California's Bloody Past

Mission San Francisco de Asís 

Do you think you could ever walk past a location that played a role in destroying beautiful cultures and communities on a daily basis? Well, I did; unknowingly at least. I walked past the Mission San Francisco de Asís every day on my way to school when I was in elementary school. Completely oblivious to the dark and grim history that mission represented, I just saw it as a beautiful old building. But, it represents much more than that.

A map of that depicts the territory held by Spain in the 18th century

The Spanish were the first Europeans to steal the western coast of North America from the Native Americans. Spain established "Alta California" as a Spanish settlement in 1769. At this time, Native Americans were thriving in California, most of them hunter and gathers, understood their landscape and how its ecosystem functioned. The native population in California was incredibly diverse, there were around 80 native language groups living within the region. The groups did not really interact. Most indigenous people lived in small communities, it was rare to see an Indian tribe that had thousands of people in it.

King Charles III

Russian fur trappers were quickly migrating down the west coast, approaching the newly formed Spanish territory. This worried Spain, they needed to create strongholds (bases) up and down the Californian coast. Spain’s King, Charles III was lacking governmental funds to build military bases throughout California. So instead who looked to the Catholic Church to provide the money to create a Spanish presence throughout their North American territory. The Catholic Church agreed but, there was a condition. The condition was that all the ‘bases’ had to be Christian missionaries.

One of the 21 Spanish Missions that are located throughout California. This one is Mission San Carlos Borromeo

A map of where all the Spanish Missions are located throughout California 

Junípero Serra

In 1769 Junípero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan, founded a mission in San Diego. It was the first of 22 stations that would stretch across the Californian coast. According to Mission Indian expert, Elias Castillo,” between 1769 and 1823 they established 21 missions throughout California.” The Franciscan that established each missionary was given two tasks, which according to Britannica were “to spread Roman Catholicism and to create a docile taxpaying citizenry for New Spain.” Missionization is the act of converting Native Americans into Catholics through religious and cultural institutions. But some missions didn't even have to recruit Natives to come live with them. Elias Castillo explains: “some of the first Indians to visit the missions were impressionable teenagers, curious about the Spaniard’s steel weapons and the friars’ promises of an easier life. Then they found out at bayonet point they were not allowed to leave. Mothers followed their children, and men followed their wives.” The flock of Natives to missions created a dramatic shift in social structure within Native communities. This forced many to seek refuge in the Spanish missions, which only made matters worse. As the California Mission Foundation explains, “Spanish diseases and rapid environmental degradation, caused by invasive species brought by the Spanish, dramatically changed the environment and traditional societal structures.” The Spanish diseases forced the Natives to become more dependent upon the missions for subsistence and shelter.

A painting that depicts Native Americans living inside of a Spanish Mission

Inside the missions, Native Americans were forced to perform labor and receive Christian religious teachings. Native Americans were often not permitted to leave the property of the mission. The California Mission Foundation explains, “missionaries discouraged aspects of Native religion and culture. Native Americans who had entered into the mission communities through baptism were not allowed to leave without permission.” Naturally, some tried to escape, which reportedly resulted in whippings and imprisonment. A ship captain once described an “incident at Mission San Francisco … where the friars used a hot iron to burn crosses into the foreheads of a group of escapees.”

The missions were ineffective at converting people and were all shut down in 1834 by the Mexican government. As reconciliation for all the suffering Spain caused the natives, the Mexican government promised, by law, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, “the rights of citizenship and one-half of all former mission property, but many were exploited and despoiled by speculators; others successfully assimilated into the Mexican system.” But this was never enforced and Mission Indians continued to live, for the most part, in deep poverty. Brutality against natives continued in 1851 when California Governor Peter H. Burnett signed an executive order to “exterminate all Indians in the state.” Before Spain invaded the west coast the Indian population was somewhere between 133,000 and 300,000 people. But, by 1890, it had fallen to under 17,000. As author Dunbar Ortiz states, “US occupation and settlement exterminated more than one hundred thousand California Native people in twenty-five years, reducing the population to thirty thousand by 1870 - quite possibly the most extreme demographic disaster of all time.”



Spain's influence on California is unavoidable. Californians interact with that history every day. What is important is that we understand the outcomes of Spain's influence, with some good, resulted in a lot of death.

Citations:

Bacich, Damian, and Damian BacichDamian Bacich. "Indians of the California Missions: Territories, Affiliations, Descendants | California Frontier." The California Frontier Project. March 14, 2018. Accessed April 27, 2019. https://www.californiafrontier.net/mission-indians/.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Mission Indians." Encyclopædia Britannica. August 11, 2016. Accessed April 27, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mission-Indians.

"California Indians." California Missions Foundation. Accessed April 27, 2019. http://californiamissionsfoundation.org/california-indians/.

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2015.

Harrington, Caitlin. "The Lesser-Told Story Of The California Missions." Hoodline. August 13, 2016. Accessed April 27, 2019. https://hoodline.com/2016/03/The-lesser-told-Story-of- the-california-missions.