By 1771, Europeans, strongly believing that their religion was the only religion, were continuing in their efforts to convert Indians. Both Protestant and Catholic missionaries sought to bring about the total conversion of the Indians, which included the complete destruction of their cultures.
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. With one exception, all of the missions were built on the sites of Native American villages.
With regard to California, Robert Jackson and Edward Castillo, in their book Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization: The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians, report:
“The missionaries, assisted by soldiers, congregated Indians into communities organized along the lines of those in the core areas of Spanish America, where Indian converts were to be indoctrinated in Catholicism and taught European-style agriculture, leatherworking, textile production, and other skills deemed useful by the Spaniards.”
By using Indian labor to produce surplus grain supplies for the Spanish military garrisons, the Franciscan missionaries were able to view Indians as both potential converts and labor.
Briefly described below are some events of 1771.
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
In California, the Franciscans established the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel on the banks of the Rio Hondo. The mission was to convert the Tongva people in the San Gabriel Valley. The Indians did not greet them with open arms, but with full war paint and hostile gestures. One of the Spaniards reports:
“Our people finally fought their way to the chosen spot, dangerously pressed by the whole multitude of savages.”
The Los Angeles County Natural History Museum has a display featuring the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. According to the Museum display:
“Mission life imposed radical changes in the lives of Native Californians. Highly developed customs of hunting and gathering were replaced with European-style farming. Traditional practices, like clearing undergrowth and thinning food plant beds to encourage growth, were abandoned. As Native Americans became increasingly bound to the regular schedule of tilling, planting and harvesting land outside of the missions went untended. In the Los Angeles area, landscapes that once resembled well-kept parks became wild and overgrown.”
Displayed above is some of the iconography brought by the missionaries.
Shown above is the type of plow which the missionaries brought with them.
According to the Museum display:
“The Mediterranean-style plow was the most important piece of farming equipment introduced by the Spanish.”
According to the Museum display:
“Spanish missions introduced European plants and animals to California. Herds of cattle, horses, and sheep, as well as pigs and dogs, were all kept at the missions. Cattle from Misión San Gabriel Arcángel roamed widely, spreading non-native plant life all over Southern California through their dung. Many of the plants growing in the Los Angeles area today arrived during the mission period.”
According to the Museum display:
“Franciscan missionaries sincerely believed in their work acquiring souls for God and new subjects for Spain. Once converted, Native Americans were confined to the mission, forced to adapt to Catholicism, hard labor and an unfamiliar diet. In close confinement, and with no immunity to new European diseases, Native Americans died in huge numbers. By the end of the mission system in 1837, the Native American population in California was half what it was when the first mission was established in 1769.”
The Tongva will later be known as the Gabrielino after the mission.
Shortly after the founding of the mission Indians attacked the San Gabriel Mission in the Los Angeles basin. The two attacks were triggered by the rape of a Kumi.vit woman by the soldiers who were assigned to protect the Franciscans. One chief was killed, and the Spanish soldiers placed his head on a pole as an example to other Indians who might wish to rebel against Spanish authority.
Mission San Antonio de Padua
In California, the mission San Antonio de Padua was established among the Salinan people. The Salinan population at this time was estimated to be about 3,000 and they are friendly and charitable toward the Spanish. Anthropologist Thomas Roy Hester, in his chapter on the Salinan in the Handbook of North American Indians notes:
“Once the Salinan were brought under the aegis of the missions, they were not permitted to resume their aboriginal life-style. Instead, they were taught agriculture and stock raising and were employed at weaving tasks.”
Congregationalist Missionary
In Pennsylvania, Congregationalist missionary Aaron Crosby, a Harvard graduate, arrived to preach at the Iroquois village of Oquaga. He spoke no Indian language but worked on his understanding of Oneida. He refused to use the Church of England service, which the Mohawk in the community preferred. In addition, he refused to baptize children whose parents led what he judged to be immoral lives.
Morovian Missionaries
In Labrador, Morovian missionaries established stations among the Inuit. They reported that the Inuit men often had two or three wives (often sisters) who lived under the same roof. In her chapter in Cultures in Contact: The European Impact on Native Cultural Institutions in Eastern North America, A.D. 1000-1800, Susan Kaplan reports:
“The Morovians, with previous experience among the Greenland Inuit, agreed to shift the Inuit limit of activities north of European fishing settlements if, in exchange, they were allowed sole access to the native population so that they could Christianize it.”
Susan Kaplan also writes:
“The Morovians perceived the roots of eighteenth-century Eskimo society and developed economic strategies to undermine the activities of Labrador’s powerful men and the long-distance trade networks.”
Hunting Territory
In Kentucky, non-Indian hunters under the leadership of Daniel Boone once again invaded Shawnee hunting grounds. Once again, the Shawnee captured him, confiscated his goods, and release him unharmed.
Peace Treaty
In Texas, the Spanish commandant at Natchitoches concluded a peace treaty with the Toavaya, Tawakoni, Iscani, and Kitsai.
New Sachem
In Massachusetts, the elderly sachem of Stockbridge, Benjamin Kokewenaunaut (also known as King Benjamin), resigned and asked his people to select a new sachem. Solomon Umhaunauwaunnutt was chosen.
Stockbridge had been established in 1736 as a Christian Indian community by the Presbyterian missionary John Sargeant. Like the English colonists, the Indian residents of Stockbridge tilled fields and orchards, raised livestock, and had their own mills. Archaeologist Robert Grumet, in his book Historic Contact: Indian People and Colonists in Today’s Northeastern United States in the Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries, reports:
“Indian people moving to Stockbridge took up individual lots, built frame homes, and established their own form of New England townlife.”
Copper
Hudson’s Bay Company employee Samuel Hearne joined Chipewyan chief Matonabbee’s family and they journeyed into the Coppermine area. They were later joined by a group of Copper Indians who were on a war party intent on killing Inuit who were known to frequent the area around the Coppermine River. The Indians then attacked a sleeping Inuit camp, massacring all. Matonabbee took Hearne to an ancient mine where copper had been mined. They took a four-pound lump of ore.
Indians 101
Twice each week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, this series presents various American Indian topics. More from this series:
Indians 101: Queen Anne's War in the North
Indians 101: The Pueblos, 1700 to 1725
Indians 101: Massachusetts, 1700 to 1725
Indians 101: Non-Indians and the Makah, 1788 to 1855
Indians 101: Russians and Native Americans in the 18th century
Indians 101: The Tuscarora & the Iroquois League
Indians 101: Indian Resistance to the California Missions
Indians 101: American Indians 300 years ago, 1721