Alta California Missions and the Pre-1849 Transformation of Coastal Lands

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Allen
Keyword(s):  
Alta California ◽  
California Missions ◽  
Coastal Lands

Locating Absence: The Forgotten Presence of Monjeríos in Alta California Missions

2011 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea K. Vaughn
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
San Juan ◽  
Case Histories ◽  
Native American Women ◽  
American Women ◽  
Alta California ◽  
San Luis ◽  
California Missions ◽  
San Juan Capistrano

This article examines how California's historic mission sites represent the Native American women who worked in the missions and who were sequestered there in monjeríos (chaperoned dormitories for unmarried women). Three missions (San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, and La Purísima Concepción) provide case histories of mission interpretations in which these women were completely absent, represented by signage only, or brought to visitors' attention through a recreated monjerio. However, even in the latter model, their lives are not fully represented: the monjerios were sites of punishment, a fact recorded in mission-era reports and letters but not indicated in the exhibit space.

The Internal Organization and Activities of San Fernando College, Mexico (1734-1858)

1949 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maynard Geiger
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
San Jose ◽  
Mexican History ◽  
Alta California ◽  
American Students ◽  
California Missions ◽  
History Of ◽  
San Fernando ◽  
Indian Mission ◽  
Mission Field

Students of the Mission History of colonial Spanish America are aware of the importance played by the Apostolic Colleges in the expansion and development of the Indian mission field. The labors of the Fernandinos, Zacatecans and Queretarans, for example, have been heralded in the chronicles of the Colleges, in the extant documents pertaining to the respective mission fields, and in the histories, both Spanish and English, which describe the endeavors of the friars in behalf of Christianity and civilization on the frontier.Between 1683 and 1814, seven of these Colleges were founded in New Spain alone: Santa Cruz, Querétaro; Cristo Crucificado, Guatemala; Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Zacatecas; San Fernando, Mexico City; San Francisco, Pachuca; San José, Orizaba; and Nuestra Señora de Zapopan, Guadalajara. Querétaro, Zacatecas and San Fernando are the best-known to American students, because of their influence on the Borderlands from Texas to California. San Fernando was responsible for the great development between 1769 and 1833 in the entire territory of Alta California, and in the southern portion between 1833 and 1853. Studies on this mission field are numerous and detailed, but there is a gap which should be filled with a study on the College itself. For such a study, we are dependent on the official documents of the regime, once—before the confiscation period in Mexican history—very numerous. Though various students have declared that most of the documents have been lost, the present writer may announce, with confidence, that while certain ones evidently have been lost, a great body of them does still exist; and from these it is possible to study various aspects of the College’s life. San Fernando has been chosen for study in this article, both because it was the mother house of the California missions, and because a considerable number of pertinent documents have been brought to light in recent years.

Junípero Serra’s Tastes and the Art and Architecture of the California Missions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Bargellini ◽  
Pamela Huckins
Keyword(s):  
Alta California ◽  
Clear Sense ◽  
Center Stage ◽  
Liturgical Art ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
California Missions ◽  
Art And Architecture

As art historians Clara Bargellini and Pamela Huckins show in Chapter 9, the missions, at least in Serra’s mind, were to be held together not just by violence but by a common devotion to Catholicism that was reinforced by architecture and art. Bargellini and Huckins show that Serra had a clear sense of how he wanted to adorn the missions in the Sierra Gorda and those of Alta California, and he saw architecture and liturgical art as an important tool in the conversion of Indians. Images of the Virgin, Christ’s Passion, and Franciscan saints all took center stage in the churches of the California missions, and Serra favored an older Baroque style over the emerging Neoclassicism.

scholarly journals Missionaries and Borderlands: «The Mission Play» and Missionary Practices in Alta California

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
David Melendez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
California Indians ◽  
Alta California ◽  
Mission History ◽  
The Status ◽  
California Missions ◽  
Moral Dimensions ◽  
Theatrical Representations

This essay takes up a core question of this issue of Pamiętnik Teatralny: how are we to think about historiography beyond a dualism, settled in time and reflective of the status quo? With respect to the California missions, historical treatments of colonization revolve around a dualism shaped by moral dimensions of the missionary enterprise—did the missions help California Indians or harm them? Theatrical representations, like the wildly successful early twentieth century pageant drama, The Mission Play, staged a version of mission history that argued for the former. As a representation of the mission past, the play conflated missions, as institutions, with the moral character of missionaries, thus edifying a fantasy and entrenching the dualism. However, attention to missionary practices, like keeping time using the mission bell, reveal how the missions were sites where indigenous and colonial realities were in constant conflict. Through practices, relations between missionaries and indios produced a space that was neither strictly colonial nor indigenous, and yet both—a borderland. As a mode of spatial dialectics, borderlands thinking can unsettle the duality underlying representations of the mission past to question how that dualism has come into being.

The California Missions and their Visitors

1968 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-336
Author(s):  
Francis J. Weber
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Fur Trade ◽  
James Cook ◽  
Alta California ◽  
Geographical Separation ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
California Missions ◽  
Spanish Colonies ◽  
Spanish Province

Because of its geographical separation from other Spanish colonies and the rigid mercantilistic policy of its mother country, Alta California was completely isolated from outside influence during its first sixteen years as a Spanish province. Gradually, however, as a result of the explorations of Captain James Cook (1728-1779), foreign vessels began to appear in the area. When the fur trade started flourishing in the Pacific Northwest, European and American ships as well as overland expeditions were attracted further south to the ports and population centers of California.

The End of the 1824 Chumash Revolt in Alta California: Father Vicente Sarría’s Account

1996 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose Marie Beebe ◽  
Robert M. Senkewicz
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Alta California ◽  
California Missions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Franciscan Missions ◽  
Santa Inês ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Fear And Anxiety

The 1824 Chumash uprising against three Franciscan missions in the central section of the California chain—Santa Inés, La Purísima Concepción, and Santa Bárbara—was the largest organized revolt in the history of the Alta California missions. The Chumash burned most of the Santa Inés mission complex. At La Purísima, they drove out the mission guard and one of the two priests in residence. The mission was not forcibly retaken by the Mexican army for almost a month. At Santa Bárbara, the Chumash disarmed the soldiers stationed at the mission and sent them back to the presidio. After an inconclusive battle against troops who were sent out against them from the presidio, most of the rebels retired to the interior, where they set up their own community. The revolt was finally brought to an end when a military expedition led by Pablo de la Portilla negotiated the return of this group to the Santa Bárbara Mission. The role of the Prefect of the Missions, Father Vicente í, in bringing the revolt to an end by persuading this group to return to the Santa Bárbara Mission has long been recognized. Antonio María Osio, most likely relying on what he had been told by his brother-in-law, Governor Luis Argüello, stated in 1851, “They [the Chumash] had decided not to return to the missions and expressed the low regard in which they generally held the inhabitants of California. Yet, at the same time, they revered Reverend Father Vicente í for his many virtues. Only he had the necessary power of persuasion to calm the Indians’ fears.” In 1885, as he described the negotiations between the Mexican military and the Chumash, Theodore S. Hittell wrote, “Communications were opened and a conference held; the two missionaries, Father President Vicente í and Father Antonio Ripoll of Santa Bárbara, acted as negotiators; and the result was that the Indians submitted unconditionally; were pardoned, and the fugitive neophytes marched back to their respective missions.” We offer here a translation of a letter which í wrote to the Bishop of Sonora, Bernardo Martínez Ocejo, a few months after these events. The document provides an excellent first-hand account of the conclusion of the revolt. It also offers a close view of the growing fear and anxiety the missionaries were experiencing in the early years of Mexican independence. As a context for the letter, let us briefly summarize the Chumash revolt.

scholarly journals Agriculture, Drought, and Chumash congregation in the California missions (1782-1834)

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (019) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Jackson ◽  
Anne Gardzina
Keyword(s):  
Alta California ◽  
California Missions

Entre 1772 y 1804 los franciscanos establecieron cinco misiones dentro de las comunidades Chumash de Alta California. Los expertos tratan de determinar por qué los Chumash abandonaron su estilo de vida tradicional para trasladarse a las misiones. Dichas misiones eran insalubres por lo que los franciscanos introdujeron nuevos códigos de conducta social y un régimen de trabajo distinto al establecido el cual se hacía cumplir por medio de castigos corporales. Miles de Chumash murieron en las misiones. Un artículo reciente formula la hipótesis de que los Chumash se vieron forzados a trasladarse a las misiones debido a la escasez de alimentos. Esta hipótesis  es una variación de un antiguo tema que sugiere que las tribus indias de la Alta California encontraban un suministro de víveres más confiable dentro de las misiones. Este artículo analiza la producción de granos dentro de las misiones a fin de demostrar que el estudio de los anillos anulares de los árboles no siempre predice la escasez de vegetales y prueba que durante los años de sequía  no escasea todo tipo de vegetales.

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