California mission clash of cultures

The California Missions are a series of religious outposts established by Spanish Catholic Franciscans from 1769 to 1823 for the purpose of spreading the Christian doctrine among the local Native Americans. The Spanish occupation of California brought with it serious, though perhaps unintended, negative consequences to the Native American populations the missionaries with whom they came in contact.

"A clash of cultures"

Before the "padres" could abandon their interim missions and begin work on more permanent structures, they had to first attract and convert a sufficiently large number of local Indians, who would comprise the major portion of their work force. The priests offered beads, clothing, blankets, even food to the "heathens" to attract them to the prospects of mission life and convince them to move into the mission compound or a nearby village. Each Indian was expected to contribute a certain number of hours' labor each week towards making adobes or roof tiles, working on construction crews, performing some type of handicraft, or farming. Women wove cloth, prepared meals, washed clothes, and were generally responsible for whatever domestic chores arose at the mission.

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. [Kroeber, p. 1] 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. [Kroeber, p. 2: "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"."] The contemporary nature of the responses, no matter how incomplete or biased some may be, are nonetheless of considerable value to modern ethnologists. The Indians also spent much of their days learning the Christian faith, and attended worship services several times a day (Fray Gerónimo Boscana, a Franciscan scholar who was stationed at Mission San Juan Capistrano for more than a decade beginning in 1812, compiled what is widely considered to be the most comprehensive study of prehistoric religious practices in the San Juan Capistrano valley). [Rawls, p. 26: Boscana deduced that the "Indians of California may be compared to a species of monkey" and described the native beliefs and customs as "horrible," "ludicrous," and "ridiculous."]

In recent years, much debate has arisen as to the actual treatment of the Indians during the Mission Period, and many claim that the California Mission system is directly responsible for the decline of the Native American populations. Traditionally, historians have portrayed mission life as one of contentment and that the Indians were not slaves, but rather enthusiastic converts who (more often than not) took as much pride building the missions as the Spaniards who led them in their efforts. It has been generally held that most Indians enjoyed their new lives, and that many were able to sustain themselves after the fall of the mission system by utilizing the skills they had acquired at the missions. The Indians were purportedly often granted leave to visit their villages and participated in many fiestas and celebrations throughout the year at the urging of their benefactors. 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. [McKanna, p. 15; also, per Hittell, p. 753: "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"."]

Evidence has now been brought to light that puts the Indians' experiences in a very different context. [Lippy, p. 47: "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?"] For instance, women were quartered separately from the men, regardless of marital status. Once an Indian agreed to become part of the mission community, he or she was forbidden to leave it without a padre's permission, and from then on led a fairly regimented life learning "civilized" ways from the Spaniards. Indians were often subjected to corporal punishment and other discipline as determined by the padres. When Spain abandoned California, it essentially left a series of building complexes which had exceeded their useful lifespans and were generally in a state of disrepair. Virtually all of the prime lands were snatched up by Spanish settlers who elected to remain in the New World, and who tended to utilize the Indian peoples as a form of slave labor. And while the native population throughout Alta California was reliably estimated to be in excess of 300,000 prior to the founding of the first Spanish settlement, 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 for which they lacked immunity, and from the Franciscan practice of cloistering women in the "convento" and controlling sexuality during the child-bearing age (Baja California experienced a similar reduction in native population resulting from Spanish colonization efforts there). [Rawls, p. 6: Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have been based on a number of different sources, and therefore vary substantially; see Population of Native California.] [Cook, p. 200: When assessing the relative importance of the various sources of the native population decline in California, including Old World epidemic diseases, violence, nutritional changes, and cultural shock, it is clear that declines tended to be steepest in the areas directly affected by the missions and the Gold Rush. "The first (factor) was the food supply...The second factor was disease...A third factor, which strongly intensified the effect of the other two, was the social and physical disruption visited upon the Indian. He was driven from his home by the thousands, starved, beaten, raped, and murdered with impunity. He was not only given no assistance in the struggle against foreign diseases, but was prevented from adopting even the most elementary measures to secure his food, clothing, and shelter. The utter devastation caused by the white man was literally incredible, and not until the population figures are examined does the extent of the havoc become evident"."]

Notes

References

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* Meadows, D. (1965). "The First Europeans Contact with the Indians." "Pacific Archaeological Society Quarterly" 1 (3) 25-29.
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ee also

*California 4th Grade Mission Project
*History of Christian Missions
*Missionary
*Spanish colonization of the Americas

External links

* [http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/ California Historical Society] official website
* [http://www.ca-missions.org/ California Mission Studies Association] official website
* [http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/hstgrade4.asp California State Board of Education's Grade Four History-Social Science Content Standards (Section 4.2)] — outlines the curriculum requirements as regards "the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods" (among other subjects), a topic of some controversy due to its perceived deliberate innaccuracies
* [http://www.webroots.org/library/usahist/ca/cahaoto0.html "Chinigchinich; a Historical Account of the Origin, Customs, and Traditions of the Indians at the Missionary Establishment of St. Juan Capistrano, Alta California Called The Acagchemem Nation" by The Reverend Father Friar Gerónimo Boscana, 1846]
* [http://www.missionsjc.com/pdf/edu/DailyLife.pdf Daily Life at Mission San Juan Capistrano] (PDF)
* [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbmissio.html Early California History: The Missions]
* [http://www.huntington.org/Information/ECPPmain.htm Early California Population Project (ECPP)] — provides public access to all the information contained in California's historic mission registers
* [http://www.serraus.org/news_&_events/the_serran/the_serran_mar01/v55_3Mar01p10.htm The Humanity of Junípero Serra] , an article by Thomas Davis at the [http://www.serraus.org/news_&_events/the_serran/in_this_issue_of_the_serran.htm#Vol.%2055,%20Num%203,%20Mar%202001 Serra International] official website
* [http://www.missionsjc.com/pdf/edu/MissionIndians.pdf Indians of the Mission (San Juan Capistrano)] (PDF)
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/5/13854/13854-h/13854-h.htm "The Old Franciscan Missions of California" eText] at Project Gutenberg
* [http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2004/dec9.html/ A Problematic Partnership? (When Church and State Collide: Christian History)] , an article by Steven Gertz in the December 9, 2004 newsletter of [http://www.christianitytoday.com Christianity Today.com]
* [http://www.earlysandiego.org/ The San Diego Founders Trail] official website
* [http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/97summer/missionrevolt.htm Sociopolitical Aspects of the 1775 Revolt at Mission San Diego de Alcalá: an Ethnohistorical Approach] , an article by Richard L. Carrico in the Summer 1997 issue of "The Journal of San Diego History"