Geography 417
California for Educators
Californias Spanish Colonial Era
Objectives
Students will
identify and discuss the causes that led to the development of the mission
system.
Students will
describe typical activities and economic functions in the mission system.
Students will
discuss the positive and negative aspects of the mission system AND the
historiography of the missions.
Students will
identify and discuss the causal variables affecting the downfall of the
missions.
California
Standards
Describe the
Spanish exploration and colonization of California, including the relationships
among soldiers, missionaries, and Indians (e.g., Juan Crespi, Junipero Serra,
Gaspar de Portola).
Describe the
mapping of, geographic basis of, and economic factors in the placement and
function of the Spanish missions; and understand how the mission system
expanded the influence of Spain and Catholicism throughout New Spain and Latin
America.
Describe the daily
lives of the people, native and nonnative, who occupied the presidios,
missions, ranchos, and pueblos.
Discuss the role
of the Franciscans in changing the economy of California from a hunter-gatherer
economy to an agricultural economy.
CSET
They discuss the
impact of Spanish exploration and colonization, including the mission system
and its influence on the development of the agricultural economy of early
California.
Web Link
California
History On-Line
Why is
this so important?
Why are the
mission such a point of emphasis in the standards? (4 points vs. Indians-1 point)
Does this period
merit this kind of attention?
Basic
Definitions
Mission- the
place with a primarily religious function, but also had agricultural, political
and economic functions.
Pueblo the town
or place with civic functions
Presidio a
fort, or a place with a primarily military function.
Mission
San Diego de Alcala
Mission
San Buenaventura
Missions:
Basic Dates
Serra and de
Portola initiate the mission system in 1769
21 established
total, the last in Sonoma in 1823.
Franciscan
Missions in California.
Fundamentals
Born of the
legacy of the Moorish conquest.
The principle aim
was religious conversion, but this required cultural conversion as well, which
would eventually transform Indians to Spaniards
Was also the key
piece in the political conquest of the New World and defense against the
English and Russians who also had some claim to California.
Sacred
Expedition
Initiated by
Galvez from Mexican Spain.
Commanded by
Captain Gaspar de Portolα and included Serra.
1769
Where?
The location of
the mission was key to its success.
Several location factors included:
Access to water,
even in the summer.
Good farmland
Access to Indians
for converts and labor
Eventually
proximity to other missions and presidios became important as defense concerns
grew.
One
days ride was standard.
Along the El
Camino Real
Junipero Serra
Interesting
biography.
Junνpero Serra
was leader
of the Sacred Expedition
Enormous
sacrifice.
He founded the first 9
missions was named
father-president
Has been
supported for
canonization, a highly controversial development see Christopher Columbus
Succeeded in
1784, Fermνn Francisco de Lasuιn
Perhaps the biggest
star in California History
Why?
Mission Map
Mission
Grounds
Buildings were
very simple at first but grew in complexity and architectural grandeur.
Built of adobe
mostly, mud and straw early on.
Remained limited
by materials available.
Importance of
architecture? Effective Medium?
Farmlands could
reach over 100,000 acres.
Recruitment
Some came on
their own accord.
Some were lured
by goods and food.
Children were
often recruited most effectively, which brought along siblings and parents.
Some were very
likely forced to join the mission.
Later, as
Europeans disrupted traditional foodways, the promise of predictable food
supplies was surely and inducement.
Retention
Many sought to
run away.
Because the
missions sought to acculturate, running away was not permitted.
Rebellions not
uncommon.
Neophytes was the
name for the newly converted.
Economics
Agriculture was
primary and included cropping and ranching.
Were supposed to
self-sufficient and had to be mostly because New Spain wasnt going to help.
Supported the
presidios.
Tallow and hides
were eventually exported, but ranching crowded out competing land uses.
Daily
Life
Much like other
agricultural societies
or plantations, but no doubt with much religious
instruction.
Very different
from the hunting-gathering routine known before, especially for the men.
New skills
learned and many functions of a town were constituent of the routine because
they were self-sufficient.
Women were
cloistered at night.
Few were allowed
to leave.
Historical
Context
How did the
Spanish think of the Indians?
Examine this
picture of Padre Narciso Duran and what story does it tell?
How can we use
this to place context around the actions of the Franciscans?
Narciso
Duran Quote:
To Duran, the
Indians were at best children, often perverse ones at that. Writing to his superior in 1830, Duran
criticized the the invincible repugnance of the natives for civilization and
the abandonment of their heathen notions.
are almost without exception and during their whole life like school
children, who left to themselves will quite certainly not profit thereby.
Consequences
Were they
effective in their primary goal?
What about their
secondary goals?
Death via disease
was rampant, many thousands died, perhaps as much as 75% fell.
Established
a toe-hold for Spain, but disease spread
beyond the missions and the citizenry they hoped to create mostly died.
Loyalty was never
gained among the target populations.
Perouse
Visits
Such expeditions
provide historians with an "outside look" at mission operations. Why are these so important?
The first
outsider to visit the missions
La Pιrouse
praised the character of the individual missionaries--"these men, truly
apostolic, who have abandoned the idle life of a cloister to give themselves up
to fatigues, cares, and anxieties of every kind."
La Pιrouse
compared Mission San Carlos Borromeo with the slave plantations he had earlier
visited in the West Indies:
"In a word,
everything reminded us of a habitation in Saint Domingo, or any other West
Indian [slave] colony. The men and women are assembled by the sound of the
bell, one of the religious conducts them to their work, to church, and to all
other exercises. We mention it with pain. The resemblance is so perfect, that
we saw men and women loaded with irons, others in the stocks; and at length the
noise of the strokes of a whip struck our ears...."
Compare:
While many people
benefited from the missions, many more wanted that prosperity for themselves.
Traders, settlers and explorers saw the wealth and began to exploit the
missions. There was constant pressure for the mission economy to be taken over
by the Californians. In 1813, regulations from Mexico and California were
issued to disbanded the missions. They were to be turned over to civilian
authorities. This process of "secularization" became the end of the
missions.
El Camino
Real
The Kings Road
connected the missions together and might be the most lasting legacy of the
mission era.
Where is the El
Camino Real today?
Mustard Plants?
Mustard
Plants?
figures
Mission
Revival Architecture
Another lasting
impact is the architectural style brought by the missionaries.
Poetry about
Architecture?
Give me
neither Romanesque nor Gothic;
much less Italian Renaissance,
and least of all English Colonial
this is California--give me Mission.
Anonymous
Rail
Station: San Juan Capistrano
Other
lasting legacies?
Religion?
Ethnicity?
Lifestyle?
Place names?
Presidios
Military Outposts
almost feudal in arrangement.
Interval
spacing, 1 mile inland.
Perhaps more
important to the Crown and to the pacification of Natives.
Not always
cooperative with missions.
Populations
remained in California- many mestizos who joined the military to rise in social
and economic status.
Pueblos formed
around presidios
Mostly
ineffective too few, poorly equipped,
undermanned.
San Diego
- 1769
Diagram of the
presidio at San Diego
Ruins are all
that are left.
Monterrey
- 1770
Possible design
Here to defend
what was assumed to be a great port.
San
Francisco - 1776
Santa
Barbara -1782
Partly
reconstructed
Pueblos
Civilian
Government towns
Established to be
an economic engine to supply the other two institutions and to move forward on
some colonization front.
San Jose, 1777
El Pueblo de
Nuestra Seρora la Reina de los Angeles del Rνo de Porciϊncula a.k.a.
Los Angeles, 1781
Branciforte (near
Santa Cruz), 1797
Early Los
Angeles
About half of
LAs original population was black, or mulatto.
The other half
was quite diverse.
Consistency!
Pio Pico
End of an
Era -1821
Why did Spanish
rule fail?
How was it
different than English rule on the East Coast?
Colonialism vs.
colonization
Primogeniture and
population pressure in Spain.
Poor management
of many colonial possessions of Spain,
California included.
Outmoded economic
models.
