I Visited The San Fernando Mission

The indigenous people of California had existed on the lands as hunters-gathers before the arrival of the Spanish who were the first Europeans to reach this part of the Americas. These settlers who began surveying the area since 1530, helped introduce the mission system around 1697 as part of an effort to set up permanent bases for new arrivals and as a bulwark against other European powers. This establishment caused the natives to transition from their original lifestyle into agrarian farmers to help bring in revenue for the Spanish crown which led to them being exploited economically in the process. To establish order in this new land, the Spaniards used harsh punishments for rooting out defiance within the Indian population. However, eventually the natives would begin to die off in such large quantities that it echoed what else was happening what was happening in the rest of the continent. Overall, the effect on the indigenous population was predominantly negative due to contributing towards loss of culture, experiencing callous treatment at the hands of the Spanish, and forced population decline.

My mission is named in honor of Saint Francis Solano, he was a Spanish Franciscan Missionary in Peru and Paraguay. It is the twenty-first and last of the California missions. It was founded by Fray Jose Altimira on July 4, 1823. Mission Sonoma, it’s shaped like a square of long buildings, forming a quadrangle, made of adobe bricks and wood. In one corner was the church, adjacent was living quarters and parallel were the workshops, kitchen, and storage. In addition, there were orchards, gardens, vineyards, fields of grain, a grist mill, houses for the soldiers and Indian families, a jail, a cemetery, and an infirmary.

Junipero Serra became involved with the missions when the Jesuits were expelled from New Spain and Serra was chosen to take over the missions. He had a complete new vision for the missions that included forcing the natives to live on the mission and attend mass twice everyday. Women were to be separated from men so that there would be no possibility of sin in the missions. Serra’s ultimate goal for the missions was to convert as many natives as possible because he believed in the power and greatness of his religion(Castillo 55-70). In his lifetime, Serra founded nine missions and converted around 5,000 natives in present day California(PBS.org). Spain was more than pleased with Serra’s work with the missions because they felt it gave Spain control over Alta California. They encouraged the missions and began sending more friars to aid in the process that Serra had created(Castillo 70-75).

When Jesus Came, The Corn Mothers Went Away gives an in-depth history of the Pueblo Indians before and after the Spanish conquest. It describes the forced changes the Spanish brought to the Indians, and also the changes brought to the Spaniards who came to “civilize” the Indians. The author's thesis is that the Pueblo Indians and other Indians were treated cruelly by the Spanish, who justified their crime by claiming they were civilizing an

Before the missions came to exist the land which is today known as California has already been inhabited by Indigenous people for thousands of years. The land was their treasure and they celebrated in their everyday life while also using its resources. Once Europeans came in the picture the establishment of the missions began. One of these missions was the San Gabriel Arcángel mission. As they were introduced the indigenous people were brought to them with the goal being to Christianize and civilize them.

Year of 1769 General Jose de Galvez arrived on the shore of San Diego with government official soldiers to contain the Native Americans that resided there. Building the missions were the “central to Spain’s plan, religio-economic institutions operated by orders of Spanish Priests to pacify Indians, convert them to Catholicism, teach them European skills and culture, and transform them into a laboring population.” (The Elusive Eden, 86) With the missions having land around their building, they planned to establish the Native Americans under the Spanish Law by converting them. In turn this will allow them to “civilize” the Native people enough to live on their own in the New California. General Jose’s soldiers began building fortified outposts

You can have their bodies as long as we save their soles”. This dehumanizing way of belief and the drive to truly “save” the “Indians”, is what sparked the foundation of the California mission system. In today’s society the missions are something to be admired and awed because American’s dark past is hidden and often unheard of. Many grade school children often visit missions and will never know the untold stories that were truly occurring within the mission. in this paper I will bring some light to that. In this paper I will discuss the abundance of deaths due to diseases, such as, measles, syphilis, gonorrhea, smallpox and dysentery, and the impact it had on Native Americans.

This act of assimilation of these cultures was an off and on again battle for many years with the Native Americans taking the brunt of these losses with grave consequences. An encounter between Native Americans and Hernando De Soto's army reveals that De Soto’s army to have been the likely perpetrator at the King site, a Native American village in the sixteenth-century chiefdom of Coosa, yielded an unusually high crude death rate of 36 per 1,000. We attribute the elevated mortality to casualties from a clash with the Spaniards. This encounter site did have a finds of iron tools and weapons that are traced back to the Spaniards. The victims probably either resisted enslavement or attempted to free others from enslavement.

“And this was the freedom, the good treatment, and the Christianity the Indians received” (De Las Casas, 32). This was the religion the Indians were exposed to that caused the cruel and unusual treatment towards them. This treatment was revealed to many who disowned it showing it through documents and accounts of the Indians’ tough life caused by the

Pablo Tac wrote a journal describing a mission, that he grew up in as a young adult, located in the southern part of California. The flat landscape became the building grounds for this gigantic man-built mission. In Tac’s journal, he talks about this Indian tribe, called the Quechnajuichom, who inhabited the land. Tac describes the surrounding area with villages splattered all around, accordingly a road that connects the mission to the Presidio in San Diego, where the General of California stayed. The people that made up this holy land included Quechnajuicnom, Spaniards, English, and Anglo-Americans.

The history of Mission San Juan Capistrano is similar to that of two other nearby missions in that it was relocated to the San Antonio area from East Texas in 1731. Its purpose was also similar to that of the other missions, namely to convert Native American groups to Christianity, assimilate them into Spanish society, and promote settlement in the region. In addition to its early history, the mission compound itself was constructed in a form typical of other San Antonio-area missions, including a church and plaza surrounded by a defensive wall formed from stone Indian quarters. The compound included other ancillary structures such as a granary, convent, workshops, and other storage facilities.

Serra’s difficult task of converting Native Americans was complicated by the military. Serra did not agree with the military that was trying to establish a “reputation, a stage for distinction and personal honor” (Corrigan 19). Serra had a tough time working along with

Similarly, other factors occurring during this time period appears to be purely coincidental. Authors, Mancall and Merrell maintain that both and after the uprising, as one informant remembered, the Indians of Santa Barbara would:

The significance of the missions in California was its influence on the Native Americans, economic purposes, and as one of the ways to secure Spanish territory. During the time, the presence of the British and the Russians in California was increasing. The Spanish felt that one of countries would try to capture California. With the increasing threat, the Spanish wanted a way to establish their presence in California and at the same time the Catholic Church wanted to convert Native Americans. The idea of building of missionaries satisfied both of their needs. So the Spanish built twenty-one from San Diego to San Francisco. After the construction of the missions, Franciscan missionaries set to work to converting Native Americans to Christianity.

After introducing to the students about pre-colonial life in California, I will introduce the Mission system by informing students about the Spanish arrival through lecture using specific text from Elusive Eden Chapter 6, illustrating the Spanish arrived to California to build Missions and introduce Christianity. Specifically highlighting , “The missions became the largest and most productive Spanish communities in California...the early missions were tiny, tenuous settlements marked by stick, mud, marginal agriculture and small neophyte populations” (Eden, 91). And providing illustrations of the mission and Spanish life. After introducing the Mission system to the students I will briefly explain the short Mexican period by illustrating them