Editing Spanish missions in California (section)

=== Franciscans and native conscription ===

[[File:Death of Father Jayme.jpg|thumb|An illustration depicts the death of the Rev. Luís Jayme by angry locals at [[Mission San Diego de Alcalá]], November 4, 1775.<ref>Ruscin, p. 12</ref> The independence uprising was the first of a dozen similar incidents that took place in Alta California during the Mission Period; however, most rebellions tended to be localized and short-lived due to the Spaniards' superior weaponry (native resistance more often took the form of non-cooperation (in forced labor), return to their homelands (desertion of forced relocation), and raids on mission livestock).<ref>Paddison, p. 48</ref><ref>Chapman, pp. 310–311</ref><ref group=notes>Chapman: "Latter-day historians have been altogether too prone to regard the hostility to the Spaniards on the part of the California Indians as a matter of small consequence, since no disaster in fact ever happened...On the other hand the San Diego plot involved untold thousands of Indians, being virtually a national uprising, and owing to the distance from New Spain to and the extreme difficulty of maintaining communications a victory for the Indians would have ended Spanish settlement in Alta California." As it turned out, "...the position of the Spaniards was strengthened by the San Diego outbreak, for the Indians felt from that time forth that it was impossible to throw out their conquerors." See also [[Mission Puerto de Purísima Concepción]] and [[Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer]] regarding the ''[[Quechan|Yuma]]'' 'massacres' of 1781.</ref><ref>Engelhardt 1922, p. 12</ref><ref group=notes>Engelhardt: Not all of the native cultures responded with hostility to the Spaniards' presence; Engelhardt portrayed the natives at Mission San Juan Capistrano (dubbed the "''[[Juaneño]]''" by the missionaries), where there was never any instance of unrest, as being "uncommonly friendly and docile." The Rev. [[Juan Crespí]], who accompanied the 1769 expedition, described the first encounter with the area's inhabitants: "They came unarmed and with a gentleness which has no name they brought their poor seeds to us as gifts...The locality itself and the docility of the Indians invited the establishment of a Mission for them."</ref>]]

The Alta California missions, known as [[Indian Reductions|reductions]] (''reducciones'') or congregations (''congregaciones''), were settlements founded by the Spanish colonizers of the [[New World]] with the purpose of totally assimilating indigenous populations into [[European culture]] and the [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] religion. It was a doctrine established in 1531, which based the Spanish state's right over the land and persons of the Indies on the [[Papal]] charge to evangelize them. It was employed wherever the indigenous populations were not already concentrated in native ''pueblos''. Indians were congregated around the mission proper through forced resettlement, in which the Spanish  "reduced" them from what they perceived to be a free "undisciplined'" state with the ambition of converting them into "civilized" members of colonial society.<ref>Rawls, pp. 14–16</ref> The civilized and disciplined culture of the natives, developed over 8,000 years, was not considered. A total of 146 [[Franciscan#Name|Friars Minor]], mostly Spaniards by birth, were ordained as priests and served in California between 1769 and 1845. Sixty-seven missionaries died at their posts (two as ''[[martyr]]s'': ''Padres'' [[Luis Jayme]] and [[Andrés Quintana]]), while the remainder returned to Europe due to illness, or upon completing their ten-year service commitment.<ref>Leffingwell, pp. 19, 132</ref> As the rules of the Franciscan Order forbade friars to live alone, two missionaries were assigned to each settlement, sequestered in the mission's ''convento''.<ref>Bennett 1897a, p. 20: Priests were paid an annual salary of $400.</ref> To these the governor assigned a guard of five or six soldiers under the command of a corporal, who generally acted as steward of the mission's temporal affairs, subject to the priests' direction.<ref name = "engelhardtMAM3-18"/>

Indians were initially attracted into the mission compounds by gifts of food, colored beads, bits of bright cloth, and trinkets. Once a Native American "[[gentile]]" was baptized, they were labeled a ''[[wikt:neophyte|neophyte]]'', or new believer. This happened only after a brief period during which the initiates were instructed in the most basic aspects of the Catholic faith. But, while many natives were lured to join the missions out of curiosity and sincere desire to participate and engage in trade, many found themselves trapped once they were [[baptism|baptized]].<ref name="cogweb.ucla.edu">Carey McWilliams. [http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/McWilliams.html Southern California:An Island on the Land] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151011183332/http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/McWilliams.html |date=2015-10-11 }}</ref> On the other hand, Indians staffed the militias at each mission<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/36043657 |title=Beyond Slavery: The Institutional Status of Mission Indians |journal=Franciscan Florida in Pan-Borderlands Perspective: Adaptation, Negotiation, and Resistance |access-date=2018-03-05 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180427234836/http://www.academia.edu/36043657/Beyond_Slavery_The_Institutional_Status_of_Mission_Indians |archive-date=2018-04-27 |last1=Duggan |first1=Marie Christine |date=January 2017 }} Duggan, M.C. "Beyond Slavery: Institutional Status of Mission Indians, in Burns and Johnson (eds.), Franciscans and American Indians in Pan-Borderlands Perspective. Oceanside, CA: AAFH, 2017.</ref> and had a role in mission governance.

[[File:Mission San Jose natives.jpg|thumb|left|Georg von Langsdorff, an early visitor to California, sketched a group of ''[[Ohlone|Costeño]]'' dancers at [[Mission San José (California)|Mission San José]] in 1806. "The hair of these people is very coarse, thick, and stands erect; in some it is powdered with down feathers," Langsdorff noted. "Their bodies are fantastically painted with charcoal dust, red clay, and chalk. The foremost dancer is ornamented all over with down feathers, which gives him a monkey-like appearance; the hindermost has had the whimsical idea of painting his body to imitate the uniform of a Spanish soldier, with his boots, stockings, breeches, and upper garments."<ref>Paddison, p. 130</ref>]]

To the ''padres'', a baptized Indian person was no longer free to move about the country, but had to labor and worship at the mission under the strict observance of the priests and overseers, who herded them to daily masses and labors. If an Indian did not report for their duties for a period of a few days, they were searched for, and if it was discovered that they had left without permission, they were considered runaways. Large-scale military expeditions were organized to round up the escaped neophytes. Sometimes, the Franciscans allowed neophytes to escape the missions, or they would allow them to visit their home village. However, the Franciscans would only allow this so that they could secretly follow the neophytes. Upon arriving to the village and capturing the runaways, they would take back Indians to the missions, sometimes as many as 200 to 300 Indians.<ref>{{cite web|last1=McWilliams|first1=Carey|title=The Indian in the Closet|url=http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/McWilliams.html|access-date=7 March 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170525082647/http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/McWilliams.html|archive-date=25 May 2017}}</ref>

{{blockquote|On one occasion," writes [[Hugo Reid]], "they went as far as the present Rancho del Chino, where they tied and whipped every man, woman and child in the lodge, and drove part of them back.... On the road they did the same with those of the lodge at San Jose. On arriving home the men were instructed to throw their bows and arrows at the feet of the priest, and make due submission. The infants were then baptized, as were also all children under eight years of age; the former were left with their mothers, but the latter kept apart from all communication with their parents. The consequence was, first, the women consented to the rite and received it, for the love they bore their children; and finally the males gave way for the purpose of enjoying once more the society of wife and family. Marriage was then performed, and so this contaminated race, in their own sight and that of their kindred, became followers of Christ.<ref name="cogweb.ucla.edu"/>}}

A total of 20,355 natives were "attached" to the California missions in 1806 (the highest figure recorded during the Mission Period); under Mexican rule the number rose to 21,066 (in 1824, the record year during the entire era of the Franciscan missions).<ref>Chapman, p. 383</ref><ref group=notes>Chapman: "Over the hills of the Coast Range, in the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, north of San Francisco Bay, and in the Sierra Nevadas of the south there were untold thousands whom the mission system never reached...they were as if in a world apart from the narrow strip of coast which was all there was of the Spanish California."</ref> During the entire period of Mission rule, from 1769 to 1834, the Franciscans baptized 53,600 adult Indians and buried 37,000. Dr. Cook estimates that 15,250 or 45% of the population decrease was caused by disease. Two epidemics of [[measles]], one in 1806 and the other in 1828, caused many deaths. The mortality rates were so high that the missions were constantly dependent upon new conversions.<ref name="cogweb.ucla.edu"/>

Young native women were required to reside in the ''[[monjerío]]'' (or "nunnery") under the supervision of a trusted Indian matron who bore the responsibility for their welfare and education. Women only left the convent after they had been "won" by an Indian suitor and were deemed ready for marriage. Following Spanish custom, courtship took place on either side of a barred window. After the marriage ceremony the woman moved out of the mission compound and into one of the family huts.<ref>Newcomb, p. viii</ref> These "nunneries" were considered a necessity by the priests, who felt the women needed to be protected from the men, both Indian and ''de razón'' ("instructed men", i.e. Europeans). The cramped and unsanitary conditions the girls lived in contributed to the fast spread of disease and [[population decline]]. So many died at times that many of the Indian residents of the missions urged the priests to raid new villages to supply them with more women.<ref name=":0">Krell, p. 316</ref>

==== Death rate at the missions ====
As of December 31, 1832 (the peak of the mission system's development) the mission ''padres'' had performed a combined total of 87,787 baptisms and 24,529 marriages, and recorded 63,789 deaths.<ref name=":0" /> The death rate at the missions, particularly of children, was very high and the majority of children baptized did not survive childhood.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Guinn |first=James Miller |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xu81AQAAMAAJ |title=History of the State of California and Biographical Record to Oakland and Environs: Also Containing Biographies of Well-known Citizens of the Past and Present |date=1907 |publisher=Historic Record Company |pages=56–66 |language=en |type=Digitized eBook}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Hodge |first=Frederick Webb |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ueYNAAAAIAAJ |title=Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico |date=1910 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |language=en |type=Digitized eBook}}</ref> At [[Mission San Gabriel Arcángel|Mission San Gabriel]], for instance, three of four children died before reaching the age of two.<ref name=":17">{{Cite journal |last=Singleton |first=Heather Valdez |date=2004 |title=Surviving Urbanization: The Gabrieleno, 1850–1928 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1409498 |journal=Wíčazo Ša Review |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=49–59 |doi=10.1353/wic.2004.0026 |jstor=1409498 |s2cid=161847670}}</ref>

The high rate of death at the missions have been attributed to several factors, including disease, torture, overworking, malnourishment, and [[cultural genocide]].<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Pritzker |first=Barry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZxWJVc4ST0AC&pg=PA114 |title=A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples |date=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |others=Barry Pritzker |isbn=0-19-513877-5 |location=Oxford |pages=114 |oclc=42683042}}</ref> Forcing native people into close quarters at the missions spread disease quickly. While being kept at the missions, native people were transitioned to a Spanish diet that left them more unable to ward off diseases, the most common being [[dysentery]], [[fever]]s with unknown causes, and [[venereal disease]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Agnew |first=Jeremy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JUXqCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA123 |publisher=McFarland  |title=Spanish Influence on the Old Southwest: A Collision of Cultures |date=2016 |isbn=978-0-7864-9740-9 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |pages=123 |oclc=917343410}}</ref>

The death rate has been compared to that of other atrocities. American author and lawyer [[Carey McWilliams (journalist)|Carey McWilliams]] argued that "the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of [[Nazism|Nazis]] operating [[concentration camps]]."<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Armbruster-Sandoval |first=Ralph |title=Starving for Justice: Hunger Strikes, Spectacular Speech, and the Struggle for Dignity |publisher=University of Arizona Press |year=2017 |isbn=9780816532582 |pages=58–59}}</ref> 
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! No.
! Name
! Baptisms and/or Indigenous population
! Deaths and/or remaining pop.
! Notes
|-
| 1
| [[Mission San Diego de Alcalá]]
| 6,638 baptisms total<ref name=":1" />
(2,685 children)<ref name=":2" />
| 4,428 deaths total<ref name=":1" />
| From 1810 to 1820, "the death rate among the neophytes was 77% of baptisms and 35% of the population." Only 34 families remained after the mission was secularized in 1833.<ref name=":2" />
|-
| 2
| [[Mission San Luis Rey de Francia]]
| 5,401 baptisms total (1,862 children)<ref name=":2" />
2,869 people in 1826<ref name=":1" />
|
|
|-
| 3
| [[Mission San Juan Capistrano]]
| 4,317 baptisms total (2,628 children)<ref name=":2" />
| 3,153 deaths total<ref name=":2" />
|
|-
| 4
| [[Mission San Gabriel Arcángel]]
| 7,854 baptisms total (2,459 children)<ref name=":1" />
1,701 people in 1817<ref name=":1" />
| 5,656 deaths total (2,916 children)<ref name=":1" />
1,320 people in 1834<ref name=":1" />
| A missionary reported that three out of four children died at the mission before reaching the age of 2.<ref name=":17" />
|-
| 5
| [[Mission San Fernando Rey de España]]
| 1,367 children baptized
1,080 people in 1819<ref name=":1" />
| 965 children died<ref name=":1" />
| "It was not strange that the fearful death rate both of children and adults at the missions sometimes frightened the neophytes into running away."<ref name=":1" />
|-
| 6
| [[Mission San Buenaventura]]
| 3,805 baptisms total (1,909 children)<ref name=":2" />
1,330 people in 1816<ref name=":1" />
| 626 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":2" />
| [[Hubert Howe Bancroft]] estimated that there were about 250 people in 1840 remaining from the mission living in scattered communities.<ref name=":2" />
|-
| 7
| [[Mission Santa Barbara]]
| 1,792 people in 1803<ref name=":1" />
| 556 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
| "At such a rate it would not, even if mission rule had continued, have taken more than a dozen years to depopulate the mission."<ref name=":1" />
|-
| 8
| [[Mission Santa Inés]]
| 757 children baptized
770 people in 1816<ref name=":1" />
| 519 children died
334 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
|
|-
| 9
| [[La Purisima Mission|Mission La Purísima Concepción]]
| 1,492 children baptized total
1,520 people in 1804<ref name=":1" />
| 902 children died
407 people in remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
|
|-
| 10
| [[Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa]]
| 2,608 baptisms total (1,331`children)
852 people in 1803<ref name=":1" />
| 264 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
|
|-
| 11
| [[Mission San Miguel Arcángel]]
| 2,588 baptisms total
1,076 people in 1814<ref name=":1" />
| 2,038 deaths total
599 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
| "The lowest death rate in any of the missions."<ref name=":1" />
|-
| 12
| [[Mission San Antonio de Padua]]
| 4,348 baptisms total (2,587 children)<ref name=":1" />
1,296 people in 1805<ref name=":1" />
| 567 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
|
|-
| 13
| [[Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad]]
| 2,222 baptisms total
725 people in 1805<ref name=":1" />
| 1,803 deaths total
300 people remaining<ref name=":1" />
|
|-
| 14
| [[Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo]]
| 971 people in 1794, 758 in 1800, 513 in 1810, 381 in 1820<ref name=":2" />
| 150 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
| "At the rate of decrease under mission rule, a few more years would have produced... the extinction of the mission Indian."<ref name=":1" />
|-
| 15
| [[Mission San Juan Bautista]]
| 1,248 people in 1823<ref name=":1" />
| 850 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
| "The only mission whose population increased from 1810 to 1820. This was due to the fact that its numbers were recruited from the eastern tribes."<ref name=":1" /> "The appalling smell from the graveyard saturated the entire Mission building."<ref name=":3" />
|-
| 16
| [[Mission Santa Cruz]]
| 2,466 baptisms total
644 people in 1798<ref name=":1" />
| 2,034 deaths total
250 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":1" />
|
|-
| 17
| [[Mission Santa Clara de Asís]]
| 7,711 baptisms (3,177 children)
927 people in 1790, 1,464 in 1827<ref name=":2" />
| 150 people remaining in 1834<ref name=":2" />
| Very sharp decline in the native population from 1827 to 1834. "The death rate at the mission was very high."<ref name=":2" />
|-
| 18
| [[Mission San José (California)|Mission San José]]
| 6,737 baptisms total
1,754 people in 1820<ref name=":1" />
| 5,109 deaths total<ref name=":1" />
|
|-
| 19
| [[Mission San Francisco de Asís]]
|
|880 deaths in 1806 alone<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coodley |first=Lauren |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/184842836 |title=Napa : the transformation of an American town |date=2007 |publisher=Arcadia |others=Paula Amen Schmitt |isbn=978-0-7385-2502-0 |edition= |location=Charleston, SC |pages=22 |oclc=184842836}}</ref>
| "An epidemic [in 1806] had broken out in the Mission Dolores and a number of the Indians were transferred to San Rafael to escape the plague."<ref name=":1" />
|-
| 20
| [[Mission San Rafael Arcángel]]
| 1,873 baptisms total
1,140 people in 1828<ref name=":1" />
| 698 deaths total
Less than 500 people remaining<ref name=":1" />
|
|-
| 21
| [[Mission San Francisco Solano]]
| 1,315 baptisms total
996 people in 1832<ref name=":1" />
| 651 deaths total
About 550 people remaining<ref name=":1" />
|
|}