In 1769 Father Junípero Serra leads a group of Franciscan friars from Baja California to establish a series of 21 missions, starting with San Diego de Alcalá in the south. The group is accompanied by a column of Spanish soldiers under the leadership of Captain Gaspar de Portolá. As with other Christian missionaries throughout the world, there was little concern for aboriginal lifeways: to become Christian required abandoning aboriginal traditions and fully assimilating to European way of life.
Shown above is the statue of Frey Junípero Serra in front of the San Gabriel Mission.
From the Franciscan perspective, for the California Indians to become Christians required more than changing religious beliefs and adopting new ceremonies. In their book Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization: The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians, Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo report:
“The Franciscans attempted to restructure the native societies they encountered to further Spanish colonial-policy objectives.”
Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo also write:
“One of the primary objectives of the Franciscan-directed mission program in Alta California was the transformation of the culture and world view of the Indian converts congregated in the missions.”
Shown above is a map of the Spanish missions which is on display in the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California.
The Spanish Mission Era in California began in 1769 and lasted until 1834. The Franciscan missionaries founded 21 missions in California, or, more precisely, Alta California. These missions sought to capture souls for Christ by converting the Indians to Catholicism and to solidify Spain’s imperial control over the region.
The sites for the missions were selected on the basis of their suitability for agriculture and ranching as well as the availability of building materials. With one exception, all of the missions were built on the sites of Native American villages.
The Spanish brought with them both riding horses and carts which were usually pulled by oxen. American Indians prior to the European invasion did not have horses nor wheeled vehicles.
Shown above is an ox-drawn cart on display in the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California.
Shown above is the type of plow which the missionaries brought with them. This is on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.
According to the Museum display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History:
“The Mediterranean-style plow was the most important piece of farming equipment introduced by the Spanish.”
Indian people did not come joyously or freely to live and work at the new missions. In his book Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places, Peter Nabokov writes:
“Soldiers snatched Indian families from outlying hamlets to convert them, change their social habits and turn them into an American peasantry.”
The Indian response to the missions was to flee, either in small groups or in large groups.
In the European worldview of the eighteenth century, pagan Indians were not fully human and if they resisted conversion to Christianity they did not deserved to live. In his book From the Heart: Voices of the American Indian, Lee Miller notes:
“Spain continued to operate under the European assumption that non-Christian nations were base and immoral, and the church was obligated to effect conversion.”
Furthermore, according to anthropologist Edward Castillo, in his chapter on Euro-American exploration and settlement in the Handbook of North American Indians, the Spanish:
“were steeped in a legacy of religious intolerance and conformity featuring a messianic fanaticism accentuating both Spanish culture in general and Catholicism in particular.”
The Franciscans sought to set up a utopian Christian community among the Indians. In his book The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area, Malcolm Margolin reports that within this utopian community the Indians:
“…would be weaned away from their life of nakedness, lewdness, and idolatry. They would, under the gentle guidance of the Franciscan fathers, learn to pray properly, eat with spoons, wear clothes, and they would master farming, weaving, blacksmithing, cattle raising, masonry, and other civilized arts.”
For this utopian Christian community, the Indians were to live at the mission. Unmarried males and females are confined to separate quarters to prevent any sexual relationships. In their chapter on the Catholic missions in the Handbook of North American Indians, Sherburne F. Cook and Cesare Marino note that:
“…the physical confinement and the restriction of social as well as sexual intercourse was completely contrary to native custom and acted as a powerful source of irritation.”
In order to maintain discipline among their “converts”, the Spanish government gave the Franciscans the authority to administer corporal punishment and other measures. Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo report:
“The Franciscans, backed by a small number of soldiers stationed at the missions, imposed a rigid system of coerced and disciplined labor, enforced by the use of corporal punishment and other forms of control.”
This punishment including public flogging, and the use of the stocks and shackles. According to Robert Jackson, in his book Indian Population Decline: The Missions of Northwestern New Spain, 1687-1840:
“The public use of corporal punishment humiliated and physically injured the individual punished, and it did not always control the behavior that the missionaries found objectionable.”
In addition to using Indian labor for themselves, the Franciscans also provided Indian labor for both military garrisons and for individual Spanish colonists. Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo report:
“Access to mission Indians gave settlers additional labor at key points in the agricultural cycle, as well as for other uses, such as building construction.”
In the California missions, the new European diseases killed many of the Indians who were forced to live there. These diseases included respiratory ailments and illnesses caused by poor sanitation, as well as syphilis—introduced to the Indians by the soldiers and the colonists—and by the use of mercury for treating it. The death rate was probably enhanced by the lack of medical attention. According to Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo:
“The general belief held by missionaries that epidemics were a punishment sent by God frequently limited their response to outbreaks.”
They felt that they should not interfere with the will of God. With regard to the lack of response by the Franciscans to the epidemics which devastated the Mission Indians, Robert Jackson writes:
“Their ultimate objective was to ensure the Indians’ eternal salvation by their conversion, so there was no moral dilemma as long as the deaths of thousands of converts contributed toward populating heaven. Suffering on earth and receiving the sacraments were necessary for salvation.”
The death toll in the California missions was exceptionally high among women of childbearing age. Death rates were chronically higher than birth rates among the Mission Indians and this meant that for the missions to maintain their Indian workforce they had to continually “recruit” from the outlying tribes.
While it is not uncommon for some textbooks to give the impression that the California Native Americans passively accepted the missions, Spanish domination, and conversion to Christianity, this was not the case. Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo put it this way:
“The initial reception of the Franciscans by the California Indians was anything but hospitable.”
Resistance to the Spanish Franciscans was organized by village chiefs and influential shamans and this resistance was expressed through attacks on both the Spanish soldiers and the Franciscan missionaries. According to Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo:
“The overt hostility of the Indians through much of coastal California during the first years of the Franciscan mission program slowed the rate of the establishment of the new missions and created a reliance on soldiers to protect the Franciscans.”
Junípero Serra, who is revered by many of today’s Catholics, is described by Malcolm Margolin as being “driven by inner torments and a quest for personal martyrdom” He lashed and burned his flesh before his congregations. Anthropologist Eve Darian-Smith, in her book New Capitalists: Law, Politics, and Identity Surrounding Casino Gaming on Native American Land, describes him this way:
“He was a man of extreme conviction in his commitment to convert California Indians to Catholicism and make them productive citizens of the Spanish colonial state.”
The Franciscans asked the Indians who came to see them to be baptized, even if they did not understand the meaning of this European ceremony. Once baptized, they could be held at the missions against their will. Soldiers were stationed at the missions to capture those who tried to escape. Escape attempts were severely punished by the Franciscans.
The Franciscan missions were slave plantations, requiring the Indian people to work for the Spanish under cruel conditions. Most of the Indians died in the new mission environment and one early visitor to the missions remarked about the Indians that “I have never seen one laugh.”
In 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain. In the Plan of Iguala, Mexico did away with all legal distinctions regarding Indians and reaffirmed that Indians were citizens of Mexico on an equal basis with non-Indians.
In 1833, the Mexican government passed a law which secularized all of the missions. In an article in American Archaeology, Gayle Keck reports:
“The law stipulates that that Native mission neophytes are to receive up to half of the mission lands; this was never put into effect.”
Following the 1833 law in California, the Mexican governor emancipated many of the Indian converts who were living at the southern missions. The Franciscans objected to this emancipation, but the governor felt that the Indians were acculturated enough to take their place in Mexican society. As a result of the emancipation, many Indians refused to work on communal mission projects. Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo report:
“The Franciscans also bitterly complained about the breakdown of the social controls that were necessary for the smooth functioning of the mission economies and acculturation programs.”
Today, many Native Americans, particularly those who have a California Indian heritage, consider Junípero Serra to have been a brutal oppressor whose actions killed many thousands and helped to destroy ancient cultural heritages. While we don’t know for certain if Serra personally killed anyone, his actions led to death, destruction, pain, suffering, slavery, and poverty.
The Catholic Church appears to honor and celebrate the brutality and cultural genocide promoted by the Franciscan priest: he was declared a Saint by Pope Francis in September of 2015.
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 presents different American Indian topics. More about Christian missionaries and American Indians from this series:
Indians 101: The Cataldo Mission and the Couer d'Alene Indians (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: The Franciscans in the American Southwest
Indians 101: 17th Century Jesuits in New France
Indians 101: Jesuit Missionaries in Arizona
Indians 101: Spanish Missions Among Florida Indians
Indians 201: Mormons and Indians
Indians 101: The Moravian Missions to the Indians
Indians 201: Indian Rebellions at the California Missions
