Spanish missions in California

“ In the face of incredible hardships and discouragements, these devoted, if narrow and simple, men succeeded in establishing a string of missions from San Diego to Sonoma. The energy, self-sacrifice, and persistence of the members of this expedition furnish inspiring reading today and show clearly of what the Spanish character at its best is capable.
For the next thirty years after the founding of the first mission in 1769, the grasp of Spain on California was assured. Men who could do, suffer, and endure occupied the land. ”

“ United States, England and France all stood in line for possession of California as soon as a ripe opportunity presented itself. This plan was most welcome to the Spaniards, who contrary to the statements of some prominent historians, entertained no dislike for any of these nations. Spaniards, like some others only wished that a happier and better government would supplant the inactive yet turbulent government of Mexico, who had hurled the Spanish flag from her position years before and despoiled the missions of their wealth and glory. ”

“ And if the Spanish missionaries did so much what did the Spanish civil and military authorities and settlers do? To Spanish explorers we owe the discovery and exploration of California, as well as of South America, Mexico and other portions of the New World, including the Pacific Ocean; indeed is it not to Spain and her good Queen Isabella the Catholic, to whom we really owe the discovery of America by Columbus? ”

“ Mexico, forgetting her old debt to Spain, when she explored her then heathen shores, had revolted against Spanish rule and set up an empire of her own, making Augustin Iturbide, a man of half Indian blood her Emperor. Immediately Mexico claimed California, as well as Texas, Arizona and New Mexico as a portion of her empire, although the people of California, with the exception of a handful of Mexicans, had never shown the least desire of change of government, for the greatest number of her settlers were Spaniards or their children who were intensely loyal to the Crown of Spain. ”

“ The story of the missions is the history of the beginning of the colonization of California. The Spanish Government was desirous of providing its ships, on the return trip from Manila, with good harbors of supply and repairs, and was also desirous of promoting a settlement of the north as a safeguard against possible Russian aggression. The Franciscans, upon the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, had taken charge of the missions, and, in their zeal for the conversion of the Indians, seconded the plans of the government. ”

“ Fortunately, however, the Indians were, as a rule, friendly, notwithstanding the fact that the behaviour of the Spanish soldiers, especially towards their women, occasionally aroused their distrust and resentment. At one establishment only did serious disturbances actually threaten for a time the continuance of the mission and its work. Junipero had lately returned from Mexico, with undiminished zeal and all sorts of fresh designs revolving in his brain, when a courier reached him at San Carlos bringing news of a terrible disaster at San Diego. ”

“ Indeed it was several years before Mexico could change the face of California, and the Spanish element continued to rule social life at least to a great extent through virtually all the Mexican period. The Mexican society of the time certainly contained some excellent exceptions, but as a general rule it was a sad contrast to that of the preceding period, nor had the ten governors of this era the energy or standing of the ever remembered Portolá, Boríca, de Neve, Arrillaga or Solá. ”

“ They deal with the heroic exploits of individuals, with mooted questions of belief and practice, or with the romance that hovers round the mission ruins. All this is very well, and not to be ridiculed, but it is none the less true that little has been said of these missions in their relation to the general Spanish colonial policy, of which they were an integral and a most important part. Father Engelhardt's learned books are a notable exception, but his view is confined closely to California, whereas the mission, in the Spanish colonies, was an almost universal establishment. ”

“ In all the Spanish occupation of California it is doubtful whether one case ever occurred where an Indian was driven off his land.
In rendering a decision on the Warner's Ranch Case the United States Supreme Court had an opportunity offered it, once for all to settle the status of all American Indians. Had it familiarized itself with the laws of Spain, under which all Spanish grants were made, it would have found that the Indian was always considered first and foremost in all grants of lands made. He must be protected in his right ”

“ Some exploring voyages, few of which are authentic, were indeed made by Spanish navigators; and the claims which may be derived from their discoveries have now been transferred to the United States, so far as discovery alone can give a claim, and no further. But, during more than two centuries that Spain had no competitor on the Pacific, there was on her part no occupancy, no settlement, or attempt to make a settlement. She had some missions on the western coast of the peninsula of California: but her missions or settlements in Northern or New California are of quite recent date ”

“ It was the purpose of the Fathers to have the new Missions farther inland than those already established, that they might reach more of the natives: those who lived in the valleys and on the slopes of the foothills. Besides this, it had always been the intent of the Spanish government that further explorations of the interior country should take place, so that, as the Missions became strong enough to support themselves, the Indians there might be brought under the influence of the Church. ”

“ The mission-buildings were crumbling into ruins. Their lands were neglected; their converts for the most part dead or scattered. The rule of the padres was over. The Spanish missions in Alta California were things of the past.
In these late days of a civilization so different in all its essential elements from that which the Franciscans laboured so strenuously to establish on the Pacific Coast, we may think of the fathers as we will, and pass what judgment we see fit upon their work. ”

“ Several generations grew up and passed away without a reminder of the strange people who had once been seen upon their shores, except perhaps an occasional white sail of some Philippine galleon seen flitting like a ghost on its southward trip along the coast.
Then the Spaniards, alarmed by reports of the encroachments of the Russians on the north, waked up from their long sleep, and determined to establish a chain of missions along the California coast. Father Junípero Serra was appointed president of these missions, and the first one of the chain was founded by him at San Diego in 1769. ”

“ The Mexican government secularized the missions in 1834, and during the next few years the Mexican governors of California granted their rich lands to Spanish and Mexican families. These grants form the basis of the land-system to the present day. California came into the possession of the United States in 1848, at the close of the Mexican War, by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Gold was discovered at Coloma in the Sacramento Valley the same year. This at once brought a rush of population that was the wonder of the world. ”

“ There was talk in California of the rights of man and neophytes, and of the sins of friars. The missions were never intended to be permanent. The missionaries were only the field workers sent out to convert and civilize the Indians, who were to be turned over then to the regular clergy, the monks pushing further onward into new fields. This was the well-established policy of Spain. In 1813 the Spanish Cortes ordered the secularization of all missions in America that were ten years old, but this decree was not published in California until 1821. ”

“ The Indians were prominent in early Californian history, but their progress toward their present insignificance began far back in the Spanish period. It proceeded much more rapidly after the restraining influence of the missions was removed, leaving them free to revert to savagery; and the downward progress of the race was fearfully accelerated during the mining period, when they were abused, depraved, and in large numbers killed. There have been no Indian wars in California’s annals, but many butcheries. The natives have declined exceedingly in number since 1830, in 1900 numbering 15,377. ”

“ Setting aside unfounded calumnies as absurd as the one which claims that Philip II passed a law sentencing to death any foreigner who set foot on Spain's dominions in the New World, relegating such lies to where they belong, Spain's rule in her New World possessions, including California was marked by humanity as well as energy. Cortes, Pizzaro, Vizcaino, Coronado, Menendez, Ponce de Leon, Cabeza de Vaca, Balboa, as well as the later "pathfinders" governors and viceroys of Catholic Spain, were men of honor, and sobriety to whose names no "butcheries and cruelties" may be justly attached. ”

“ Making use of the land's resources through farming, ranching, and mining, Spanish peoples shaped much of the Western frontier. Thriving communities took root around many Spanish missions, and today cities such as San Diego, Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Santa Fe continue to bear evidence of their celebrated past. However, over the years, Hispanic Americans have made vital contributions in communities across the country and in virtually every field of endeavor.
Today Hispanic Americans are our Nation's fastest growing minority. ”

“ The Mexican government strove to prevent the evils expected to flow from the presence of numbers of foreigners in California, by establishing colonies of their own citizens in the territory. A number of persons were sent out from Mexico, to settle on the lands of the missions, but they never reached their destination. ”

“ At times, the Mexican authorities treated Spaniards shabbily for it is important to note that contrary to what many histories state, Spaniards unanimously refused to take the Constitutional Oath of Allegiance to Mexico, and withdrew as a consequence from all public affairs, only inasmuch as their family interests or the good of the community demanded their intervention. Thus we find no Spaniard as Governor, General, or the like during this period. ”

“ Mexican rule, thus begun, came to an end when Commodore Sloat raised the American flag at Monterey in 1846.
This quarter of a century saw the twilight of Latin supremacy and the dawn of Anglo-Saxon rule in California. The Missions, secularized by Mexico and taken over by the civil authorities, were abandoned, their properties generally sold, and many of the Mission churches and buildings allowed to go to ruin. Their great work was done.
Foreigners in small numbers, mostly Americans, began slowly to filter in, accompanied by a gradual and limited introduction of other ways and methods. ”

“ This state of affairs enabled the new Mexican authorities, exultant over their victory in the gain of their independence, to send several war vessels to Monterey late in 1822 and demand of Governor Solá, the surrender of California in the name of Emperor Augustin Iturbide. As we have already seen, nowhere in Spain's New World possessions was loyalty to the mother country more intense than in California, and the people, army and navy were loud in their demonstrations of opposition, and expressions of willingness were offered to the governor to fight the intrusion of Mexico to the end. ”

“ For sixty years after their first arrival at San Diego the Jesuits carried all before them in Upper California, and when the overthrow of the Spanish dominion in Mexico—which has been characterized as the death-blow of the mission system—took place in 1822, their settlements along the coast numbered as many as twenty-one. As in Lower California, however, the exclusiveness of the missionaries was fatal to the growth of permanent settlements: the emigration of Europeans to the districts belonging to them was discouraged; no inland colonies were founded ”

“ Abundant harvests and patient industry amply supplied the wants of Presidio and Mission. Isolated from the family of nations, the wars which shook the world concerned them not so much as the last earthquake; the struggle that emancipated their sister colonies on the other side of the continent to them had no suggestiveness. In short, it was that glorious Indian summer of California history around which so much poetical haze still lingers—that bland, indolent autumn of Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican independence and the reviving spring of American conquest. ”

“ One must put one’s self in the Father’s place, and know something of his life and surroundings, to appreciate the reason for his dislike to the proposed change. The missions in Nueva California were lonely, isolated spots of civilization in the midst of many Indian tribes. Each one, twenty to fifty miles distant from the neighboring mission on either side, lived, in a great measure, solely for itself, as it was dependent, in most things, on itself alone. There was communication, of course, between the different missions, with the president at Monterey, and with Mexico ”