Editing Spanish missions in California (section)

=== Secularization ===
{{Further|Mexican secularization act of 1833}}

As the Mexican republic matured, calls for the [[secularization]] ("[[disestablishment]]") of the missions increased.  They were finally closed down in 1834, their priests mostly returned to Mexico. The churches ended religious services and  fell into disrepair. The farmlands were seized.<ref>Robinson, p. 29</ref><ref group=notes>Robinson: The ''cortes'' (legislature) of New Spain issued a decree in 1813 for at least partial secularization that affected all missions in America and was to apply to all outposts that had operated for ten years or more; however, the decree was never enforced in California.</ref>

[[José María de Echeandía]], the first native Mexican elected Governor of Alta California issued a "Proclamation of Emancipation"  (or "''Prevenciónes de Emancipacion''") on July 25, 1826.<ref>Engelhardt 1922, p. 80</ref> All Indians within the military districts of San Diego, Santa Barbara, and [[Monterey]] who were found qualified were freed from missionary rule and made eligible to become Mexican citizens. Those who wished to remain under mission tutelage were exempted from most forms of corporal punishment.<ref>Bancroft, vol. i, pp. 100–101:

The motives behind the issuance of Echeandía's premature decree may have had more to do with his desire to appease "...some prominent Californians who had already had their eyes on the mission lands..." than with concern for the welfare of the natives.</ref><ref>Stern and Miller, pp. 51–52</ref><ref group=notes>Catholic historian Zephyrin Engelhardt referred to Echeandía as "...an avowed enemy of the religious orders."</ref> By 1830, even the neophyte populations themselves appeared confident in their own abilities to operate the mission ranches and farms independently; the ''padres'', however, doubted the capabilities of their charges in this regard.<ref>Forbes, p. 201: In 1831, the number of Indians under missionary control in all of Upper California stood at 18,683; garrison soldiers, free settlers, and "other classes" totaled 4,342.</ref>

Accelerating immigration, both Mexican and foreign, increased pressure on the Alta California government to seize the mission properties and dispossess the natives in accordance with Echeandía's directive.<ref>Kelsey, p. 21</ref><ref group=notes>Settlers made numerous false claims to diminish the natives' abilities: "The Indians are by nature slovenly and indolent," stated one newcomer. "They have unfeelingly appropriated the region," claimed another.</ref> Despite the fact that Echeandía's emancipation plan was met with little encouragement from the novices who populated the southern missions, he was nonetheless determined to test the scheme on a large scale at Mission San Juan Capistrano. To that end, he appointed a number of ''comisionados'' (commissioners) to oversee the emancipation of the Indians.<ref>Bancroft, vol. iii, pp. 322; 626</ref> The Mexican government passed legislation on December 20, 1827, that mandated the expulsion of all Spaniards younger than sixty years of age from Mexican territories; Governor Echeandía nevertheless intervened on behalf of some of the missionaries to prevent their deportation once the law took effect in California.<ref>Engelhard 1922, p. 223</ref>

Upon arriving in [[Monterey, California]] in April 1832,<ref name=ncpedia>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/larkin-thomas-oliver|title=Larkin, Thomas Oliver &#124; NCpedia|website=www.ncpedia.org}}</ref><ref>Parker, Robert J. [https://archive.org/details/northcarolinahis1937nort A Yankee in North Carolina]. North Carolina Historical Review (October 1937).  (accessed August 14, 2014).</ref>  [[Thomas O. Larkin]] found the economics of land and commerce were controlled by the Spanish missions, presidios, pueblos, and a few ranchos.<ref name="Calhistory">{{cite journal |last1=Parker |first1=R. J. |last2=Larkin |first2=T. O. |title=Thomas Oliver Larkin in 1831: A Letter from North Carolina |journal=California History |date=1 September 1937 |volume=16 |issue=3 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25160727|pages=263–270 |doi=10.2307/25160727 |jstor=25160727 |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|The lands of each mission joined those of other missions on either side, so that all were connected, or, in other words, the missionaries occupied all the land along the coast, except the presidios, the three pueblos and their lands, and a few ranchos which were held by virtue of grants from the King of Spain.... The missionaries objected to any settlements in the country but the missions; the presidios they regarded as a necessary evil.}}

Governor [[José Figueroa]] (who took office in 1833) initially attempted to keep the mission system intact, but the [[Congress of Mexico|Mexican Congress]] passed ''[[Mexican secularization act of 1833|An Act for the Secularization of the Missions of California]]'' on August 17, 1833, when liberal [[Valentín Gómez Farías]] was in office.<ref name="yenne18-19">Yenne, pp. 18–19</ref><ref group=notes>Yenne: In 1833, Figueroa replaced the Spanish-born Franciscan ''padres'' at all of the settlements north of Mission San Antonio de Padua with Mexican-born Franciscan priests from the [[College of Guadalupe de Zacatecas]]. In response, Father-Presidente [[Narciso Durán]] transferred the headquarters of the Alta California Mission System to Mission Santa Bárbara, where it remained until 1846.</ref>

The Act also provided for the colonization of both Alta and Baja California, the expenses of this latter move to be borne by the proceeds gained from the sale of the mission property to private interests.

For instance, after Mexican independence, the Mexican government confiscated Franciscan lands and decommissioned them. This, however, did not see the end of Native plight since further dislocation and abuse occurred under Mexican control. Most of the confiscated Franciscan lands were given out as grants to white settlers or well connected Mexicans, while Native Californians continued to occupy the land as a labor force.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/california-first-person-narratives/articles-and-essays/early-california-history/mexican-california/|title = Mexican California &#124; Early California History: An Overview &#124; Articles and Essays &#124; California as I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849–1900 &#124; Digital Collections &#124; Library of Congress|website = [[Library of Congress]]}}</ref>

Mission San Juan Capistrano was the very first to feel the effects of secularization when, on August 9, 1834, Governor Figueroa issued his "Decree of Confiscation."<ref>Engelhardt 1922, p. 114</ref> Nine other settlements quickly followed, with six more in 1835; [[Ventura, California|San Buenaventura]] and San Francisco de Asís were among the last to succumb, in June and December 1836, respectively.<ref>Yenne, pp. 83, 93</ref> The [[Franciscan]]s soon thereafter abandoned most of the missions, taking with them almost everything of value, after which the locals typically plundered the mission buildings for construction materials. Former mission pasture lands were divided into large land grants called ''ranchos'', greatly increasing the number of private land holdings in Alta California.