over the California Department of Education's treatment of the missions in the Department's elementary curriculum; in the tradition of historical revisionism, it has been alleged that the curriculum "waters down" the harsh treatment of Native Americans. Some modern anthropologists cite a cultural bias on the part of the missionaries that blinded them to the natives' plight and caused them to develop strong negative opinions of the California Indians.[119][notes 32] European diseases like influenza, measles, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and dysentery caused a significant population reduction from the first encounter through the 19th century as California Native Americans had no immunity to these diseases.[120] These deaths, however, where only made worse by the treatment Native Californians faced at the hands of Settlers. Associate professor Benjamin Madly at the University of California, Los Angeles states:

"Between 1846 and 1870, California’s Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Diseases, dislocation, and starvation caused many of these deaths. However, abduction, unfree labor, mass death on reservations, individual homicides, battles, and massacres also took thousands of lives and hindered reproduction"[121]

The impact that the original Spanish system of colonization had on modern day California cannot be overstated. Although the certain cooperation between Church and State that was part and parcel of the original California mission system was soon discarded by the Mexican government, it nonetheless provided a foundation upon which later forms of government would soon be established.[122] The early missions and their sub-missions formed the nuclei of what would later become the major metropolitan areas of San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as many other smaller municipalities.[123] In addition to clearing the way for Spanish, Mexican, and later American settlers, the early Spanish mission system established the viability of the early Western economies of cattle and agriculture which survive in modern form in the state to this day. The Spanish mission system acted to "settle and Westernize" California, but unfortunately did so very much at the expense of the earlier Native American Culture of California that had preceded the Spanish mission system.[124][125]

Mission administration, locations and military districts

System Father-Presidentes

The "Father-Presidente" was the head of the Catholic missions in Alta and Baja California. He was appointed by the College of San Fernando de Mexico until 1812, when the position became known as the "Commissary Prefect" who was appointed by the Commissary General of the Indies (a Franciscan residing in Spain). Beginning in 1831, separate individuals were elected to oversee Upper and Lower California.[126]

Mission headquarters

 
Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, established in 1770, was the headquarters of the Californian mission system from 1797 until 1833.
  • Mission San Diego de Alcalá (1769–1771)
  • Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1771–1815)
  • Mission La Purísima Concepción*(1815–1819)
  • Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1819–1824)
  • Mission San José*(1824–1827)
  • Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1827–1830)
  • Mission San José*(1830–1833)
  • Mission Santa Barbara (1833–1846)

† The Rev. Payeras and the Rev. Durán remained at their resident missions during their terms as Father-Presidente, therefore those settlements became the de facto headquarters (until 1833, when all mission records were permanently relocated to Santa Barbara).[106][notes 33][127]

Mission locations

Main article: List of Spanish missions in California

There were 21 missions accompanied by military outposts in Alta California from San Diego to Sonoma, California. To facilitate travel between them on horse and foot, the mission settlements were situated approximately 30 miles (48 kilometers) apart, about one day's journey on horseback, or three days on foot. The entire trail eventually became a 600-mile (966-kilometer) long "California Mission Trail."[128]: 132 [129]: 152  Heavy freight movement was practical only via water. Tradition has it that the padres sprinkled mustard seeds along the trail to mark it with bright yellow flowers.[130]: 79 [131]: 260 

Following the old Camino Real northwards, from San Diego through to the northernmost mission in Sonoma, California, north of San Francisco Bay, the missions were:

No. Name Named for Location Date founded
1 Mission San Diego de Alcalá St. Didacus of Alcalá San Diego July 16, 1769
2 Mission San Luis Rey de Francia St. Louis, King of France Oceanside June 12, 1798
3 Mission San Juan Capistrano St. John of Capistrano San Juan Capistrano November 1, 1776
4 Mission San Gabriel Arcángel The Archangel Gabriel San Gabriel September 8, 1771
5 Mission San Fernando Rey de España St. Ferdinand, King of Spain Los Angeles September 8, 1797
6 Mission San Buenaventura St. Bonaventure Ventura March 31, 1782
7 Mission Santa Barbara St. Barbara Santa Barbara December 4, 1786
8 Mission Santa Inés St. Agnes Solvang September 17, 1804
9 Mission La Purísima Concepción The Immaculate Conception Southeast of Lompoc December 8, 1787
10 Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa St. Louis of Toulouse San Luis Obispo September 1, 1772
11 Mission San Miguel Arcángel The Archangel Michael San Miguel July 25, 1797
12 Mission San Antonio de Padua St. Anthony of Padua Northwest of Jolon July 14, 1771
13 Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad Mary, Our Lady of Solitude South of Soledad October 9, 1791
14 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo St. Charles Borromeo Carmel June 3, 1770
15 Mission San Juan Bautista St. John the Baptist San Juan Bautista June 24, 1797
16 Mission Santa Cruz The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Santa Cruz August 28, 1791
17 Mission Santa Clara de Asís St. Clare of Assisi Santa Clara January 12, 1777
18 Mission San José St. Joseph Fremont June 11, 1797
19 Mission San Francisco de Asís St. Francis of Assisi San Francisco October 9, 1776
20 Mission San Rafael Arcángel The Archangel Raphael San Rafael December 14, 1817
21 Mission San Francisco Solano St. Francis Solanus Sonoma April 4, 1824

Military districts

 
El Presidio Real de Santa Bárbara

During the Mission Period Alta California was divided into four military districts. Each was garrisoned (comandancias) by a presidio strategically placed along the California coast to protect the missions and other Spanish settlements in Upper California.[132] Each of these functioned as a base of military operations for a specific region. They were independent of one another and were organized from south to north as follows:

An ongoing power struggle between church and state grew increasingly heated and lasted for decades. Originating as a feud between the Rev. Serra and Pedro Fages (the military governor of Alta California from 1770 to 1774, who regarded the Spanish installations in California as military institutions first and religious outposts second), the uneasy relationship persisted for more than sixty years.[142][143][notes 34] Dependent upon one another for their very survival, military leaders and mission padres nevertheless adopted conflicting stances regarding everything from land rights, the allocation of supplies, protection of the missions, the criminal propensities of the soldiers, and (in particular) the status of the native populations.[144][notes 35]

Present-day California missions

 
A view of the restored Mission San Juan Bautista and its three-bell campanario ("bell wall") in 2004.

Building restoration

California is home to the greatest number of well-preserved missions found in any U.S. state.[63][notes 36] The missions are collectively the best-known historic element of the coastal regions of California:

  • Most of the missions are still owned and operated by some entity within the Catholic Church.
  • Three of the missions are still run under the auspices of the Franciscan Order (Santa Barbara, San Miguel Arcángel, and San Luis Rey de Francia)
  • Four of the missions (San Diego de Alcalá, San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, San Francisco de Asís, and San Juan Capistrano) have been designated minor basilicas by the Holy See due to their cultural, historic, architectural, and religious importance.
  • Mission La Purísima Concepción, Mission San Francisco Solano, and the one remaining mission-era structure of Mission Santa Cruz are owned and operated by the California Department of Parks and Recreation as State Historic Parks;
  • Seven mission sites are designated National Historic Landmarks, fourteen are listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and all are designated as California Historical Landmarks for their historic, architectural, and archaeological significance.
 
The courtyard of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, with California's oldest pepper tree (Schinus molle), planted in 1830, visible through the arch.[145]

Because virtually all of the artwork at the missions served either a devotional or didactic purpose, there was no underlying reason for the mission residents to record their surroundings graphically; visitors, however, found them to be objects of curiosity.[146] During the 1850s a number of artists found gainful employment as draftsmen attached to expeditions sent to map the Pacific coastline and the border between California and Mexico (as well as plot practical railroad routes); many of the drawings were reproduced as lithographs in the expedition reports.[citation needed]

In 1875 American illustrator Henry Chapman Ford began visiting each of the twenty-one mission sites, where he created a historically important portfolio of watercolors, oils, and etchings. His depictions of the missions were (in part) responsible for the revival of interest in the state's Spanish heritage, and indirectly for the restoration of the missions. The 1880s saw the appearance of a number of articles on the missions in national publications and the first books on the subject; as a result, a large number of artists did one or more mission paintings, though few attempted a series.[147]

The popularity of the missions also stemmed largely from Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona and the subsequent efforts of Charles Fletcher Lummis, William Randolph Hearst, and other members of the "Landmarks Club of Southern California" to restore three of the southern missions in the early 20th century (San Juan Capistrano, San Diego de Alcalá, and San Fernando; the Pala Asistencia was also restored by this effort).[148][notes 37] Lummis wrote in 1895,

In ten years from now—unless our intelligence shall awaken at once—there will remain of these noble piles nothing but a few indeterminable heaps of adobe. We shall deserve and shall have the contempt of all thoughtful people if we suffer our noble missions to fall.[149]

In acknowledgement of the magnitude of the restoration efforts required and the urgent need to have acted quickly to prevent further or even total degradation, Lummis went on to state,

It is no exaggeration to say that human power could not have restored these four missions had there been a five-year delay in the attempt.[150]

In 1911 author John Steven McGroarty penned The Mission Play, a three-hour pageant describing the California missions from their founding in 1769 through secularization in 1834, and ending with their "final ruin" in 1847.

 
Misión San Juan de Capistrano by Henry Chapman Ford, 1880. The work depicts the rear of the "Great Stone Church" and part of the mission's campo santo.

Today, the missions exist in varying degrees of architectural integrity and structural soundness. The most common extant features at the mission grounds include the church building and an ancillary convento (convent) wing. In some cases (in San Rafael, Santa Cruz, and Soledad, for example), the current buildings are replicas constructed on or near the original site. Other mission compounds remain relatively intact and true to their original, Mission Era construction.

A notable example of an intact complex is the now-threatened Mission San Miguel Arcángel: its chapel retains the original interior murals created by Salinan Indians under the direction of Esteban Munras, a Spanish artist and last Spanish diplomat to California. This structure was closed to the public from 2003 to 2009 due to severe damage from the San Simeon earthquake. Many missions have preserved (or in some cases reconstructed) historic features in addition to chapel buildings.

The missions have earned a prominent place in California's historic consciousness, and a steady stream of tourists from all over the world visit them. In recognition of that fact, on November 30, 2004 President George W. Bush signed HR 1446, the California Mission Preservation Act, into law. The measure provided $10 million over a five-year period to the California Missions Foundation for projects related to the physical preservation of the missions, including structural rehabilitation, stabilization, and conservation of mission art and artifacts. The California Missions Foundation, a volunteer, tax-exempt organization, was founded in 1998 by Richard Ameil, an eighth generation Californian.[151] A change to the California Constitution has also been proposed that would allow the use of State funds in restoration efforts.[152]

Structures gallery

See also

On California Missions:

On California history:

On general missionary history:

On colonial Spanish American history:

Notes

  1. ^ "By that time, it was found that the Russian colonies were not such undesirable neighbors as in 1817 it was thought they might become... the Russian scare, for the time being at least was over; and as for the old enthusiasm for new spiritual conquests, there was none left."
  2. ^ Engelhardt: One such hypothesis was put forth by author by Prent Duel in his 1919 work Mission Architecture as Exemplified in San Xavier Del Bac: "Most missions of early date possessed secret passages as a means of escape in case they were besieged. It is difficult to locate any of them now as they are well concealed."
  3. ^ Chapman: "Latter-day historians have been altogether too prone to regard the hostility to the Spaniards on the part of the California Indians as a matter of small consequence, since no disaster in fact ever happened...On the other hand the San Diego plot involved untold thousands of Indians, being virtually a national uprising, and owing to the distance from New Spain to and the extreme difficulty of maintaining communications a victory for the Indians would have ended Spanish settlement in Alta California." As it turned out, "...the position of the Spaniards was strengthened by the San Diego outbreak, for the Indians felt from that time forth that it was impossible to throw out their conquerors." See also Mission Puerto de Purísima Concepción and Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer regarding the Yuma 'massacres' of 1781.
  4. ^ Engelhardt: Not all of the native cultures responded with hostility to the Spaniards' presence; Engelhardt portrayed the natives at Mission San Juan Capistrano (dubbed the "Juaneño" by the missionaries), where there was never any instance of unrest, as being "uncommonly friendly and docile." The Rev. Juan Crespí, who accompanied the 1769 expedition, described the first encounter with the area's inhabitants: "They came unarmed and with a gentleness which has no name they brought their poor seeds to us as gifts...The locality itself and the docility of the Indians invited the establishment of a Mission for them."
  5. ^ Chapman: "Over the hills of the Coast Range, in the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, north of San Francisco Bay, and in the Sierra Nevadas of the south there were untold thousands whom the mission system never reached...they were as if in a world apart from the narrow strip of coast which was all there was of the Spanish California."
  6. ^ Bennett: "The system had singularly failed in its purposes. It was the design of the Spanish government to have the missions educate, elevate, civilize, the Indians into citizens. When this was done, citizenship should be extended them and the missions should be dissolved as having served their purpose...[instead] the priests returned them projects of conversion, schemes of faith, which they never comprehended...He [the Indian] became a slave; the mission was a plantation; the friar was a taskmaster."
  7. ^ Bennett: "In 1825 Governor Argüello wrote that the slavery of the Indians at the missions was bestial...Governor Figueroa declared that the missions were 'entrenchments of monastic despotism'..."
  8. ^ Bennett: "It cannot be said that the mission system made the Indians more able to sustain themselves in civilization than it had found them...Upon the whole it may be said that this mission experiment was a failure."
  9. ^ Lippy: "A matter of debate in reflecting on the role of Spanish missions concerns the degree to which the Spanish colonial regimes regarded the work of the priests as a legitimate religious enterprise and the degree to which it was viewed as a 'frontier institution,' part of a colonial defense program. That is, were Spanish motives based on a desire to promote conversion or on a desire to have religious missions serve as a buffer to protect the main colonial settlements and an aid in controlling the Indians?"
  10. ^ Bennett: The missions in effect served as "...the citadels of the theocracy which was planted in California by Spain, under which its wild inhabitants were subjected, which stood as their guardians, civil and religious, and whose duty it was to elevate them and make them acceptable as citizens and Spanish subjects...it remained for the Spanish priests to undertake to preserve the Indian and seek to make his existence compatible with higher civilization."
  11. ^ Bean: "Serra's decision to plant tobacco at the missions was prompted by the fact that from San Diego to Monterey the natives invariably begged him for Spanish tobacco."
  12. ^ The Spanish claim to the Pacific Northwest dated back to a 1493 papal bull (Inter caetera) and rights contained in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas; in these two formal acts, Spain gave itself the exclusive right to colonize all of the Western Hemisphere (excluding Brazil), including all of the west coast of North America.
  13. ^ The term Alta California as applies to the mission chain founded by Serra refers specifically to the modern-day United States State of California.
  14. ^ Leffingwell: The Rev. Antonio de la Ascensión, a Carmelite who visited San Diego with Vizcaíno's 1602 expedition, "surveyed the area and concluded that the land was fertile, the fish plentiful, and gold abundant." Ascensión was convinced that California's potential wealth and strategic location merited colonization, and in 1620 recommended in a letter to Madrid that missions be established in the region, a venture that would involve military as well as religious personnel.
  15. ^ Chapman: "It is usually stated that the Spanish court at Madrid received reports about Russian aggression in the Pacific northwest, and sent orders to meet them by the occupation of Alta California, wherefore the expeditions of 1769 were made. This view contains only a smattering of the truth. It is evident from [José de] Gálvez's correspondence of 1768 that he and [Carlos Francisco de] Croix had discussed the advisability of an immediate expedition to Monterey, long before any word came from Spain about the Russian activities."
  16. ^ Bennett: California had been visited a number of times since Cabrillo's discovery in 1542, which initially included notable expeditions led by Englishmen Francis Drake in 1579 and Thomas Cavendish 1587, and later on by Woodes Rogers (1710), George Shelvocke (1719), James Cook (1778), and finally George Vancouver in 1792. Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno made landfall in San Diego Bay in 1602, and the famed conquistador Hernán Cortés explored the California Gulf Coast in 1735.
  17. ^ Bennett: "Other pioneers have blazed the way for civilization by the torch and the bullet, and the red man has disappeared before them; but it remained for the Spanish priests to undertake to preserve the Indian and seek to make his existence compatible with a higher civilization."
  18. ^ Kroeber: "In the matter of population, too, the effect of Caucasian contact cannot be wholly slighted, since all statistics date from a late period. The disintegration of Native numbers and Native culture have proceeded hand in hand, but in very different rations according to locality. The determination of population strength before the arrival of whites is, on the other hand, of considerable significance toward the understanding of Indian culture, on account of the close relations which are manifest between type of culture and density of population."
  19. ^ Chapman, p. 383: "...there may have been about 133,000 [Native inhabitants] in what is now the state as a whole, and 70,000 in or near the conquered area. The missions included only the Indians of given localities, though it is true that they were situated on the best lands and in the most populous centres. Even in the vicinity of the missions, there were some unconverted groups, however." See Population of Native California.
  20. ^ Bennett: Due to the isolation of the Baja California missions, the decree for expulsion did not arrive in June 1767, as it did in the rest of New Spain, but was delayed until the new governor, Portolà, arrived with the news on November 30. Jesuits from the operating missions gathered in Loreto, whereupon they left for exile on February 3, 1768.
  21. ^ Engelhardt: Today, the site (located at 33°25′41.58″N 117°36′34.92″W / 33.4282167°N 117.6097000°W / 33.4282167; -117.6097000 on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County) is in Los Christianitos ("The Little Christians") Canyon, and is designated as La Christiana California Historical Landmark #562 2005-07-11 at the Wayback Machine.
  22. ^ Kroeber: "Some of the missionaries evidently regarded compliance with the instructions of the questionnaire as an official requirement which was perfunctorily performed. In many cases no answers were given various questions at certain of the missions."
  23. ^ There is a great contrast between the legacy of Bouchard in Argentina versus his reputation in the United States. In Buenos Aires, Bouchard is honored as a brave patriot, while in California he is most often remembered as a pirate, and not a privateer. See Hippolyte Bouchard.
  24. ^ Hittell: "...it [Mission San Francisco Solano] was quite frequently known as the mission of Sonoma. From the beginning it was rather a military than a religious establishment—a sort of outpost or barrier, first against the Russians and afterwards against the Americans; but still a large adobe church was built and Indians were baptized."
  25. ^ Hittell: "By that time, it was found that the Russians were not such undesirable neighbors as in 1817 it was thought they might become...the Russian scare, for the time being at least was over; and as for the old enthusiasm for new spiritual conquests, there was none left."
  26. ^ Bennett 1897b, p. 154: "Up to 1817 the 'spiritual conquest' of California had been confined to the territory south of San Francisco Bay. And this, it might be said, was as far as possible under the mission system. There had been a few years prior to that time certain alarming incursions of the Russians, which distressed Spain, and it was ordered that missions be started across the bay."
  27. ^ Chapman: "...the Russians and the English were by no means the only foreign peoples who threatened Spain's domination of the Pacific coast. The Indians and the Chinese had their opportunity before Spain appeared upon the scene. The Japanese were at one time a potential concern, and the Portuguese and Dutch voyagers occasionally gave Spain concern. The French for many years were the most dangerous enemy of all, but with their disappearance from North America in 1763, as a result of their defeat in the Seven Years' War, they were no longer a menace. The people of the United States were eventually to become the most powerful outstanding element."
  28. ^ Robinson: The cortes (legislature) of New Spain issued a decree in 1813 for at least partial secularization that affected all missions in America and was to apply to all outposts that had operated for ten years or more; however, the decree was never enforced in California.
  29. ^ Catholic historian Zephyrin Engelhardt referred to Echeandía as "...an avowed enemy of the religious orders."
  30. ^ Settlers made numerous false claims to diminish the natives' abilities: "The Indians are by nature slovenly and indolent," stated one newcomer. "They have unfeelingly appropriated the region," claimed another.
  31. ^ Yenne: In 1833, Figueroa replaced the Spanish-born Franciscan padres at all of the settlements north of Mission San Antonio de Padua with Mexican-born Franciscan priests from the College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas. In response, Father-Presidente Narciso Durán transferred the headquarters of the Alta California Mission System to Mission Santa Bárbara, where it remained until 1846.
  32. ^ Hittell: "Boscana himself and his brother missionaries were men of narrow range of thought, continually seeking among the superstitions of the natives for resemblances of the true faith and ever ready to catch at the slightest hints and magnify them into complicated dogmas corresponding afar of those which they themselves taught."
  33. ^ In 1833 Figueroa replaced the padres at all of the settlements north of Mission San Antonio de Padua with Mexican-born Franciscan priests from the College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas. In response, Father-Presidente Narciso Durán transferred the headquarters of the Alta California Mission System to Mission Santa Bárbara, where they remained until 1846.
  34. ^ Bennett: "...Junípero had in California insisted that the military should be subservient to the priests, that the conquest was spiritual, not temporal..."
  35. ^ Engelhardt: "Recruited from the scum of society in Mexico, frequently convicts and jailbirds, it is not surprising that the mission guards, leather-jacket soldiers, as they were called, should be guilty of...crimes at nearly all the Missions...In truth, the guards counted among the worst obstacles to missionary progress. The wonder is, that the missionaries nevertheless succeeded so well in attracting converts."
  36. ^ Morrison: That the buildings in the California mission chain are in large part intact is due in no small measure to their relatively recent construction; Mission San Diego de Alcalá was founded more than two centuries after the establishment of the Mission of Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and 170 years following the founding of Mission San Gabriel del Yunque in present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1598.
  37. ^ Thompson: In the words of Charles Lummis, the historic structures "...were falling to ruin with frightful rapidity, their roofs being breached or gone, the adobe walls melting under the winter rains."

References

  1. ^ Saunders and Chase, p. 65
  2. ^ a b Forging communities in colonial Alta California. Kathleen L. Hull, John G. Douglass. Tucson. 2018. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-8165-3892-8. OCLC 1048786636.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. ^ "The Jesuit Republic of South America | VQR Online". www.vqronline.org. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  4. ^ a b c Agnew, Jeremy (2016). Spanish influence on the old southwest : a collision of cultures. Jefferson, North Carolina. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-7864-9740-9. OCLC 917343410.
  5. ^ a b c Pritzker, Barry (2000). A Native American encyclopedia : history, culture, and peoples. Barry Pritzker. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 114. ISBN 0-19-513877-5. OCLC 42683042.
  6. ^ a b c Krell, p. 316
  7. ^ a b c d Kling, David W. (2020). A history of Christian conversion. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 344–345. ISBN 978-0-19-006262-0. OCLC 1143823194. Apart from a tiny minority who gave the clearest evidence of meaningful conversion... Overall, outright rejection and chronic resistance characterized the Indian response. [...] The Franciscans admitted as much, recording repeatedly the difficulty of convincing adult Indians to accept any aspect of Catholicism.
  8. ^ a b Vaughn, Chelsea K. (2011). "Locating Absence: The Forgotten Presence of Monjeríos in Alta California Missions". Southern California Quarterly. 93 (2): 141–174. doi:10.2307/41172570. ISSN 0038-3929. JSTOR 41172570.
  9. ^ Duggan, MC (2016). "With and Without an Empire: Financing for California Missions Before and After 1810" in Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 85, No. 1, pp. 23–71. Duggan, M. C. (2016). "With and Without an Empire: Financing for California Missions Before and After 1810". Pacific Historical Review. 85 (1): 23–71. doi:10.1525/phr.2016.85.1.23. from the original on 2018-04-27. Retrieved 2018-03-05.
  10. ^ Robinson, p. 25
  11. ^ Capron, p. 3
  12. ^ Early California ... Russian Presence 2016-10-13 at the Wayback Machine Oakland Museum of California website, downloaded Sept. 10, 2016
  13. ^ Young, p. 17
  14. ^ Bancroft, pp. 33–34
  15. ^ Kelsey, p. 18
  16. ^ Harley
  17. ^ Ruscin, p. 61
  18. ^ Chapman, p. 418: Chapman does not consider the sub-missions (asistencias) that make up the inland chain in this regard.
  19. ^ Engelhardt 1920, pp. 350–351
  20. ^ Ruscin, p. 12
  21. ^ Paddison, p. 48
  22. ^ Chapman, pp. 310–311
  23. ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 12
  24. ^ Rawls, pp. 14–16
  25. ^ Leffingwell, pp. 19, 132
  26. ^ Bennett 1897a, p. 20: Priests were paid an annual salary of $400.
  27. ^ a b c Engelhardt 1908, pp. 3–18
  28. ^ a b c d Carey McWilliams.Southern California:An Island on the Land 2015-10-11 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ Duggan, Marie Christine (January 2017). "Beyond Slavery: The Institutional Status of Mission Indians". Franciscan Florida in Pan-Borderlands Perspective: Adaptation, Negotiation, and Resistance. from the original on 2018-04-27. Retrieved 2018-03-05. Duggan, M.C. "Beyond Slavery: Institutional Status of Mission Indians, in Burns and Johnson (eds.), Franciscans and American Indians in Pan-Borderlands Perspective. Oceanside, CA: AAFH, 2017.
  30. ^ Paddison, p. 130
  31. ^ McWilliams, Carey. "The Indian in the Closet". from the original on 25 May 2017. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
  32. ^ Chapman, p. 383
  33. ^ Newcomb, p. viii
  34. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap Guinn, James Miller (1907). History of the State of California and Biographical Record to Oakland and Environs: Also Containing Biographies of Well-known Citizens of the Past and Present (Digitized eBook). Historic Record Company. pp. 56–66.
  35. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hodge, Frederick Webb (1910). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (Digitized eBook). U.S. Government Printing Office.
  36. ^ a b Singleton, Heather Valdez (2004). "Surviving Urbanization: The Gabrieleno, 1850–1928". Wíčazo Ša Review. 19 (2): 49–59. doi:10.1353/wic.2004.0026. JSTOR 1409498. S2CID 161847670 – via JSTOR.
  37. ^ Armbruster-Sandoval, Ralph (2017). Starving for Justice: Hunger Strikes, Spectacular Speech, and the Struggle for Dignity. University of Arizona Press. pp. 58–59. ISBN 9780816532582.
  38. ^ Guinn, James Miller (1907). History of the State of California and Biographical Record to Oakland and Environs: Also Containing Biographies of Well-known Citizens of the Past and Present (Digitized eBook). Historic Record Company. pp. 56–66.
  39. ^ Coodley, Lauren (2007). Napa : the transformation of an American town. Paula Amen Schmitt. Charleston, SC: Arcadia. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-7385-2502-0. OCLC 184842836.
  40. ^ "Lorenzo Asisara (b. 1819)". Annenberg Learner. Retrieved 2023-01-09. Between 1770 and 1834 over 90,000 California Indians (a third of the pre-contact population) were enslaved within the Franciscan missions.
  41. ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 30
  42. ^ Bennett 1897b, p. 156
  43. ^ a b Bennett 1897b, p. 158
  44. ^ McCormack, Brian T. (2007). "Conjugal Violence, Sex, Sin, and Murder in the Mission Communities of Alta California". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 16 (3): 391–415. doi:10.1353/sex.2007.0070. PMID 19256092. S2CID 36532399.
  45. ^ Bennett 1897b, p. 160: "The fathers claimed all the land in California in trust for the Indians, yet the Indians received no visible benefit from the trust."
  46. ^ Lippy, p. 47
  47. ^ a b Bennett 1897a, p. 10
  48. ^ Paddison, p. xiv
  49. ^ "Junípero Serra's brutal story in spotlight as pope prepares for canonisation". TheGuardian.com. 23 September 2015.
  50. ^ Castañeda, Antonia I. (1997). "Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769-1848: Gender, Sexuality, and the Family" (PDF). California History. 76 (2/3): 230–259. doi:10.2307/25161668. JSTOR 25161668.
  51. ^ Castañeda, Antonia I. (1997). "Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769-1848: Gender, Sexuality, and the Family" (PDF). California History. 76 (2/3): 230–259. doi:10.2307/25161668. JSTOR 25161668.
  52. ^ A. Thompson, p. 341
  53. ^ Bean and Lawson, p. 37
  54. ^ A fanega is equal to 100 pounds.
  55. ^ Krell, p. 316: As of December 31, 1832.
  56. ^ "California Native Grasslands Association – Home". from the original on 2009-08-28.
  57. ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 211
  58. ^ "Santa Barbara – Mission Historical Park". from the original on 2017-09-05.
  59. ^ Leffingwell, p. 10
  60. ^ Winship. pp. 32–4, 37
  61. ^ Flint, R. (Winter 2005). "What They Never Told You about the Coronado Expedition". Kiva. 71 (2): 203–217. doi:10.1179/kiv.2005.71.2.004. JSTOR 30246725. S2CID 129070895.
  62. ^ Kelsey, Harry (1986). Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. San Marino: The Huntington Library.
  63. ^ a b Morrison, p. 214
  64. ^ "Drake Claims California for England". History.com. from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  65. ^ Kelsey, Harry. "The Queen's Pirate". The New York Times. from the original on 25 March 2016. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  66. ^ Bancroft, Hubert H.; History of California Vol. XXII 1846–1848, p. 201, The History Company Publishers, San Francisco, 1882 (Google eBook)
  67. ^ Frost, Orcutt William, ed. (2003), Bering: The Russian Discovery of America, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-10059-4
  68. ^ Chapman, p. 216
  69. ^ Bennett 1897a, pp. 11–12
  70. ^ Rawls, p. 3
  71. ^ "Old Mission Santa Inés:" Clerical historian Maynard Geiger, "This was to be a cooperative effort, imperial in origin, protective in purpose, but primarily spiritual in execution."
  72. ^ Chapman, Charles E. PhD (1921). A History of California; The Spanish Period. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 978-1148507927.
  73. ^ a b Orfalea, Gregory. "Hungry for Souls Was Junípero Serra a Saint?". Commonweal magazine. from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  74. ^ Rawls, p. 6
  75. ^ Kroeber 1925, p. vi.
  76. ^ Bennett, p. 15
  77. ^ Bennett 1897a, p. 16
  78. ^ James, p. 11
  79. ^ a b Engelhardt 1922, p. 258
  80. ^ Yenne, p. 10
  81. ^ Leffingwell, p. 25
  82. ^ "History". COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES. 2016-12-02. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  83. ^ Engelhardt 1920, p. 76
  84. ^ Robinson, p. 28
  85. ^ Bennett 1897a, p. 13
  86. ^ Rawls, p. 106
  87. ^ Milliken, pp. 172–173, 193
  88. ^ Kroeber, p. 1
  89. ^ Kroeber, p. 2
  90. ^ Kelsey, p. 4
  91. ^ Nordlander, p. 10
  92. ^ Jones, p. 170
  93. ^ Young, p. 102
  94. ^ a b Hittell, p. 499
  95. ^ Beebe, Rose; Senkewicz, Robert (2001). Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535-1846. Santa Clara: Santa Clara University. ISBN 1-890771-48-1.
  96. ^ Chapman, pp. 254–255
  97. ^ Bacich, Damian. "The Zacatecan Franciscans in Alta California: A Misunderstood Legacy."Boletín: Journal of the California Mission Studies Association 2015-02-22 at the Wayback Machine, Vol. 28, Nos. 1&2, 2011–12
  98. ^ Robinson, p. 29
  99. ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 80
  100. ^ Bancroft, vol. i, pp. 100–101: The motives behind the issuance of Echeandía's premature decree may have had more to do with his desire to appease "...some prominent Californians who had already had their eyes on the mission lands..." than with concern for the welfare of the natives.
  101. ^ Stern and Miller, pp. 51–52
  102. ^ Forbes, p. 201: In 1831, the number of Indians under missionary control in all of Upper California stood at 18,683; garrison soldiers, free settlers, and "other classes" totaled 4,342.
  103. ^ Kelsey, p. 21
  104. ^ Bancroft, vol. iii, pp. 322; 626
  105. ^ Engelhard 1922, p. 223
  106. ^ a b Yenne, pp. 18–19
  107. ^ "Mexican California | Early California History: An Overview | Articles and Essays | California as I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress". Library of Congress.
  108. ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 114
  109. ^ Yenne, pp. 83, 93
  110. ^ Robinson, p. 42
  111. ^ Cook, p. 200
  112. ^ James, p. 215
  113. ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 248
  114. ^ Bancroft, H. H. (1886). The works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: History of California : vol. IV, 1840–1845, pp73-74. San Francisco Calif.: A.L. Bancroft
  115. ^ Robinson, p. 14
  116. ^ Robinson, p. 100
  117. ^ Robinson, pp. 31–32: The area shown is that stated in the Corrected Reports of Spanish and Mexican Grants in California Complete to February 25, 1886 as a supplement to the Official Report of 1883–1884. Patents for each mission were issued to Archbishop J.S. Alemany based on his claim filed with the Public Land Commission on February 19, 1853.
  118. ^ Rawls, pp. 112–113
  119. ^ McKanna, p. 15; also, per Hittell, p. 753
  120. ^ McCormack, Brian T. "Conjugal Violence, Sex, Sin and Murder in the Mission Communities of Alta California." Journal of the History OF Sexuality 16.3 (July, 2007): 391–415. Project MUSE [Johns Hopkins UP]. Web. 12 Feb. 2017.
  121. ^ "Revealing the history of genocide against California's Native Americans". UCLA.
  122. ^ Henderson, "Church and State: 1821–1910", p. 254.
  123. ^ Urbanism and Empire in the Far West, 1840–1890. By Eugene P. Moehring. 2004. University of Nevada Press. Pg. 3.
  124. ^ Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization: The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians. by Robert H. Jackson. 1996. University of NM Press.
  125. ^ A Place in Time: The Story of the Mission de la Purisima Conceptión 2016-06-29 at the Wayback Machine. California Parks Service. Vimeo video presentation.
  126. ^ Ruscin, p. 196
  127. ^ Yenne, p. 186
  128. ^ Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Advantage Publishers Group, San Diego, California. ISBN 978-1-59223-319-9.
  129. ^ Bennett, John E. (January 1897a). "Should the California Missions Be Preserved? – Part I". Overland Monthly. XXIX (169): 9–24.
  130. ^ Markham, Edwin (1914). California the Wonderful: Her Romantic History, Her Picturesque People, Her Wild Shores... Hearst's International Library Company, Inc., New York.
  131. ^ Riesenberg, Felix (1962). The Golden Road: The Story of California's Spanish Mission Trail. McGraw-Hill, New York. ISBN 978-0-07-052740-9.
  132. ^ Engelhardt 1920, p. 228
  133. ^ Leffingwell, p. 22
  134. ^ Forbes, p. 202: In 1831, the number of Indians under missionary control stood at 6,465; garrison soldiers totaled 796.
  135. ^ Leffingwell, p. 68
  136. ^ Forbes, p. 202: In 1831, the number of Indians under missionary control stood at 3,292; garrison soldiers totaled 613; the population of El Pueblo de los Ángeles numbered 1,388.
  137. ^ Leffingwell, p. 119
  138. ^ Forbes, p. 202: In 1831, the number of Indians under missionary control stood at 3,305; garrison soldiers totaled 708; the population of Villa Branciforte numbered 130.
  139. ^ Leffingwell, p. 154
  140. ^ Forbes, p. 202: In 1831, the number of Indians under missionary control stood at 5,433; garrison soldiers totaled 371; the population of El Pueblo de San José numbered 524.
  141. ^ Leffingwell, p. 170
  142. ^ Paddison, p. 23
  143. ^ Bennett 1897a, p. 20
  144. ^ Engelhardt 1922, pp. 8–10
  145. ^ Young, p. 18
  146. ^ Stern and Miller, p. 85
  147. ^ Stern and Neuerburg, p. 95
  148. ^ Thompson, Mark, pp. 185–186
  149. ^ "Past Campaigns"
  150. ^ Stern and Miller, p. 60
  151. ^ "California Missions Preservation Act" (PDF). gpo.gov. (PDF) from the original on 26 February 2005. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  152. ^ Coronado and Ignatin

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  • Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London. ISBN 978-0-405-04972-9.
  • Geiger, Maynard J., O.F.M., PhD (1969). Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769–1848: A Biographical Dictionary. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Harley, R. Bruce (1997–2003). . California Mission Studies Association. Archived from the original on 2006-06-13. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
  • Hittell, Theodore H. (1898). History of California, Volume I. N.J. Stone & Company, San Francisco, California.
  • James, George Wharton (1913). The Old Franciscan Missions of California. Little, Brown, and Co. Inc., Boston, Massachusetts. ISBN 978-0-89341-321-7.
  • Jones, Roger W. (1997). California from the Conquistadores to the Legends of Laguna. Rockledge Enterprises, Laguna Hills, California.
  • Jones, Terry L.; Kathryn A. Klar (2005). "Linguistic Evidence for a Prehistoric Polynesia-Southern California Contact Event". Anthropological Linguistics (47): 369–400.
  • Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, Maryland. ISBN 978-0-7591-0872-1. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  • Kelsey, H. (1993). Mission San Juan Capistrano: A Pocket History. Interdisciplinary Research, Inc., Altadena, California. ISBN 978-0-9785881-0-6.
  • Krell, Dorothy, ed. (1979). The California Missions: A Pictorial History. Sunset Publishing Corporation, Menlo Park, California. ISBN 978-0-376-05172-1.
  • Kroeber, Alfred L. (1908). "A Mission Record of the California Indians". University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology. 8 (1): 1–27.
  • Kroeber, Alfred L. (1925). Handbook of the Indians of California. Dover Publications, Inc., New York. ISBN 978-0-486-23368-0.
  • Leffingwell, Randy (2005). California Missions and Presidios: The History & Beauty of the Spanish Missions. Voyageur Press, Inc., Stillwater, Minnesota. ISBN 978-0-89658-492-1.
  • Lippy, Charles H. (1985). Bibliography of Religion in the South. Mercer University Press, Macon, Georgia. ISBN 978-0-86554-161-0.
  • Markham, Edwin (1914). California the Wonderful: Her Romantic History, Her Picturesque People, Her Wild Shores... Hearst's International Library Company, Inc., New York.
  • Margolin, Malcolm (1993). The Way We Lived: California Indian Stories, Songs & Remembrances. Heyday Books, Berkeley, California. ISBN 978-0-930588-55-7.
  • McKanna, Clare Vernon (2002). Race and Homicide in Nineteenth-Century California. University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada. ISBN 978-0-87417-515-8.
  • Milliken, Randall (1995). A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769–1910. Ballena Press, Menlo Park, California. ISBN 978-0-87919-132-0.
  • Morrison, Hugh (1987). Early American Architecture: From the First Colonial Settlements to the National Period. Dover Publications, New York. ISBN 978-0-486-25492-0.
  • Newcomb, Rexford (1973). The Franciscan Mission Architecture of Alta California. Dover Publications, Inc., New York. ISBN 978-0-486-21740-6.
  • Nordlander, David J. (1994). For God & Tsar: A Brief History of Russian America 1741–1867. Alaska Natural History Association, Anchorage, AK. ISBN 978-0-930931-15-5.
  • Oakley, Kenneth P. (September 1963). "Relative Dating of Arlington Springs Man". Science. 141 (3586): 1172. Bibcode:1963Sci...141.1172O. doi:10.1126/science.141.3586.1172. PMID 14043359. S2CID 11172568.
  • Paddison, Joshua, ed. (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, California. ISBN 978-1-890771-13-3.
  • . California Mission Studies Association. 2000. Archived from the original on August 13, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-08.
  • . Catholic Encyclopedia. 1911. Archived from the original on June 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-08.
  • . Old Mission Santa Inés. 2007. Archived from the original on August 26, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-26.
  • Rawls, James J. (1984). Indians of California: The Changing Image. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma. ISBN 978-0-8061-2020-1.
  • Riesenberg, Felix (1962). The Golden Road: The Story of California's Spanish Mission Trail. McGraw-Hill, New York. ISBN 978-0-07-052740-9.
  • Robinson, W.W. (1948). Land in California. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California. ISBN 978-0-520-03875-2.
  • Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, California. ISBN 978-0-932653-30-7.
  • Saunders, Charles Francis and J. Smeaton Chase (1915). The California Padres and Their Missions. Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York. ISBN 978-0-910118-53-8.
  • Stern, Jean & Gerald J. Miller (1995). Romance of the Bells: The California Missions in Art. The Irvine Museum, Irvine, California. ISBN 978-0-9635468-5-2.
  • Thompson, Anthony W., Robert J. Church, and Bruce H. Jones (2000). Pacific Fruit Express. Signature Press, Wilton, California. ISBN 978-1-930013-03-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Thompson, Mark (2001). American Character: The Curious Life of Charles Fletcher Lummis and the Rediscovery of the Southwest. Arcade Publishing, New York. ISBN 978-1-55970-550-9.
  • Vancouver, George (1801). A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, Volume III. Printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly, London.
  • Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Advantage Publishers Group, San Diego, California. ISBN 978-1-59223-319-9.
  • Young, S. & Levick, M. (1988). The Missions of California. Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, California. ISBN 978-0-8118-1938-1.

Further reading

Books

  • Baer, Kurt (1958). Architecture of the California Missions. University of California Press, Los Angeles, California.
  • Berger, John A. (1941). The Franciscan Missions of California. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York.
  • Carillo, J. M., O.F.M. (1967). The Story of Mission San Antonio de Padua. Paisano Press, Inc., Balboa Island, California.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Camphouse, M. (1974). Guidebook to the Missions of California. Anderson, Ritchie & Simon, Los Angeles, California. ISBN 978-0-378-03792-1.
  • Costo, Rupert. Costo, Jeannette Henry. (1987). The missions of California : a legacy of genocide. Indian Historian Press. OCLC 851338670.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Crespí, Juan: A Description of Distant Roads: Original Journals of the First Expedition into California, 1796–1770, edited and translated by Alan K. Brown, San Diego State University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-1-879691-64-3
  • Crump, S. (1975). California's Spanish Missions: Their Yesterdays and Todays. Trans-Anglo Books, Del Mar, California. ISBN 978-0-87046-028-9.
  • Drager, K. & Fracchia, C. (1997). The Golden Dream: California from Gold Rush to Statehood. Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, Portland, Oregon. ISBN 978-1-55868-312-9.
  • Johnson, P., ed. (1964). The California Missions. Lane Book Company, Menlo Park, California. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Moorhead, Max L. (1991). The Presidio: Bastion Of The Spanish Borderlands. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma. ISBN 978-0-8061-2317-2.
  • Rawls, J. & Bean, W. (1997). California: An Interpretive History. McGraw-Hill, New York. ISBN 978-0-07-052411-8.
  • Robinson, W.W. (1953). Panorama: A Picture History of Southern California. Anderson, Ritchie & Simon, Los Angeles, California.
  • Weitze, Karen J. (1984). California's Mission Revival. Hennessy & Ingalls, Inc., Los Angeles, California. ISBN 978-0-912158-89-1.
  • Wright, Ralph B., Ed. (1984). California's Missions. Lowman Publishing Company, Arroyo Grande, California.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Articles and archives

  • Early California Population Project (ECPP) The Huntington Library, 2006. Provides public access to all the information contained in California's historic mission registers.
  • California Missions article at the Catholic Encyclopedia
  • The California Missions, 2001.
  • Matrimonial Investigation records of the San Gabriel Mission Claremont Colleges Digital Library, 2008, 169 records digitized and searchable by priest name or by the names of the couple requesting marriage.
  • Preview of Fogel, Daniel. ISM Press Books. Offers a critical perspective on the missions' impact on California's Indians.
  • MissionTour Tom Simondi, 2001–2005.
  • The Old Franciscan Missions of California James, George Wharton, 1913. eText at Project Gutenberg.
  • The San Diego Founders Trail 2001–2008 website.
  • Trails and Roads: El Camino Real Faigin, Daniel P. California Highways, 1996–2004
  • GAzis-SAx, Joel, 1999.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to California missions.
  • The California Frontier Project: Dedicated the early California, including the Spanish missions
  • California's Spanish Missions
  • The California Missions Trail, California Department of Parks and Recreation
  • Library of Congress: American Memory Project: Early California History, The Missions
  • Tricia Anne Weber: The Spanish Missions of California
  • Album of Views of the Missions of California, Souvenir Publishing Company, San Francisco, Los Angeles, 1890s.
  • The Missions of California, by Eugene Leslie Smyth, Chicago: Alexander Belford & Co., 1899.
  • California Historical Society
  • California Mission Visitors Guide
  • California Missions: A Journey Along the El Camino Real (exhibit at The California Museum)
  • National Register of Historic Places: Early History of the California Coast: List of Sites
  • California Mission Sketches by Henry Miller, 1856 and Finding Aid to the Documents relating to Missions of the Californias : typescript, 1768–1802 at The Bancroft Library
  • Howser, Huell (December 8, 2000). "Art of the Missions (110)". California Missions. Chapman University Huell Howser Archive.

January 12, 2023
spanish, missions, california, spanish, misiones, españolas, california, formed, series, religious, outposts, missions, established, between, 1769, 1833, what, state, california, missions, were, established, catholic, priests, franciscan, order, evangelize, in. The Spanish missions in California Spanish Misiones espanolas en California formed a series of 21 religious outposts or missions established between 1769 and 1833 in what is now the U S state of California The missions were established by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order to evangelize indigenous peoples backed by the military force of the Spanish Empire The missions were part of the expansion and settlement of New Spain through the formation of Alta California expanding the empire into the most northern and western parts of Spanish North America Civilian settlers and soldiers accompanied missionaries and formed settlements like the Pueblo de Los Angeles 2 The locations of the 21 Franciscan missions in Alta California A view of Mission San Juan Capistrano At left is the facade of the first adobe church with its added espadana behind the campanario or bell wall is the Sacred Garden The Mission has earned a reputation as the Loveliest of the Franciscan Ruins 1 Indigenous peoples were forced into settlements called reductions 3 disrupting their traditional way of life and negatively affecting as many as one thousand villages 2 European diseases spread in the close quarters of the missions causing mass death 4 Abuse malnourishment and overworking were common 5 At least 87 787 baptisms and 63 789 deaths occurred 6 Indigenous peoples often resisted and rejected conversion to Christianity 7 Some fled the missions while others formed rebellions 7 Missionaries recorded frustrations with getting indigenous people to internalize Catholic scripture and practice 7 Indigenous girls were taken away from their parents and housed at monjerios 8 The missions role in destroying Indigenous culture has been described as cultural genocide 5 By 1810 Spain s king had been imprisoned by the French and financing for military payroll and missions in California ceased 9 In 1821 Mexico achieved independence from Spain yet did not send a governor to California until 1824 The missions maintained authority over indigenous peoples and land holdings until the 1830s At the peak of their influence in 1832 the coastal mission system controlled approximately one sixth of Alta California 10 The First Mexican Republic secularized the missions with the Mexican secularization act of 1833 which emancipated indigenous peoples from the missions Mission lands were largely given to settlers and soldiers along with a minority of indigenous people 7 The surviving mission buildings are the state of California s oldest structures and most visited historic monuments many of which were restored after falling into near disrepair in the early 20th century They have become a symbol of California appearing in many movies and television shows and are an inspiration for Mission Revival architecture Concerns have been raised by historians and Indigenous peoples of California about the way the mission period in California is taught in educational institutions and memorialized 8 The oldest European settlements of California were formed around or near Spanish missions including the four largest Los Angeles San Diego San Jose and San Francisco Contents 1 Alta California mission planning structure and culture 1 1 Coastal mission chain planning and overview 1 2 Shelved plans for additional mission chains 1 3 Mission sites selection and layout 1 4 Franciscans and native conscription 1 4 1 Death rate at the missions 1 5 Mission labor 1 6 Franciscan violence against native population 1 7 Mission industries 2 History 2 1 Early Spanish exploration 2 2 Secret English claims 2 3 Russian exploration 2 4 Spanish expansion 2 5 Mission period 1769 1833 2 5 1 Structure 2 6 Secularization 2 7 Rancho period 1834 1849 2 8 California statehood 1850 and beyond 2 9 Legacy and Native American controversy 3 Mission administration locations and military districts 3 1 System Father Presidentes 3 2 Mission headquarters 3 3 Mission locations 3 4 Military districts 4 Present day California missions 4 1 Building restoration 5 Structures gallery 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 8 1 Sources 9 Further reading 9 1 Books 9 2 Articles and archives 10 External linksAlta California mission planning structure and culture EditCoastal mission chain planning and overview Edit Prior to 1754 grants of mission lands were made directly by the Spanish Crown But given the remote locations and the inherent difficulties in communicating with the territorial governments power was transferred to the viceroys of New Spain to grant lands and establish missions in North America 11 Plans for the Alta California missions were laid out under the reign of King Charles III and came at least in part as a response to recent sightings of Russian fur traders along the California coast in the mid 1700s 12 The missions were to be interconnected by an overland route which later became known as the Camino Real The detailed planning and direction of the missions was to be carried out by Friar Junipero Serra O F M who in 1767 along with his fellow priests had taken control over a group of missions in Baja California Peninsula previously administered by the Jesuits The Rev Fermin Francisco de Lasuen took up Serra s work and established nine more mission sites from 1786 through 1798 others established the last three compounds along with at least five asistencias mission assistance outposts 13 Shelved plans for additional mission chains Edit Work on the coastal mission chain was concluded in 1823 completed after Serra s death in 1784 Plans to build a twenty second mission in Santa Rosa in 1827 were canceled notes 1 The Rev Pedro Estevan Tapis proposed establishing a mission on one of the Channel Islands in the Pacific Ocean off San Pedro Harbor in 1784 with either Santa Catalina or Santa Cruz known as Limu to the Tongva residents being the most likely locations the reasoning being that an offshore mission might have attracted potential people to convert who were not living on the mainland and could have been an effective measure to restrict smuggling operations 14 Governor Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga approved the plan the following year however an outbreak of sarampion measles killing some 200 Tongva people coupled with a scarcity of land for agriculture and potable water left the success of such a venture in doubt so no effort to found an island mission was ever made In September 1821 the Rev Mariano Payeras Comisario Prefecto of the California missions visited Canada de Santa Ysabel east of Mission San Diego de Alcala as part of a plan to establish an entire chain of inland missions The Santa Ysabel Asistencia had been founded in 1818 as a mother mission However the plan s expansion never came to fruition Mission sites selection and layout Edit Main article Architecture of the California missions Mission San Luis Rey de Francia circa 1910 This mission is architecturally distinctive because of the strong Moorish lines exhibited The Missionaries as They Came and Went Franciscans of the California missions donned gray habits in contrast to the brown that is typically worn today 15 In addition to the presidio royal fort and pueblo town the mision was one of the three major agencies employed by the Spanish sovereign to extend its borders and consolidate its colonial territories Asistencias satellite or sub missions sometimes referred to as contributing chapels were small scale missions that regularly conducted Mass on days of obligation but lacked a resident priest 16 as with the missions these settlements were typically established in areas with high concentrations of potential native converts 17 The Spanish Californians had never strayed from the coast when establishing their settlements Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad was located farthest inland being only some thirty miles 48 kilometers from the shore 18 Each frontier station was forced to be self supporting as existing means of supply were inadequate to maintain a colony of any size California was months away from the nearest base in colonized Mexico and the cargo ships of the day were too small to carry more than a few months rations in their holds To sustain a mission the padres required converted Native Americans called neophytes to cultivate crops and tend livestock in the volume needed to support a fair sized establishment The scarcity of imported materials together with a lack of skilled laborers compelled the missionaries to employ simple building materials and methods in the construction of mission structures A drawing of Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo prepared by Captain George Vancouver depicts the grounds as they appeared in November 1792 From A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World Although the missions were considered temporary ventures by the Spanish hierarchy the development of an individual settlement was not simply a matter of priestly whim The founding of a mission followed longstanding rules and procedures the paperwork involved required months sometimes years of correspondence and demanded the attention of virtually every level of the bureaucracy Once empowered to erect a mission in a given area the men assigned to it chose a specific site that featured a good water supply plenty of wood for fires and building materials and ample fields for grazing herds and raising crops The padres blessed the site and with the aid of their military escort fashioned temporary shelters out of tree limbs or driven stakes roofed with thatch or reeds canas It was these simple huts that ultimately gave way to the stone and adobe buildings that exist to the present The first priority when beginning a settlement was the location and construction of the church iglesia The majority of mission sanctuaries were oriented on a roughly east west axis to take the best advantage of the sun s position for interior illumination the exact alignment depended on the geographic features of the particular site Once the spot for the church had been selected its position was marked and the remainder of the mission complex was laid out The workshops kitchens living quarters storerooms and other ancillary chambers were usually grouped in the form of a quadrangle inside which religious celebrations and other festive events often took place The cuadrangulo was rarely a perfect square because the missionaries had no surveying instruments at their disposal and simply measured off all dimensions by foot Some fanciful accounts regarding the construction of the missions claimed that tunnels were incorporated in the design to be used as a means of emergency egress in the event of attack however no historical evidence written or physical has ever been uncovered to support these assertions 19 notes 2 Franciscans and native conscription Edit An illustration depicts the death of the Rev Luis Jayme by angry natives at Mission San Diego de Alcala November 4 1775 20 The independence uprising was the first of a dozen similar incidents that took place in Alta California during the Mission Period however most rebellions tended to be localized and short lived due to the Spaniards superior weaponry native resistance more often took the form of non cooperation in forced labor return to their homelands desertion of forced relocation and raids on mission livestock 21 22 notes 3 23 notes 4 The Alta California missions known as reductions reducciones or congregations congregaciones were settlements founded by the Spanish colonizers of the New World with the purpose of totally assimilating indigenous populations into European culture and the Catholic religion It was a doctrine established in 1531 which based the Spanish state s right over the land and persons of the Indies on the Papal charge to evangelize them It was employed wherever the indigenous populations were not already concentrated in native pueblos Indians were congregated around the mission proper through forced resettlement in which the Spanish reduced them from what they perceived to be a free undisciplined state with the ambition of converting them into civilized members of colonial society 24 The civilized and disciplined culture of the natives developed over 8 000 years was not considered A total of 146 Friars Minor mostly Spaniards by birth were ordained as priests and served in California between 1769 and 1845 Sixty seven missionaries died at their posts two as martyrs Padres Luis Jayme and Andres Quintana while the remainder returned to Europe due to illness or upon completing their ten year service commitment 25 As the rules of the Franciscan Order forbade friars to live alone two missionaries were assigned to each settlement sequestered in the mission s convento 26 To these the governor assigned a guard of five or six soldiers under the command of a corporal who generally acted as steward of the mission s temporal affairs subject to the priests direction 27 Indians were initially attracted into the mission compounds by gifts of food colored beads bits of bright cloth and trinkets Once a Native American gentile was baptized they were labeled a neophyte or new believer This happened only after a brief period during which the initiates were instructed in the most basic aspects of the Catholic faith But while many natives were lured to join the missions out of curiosity and sincere desire to participate and engage in trade many found themselves trapped once they were baptized 28 On the other hand Indians staffed the militias at each mission 29 and had a role in mission governance Georg von Langsdorff an early visitor to California sketched a group of Costeno dancers at Mission San Jose in 1806 The hair of these people is very coarse thick and stands erect in some it is powdered with down feathers Langsdorff noted Their bodies are fantastically painted with charcoal dust red clay and chalk The foremost dancer is ornamented all over with down feathers which gives him a monkey like appearance the hindermost has had the whimsical idea of painting his body to imitate the uniform of a Spanish soldier with his boots stockings breeches and upper garments 30 To the padres a baptized Indian person was no longer free to move about the country but had to labor and worship at the mission under the strict observance of the priests and overseers who herded them to daily masses and labors If an Indian did not report for their duties for a period of a few days they were searched for and if it was discovered that they had left without permission they were considered runaways Large scale military expeditions were organized to round up the escaped neophytes Sometimes the Franciscans allowed neophytes to escape the missions or they would allow them to visit their home village However the Franciscans would only allow this so that they could secretly follow the neophytes Upon arriving to the village and capturing the runaways they would take back Indians to the missions sometimes as many as 200 to 300 Indians 31 On one occasion writes Hugo Reid they went as far as the present Rancho del Chino where they tied and whipped every man woman and child in the lodge and drove part of them back On the road they did the same with those of the lodge at San Jose On arriving home the men were instructed to throw their bows and arrows at the feet of the priest and make due submission The infants were then baptized as were also all children under eight years of age the former were left with their mothers but the latter kept apart from all communication with their parents The consequence was first the women consented to the rite and received it for the love they bore their children and finally the males gave way for the purpose of enjoying once more the society of wife and family Marriage was then performed and so this contaminated race in their own sight and that of their kindred became followers of Christ 28 A total of 20 355 natives were attached to the California missions in 1806 the highest figure recorded during the Mission Period under Mexican rule the number rose to 21 066 in 1824 the record year during the entire era of the Franciscan missions 32 notes 5 During the entire period of Mission rule from 1769 to 1834 the Franciscans baptized 53 600 adult Indians and buried 37 000 Dr Cook estimates that 15 250 or 45 of the population decrease was caused by disease Two epidemics of measles one in 1806 and the other in 1828 caused many deaths The mortality rates were so high that the missions were constantly dependent upon new conversions 28 Young native women were required to reside in the monjerio or nunnery under the supervision of a trusted Indian matron who bore the responsibility for their welfare and education Women only left the convent after they had been won by an Indian suitor and were deemed ready for marriage Following Spanish custom courtship took place on either side of a barred window After the marriage ceremony the woman moved out of the mission compound and into one of the family huts 33 These nunneries were considered a necessity by the priests who felt the women needed to be protected from the men both Indian and de razon instructed men i e Europeans The cramped and unsanitary conditions the girls lived in contributed to the fast spread of disease and population decline So many died at times that many of the Indian residents of the missions urged the priests to raid new villages to supply them with more women 6 Death rate at the missions Edit As of December 31 1832 the peak of the mission system s development the mission padres had performed a combined total of 87 787 baptisms and 24 529 marriages and recorded 63 789 deaths 6 The death rate at the missions particularly of children was very high and the majority of children baptized did not survive childhood 34 35 At Mission San Gabriel for instance three of four children died before reaching the age of two 36 The high rate of death at the missions have been attributed to several factors including disease torture overworking malnourishment and cultural genocide 5 Forcing native people into close quarters at the missions spread disease quickly While being kept at the missions native people were transitioned to a Spanish diet that left them more unable to ward off diseases the most common being dysentery fevers with unknown causes and venereal disease 4 The death rate has been compared to that of other atrocities American author and lawyer Carey McWilliams argued that the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps 37 No Name Baptisms and or Indigenous population Deaths and or remaining pop Notes1 Mission San Diego de Alcala 6 638 baptisms total 34 2 685 children 35 4 428 deaths toal 34 From 1810 1820 the death rate among the neophytes was 77 of baptisms and 35 of the population Only 34 families remained after the mission was secularized in 1833 35 2 Mission San Luis Rey de Francia 5 401 baptisms total 1 862 children 35 2 869 people in 1826 34 3 Mission San Juan Capistrano 4 317 baptisms total 2 628 children 35 3 153 deaths total 35 4 Mission San Gabriel Arcangel 7 854 baptisms total 2 459 children 34 1 701 people in 1817 34 5 656 deaths total 2 916 children 34 1 320 people in 1834 34 A missionary reported that three out of four children died at the mission before reaching the age of 2 36 5 Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana 1 367 children baptized 1 080 people in 1819 34 965 children died 34 It was not strange that the fearful death rate both of children and adults at the missions sometimes frightened the neophytes into running away 38 6 Mission San Buenaventura 3 805 baptisms total 1 909 children 35 1 330 people in 1816 34 626 people remaining in 1834 35 Hubert Howe Bancroft estimated that there were about 250 people in 1840 remaining from the mission living in scattered communities 35 7 Mission Santa Barbara 1 792 people in 1803 34 556 people remaining in 1834 34 At such a rate it would not even if mission rule had continued have taken more than a dozen years to depopulate the mission 34 8 Mission Santa Ines 757 children baptized 770 people in 1816 34 519 children died 334 people remaining in 1834 34 9 Mission La Purisima Concepcion 1 492 children baptized total 1 520 people in 1804 34 902 children died 407 people in remaining in 1834 34 10 Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa 2 608 baptisms total 1 331 children 852 people in 1803 34 264 people remaining in 1834 34 11 Mission San Miguel Arcangel 2 588 baptisms total 1 076 people in 1814 34 2 038 deaths total 599 people remaining in 1834 34 The lowest death rate in any of the missions 34 12 Mission San Antonio de Padua 4 348 baptisms total 2 587 children 34 1 296 people in 1805 34 567 people remaining in 1834 34 13 Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad 2 222 baptisms total 725 people in 1805 34 1 803 deaths total 300 people remaining 34 14 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo 971 people in 1794 758 in 1800 513 in 1810 381 in 1820 35 150 people remaining in 1834 34 At the rate of decrease under mission rule a few more years would have produced the extinction of the mission Indian 34 15 Mission San Juan Bautista 1 248 people in 1823 34 850 people remaining in 1834 34 The only mission whose population increased from 1810 to 1820 This was due to the fact that its numbers were recruited from the eastern tribes 34 The appalling smell from the graveyard saturated the entire Mission building 4 16 Mission Santa Cruz 2 466 baptisms total 644 people in 1798 34 2 034 deaths total 250 people remaining in 1834 34 17 Mission Santa Clara de Asis 7 711 baptisms 3 177 children 927 people in 1790 1 464 in 1827 35 150 people remaining in 1834 35 Very sharp decline in the native population from 1827 to 1834 The death rate at the mission was very high 35 18 Mission San Jose 6 737 baptisms total 1 754 people in 1820 34 5 109 deaths total 34 19 Mission San Francisco de Asis 880 deaths in 1806 alone 39 An epidemic in 1806 had broken out in the Mission Dolores and a number of the Indians were transferred to San Rafael to escape the plague 34 20 Mission San Rafael Arcangel 1 873 baptisms total 1 140 people in 1828 34 698 deaths total Less than 500 people remaining 34 21 Mission San Francisco Solano 1 315 baptisms total 996 people in 1832 34 651 deaths total About 550 people remaining 34 Mission labor Edit At least 90 000 Indigenous peoples were kept in well guarded mission compounds throughout the state as de facto slaves 40 The policy of the Franciscans was to keep them constantly occupied Bells were vitally important to daily life at any mission The bells were rung at mealtimes to call the Mission residents to work and to religious services during births and funerals to signal the approach of a ship or returning missionary and at other times novices were instructed in the intricate rituals associated with the ringing the mission bells The daily routine began with sunrise Mass and morning prayers followed by instruction of the natives in the teachings of the Roman Catholic faith After a generous by era standards breakfast of atole the able bodied men and women were assigned their tasks for the day The women were committed to dressmaking knitting weaving embroidering laundering and cooking while some of the stronger girls ground flour or carried adobe bricks weighing 55 lb or 25 kg each to the men engaged in building The men worked a variety of jobs having learned from the missionaries how to plow sow irrigate cultivate reap thresh and glean They were taught to build adobe houses tan leather hides shear sheep weave rugs and clothing from wool make ropes soap paint and other useful duties Ya Viene El Alba The Dawn Already Comes typical of the hymns sung at the missions 41 The work day was six hours interrupted by dinner lunch around 11 00 a m and a two hour siesta and ended with evening prayers and the rosary supper and social activities About 90 days out of each year were designated as religious or civil holidays free from manual labor The labor organization of the missions resembled a slave plantation in many respects 42 notes 6 Foreigners who visited the missions remarked at how the priests control over the Indians appeared excessive but necessary given the white men s isolation and numeric disadvantage 43 notes 7 Subsequently the Missions operated under strict and harsh conditions A light punishment would ve been considered 25 lashings azotes 44 Indians were not paid wages as they were not considered free laborers and as a result the missions were able to profit from the goods produced by the Mission Indians to the detriment of the other Spanish and Mexican settlers of the time who could not compete economically with the advantage of the mission system 45 The Franciscans began to send neophytes to work as servants of Spanish soldiers in the presidios Each presidio was provided with land el rancho del rey which served as a pasture for the presidio livestock and as a source of food for the soldiers Theoretically the soldiers were supposed to work on this land themselves but within a few years the neophytes were doing all the work on the presidio farm and in addition were serving domestics for the soldiers While the fiction prevailed that neophytes were to receive wages for their work no attempt was made to collect the wages for these services after 1790 It is recorded that the neophytes performed the work under unmitigated compulsion 28 In recent years much debate has arisen about the priests treatment of the Indians during the Mission period and many believe that the California mission system is directly responsible for the decline of the native cultures 43 notes 8 From the perspective of the Spanish priest their efforts were a well meaning attempt to improve the lives of the heathen natives 46 notes 9 47 notes 10 The missionaries of California were by and large well meaning devoted men whose attitudes toward the Indians ranged from genuine if paternalistic affection to wrathful disgust They were ill equipped nor did most truly desire to understand complex and radically different Native American customs Using European standards they condemned the Indians for living in a wilderness for worshipping false gods or no God at all and for having no written laws standing armies forts or churches 48 Franciscan violence against native population Edit The Franciscan arrival to Alta California saw a wave of torture rape and murder towards the Native population of California Native Californians attracted to the Missions by the promise of food and gifts would be banned from leaving and any form of escape would usually be met with a severe beating and chaining Any form of Native rebellion would not be tolerated due to numerical disadvantage facing the Franciscans When Native Women attempted to abort their unborn children which they had conceived as a byproduct of rape The Friars would have them beaten chained in iron shaved and stipulated to stand in front of the altar each mass with a decorated wooden newborn 49 This trend of violence was due to the Franciscans desire for a greater Hispanicized population in Alta California both for protection against a foreign invasion and for a labor force to benefit the Spanish Empire As a result a higher emphasis of Native reproduction was a duty taken on by the Spanish Fransicans Tejana Born Feminist Historian Antonia Castaneda reports in great detail of the treatment that would occur in Mission Santa Cruz Father Olbes at Mission Santa Cruz ordered an infertile couple to have sexual intercourse in his presence because he did not believe they could not have children The couple refused but Olbes forcibly inspected the man s penis to learn whether or not it was in good order and tried to inspect the woman s genitalia 13 She refused fought with him and tried to bite him Olbes ordered that she be tied by the hands and given fifty lashes shackled and locked up in the monjerio women s dormitory He then had a monigote made and commanded that she treat the doll as though it were a child and carry it in the presence of everyone for nine days While the woman was beaten and her sexuality demeaned the husband who had been intimate with another woman was ridiculed and humiliated A set of cow horns was tied to his head with leather thongs thereby converting him into a cuckold and he was herded to daily Mass in cow horns and fetters 50 Franciscan Priests would also forbid any form of native culture in the Mission system This would include but not be limited to songs dances and ceremonies They objectified the destruction of any form of morality ideology or personality that characterized the Native life Women in particular would face a higher degree of punishment Those who did not comply with the Missions demands would be labeled a witch dehumanizing them for further violence Professor at the University of Chicago Ramon Guttiriez states One can interpret the whole history of the persecution of Indian women as witches as a struggle over these competing ways of defining the body and of regulating procreation as the church endeavored to constrain the expression of desire within boundaries that clerics defined proper and acceptable Gutierrez Sexual Mores and Behavior 701 51 Mission industries Edit A view of the Catalan forges at Mission San Juan Capistrano the oldest existing facilities circa 1790s of their kind in the State of California The sign at the lower right hand corner proclaims the site as being part of Orange County s first industrial complex The goal of the missions was above all to become self sufficient in relatively short order Farming therefore was the most important industry of any mission Barley maize and wheat were among the most common crops grown Cereal grains were dried and ground by stone into flour Even today California is well known for the abundance and many varieties of fruit trees that are cultivated throughout the state The only fruits indigenous to the region however consisted of wild berries or grew on small bushes Spanish missionaries brought fruit seeds over from Europe many of which had been introduced from Asia following earlier expeditions to the continent orange grape apple peach pear and fig seeds were among the most prolific of the imports Grapes were also grown and fermented into wine for sacramental use and again for trading The specific variety called the Criolla or Mission grape was first planted at Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1779 in 1783 the first wine produced in Alta California emerged from the mission s winery Ranching also became an important mission industry as cattle and sheep herds were raised Mission San Gabriel Arcangel unknowingly witnessed the origin of the California citrus industry with the planting of the region s first significant orchard in 1804 though the commercial potential of citrus was not realized until 1841 52 Olives first cultivated at Mission San Diego de Alcala were grown cured and pressed under large stone wheels to extract their oil both for use at the mission and to trade for other goods The Rev Serra set aside a portion of the Mission Carmel gardens in 1774 for tobacco plants a practice that soon spread throughout the mission system 53 notes 11 It was also the missions responsibility to provide the Spanish forts or presidios with the necessary foodstuffs and manufactured goods to sustain operations It was a constant point of contention between missionaries and the soldiers as to how many fanegas 54 of barley or how many shirts or blankets the mission had to provide the garrisons on any given year At times these requirements were hard to meet especially during years of drought or when the much anticipated shipments from the port of San Blas failed to arrive The Spaniards kept meticulous records of mission activities and each year reports submitted to the Father Presidente summarizing both the material and spiritual status at each of the settlements Natives utilize a primitive plow to prepare a field for planting near Mission San Diego de Alcala Livestock was raised not only for the purpose of obtaining meat but also for wool leather and tallow and for cultivating the land In 1832 at the height of their prosperity the missions collectively owned 151 180 head of cattle 137 969 sheep 14 522 horses 1 575 mules or burros 1 711 goats and 1 164 swine 55 All these grazing animals were originally brought up from Mexico A great many Indians were required to guard the herds and flocks on the mission ranches which created the need for a class of horsemen scarcely surpassed anywhere 27 These animals multiplied beyond the settler s expectations often overrunning pastures and extending well beyond the domains of the missions The giant herds of horses and cows took well to the climate and the extensive pastures of the Coastal California region but at a heavy price for the California Native American people The uncontrolled spread of these new herds and associated invasive exotic plant species quickly exhausted the native plants in the grasslands 56 and the chaparral and woodlands that the Indians depended on for their seed foliage and bulb harvests The grazing overgrazing problems were also recognized by the Spaniards who periodically had extermination parties cull and kill thousands of excess livestock when herd populations grew beyond their control or the land s capacity Years with a severe drought did this also Mission kitchens and bakeries prepared and served thousands of meals each day Candles soap grease and ointments were all made from tallow rendered animal fat in large vats located just outside the west wing Also situated in this general area were vats for dyeing wool and tanning leather and primitive looms for weaving Large bodegas warehouses provided long term storage for preserved foodstuffs and other treated materials Mission Santa Barbara s lavanderia was constructed by Chumash neophytes around 1806 Each mission had to fabricate virtually all of its construction materials from local materials Workers in the carpinteria carpentry shop used crude methods to shape beams lintels and other structural elements more skilled artisans carved doors furniture and wooden implements For certain applications bricks ladrillos were fired in ovens kilns to strengthen them and make them more resistant to the elements when tejas roof tiles eventually replaced the conventional jacal roofing densely packed reeds they were placed in the kilns to harden them as well Glazed ceramic pots dishes and canisters were also made in mission kilns Prior to the establishment of the missions the native peoples knew only how to utilize bone seashells stone and wood for building tool making weapons and so forth The missionaries established manual training in European skills and methods in agriculture mechanical arts and the raising and care of livestock Everything consumed and otherwise utilized by the natives was produced at the missions under the supervision of the padres thus the neophytes not only supported themselves but after 1811 sustained the entire military and civil government of California 57 The foundry at Mission San Juan Capistrano was the first to introduce the Indians to the Iron Age The blacksmith used the mission s forges California s first to smelt and fashion iron into everything from basic tools and hardware such as nails to crosses gates hinges even cannon for mission defense Iron in particular was a commodity that the mission acquired solely through trade as the missionaries had neither the know how nor technology to mine and process metal ores No study of the missions is complete without mention of their extensive water supply systems Stone zanjas aqueducts sometimes spanning miles brought fresh water from a nearby river or spring to the mission site Open or covered lined ditches and or baked clay pipes joined together with lime mortar or bitumen gravity fed the water into large cisterns and fountains and emptied into waterways where the force of the water was used to turn grinding wheels and other simple machinery or dispensed for use in cleaning Water used for drinking and cooking was allowed to trickle through alternate layers of sand and charcoal to remove the impurities One of the best preserved mission water systems is at Mission Santa Barbara 58 History EditBeginning in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus the Kingdom of Spain sought to establish missions to convert indigenous people in Nueva Espana New Spain which consisted of the Caribbean Mexico and most of what is now the Southwestern United States to Roman Catholicism This would facilitate colonization of these lands awarded to Spain by the Catholic Church including that region later known as Alta California notes 12 notes 13 59 notes 14 Early Spanish exploration Edit Only 48 years after Columbus discovered the Americas for Europe Francisco Vazquez de Coronado set out from Compostela New Spain on February 23 1540 at the head of a large expedition Accompanied by 400 European men at arms mostly Spaniards 1 300 to 2 000 Mexican Indian allies several Indian and African slaves and four Franciscan friars he traveled from Mexico through parts of the southwestern United States to present day Kansas between 1540 and 1542 60 61 Two years later on 27 June 1542 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo set out from Navidad Mexico and sailed up the coast of Baja California and into the region of Alta California 62 Secret English claims Edit Unknown to Spain Sir Francis Drake an English privateer who raided Spanish treasure ships and colonial settlements claimed the Alta California region as Nova Albion for the English Crown in 1579 a full generation before the first English landing in Jamestown in 1607 During his circumnavigation of the world Drake anchored in a harbor just north of present day San Francisco California establishing friendly relations with the Coastal Miwok and claiming the territory for Queen Elizabeth I However Drake sailed back to England and England and later Britain never pressed for any sort of claim regarding the region 63 64 65 66 Russian exploration Edit However it wasn t until 1741 that the Spanish monarchy of King Philip V was stimulated to consider how to protect his claims to Alta California Philip was spurred on when the territorial ambitions of Tsarist Russia were expressed in the Vitus Bering expedition along the western coast on the North American continent 67 68 notes 15 69 notes 16 Spanish expansion Edit California represents the high water mark of Spanish expansion in North America as the last and northernmost colony on the continent 70 The mission system arose in part from the need to control Spain s ever expanding holdings in the New World Realizing that the colonies required a literate population base that the mother country could not supply the Spanish government with the cooperation of the Church established a network of missions to convert the indigenous population to Christianity They aimed to make converts and tax paying citizens of those they conquered 47 notes 17 To make them into Spanish citizens and productive inhabitants the Spanish government and the Church required the indigenous people to learn Spanish language and vocational skills along with Christian teachings 71 Estimates for the pre contact indigenous population in California are based on a number of different sources and vary substantially from 133 000 72 to 225 000 73 to as high as 705 000 from more than 100 separate tribes or nations 74 75 notes 18 notes 19 On January 29 1767 Spain s King Charles III ordered the new governor Gaspar de Portola to forcibly expel the Jesuits who operated under the authority of the Pope and had established a chain of fifteen missions on the Baja California Peninsula 76 notes 20 Visitador General Jose de Galvez engaged the Franciscans under the leadership of Friar Junipero Serra to take charge of those outposts on March 12 1768 77 The padres closed or consolidated several of the existing settlements and also founded Mision San Fernando Rey de Espana de Velicata the only Franciscan mission in all of Baja California and the nearby Visita de la Presentacion in 1769 This plan however changed within a few months after Galvez received the following orders Occupy and fortify San Diego and Monterey for God and the King of Spain 78 The Church ordered the priests of the Dominican Order to take charge of the Baja California missions so the Franciscans could concentrate on founding new missions in Alta California Mission period 1769 1833 Edit The first recorded baptisms in Alta California were performed in The Canyon of the Little Christians 79 On July 14 1769 Galvez sent the Portola expedition out from Loreto to explore lands to the north Leader Gaspar de Portola was accompanied by a group of Franciscans led by Junipero Serra Serra s plan was to extend the string of missions north from the Baja California peninsula connected by an established road and spaced a day s travel apart The first Alta California mission and presidio were founded at San Diego the second at Monterey 80 En route to Monterey the Rev Francisco Gomez and the Rev Juan Crespi came across a Native settlement wherein two young girls were dying one a baby said to be dying at its mother s breast the other a small girl suffering of burns On July 22 Gomez baptized the baby naming her Maria Magdalena while Crespi baptized the older child naming her Margarita These were the first recorded baptisms in Alta California 81 Crespi dubbed the spot Los Cristianos 79 notes 21 The group continued northward but missed Monterey Harbor and returned to San Diego on January 24 1770 Near the end of 1769 the Portola expedition had reached its most northerly point at present day San Francisco In following years the Spanish Crown sent a number of follow up expeditions to explore more of Alta California Spain also settled the California region with a number of African and mulatto Catholics including at least ten of the recently re discovered Los Pobladores the founders of Los Angeles in 1781 82 Captain Fernando Rivera y Moncada violated ecclesiastical asylum at Mission San Diego de Alcala on March 26 1776 when he forcibly removed a neophyte in direct defiance of the padres Missionary Pedro Font later described the scene Rivera entered the chapel with drawn sword con la espada desnuda en la mano Rivera y Moncada was subsequently excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for his actions 83 Structure Edit Each mission was to be turned over to a secular clergy and all the common mission lands distributed amongst the native population within ten years after its founding a policy that was based upon Spain s experience with the more advanced tribes in Mexico Central America and Peru 84 In time it became apparent to the Rev Serra and his associates that the natives on the northern frontier in Alta California required a much longer period of acclimatization 27 None of the California missions ever attained complete self sufficiency and required continued albeit modest financial support from mother Spain 85 Mission development was therefore financed out of El Fondo Piadoso de las Californias The Pious Fund of the Californias which originated in 1697 and consisted of voluntary donations from individuals and religious bodies in Mexico to members of the Society of Jesus to enable the missionaries to propagate the Catholic Faith in the area then known as California Starting with the onset of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810 this support largely disappeared and missions and converts were left on their own As of 1800 native labor had made up the backbone of the colonial economy 86 Arguably the worst epidemic of the Spanish Era in California was known to be the measles epidemic of 1806 wherein one quarter of the mission Native American population of the San Francisco Bay Area died of the measles or related complications between March and May of that year 87 In 1811 the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico sent an interrogatorio questionnaire to all of the missions in Alta California regarding the customs disposition and condition of the Mission Indians 88 The replies which varied greatly in the length spirit and even the value of the information contained therein were collected and prefaced by the Father Presidente with a short general statement or abstract the compilation was thereupon forwarded to the viceregal government 89 notes 22 The contemporary nature of the responses no matter how incomplete or biased some may be are nonetheless of considerable value to modern ethnologists Pablo Tac who lived at Mission San Luis Rey in the 1820s and 1830s penned this drawing depicting two young men wearing skirts of twine and feathers with feather decorations on their heads rattles in their hands and perhaps painted decorations on their bodies 90 Russian colonization of the Americas reached its southernmost point with the 1812 establishment of Fort Ross krepost rus an agricultural scientific and fur trading settlement located in present day Sonoma County California 91 In November and December 1818 several of the missions were attacked by Hipolito Bouchard California s only pirate notes 23 A French privateer sailing under the flag of Argentina Pirata Buchar as Bouchard was known to the locals worked his way down the California coast conducting raids on the installations at Monterey Santa Barbara and San Juan Capistrano with limited success 92 Upon hearing of the attacks many mission priests along with a few government officials sought refuge at Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad the mission chain s most isolated outpost Ironically Mission Santa Cruz though ultimately ignored by the marauders was ignominiously sacked and vandalized by local residents who were entrusted with securing the church s valuables 93 By 1819 Spain decided to limit its reach in the New World to Northern California due to the costs involved in sustaining these remote outposts the northernmost settlement therefore is Mission San Francisco Solano founded in Sonoma in 1823 94 notes 24 The Chumash people revolted against the Spanish presence in 1824 The Chumash planned a coordinated rebellion at three missions Due to an incident with a soldier at Mission Santa Ines the rebellion began on Saturday February 21 The Chumash withdrew from Mission Santa Ines upon the arrival of military reinforcements then attacked Mission La Purisima from inside forced the garrison to surrender and allowed the garrison their families and the mission priest to depart for Santa Ines The next day the Chumash of Mission Santa Barbara captured the mission from within without bloodshed repelled a military attack on the mission and then retreated from the mission to the hills The Chumash continued to occupy Mission La Purisima until a Mexican military unit attacked people on March 16 and forced them to surrender Two military expeditions were sent after the Chumash in the hills the first did not find them and the second negotiated with the Chumash and convinced a majority to return to the missions by June 28 95 An attempt to found a twenty second mission in Santa Rosa in 1827 was aborted 94 notes 25 notes 26 96 notes 27 In 1833 the final group of missionaries arrived in Alta California These were Mexican born rather than Spaniards and had been trained at the Apostolic College of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Zacatecas Among these friars was Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno who would become the first bishop of the Diocese of Both Californias These friars would bear the brunt of the changes brought on by secularization and the U S occupation and many would be marked by allegations of corruption 97 Secularization Edit Further information Mexican secularization act of 1833 As the Mexican republic matured calls for the secularization disestablishment of the missions increased 98 notes 28 Jose Maria de Echeandia the first native Mexican elected Governor of Alta California issued a Proclamation of Emancipation or Prevenciones de Emancipacion on July 25 1826 99 All Indians within the military districts of San Diego Santa Barbara and Monterey who were found qualified were freed from missionary rule and made eligible to become Mexican citizens Those who wished to remain under mission tutelage were exempted from most forms of corporal punishment 100 101 notes 29 By 1830 even the neophyte populations themselves appeared confident in their own abilities to operate the mission ranches and farms independently the padres however doubted the capabilities of their charges in this regard 102 Accelerating immigration both Mexican and foreign increased pressure on the Alta California government to seize the mission properties and dispossess the natives in accordance with Echeandia s directive 103 notes 30 Despite the fact that Echeandia s emancipation plan was met with little encouragement from the novices who populated the southern missions he was nonetheless determined to test the scheme on a large scale at Mission San Juan Capistrano To that end he appointed a number of comisionados commissioners to oversee the emancipation of the Indians 104 The Mexican government passed legislation on December 20 1827 that mandated the expulsion of all Spaniards younger than sixty years of age from Mexican territories Governor Echeandia nevertheless intervened on behalf of some of the missionaries to prevent their deportation once the law took effect in California 105 Governor Jose Figueroa who took office in 1833 initially attempted to keep the mission system intact but the Mexican Congress passed An Act for the Secularization of the Missions of California on August 17 1833 when liberal Valentin Gomez Farias was in office 106 notes 31 The Act also provided for the colonization of both Alta and Baja California the expenses of this latter move to be borne by the proceeds gained from the sale of the mission property to private interests For instance after Mexican Independence the Mexican government confiscated Franciscan lands and decommissioned them This however did not see the end of Native plight since Further dislocation and abuse occurred under Mexican control Most of the confiscated Franscians lands were given out as grants to white settlers or well connected Mexicans while Native Californians continued to occupy the land as a labor force 107 Mission San Juan Capistrano was the very first to feel the effects of secularization when on August 9 1834 Governor Figueroa issued his Decree of Confiscation 108 Nine other settlements quickly followed with six more in 1835 San Buenaventura and San Francisco de Asis were among the last to succumb in June and December 1836 respectively 109 The Franciscans soon thereafter abandoned most of the missions taking with them almost everything of value after which the locals typically plundered the mission buildings for construction materials Former mission pasture lands were divided into large land grants called ranchos greatly increasing the number of private land holdings in Alta California Rancho period 1834 1849 Edit Main article Ranchos of California In spite of this neglect the Indian towns at San Juan Capistrano San Dieguito and Las Flores did continue on for some time under a provision in Gobernador Echeandia s 1826 Proclamation that allowed for the partial conversion of missions to pueblos 110 According to one estimate the native population in and around the missions proper was approximately 80 000 at the time of the confiscation others claim that the statewide population had dwindled to approximately 100 000 by the early 1840s due in no small part to the natives exposure to European diseases and from the Franciscan practice of cloistering women in the convento and controlling sexuality during the child bearing age Baja California Territory experienced a similar reduction in native population resulting from Spanish colonization efforts there 111 Illuminated choir missals on display at Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in 1913 112 Pio de Jesus Pico the last Mexican Governor of Alta California found upon taking office that there were few funds available to carry on the affairs of the province He prevailed upon the assembly to pass a decree authorizing the renting or the sale of all mission property reserving only the church a curate s house and a building for a courthouse The expenses of conducting the services of the church were to be provided from the proceeds but there was no disposition made as to what should be done to secure the funds for that purpose After secularization Father Presidente Narciso Duran transferred the missions headquarters to Santa Barbara thereby making Mission Santa Barbara the repository of some 3 000 original documents that had been scattered through the California missions The Mission archive is the oldest library in the State of California that still remains in the hands of its founders the Franciscans it is the only mission where they have maintained an uninterrupted presence Beginning with the writings of Hubert Howe Bancroft the library has served as a center for historical study of the missions for more than a century In 1895 journalist and historian Charles Fletcher Lummis criticized the Act and its results saying Disestablishment a polite term for robbery by Mexico rather than by native Californians misrepresenting the Mexican government in 1834 was the death blow of the mission system The lands were confiscated the buildings were sold for beggarly sums and often for beggarly purposes The Indian converts were scattered and starved out the noble buildings were pillaged for their tiles and adobes 113 California statehood 1850 and beyond Edit Hugo Reid an outspoken critic of the mission system and its effects on the native populations at Rancho Santa Anita circa 1850 Precise figures relating to the population decline of California indigenes are not available One writer Gregory Orfalea estimates that pre contact population was reduced by 33 percent during Spanish and Mexican rule mostly through introduction of European diseases but much more after the United States takeover in 1848 By 1870 the loss of indigenous lives had become catastrophic Up to 80 percent died leaving a population of about 30 000 in 1870 Orfalea claims that nearly half of the native deaths after 1848 were murder 73 In 1837 38 a major smallpox epidemic devastated native tribes north of San Francisco Bay in the jurisdiction of Mission San Francisco Solano General Mariano Vallejo estimated that 70 000 died from the disease 114 Vallejo s ally chief Sem Yeto was one of the few natives to be vaccinated and one of the few to survive When the mission properties were secularized between 1834 and 1838 the approximately 15 000 resident neophytes lost whatever protection the mission system afforded them While under the secularization laws the natives were to receive up to one half of the mission properties this never happened The natives lost whatever stock and movable property they may have accumulated When California became a U S state California law stripped them of legal title to the land In the Act of September 30 1850 Congress appropriated funds to allow the President to appoint three Commissioners O M Wozencraft Redick McKee and George W Barbour to study the California situation and negotiate treaties with the various Indian tribes of California Treaty negotiations ensued during the period between March 19 1851 and January 7 1852 during which the Commission interacted with 402 Indian chiefs and headmen representing approximately one third to one half of the California tribes and entered into eighteen treaties 115 California Senator William M Gwin s Act of March 3 1851 created the Public Land Commission whose purpose was to determine the validity of Spanish and Mexican land grants in California 116 On February 19 1853 Archbishop J S Alemany filed petitions for the return of all former mission lands in the state Ownership of 1 051 44 acres 4 2550 km2 essentially exact area of land occupied by the original mission buildings cemeteries and gardens was subsequently conveyed to the Church along with the Canada de los Pinos or College Rancho in Santa Barbara County comprising 35 499 73 acres 143 6623 km2 and La Laguna in San Luis Obispo County consisting of 4 157 02 acres 16 8229 km2 117 As the result of a U S government investigation in 1873 a number of Indian reservations were assigned by executive proclamation in 1875 The commissioner of Indian affairs reported in 1879 that the number of Mission Indians in the state was down to around 3 000 118 Legacy and Native American controversy Edit Main articles California mission clash of cultures and Population of Native California There is controversy over the California Department of Education s treatment of the missions in the Department s elementary curriculum in the tradition of historical revisionism it has been alleged that the curriculum waters down the harsh treatment of Native Americans Some modern anthropologists cite a cultural bias on the part of the missionaries that blinded them to the natives plight and caused them to develop strong negative opinions of the California Indians 119 notes 32 European diseases like influenza measles tuberculosis gonorrhea and dysentery caused a significant population reduction from the first encounter through the 19th century as California Native Americans had no immunity to these diseases 120 These deaths however where only made worse by the treatment Native Californians faced at the hands of Settlers Associate professor Benjamin Madly at the University of California Los Angeles states Between 1846 and 1870 California s Indian population plunged from perhaps 150 000 to 30 000 Diseases dislocation and starvation caused many of these deaths However abduction unfree labor mass death on reservations individual homicides battles and massacres also took thousands of lives and hindered reproduction 121 The impact that the original Spanish system of colonization had on modern day California cannot be overstated Although the certain cooperation between Church and State that was part and parcel of the original California mission system was soon discarded by the Mexican government it nonetheless provided a foundation upon which later forms of government would soon be established 122 The early missions and their sub missions formed the nuclei of what would later become the major metropolitan areas of San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as many other smaller municipalities 123 In addition to clearing the way for Spanish Mexican and later American settlers the early Spanish mission system established the viability of the early Western economies of cattle and agriculture which survive in modern form in the state to this day The Spanish mission system acted to settle and Westernize California but unfortunately did so very much at the expense of the earlier Native American Culture of California that had preceded the Spanish mission system 124 125 Mission administration locations and military districts EditSystem Father Presidentes Edit The Rev Junipero Serra 1769 1784 The Rev Francisco Palou presidente pro tempore 1784 1785 The Rev Fermin Francisco de Lasuen 1785 1803 The Rev Pedro Estevan Tapis 1803 1812 The Rev Jose Francisco de Paula Senan 1812 1815 The Rev Mariano Payeras 1815 1820 The Rev Jose Francisco de Paula Senan 1820 1823 The Rev Vicente Francisco de Sarria 1823 1824 The Rev Narciso Duran 1824 1827 The Rev Jose Bernardo Sanchez 1827 1831 The Rev Narciso Duran 1831 1838 The Rev Jose Joaquin Jimeno 1838 1844 The Rev Narciso Duran 1844 1846 The Father Presidente was the head of the Catholic missions in Alta and Baja California He was appointed by the College of San Fernando de Mexico until 1812 when the position became known as the Commissary Prefect who was appointed by the Commissary General of the Indies a Franciscan residing in Spain Beginning in 1831 separate individuals were elected to oversee Upper and Lower California 126 Mission headquarters Edit Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo established in 1770 was the headquarters of the Californian mission system from 1797 until 1833 Mission San Diego de Alcala 1769 1771 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo 1771 1815 Mission La Purisima Concepcion 1815 1819 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo 1819 1824 Mission San Jose 1824 1827 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo 1827 1830 Mission San Jose 1830 1833 Mission Santa Barbara 1833 1846 The Rev Payeras and the Rev Duran remained at their resident missions during their terms as Father Presidente therefore those settlements became the de facto headquarters until 1833 when all mission records were permanently relocated to Santa Barbara 106 notes 33 127 Mission locations Edit Main article List of Spanish missions in California There were 21 missions accompanied by military outposts in Alta California from San Diego to Sonoma California To facilitate travel between them on horse and foot the mission settlements were situated approximately 30 miles 48 kilometers apart about one day s journey on horseback or three days on foot The entire trail eventually became a 600 mile 966 kilometer long California Mission Trail 128 132 129 152 Heavy freight movement was practical only via water Tradition has it that the padres sprinkled mustard seeds along the trail to mark it with bright yellow flowers 130 79 131 260 Following the old Camino Real northwards from San Diego through to the northernmost mission in Sonoma California north of San Francisco Bay the missions were No Name Named for Location Date founded1 Mission San Diego de Alcala St Didacus of Alcala San Diego July 16 17692 Mission San Luis Rey de Francia St Louis King of France Oceanside June 12 17983 Mission San Juan Capistrano St John of Capistrano San Juan Capistrano November 1 17764 Mission San Gabriel Arcangel The Archangel Gabriel San Gabriel September 8 17715 Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana St Ferdinand King of Spain Los Angeles September 8 17976 Mission San Buenaventura St Bonaventure Ventura March 31 17827 Mission Santa Barbara St Barbara Santa Barbara December 4 17868 Mission Santa Ines St Agnes Solvang September 17 18049 Mission La Purisima Concepcion The Immaculate Conception Southeast of Lompoc December 8 178710 Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa St Louis of Toulouse San Luis Obispo September 1 177211 Mission San Miguel Arcangel The Archangel Michael San Miguel July 25 179712 Mission San Antonio de Padua St Anthony of Padua Northwest of Jolon July 14 177113 Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad Mary Our Lady of Solitude South of Soledad October 9 179114 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo St Charles Borromeo Carmel June 3 177015 Mission San Juan Bautista St John the Baptist San Juan Bautista June 24 179716 Mission Santa Cruz The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Santa Cruz August 28 179117 Mission Santa Clara de Asis St Clare of Assisi Santa Clara January 12 177718 Mission San Jose St Joseph Fremont June 11 179719 Mission San Francisco de Asis St Francis of Assisi San Francisco October 9 177620 Mission San Rafael Arcangel The Archangel Raphael San Rafael December 14 181721 Mission San Francisco Solano St Francis Solanus Sonoma April 4 1824Military districts Edit El Presidio Real de Santa Barbara During the Mission Period Alta California was divided into four military districts Each was garrisoned comandancias by a presidio strategically placed along the California coast to protect the missions and other Spanish settlements in Upper California 132 Each of these functioned as a base of military operations for a specific region They were independent of one another and were organized from south to north as follows El Presidio Real de San Diego founded on July 16 1769 133 responsible for the defense of all installations located within the First Military District the missions at San Diego San Luis Rey San Juan Capistrano and San Gabriel 134 El Presidio Real de Santa Barbara founded on April 12 1782 135 responsible for the defense of all installations located within the Second Military District the missions at San Fernando San Buenaventura Santa Barbara Santa Ines and La Purisima along with El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciuncula Los Angeles 136 El Presidio Real de San Carlos de Monterey El Castillo founded on June 3 1770 137 responsible for the defense of all installations located within the Third Military District the missions at San Luis Obispo San Miguel San Antonio Soledad San Carlos and San Juan Bautista along with Villa Branciforte Santa Cruz 138 and El Presidio Real de San Francisco founded on December 17 1776 139 responsible for the defense of all installations located within the Fourth Military District the missions at Santa Cruz San Jose Santa Clara San Francisco San Rafael and Solano along with El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe San Jose 140 El Presidio de Sonoma or Sonoma Barracks a collection of guardhouses storerooms living quarters and an observation tower was established in 1836 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo the Commandante General of the Northern Frontier of Alta California as a part of Mexico s strategy to halt Russian incursions into the region 141 The Sonoma Presidio became the new headquarters of the Mexican Army in California while the remaining presidios were essentially abandoned and in time fell into ruins An ongoing power struggle between church and state grew increasingly heated and lasted for decades Originating as a feud between the Rev Serra and Pedro Fages the military governor of Alta California from 1770 to 1774 who regarded the Spanish installations in California as military institutions first and religious outposts second the uneasy relationship persisted for more than sixty years 142 143 notes 34 Dependent upon one another for their very survival military leaders and mission padres nevertheless adopted conflicting stances regarding everything from land rights the allocation of supplies protection of the missions the criminal propensities of the soldiers and in particular the status of the native populations 144 notes 35 Present day California missions Edit A view of the restored Mission San Juan Bautista and its three bell campanario bell wall in 2004 Building restoration Edit California is home to the greatest number of well preserved missions found in any U S state 63 notes 36 The missions are collectively the best known historic element of the coastal regions of California Most of the missions are still owned and operated by some entity within the Catholic Church Three of the missions are still run under the auspices of the Franciscan Order Santa Barbara San Miguel Arcangel and San Luis Rey de Francia Four of the missions San Diego de Alcala San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo San Francisco de Asis and San Juan Capistrano have been designated minor basilicas by the Holy See due to their cultural historic architectural and religious importance Mission La Purisima Concepcion Mission San Francisco Solano and the one remaining mission era structure of Mission Santa Cruz are owned and operated by the California Department of Parks and Recreation as State Historic Parks Seven mission sites are designated National Historic Landmarks fourteen are listed in the National Register of Historic Places and all are designated as California Historical Landmarks for their historic architectural and archaeological significance The courtyard of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia with California s oldest pepper tree Schinus molle planted in 1830 visible through the arch 145 Because virtually all of the artwork at the missions served either a devotional or didactic purpose there was no underlying reason for the mission residents to record their surroundings graphically visitors however found them to be objects of curiosity 146 During the 1850s a number of artists found gainful employment as draftsmen attached to expeditions sent to map the Pacific coastline and the border between California and Mexico as well as plot practical railroad routes many of the drawings were reproduced as lithographs in the expedition reports citation needed In 1875 American illustrator Henry Chapman Ford began visiting each of the twenty one mission sites where he created a historically important portfolio of watercolors oils and etchings His depictions of the missions were in part responsible for the revival of interest in the state s Spanish heritage and indirectly for the restoration of the missions The 1880s saw the appearance of a number of articles on the missions in national publications and the first books on the subject as a result a large number of artists did one or more mission paintings though few attempted a series 147 The popularity of the missions also stemmed largely from Helen Hunt Jackson s 1884 novel Ramona and the subsequent efforts of Charles Fletcher Lummis William Randolph Hearst and other members of the Landmarks Club of Southern California to restore three of the southern missions in the early 20th century San Juan Capistrano San Diego de Alcala and San Fernando the Pala Asistencia was also restored by this effort 148 notes 37 Lummis wrote in 1895 In ten years from now unless our intelligence shall awaken at once there will remain of these noble piles nothing but a few indeterminable heaps of adobe We shall deserve and shall have the contempt of all thoughtful people if we suffer our noble missions to fall 149 In acknowledgement of the magnitude of the restoration efforts required and the urgent need to have acted quickly to prevent further or even total degradation Lummis went on to state It is no exaggeration to say that human power could not have restored these four missions had there been a five year delay in the attempt 150 In 1911 author John Steven McGroarty penned The Mission Play a three hour pageant describing the California missions from their founding in 1769 through secularization in 1834 and ending with their final ruin in 1847 Mision San Juan de Capistrano by Henry Chapman Ford 1880 The work depicts the rear of the Great Stone Church and part of the mission s campo santo Today the missions exist in varying degrees of architectural integrity and structural soundness The most common extant features at the mission grounds include the church building and an ancillary convento convent wing In some cases in San Rafael Santa Cruz and Soledad for example the current buildings are replicas constructed on or near the original site Other mission compounds remain relatively intact and true to their original Mission Era construction A notable example of an intact complex is the now threatened Mission San Miguel Arcangel its chapel retains the original interior murals created by Salinan Indians under the direction of Esteban Munras a Spanish artist and last Spanish diplomat to California This structure was closed to the public from 2003 to 2009 due to severe damage from the San Simeon earthquake Many missions have preserved or in some cases reconstructed historic features in addition to chapel buildings The missions have earned a prominent place in California s historic consciousness and a steady stream of tourists from all over the world visit them In recognition of that fact on November 30 2004 President George W Bush signed HR 1446 the California Mission Preservation Act into law The measure provided 10 million over a five year period to the California Missions Foundation for projects related to the physical preservation of the missions including structural rehabilitation stabilization and conservation of mission art and artifacts The California Missions Foundation a volunteer tax exempt organization was founded in 1998 by Richard Ameil an eighth generation Californian 151 A change to the California Constitution has also been proposed that would allow the use of State funds in restoration efforts 152 Structures gallery Edit Mission La Purisima Concepcion located northeast of Lompoc Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad located south of Soledad Mission San Antonio de Padua located northwest of Jolon Mission Santa Barbara located in Santa Barbara Mission San Buenaventura located in Ventura Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo located south of Carmel Mission Santa Clara de Asis located in Santa Clara Scale replica of Mission Santa Cruz chapel located in Santa Cruz Mission San Diego de Alcala located in San Diego Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana located in Mission Hills Los Angeles Mission San Francisco de Asis located in San Francisco Mission San Francisco Solano located in Sonoma Mission San Gabriel Arcangel located in San Gabriel Mission Santa Ines located in Solvang Mission San Jose located in Fremont Mission San Juan Bautista located in San Juan Bautista Mission San Juan Capistrano located in San Juan Capistrano Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa located in San Luis Obispo Mission San Luis Rey de Francia located in Oceanside Mission San Miguel Arcangel located in San Miguel Mission San Rafael Arcangel located in San Rafael See also EditOn California Missions List of Spanish missions in California San Antonio de Pala Asistencia not a full mission but still serving the Pala reservationOn California history Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail History of California through 1899 History of the west coast of North America Mission ViejaOn general missionary history Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery History of Christian Missions List of the oldest churches in Mexico MissionaryOn colonial Spanish American history Spanish colonization of the Americas California mission clash of cultures Indian Reductions California Genocide Native Americans in the United StatesNotes Edit By that time it was found that the Russian colonies were not such undesirable neighbors as in 1817 it was thought they might become the Russian scare for the time being at least was over and as for the old enthusiasm for new spiritual conquests there was none left Engelhardt One such hypothesis was put forth by author by Prent Duel in his 1919 work Mission Architecture as Exemplified in San Xavier Del Bac Most missions of early date possessed secret passages as a means of escape in case they were besieged It is difficult to locate any of them now as they are well concealed Chapman Latter day historians have been altogether too prone to regard the hostility to the Spaniards on the part of the California Indians as a matter of small consequence since no disaster in fact ever happened On the other hand the San Diego plot involved untold thousands of Indians being virtually a national uprising and owing to the distance from New Spain to and the extreme difficulty of maintaining communications a victory for the Indians would have ended Spanish settlement in Alta California As it turned out the position of the Spaniards was strengthened by the San Diego outbreak for the Indians felt from that time forth that it was impossible to throw out their conquerors See also Mission Puerto de Purisima Concepcion and Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuner regarding the Yuma massacres of 1781 Engelhardt Not all of the native cultures responded with hostility to the Spaniards presence Engelhardt portrayed the natives at Mission San Juan Capistrano dubbed the Juaneno by the missionaries where there was never any instance of unrest as being uncommonly friendly and docile The Rev Juan Crespi who accompanied the 1769 expedition described the first encounter with the area s inhabitants They came unarmed and with a gentleness which has no name they brought their poor seeds to us as gifts The locality itself and the docility of the Indians invited the establishment of a Mission for them Chapman Over the hills of the Coast Range in the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin north of San Francisco Bay and in the Sierra Nevadas of the south there were untold thousands whom the mission system never reached they were as if in a world apart from the narrow strip of coast which was all there was of the Spanish California Bennett The system had singularly failed in its purposes It was the design of the Spanish government to have the missions educate elevate civilize the Indians into citizens When this was done citizenship should be extended them and the missions should be dissolved as having served their purpose instead the priests returned them projects of conversion schemes of faith which they never comprehended He the Indian became a slave the mission was a plantation the friar was a taskmaster Bennett In 1825 Governor Arguello wrote that the slavery of the Indians at the missions was bestial Governor Figueroa declared that the missions were entrenchments of monastic despotism Bennett It cannot be said that the mission system made the Indians more able to sustain themselves in civilization than it had found them Upon the whole it may be said that this mission experiment was a failure Lippy A matter of debate in reflecting on the role of Spanish missions concerns the degree to which the Spanish colonial regimes regarded the work of the priests as a legitimate religious enterprise and the degree to which it was viewed as a frontier institution part of a colonial defense program That is were Spanish motives based on a desire to promote conversion or on a desire to have religious missions serve as a buffer to protect the main colonial settlements and an aid in controlling the Indians Bennett The missions in effect served as the citadels of the theocracy which was planted in California by Spain under which its wild inhabitants were subjected which stood as their guardians civil and religious and whose duty it was to elevate them and make them acceptable as citizens and Spanish subjects it remained for the Spanish priests to undertake to preserve the Indian and seek to make his existence compatible with higher civilization Bean Serra s decision to plant tobacco at the missions was prompted by the fact that from San Diego to Monterey the natives invariably begged him for Spanish tobacco The Spanish claim to the Pacific Northwest dated back to a 1493 papal bull Inter caetera and rights contained in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas in these two formal acts Spain gave itself the exclusive right to colonize all of the Western Hemisphere excluding Brazil including all of the west coast of North America The term Alta California as applies to the mission chain founded by Serra refers specifically to the modern day United States State of California Leffingwell The Rev Antonio de la Ascension a Carmelite who visited San Diego with Vizcaino s 1602 expedition surveyed the area and concluded that the land was fertile the fish plentiful and gold abundant Ascension was convinced that California s potential wealth and strategic location merited colonization and in 1620 recommended in a letter to Madrid that missions be established in the region a venture that would involve military as well as religious personnel Chapman It is usually stated that the Spanish court at Madrid received reports about Russian aggression in the Pacific northwest and sent orders to meet them by the occupation of Alta California wherefore the expeditions of 1769 were made This view contains only a smattering of the truth It is evident from Jose de Galvez s correspondence of 1768 that he and Carlos Francisco de Croix had discussed the advisability of an immediate expedition to Monterey long before any word came from Spain about the Russian activities Bennett California had been visited a number of times since Cabrillo s discovery in 1542 which initially included notable expeditions led by Englishmen Francis Drake in 1579 and Thomas Cavendish 1587 and later on by Woodes Rogers 1710 George Shelvocke 1719 James Cook 1778 and finally George Vancouver in 1792 Spanish explorer Sebastian Vizcaino made landfall in San Diego Bay in 1602 and the famed conquistador Hernan Cortes explored the California Gulf Coast in 1735 Bennett Other pioneers have blazed the way for civilization by the torch and the bullet and the red man has disappeared before them but it remained for the Spanish priests to undertake to preserve the Indian and seek to make his existence compatible with a higher civilization Kroeber In the matter of population too the effect of Caucasian contact cannot be wholly slighted since all statistics date from a late period The disintegration of Native numbers and Native culture have proceeded hand in hand but in very different rations according to locality The determination of population strength before the arrival of whites is on the other hand of considerable significance toward the understanding of Indian culture on account of the close relations which are manifest between type of culture and density of population Chapman p 383 there may have been about 133 000 Native inhabitants in what is now the state as a whole and 70 000 in or near the conquered area The missions included only the Indians of given localities though it is true that they were situated on the best lands and in the most populous centres Even in the vicinity of the missions there were some unconverted groups however See Population of Native California Bennett Due to the isolation of the Baja California missions the decree for expulsion did not arrive in June 1767 as it did in the rest of New Spain but was delayed until the new governor Portola arrived with the news on November 30 Jesuits from the operating missions gathered in Loreto whereupon they left for exile on February 3 1768 Engelhardt Today the site located at 33 25 41 58 N 117 36 34 92 W 33 4282167 N 117 6097000 W 33 4282167 117 6097000 on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County is in Los Christianitos The Little Christians Canyon and is designated as La Christiana California Historical Landmark 562 Archived 2005 07 11 at the Wayback Machine Kroeber Some of the missionaries evidently regarded compliance with the instructions of the questionnaire as an official requirement which was perfunctorily performed In many cases no answers were given various questions at certain of the missions There is a great contrast between the legacy of Bouchard in Argentina versus his reputation in the United States In Buenos Aires Bouchard is honored as a brave patriot while in California he is most often remembered as a pirate and not a privateer See Hippolyte Bouchard Hittell it Mission San Francisco Solano was quite frequently known as the mission of Sonoma From the beginning it was rather a military than a religious establishment a sort of outpost or barrier first against the Russians and afterwards against the Americans but still a large adobe church was built and Indians were baptized Hittell By that time it was found that the Russians were not such undesirable neighbors as in 1817 it was thought they might become the Russian scare for the time being at least was over and as for the old enthusiasm for new spiritual conquests there was none left Bennett 1897b p 154 Up to 1817 the spiritual conquest of California had been confined to the territory south of San Francisco Bay And this it might be said was as far as possible under the mission system There had been a few years prior to that time certain alarming incursions of the Russians which distressed Spain and it was ordered that missions be started across the bay Chapman the Russians and the English were by no means the only foreign peoples who threatened Spain s domination of the Pacific coast The Indians and the Chinese had their opportunity before Spain appeared upon the scene The Japanese were at one time a potential concern and the Portuguese and Dutch voyagers occasionally gave Spain concern The French for many years were the most dangerous enemy of all but with their disappearance from North America in 1763 as a result of their defeat in the Seven Years War they were no longer a menace The people of the United States were eventually to become the most powerful outstanding element Robinson The cortes legislature of New Spain issued a decree in 1813 for at least partial secularization that affected all missions in America and was to apply to all outposts that had operated for ten years or more however the decree was never enforced in California Catholic historian Zephyrin Engelhardt referred to Echeandia as an avowed enemy of the religious orders Settlers made numerous false claims to diminish the natives abilities The Indians are by nature slovenly and indolent stated one newcomer They have unfeelingly appropriated the region claimed another Yenne In 1833 Figueroa replaced the Spanish born Franciscan padres at all of the settlements north of Mission San Antonio de Padua with Mexican born Franciscan priests from the College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas In response Father Presidente Narciso Duran transferred the headquarters of the Alta California Mission System to Mission Santa Barbara where it remained until 1846 Hittell Boscana himself and his brother missionaries were men of narrow range of thought continually seeking among the superstitions of the natives for resemblances of the true faith and ever ready to catch at the slightest hints and magnify them into complicated dogmas corresponding afar of those which they themselves taught In 1833 Figueroa replaced the padres at all of the settlements north of Mission San Antonio de Padua with Mexican born Franciscan priests from the College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas In response Father Presidente Narciso Duran transferred the headquarters of the Alta California Mission System to Mission Santa Barbara where they remained until 1846 Bennett Junipero had in California insisted that the military should be subservient to the priests that the conquest was spiritual not temporal Engelhardt Recruited from the scum of society in Mexico frequently convicts and jailbirds it is not surprising that the mission guards leather jacket soldiers as they were called should be guilty of crimes at nearly all the Missions In truth the guards counted among the worst obstacles to missionary progress The wonder is that the missionaries nevertheless succeeded so well in attracting converts Morrison That the buildings in the California mission chain are in large part intact is due in no small measure to their relatively recent construction Mission San Diego de Alcala was founded more than two centuries after the establishment of the Mission of Nombre de Dios in St Augustine Florida in 1565 and 170 years following the founding of Mission San Gabriel del Yunque in present day Santa Fe New Mexico in 1598 Thompson In the words of Charles Lummis the historic structures were falling to ruin with frightful rapidity their roofs being breached or gone the adobe walls melting under the winter rains References Edit Saunders and Chase p 65 a b Forging communities in colonial Alta California Kathleen L Hull John G Douglass Tucson 2018 p 14 ISBN 978 0 8165 3892 8 OCLC 1048786636 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint others link The Jesuit Republic of South America VQR Online www vqronline org Retrieved 2020 07 10 a b c Agnew Jeremy 2016 Spanish influence on the old southwest a collision of cultures Jefferson North Carolina p 123 ISBN 978 0 7864 9740 9 OCLC 917343410 a b c Pritzker Barry 2000 A Native American encyclopedia history culture and peoples Barry Pritzker Oxford Oxford University Press p 114 ISBN 0 19 513877 5 OCLC 42683042 a b c Krell p 316 a b c d Kling David W 2020 A history of Christian conversion New York NY Oxford University Press pp 344 345 ISBN 978 0 19 006262 0 OCLC 1143823194 Apart from a tiny minority who gave the clearest evidence of meaningful conversion Overall outright rejection and chronic resistance characterized the Indian response The Franciscans admitted as much recording repeatedly the difficulty of convincing adult Indians to accept any aspect of Catholicism a b Vaughn Chelsea K 2011 Locating Absence The Forgotten Presence of Monjerios in Alta California Missions Southern California Quarterly 93 2 141 174 doi 10 2307 41172570 ISSN 0038 3929 JSTOR 41172570 Duggan MC 2016 With and Without an Empire Financing for California Missions Before and After 1810 in Pacific Historical Review Vol 85 No 1 pp 23 71 Duggan M C 2016 With and Without an Empire Financing for California Missions Before and After 1810 Pacific Historical Review 85 1 23 71 doi 10 1525 phr 2016 85 1 23 Archived from the original on 2018 04 27 Retrieved 2018 03 05 Robinson p 25 Capron p 3 Early California Russian Presence Archived 2016 10 13 at the Wayback Machine Oakland Museum of California website downloaded Sept 10 2016 Young p 17 Bancroft pp 33 34 Kelsey p 18 Harley Ruscin p 61 Chapman p 418 Chapman does not consider the sub missions asistencias that make up the inland chain in this regard Engelhardt 1920 pp 350 351 Ruscin p 12 Paddison p 48 Chapman pp 310 311 Engelhardt 1922 p 12 Rawls pp 14 16 Leffingwell pp 19 132 Bennett 1897a p 20 Priests were paid an annual salary of 400 a b c Engelhardt 1908 pp 3 18 a b c d Carey McWilliams Southern California An Island on the Land Archived 2015 10 11 at the Wayback Machine Duggan Marie Christine January 2017 Beyond Slavery The Institutional Status of Mission Indians Franciscan Florida in Pan Borderlands Perspective Adaptation Negotiation and Resistance Archived from the original on 2018 04 27 Retrieved 2018 03 05 Duggan M C Beyond Slavery Institutional Status of Mission Indians in Burns and Johnson eds Franciscans and American Indians in Pan Borderlands Perspective Oceanside CA AAFH 2017 Paddison p 130 McWilliams Carey The Indian in the Closet Archived from the original on 25 May 2017 Retrieved 7 March 2017 Chapman p 383 Newcomb p viii a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap Guinn James Miller 1907 History of the State of California and Biographical Record to Oakland and Environs Also Containing Biographies of Well known Citizens of the Past and Present Digitized eBook Historic Record Company pp 56 66 a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hodge Frederick Webb 1910 Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico Digitized eBook U S Government Printing Office a b Singleton Heather Valdez 2004 Surviving Urbanization The Gabrieleno 1850 1928 Wicazo Sa Review 19 2 49 59 doi 10 1353 wic 2004 0026 JSTOR 1409498 S2CID 161847670 via JSTOR Armbruster Sandoval Ralph 2017 Starving for Justice Hunger Strikes Spectacular Speech and the Struggle for Dignity University of Arizona Press pp 58 59 ISBN 9780816532582 Guinn James Miller 1907 History of the State of California and Biographical Record to Oakland and Environs Also Containing Biographies of Well known Citizens of the Past and Present Digitized eBook Historic Record Company pp 56 66 Coodley Lauren 2007 Napa the transformation of an American town Paula Amen Schmitt Charleston SC Arcadia p 22 ISBN 978 0 7385 2502 0 OCLC 184842836 Lorenzo Asisara b 1819 Annenberg Learner Retrieved 2023 01 09 Between 1770 and 1834 over 90 000 California Indians a third of the pre contact population were enslaved within the Franciscan missions Engelhardt 1922 p 30 Bennett 1897b p 156 a b Bennett 1897b p 158 McCormack Brian T 2007 Conjugal Violence Sex Sin and Murder in the Mission Communities of Alta California Journal of the History of Sexuality 16 3 391 415 doi 10 1353 sex 2007 0070 PMID 19256092 S2CID 36532399 Bennett 1897b p 160 The fathers claimed all the land in California in trust for the Indians yet the Indians received no visible benefit from the trust Lippy p 47 a b Bennett 1897a p 10 Paddison p xiv Junipero Serra s brutal story in spotlight as pope prepares for canonisation TheGuardian com 23 September 2015 Castaneda Antonia I 1997 Engendering the History of Alta California 1769 1848 Gender Sexuality and the Family PDF California History 76 2 3 230 259 doi 10 2307 25161668 JSTOR 25161668 Castaneda Antonia I 1997 Engendering the History of Alta California 1769 1848 Gender Sexuality and the Family PDF California History 76 2 3 230 259 doi 10 2307 25161668 JSTOR 25161668 A Thompson p 341 Bean and Lawson p 37 A fanega is equal to 100 pounds Krell p 316 As of December 31 1832 California Native Grasslands Association Home Archived from the original on 2009 08 28 Engelhardt 1922 p 211 Santa Barbara Mission Historical Park Archived from the original on 2017 09 05 Leffingwell p 10 Winship pp 32 4 37 Flint R Winter 2005 What They Never Told You about the Coronado Expedition Kiva 71 2 203 217 doi 10 1179 kiv 2005 71 2 004 JSTOR 30246725 S2CID 129070895 Kelsey Harry 1986 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo San Marino The Huntington Library a b Morrison p 214 Drake Claims California for England History com Archived from the original on 24 September 2015 Retrieved 11 December 2015 Kelsey Harry The Queen s Pirate The New York Times Archived from the original on 25 March 2016 Retrieved 11 December 2015 Bancroft Hubert H History of California Vol XXII 1846 1848 p 201 The History Company Publishers San Francisco 1882 Google eBook Frost Orcutt William ed 2003 Bering The Russian Discovery of America New Haven Connecticut Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 10059 4 Chapman p 216 Bennett 1897a pp 11 12 Rawls p 3 Old Mission Santa Ines Clerical historian Maynard Geiger This was to be a cooperative effort imperial in origin protective in purpose but primarily spiritual in execution Chapman Charles E PhD 1921 A History of California The Spanish Period New York The MacMillan Company ISBN 978 1148507927 a b Orfalea Gregory Hungry for Souls Was Junipero Serra a Saint Commonweal magazine Archived from the original on 22 December 2015 Retrieved 11 December 2015 Rawls p 6 Kroeber 1925 p vi Bennett p 15 Bennett 1897a p 16 James p 11 a b Engelhardt 1922 p 258 Yenne p 10 Leffingwell p 25 History COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 2016 12 02 Retrieved 2020 10 12 Engelhardt 1920 p 76 Robinson p 28 Bennett 1897a p 13 Rawls p 106 Milliken pp 172 173 193 Kroeber p 1 Kroeber p 2 Kelsey p 4 Nordlander p 10 Jones p 170 Young p 102 a b Hittell p 499 Beebe Rose Senkewicz Robert 2001 Lands of Promise and Despair Chronicles of Early California 1535 1846 Santa Clara Santa Clara University ISBN 1 890771 48 1 Chapman pp 254 255 Bacich Damian The Zacatecan Franciscans in Alta California A Misunderstood Legacy Boletin Journal of the California Mission Studies Association Archived 2015 02 22 at the Wayback Machine Vol 28 Nos 1 amp 2 2011 12 Robinson p 29 Engelhardt 1922 p 80 Bancroft vol i pp 100 101 The motives behind the issuance of Echeandia s premature decree may have had more to do with his desire to appease some prominent Californians who had already had their eyes on the mission lands than with concern for the welfare of the natives Stern and Miller pp 51 52 Forbes p 201 In 1831 the number of Indians under missionary control in all of Upper California stood at 18 683 garrison soldiers free settlers and other classes totaled 4 342 Kelsey p 21 Bancroft vol iii pp 322 626 Engelhard 1922 p 223 a b Yenne pp 18 19 Mexican California Early California History An Overview Articles and Essays California as I Saw It First Person Narratives of California s Early Years 1849 1900 Digital Collections Library of Congress Library of Congress Engelhardt 1922 p 114 Yenne pp 83 93 Robinson p 42 Cook p 200 James p 215 Engelhardt 1922 p 248 Bancroft H H 1886 The works of Hubert Howe Bancroft History of California vol IV 1840 1845 pp73 74 San Francisco Calif A L Bancroft Robinson p 14 Robinson p 100 Robinson pp 31 32 The area shown is that stated in the Corrected Reports of Spanish and Mexican Grants in California Complete to February 25 1886 as a supplement to the Official Report of 1883 1884 Patents for each mission were issued to Archbishop J S Alemany based on his claim filed with the Public Land Commission on February 19 1853 Rawls pp 112 113 McKanna p 15 also per Hittell p 753 McCormack Brian T Conjugal Violence Sex Sin and Murder in the Mission Communities of Alta California Journal of the History OF Sexuality 16 3 July 2007 391 415 Project MUSE Johns Hopkins UP Web 12 Feb 2017 Revealing the history of genocide against California s Native Americans UCLA Henderson Church and State 1821 1910 p 254 Urbanism and Empire in the Far West 1840 1890 By Eugene P Moehring 2004 University of Nevada Press Pg 3 Indians Franciscans and Spanish Colonization The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians by Robert H Jackson 1996 University of NM Press A Place in Time The Story of the Mission de la Purisima Conception Archived 2016 06 29 at the Wayback Machine California Parks Service Vimeo video presentation Ruscin p 196 Yenne p 186 Yenne Bill 2004 The Missions of California Advantage Publishers Group San Diego California ISBN 978 1 59223 319 9 Bennett John E January 1897a Should the California Missions Be Preserved Part I Overland Monthly XXIX 169 9 24 Markham Edwin 1914 California the Wonderful Her Romantic History Her Picturesque People Her Wild Shores Hearst s International Library Company Inc New York Riesenberg Felix 1962 The Golden Road The Story of California s Spanish Mission Trail McGraw Hill New York ISBN 978 0 07 052740 9 Engelhardt 1920 p 228 Leffingwell p 22 Forbes p 202 In 1831 the number of Indians under missionary control stood at 6 465 garrison soldiers totaled 796 Leffingwell p 68 Forbes p 202 In 1831 the number of Indians under missionary control stood at 3 292 garrison soldiers totaled 613 the population of El Pueblo de los Angeles numbered 1 388 Leffingwell p 119 Forbes p 202 In 1831 the number of Indians under missionary control stood at 3 305 garrison soldiers totaled 708 the population of Villa Branciforte numbered 130 Leffingwell p 154 Forbes p 202 In 1831 the number of Indians under missionary control stood at 5 433 garrison soldiers totaled 371 the population of El Pueblo de San Jose numbered 524 Leffingwell p 170 Paddison p 23 Bennett 1897a p 20 Engelhardt 1922 pp 8 10 Young p 18 Stern and Miller p 85 Stern and Neuerburg p 95 Thompson Mark pp 185 186 Past Campaigns Stern and Miller p 60 California Missions Preservation Act PDF gpo gov Archived PDF from the original on 26 February 2005 Retrieved 27 April 2018 Coronado and Ignatin Sources Edit Bancroft Hubert Howe 1886 History of California Volume II 1801 1894 The History Company San Francisco California Bean Lowell John amp Harry Lawton 1976 Native Californians A Theoretical Perspective Ballena Press Banning California Bennett John E January 1897a Should the California Missions Be Preserved Part I Overland Monthly XXIX 169 9 24 Bennett John E February 1897b Should the California Missions Be Preserved Part II Overland Monthly XXIX 170 150 161 Capron E S 1854 History of California from its Discovery to the Present Time John P Jewett amp Company Cleveland Ohio Chapman Charles E 1921 A History of California The Spanish Period The MacMillan Company New York Cook Sherburne F PhD 1976 The Population of the California Indians 1769 1970 University of California Press Berkeley California ISBN 978 0 520 02923 1 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Coronado Michael Heather Ignatin June 5 2006 Plan would open Prop 40 funds to missions The Orange County Register Retrieved 2008 03 08 Engelhardt Zephyrin O F M 1908 The Missions and Missionaries of California Volume One The James H Barry Co San Francisco California a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Engelhardt Zephyrin O F M 1920 San Diego Mission James H Barry Company San Francisco California a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Engelhardt Zephyrin O F M 1922 San Juan Capistrano Mission Standard Printing Co Los Angeles California a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Forbes Alexander 1839 California A History of Upper and Lower California Smith Elder and Co Cornhill London ISBN 978 0 405 04972 9 Geiger Maynard J O F M PhD 1969 Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California 1769 1848 A Biographical Dictionary Huntington Library San Marino California a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Harley R Bruce 1997 2003 The San Bernardino Asistencias California Mission Studies Association Archived from the original on 2006 06 13 Retrieved 2006 11 21 Hittell Theodore H 1898 History of California Volume I N J Stone amp Company San Francisco California James George Wharton 1913 The Old Franciscan Missions of California Little Brown and Co Inc Boston Massachusetts ISBN 978 0 89341 321 7 Jones Roger W 1997 California from the Conquistadores to the Legends of Laguna Rockledge Enterprises Laguna Hills California Jones Terry L Kathryn A Klar 2005 Linguistic Evidence for a Prehistoric Polynesia Southern California Contact Event Anthropological Linguistics 47 369 400 Jones Terry L and Kathryn A Klar eds 2007 California Prehistory Colonization Culture and Complexity Altimira Press Landham Maryland ISBN 978 0 7591 0872 1 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a author has generic name help Kelsey H 1993 Mission San Juan Capistrano A Pocket History Interdisciplinary Research Inc Altadena California ISBN 978 0 9785881 0 6 Krell Dorothy ed 1979 The California Missions A Pictorial History Sunset Publishing Corporation Menlo Park California ISBN 978 0 376 05172 1 Kroeber Alfred L 1908 A Mission Record of the California Indians University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 8 1 1 27 Kroeber Alfred L 1925 Handbook of the Indians of California Dover Publications Inc New York ISBN 978 0 486 23368 0 Leffingwell Randy 2005 California Missions and Presidios The History amp Beauty of the Spanish Missions Voyageur Press Inc Stillwater Minnesota ISBN 978 0 89658 492 1 Lippy Charles H 1985 Bibliography of Religion in the South Mercer University Press Macon Georgia ISBN 978 0 86554 161 0 Markham Edwin 1914 California the Wonderful Her Romantic History Her Picturesque People Her Wild Shores Hearst s International Library Company Inc New York Margolin Malcolm 1993 The Way We Lived California Indian Stories Songs amp Remembrances Heyday Books Berkeley California ISBN 978 0 930588 55 7 McKanna Clare Vernon 2002 Race and Homicide in Nineteenth Century California University of Nevada Press Reno Nevada ISBN 978 0 87417 515 8 Milliken Randall 1995 A Time of Little Choice The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769 1910 Ballena Press Menlo Park California ISBN 978 0 87919 132 0 Morrison Hugh 1987 Early American Architecture From the First Colonial Settlements to the National Period Dover Publications New York ISBN 978 0 486 25492 0 Newcomb Rexford 1973 The Franciscan Mission Architecture of Alta California Dover Publications Inc New York ISBN 978 0 486 21740 6 Nordlander David J 1994 For God amp Tsar A Brief History of Russian America 1741 1867 Alaska Natural History Association Anchorage AK ISBN 978 0 930931 15 5 Oakley Kenneth P September 1963 Relative Dating of Arlington Springs Man Science 141 3586 1172 Bibcode 1963Sci 141 1172O doi 10 1126 science 141 3586 1172 PMID 14043359 S2CID 11172568 Paddison Joshua ed 1999 A World Transformed Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush Heyday Books Berkeley California ISBN 978 1 890771 13 3 Past Campaigns California Mission Studies Association 2000 Archived from the original on August 13 2007 Retrieved 2007 07 08 The Pious Fund of the Californias Catholic Encyclopedia 1911 Archived from the original on June 30 2007 Retrieved 2007 07 08 Pre Mission History Old Mission Santa Ines 2007 Archived from the original on August 26 2007 Retrieved 2007 08 26 Rawls James J 1984 Indians of California The Changing Image University of Oklahoma Press Norman Oklahoma ISBN 978 0 8061 2020 1 Riesenberg Felix 1962 The Golden Road The Story of California s Spanish Mission Trail McGraw Hill New York ISBN 978 0 07 052740 9 Robinson W W 1948 Land in California University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles California ISBN 978 0 520 03875 2 Ruscin Terry 1999 Mission Memoirs Sunbelt Publications San Diego California ISBN 978 0 932653 30 7 Saunders Charles Francis and J Smeaton Chase 1915 The California Padres and Their Missions Houghton Mifflin Boston and New York ISBN 978 0 910118 53 8 Stern Jean amp Gerald J Miller 1995 Romance of the Bells The California Missions in Art The Irvine Museum Irvine California ISBN 978 0 9635468 5 2 Thompson Anthony W Robert J Church and Bruce H Jones 2000 Pacific Fruit Express Signature Press Wilton California ISBN 978 1 930013 03 2 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Thompson Mark 2001 American Character The Curious Life of Charles Fletcher Lummis and the Rediscovery of the Southwest Arcade Publishing New York ISBN 978 1 55970 550 9 Vancouver George 1801 A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World Volume III Printed for John Stockdale Piccadilly London Yenne Bill 2004 The Missions of California Advantage Publishers Group San Diego California ISBN 978 1 59223 319 9 Young S amp Levick M 1988 The Missions of California Chronicle Books LLC San Francisco California ISBN 978 0 8118 1938 1 Further reading EditBooks Edit Baer Kurt 1958 Architecture of the California Missions University of California Press Los Angeles California Berger John A 1941 The Franciscan Missions of California G P Putnam s Sons New York Carillo J M O F M 1967 The Story of Mission San Antonio de Padua Paisano Press Inc Balboa Island California a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Camphouse M 1974 Guidebook to the Missions of California Anderson Ritchie amp Simon Los Angeles California ISBN 978 0 378 03792 1 Costo Rupert Costo Jeannette Henry 1987 The missions of California a legacy of genocide Indian Historian Press OCLC 851338670 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Crespi Juan A Description of Distant Roads Original Journals of the First Expedition into California 1796 1770 edited and translated by Alan K Brown San Diego State University Press 2001 ISBN 978 1 879691 64 3 Crump S 1975 California s Spanish Missions Their Yesterdays and Todays Trans Anglo Books Del Mar California ISBN 978 0 87046 028 9 Drager K amp Fracchia C 1997 The Golden Dream California from Gold Rush to Statehood Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company Portland Oregon ISBN 978 1 55868 312 9 Johnson P ed 1964 The California Missions Lane Book Company Menlo Park California a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a author has generic name help CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Moorhead Max L 1991 The Presidio Bastion Of The Spanish Borderlands University of Oklahoma Press Norman Oklahoma ISBN 978 0 8061 2317 2 Rawls J amp Bean W 1997 California An Interpretive History McGraw Hill New York ISBN 978 0 07 052411 8 Robinson W W 1953 Panorama A Picture History of Southern California Anderson Ritchie amp Simon Los Angeles California Weitze Karen J 1984 California s Mission Revival Hennessy amp Ingalls Inc Los Angeles California ISBN 978 0 912158 89 1 Wright Ralph B Ed 1984 California s Missions Lowman Publishing Company Arroyo Grande California a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Articles and archives Edit Early California Population Project ECPP The Huntington Library 2006 Provides public access to all the information contained in California s historic mission registers California Missions article at the Catholic Encyclopedia The California Missions 2001 Matrimonial Investigation records of the San Gabriel Mission Claremont Colleges Digital Library 2008 169 records digitized and searchable by priest name or by the names of the couple requesting marriage Junipero Serra the Vatican amp Enslavement Theology Preview of Fogel Daniel ISM Press Books Offers a critical perspective on the missions impact on California s Indians MissionTour Tom Simondi 2001 2005 The Old Franciscan Missions of California James George Wharton 1913 eText at Project Gutenberg The San Diego Founders Trail 2001 2008 website Trails and Roads El Camino Real Faigin Daniel P California Highways 1996 2004 Almanac California Missions GAzis SAx Joel 1999 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to California missions The California Frontier Project Dedicated the early California including the Spanish missions California Mission Studies Association California s Spanish Missions The California Missions Trail California Department of Parks and Recreation Library of Congress American Memory Project Early California History The Missions Tricia Anne Weber The Spanish Missions of California Album of Views of the Missions of California Souvenir Publishing Company San Francisco Los Angeles 1890s The Missions of California by Eugene Leslie Smyth Chicago Alexander Belford amp Co 1899 California Historical Society California Mission Visitors Guide California Missions A Journey Along the El Camino Real exhibit at The California Museum National Register of Historic Places Early History of the California Coast List of Sites California Mission Sketches by Henry Miller 1856 and Finding Aid to the Documents relating to Missions of the Californias typescript 1768 1802 at The Bancroft Library Howser Huell December 8 2000 Art of the Missions 110 California Missions Chapman University Huell Howser Archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Spanish missions in California amp oldid 1133045159, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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