The Life of the Catholic Church in the US

One of the major and more difficult goals for the Spaniards was to convert the indigenous people to Christianity. The Indigenous religion was so strange to the Spaniards that they believed the indigenous were not as evolved or progressed as they were. When Cortes was writing back to the Spanish crown he dramatized the indigenous people as savages who needed to be converted to Christianity in order to be saved. In the book Religions of Mesoamerica David Carrasco explains how, “These beliefs and missionary efforts reflected the primary attitude of the Catholic Church that the native peoples were “souls to be saved” in a global process of conversion” (Carrasco 21). To achieve their goal or religious conversion the Spanish started missionaries where Franciscans

The Spanish and English colonies varied in terms of religion such as immigration and opinions on salvation. Starting in the late 1500s and early 1600s, conquistadors such as Vasco Nunuez de Balboa and Herman Cortes of the Spanish empire first started to make their way into the New World. Known for their mantra, “Gold, Glory, God”, the main reason for their expansion was for power and wealth. In the Spanish church, the Pope decided who went to Heaven. This

persuaded Velazquez to give him the command of an expedition to Mexico. And this is the beginning of Cortes’ legacy.

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.

The arrive of Father Junipero Serra in the Sacred Expedition in 1769 contributed to the expansion of the Spain's Catholic religion in California and the disappearance of the Native culture. As a tradition, King Carlos III tried to expand the Enlightenment rationality in all the Spain's provinces; he wanted the natives from his conquered lands to have an education and speak their language. To continue with this custom, Father Serra traveled to California to build nine missions by the coast, and by 1823 his successors had raised the number to twenty-one. One of the purposes of the missions was to educate natives about Spanish traditions through Spain's Catholic padres since they considered natives as irrational; this means that the California's

On Friday I had the honor to visit the historical Rancho Los Cerritos House; also known as Rancho Los Cerritos or Casa de los Cerritos, in Long Beach, California, it was the largest and most impressive adobe residence raised in southern California during the Mexican period. The structure of the house was built in 1844 by merchant Jonathan Temple, a Yankee pioneer who became a Mexican citizen. Los Cerritos means "the little hills" in English. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. I wasn’t lucky enough to visit this phenomenal and historical place until I took advantage of my history assignment and I decided to visit Rancho Los Cerritos with the company of some of my friends. On a Friday morning we took the chance and we

One of the things which largely go unrecognized is how vital the missions were to the military in California in the 19th century. Since the military in California received little to no support during the Mexican revolution against Spain, and suffered more after Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821. In particular, Mission San Jose was expected to furnish food to the military presidios as a way of preventing famines. In fact this had been established in the 1770’s with the Reglamento,

Did you know that The Santa Clara Mission was the 8th mission built (from “Fact Cards California ,Missions ,Mission Santa Clara

Despite what I was taught, missions are not just a representation of architectural beauty but a representation of the cruelty imposed on Indians, to adhere to the selfish desires of Franciscan priests. According to text from Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769-1848 by Antonia I. Castañeda, forced to enter into marriage Indian women were obligated to procreate. If they did not comply with the demands they were reprimanded and if their pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage they were branded the title murder for disobeying the fifth commandment of the bible, “You shall not kill.” Placing blame on the female for a non-preventive event “women were punished by “shaving the head, …

My report is on Mission Santa Ines which is 35 miles north of Santa Barbara among the rolling hills near the Santa Ynez River. The mission was established September 17, 1804 by Father Estevan Tapis as the 19th mission along El Camino Real.

In the 18th century, what is now California was populated mostly by Native Americans. Late in the century, Franciscan missions sponsored by Spain and the Roman Catholic church played an important role in establishing European settlement in the region. The Spaniards, who had already colonized parts of Mexico to the south, wanted to protect those colonies and extend their influence northward. The Roman Catholic church wanted to convert Native Americans to Christianity. The mission system supported both goals. The first Franciscan mission in California (Mission San Diego de Alcalá) was established by Father Junípero Serra in what in now San Diego. Fifty-four years later in 1823, the Franciscans founded their last of 21 missions at San Francisco Solano. Each mission had an armed presidio to protect it. Each sought to teach the Native Americans both Christianity and European farming methods. Many of the mission churches remain today as living examples of

While each mission is unique, most of what you learn in one is the same. My first visit to a mission was as a child with my grandmother. We visited San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo and San Juan Bautista. Both were presented as old churches that the Indians and Mexicans came to practice at and lived in. I looked through the glass cases and saw the tools and pictures and copies of the Bible. The placards described what the tools were used for and where the Bibles came from. The drawings showed Father Serra or the lands as they looked then.

One of the significant differences between the Spain and England was their role in religion. The Spanish wanted to spread the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world and unify the world in the belief of one God. After arriving to the New World in 1492, the Spanish forced indigenous people to convert to Catholicism. Dominican and Franciscan Friars were sent over to the New World to set up missions and to convert the natives. If the native people chose to disobey the Spanish orders and not convert to Catholicism, then natives would be killed by the Friars and

Along with the English the Spanish also focused on money. They cared about the 3 G’s, God, Gold, and Glory. Conquistadors were nobodies trying to make names for themselves and were looking for gold because without Gold they would get no glory. The Spanish used their Popes as a way to gain the trust of the Natives in attempt to create peace with the natives and gain their trust before they took them and treated them as slaves.

Before Columbus landed in the West Indies in 1492, The Spanish Inquisition made it known to anyone within Spain’s domain of influence that if a person was not of the Catholic religion, they were to be punished severely and sometimes even fatally. This influence would undoubtedly be brought over to the Americas a century later, as the colonization of the New World would begin by then. While it was very essential for the Spanish (as well as the Portuguese) to improve their economy by using the resources they found in Latin America, it seemed to a number of them as if that was the only reason for being there, or the main reason at the very least. During the Spanish Inquisition and from that point after, it was the Pope’s main goal, to