Northern California Missions eBook

This is a Northern California Missions eBook where the author shares details of his travels across the 21 Missions in Northern California. This eBook contains 46 pages and comes in a PDF ready to download if necessary!

Spain had experience with colonization. They knew that land could be claimed by establishing a Mission. They sent padres, soldiers, and supplies for them. The Spanish learned that the Russians were exploring and maybe claiming North American’s Pacific Coast. The Missions’ purpose was to strengthen the Spanish Empire in Upper California. Not having enough Spaniards in the New World, they chose the Franciscan order to do two things: 1) to Christianize the peaceful Native Californian population, and 2) to teach them new skills: farming, making adobe bricks and tiles, carpentry, making wine, soap, candles, etc.

The Mission era lasted from 1769 to 1833, a period of 65 years. After Mexico gained independence from Spain, the Missions were secularized in 1834 (turned over to civil authorities and the conversion of Mission towns into pueblos). The lands were supposed to be distributed to the California Natives. Instead, many of them were taken by politicians, their families and their friends. In 1859, President James Buchanan returned San Gabriel, San Juan Bautista, and Santa Cruz Missions to the Catholic Church. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed a document that returned the rest of the Missions to the Church. Sadly, President Lincoln was assassinated a few weeks later, and never visited California.