The mission church was situated, as a rule, in the centre of the mission lands, or reservations. The latter comprised several thousand acres of land. With the money furnished by the Pious Fund of California the church was erected, and surrounded by the various buildings occupied by the Fathers, the retainers, and the employees who had been trained to agriculture and the simple branches of mechanics. The presbytery, or the rectory, was the chief guest-house in the land. There were no hotels in the California of that day, but the traveller, the prospector, the speculator, was ever welcome at the mission board; and it was a bountiful board until the rapacity of the Federal Government laid it waste. Alexander Forbes, in his "History of Upper and Lower California" (London, 1839), states that the population of Upper California in 1831 was a little over 23,000; of these 18,683 were Indians. It was for the conversion of these Indians that the missions were first established; for the bettering of their condition—mental, moral and physical—that they were trained in the useful and industrial arts. That they labored not in vain is evident. In less than fifty years from the day of its foundation the Mission of San Francisco Dolores—that is in 1825—is said to have possessed 76,000 head of cattle; 950 tame horses; 2,000 breeding mares; 84 stud of choice breed; 820 mules; 79,000 sheep; 2,000 hogs; 456 yoke of working oxen; 18,000 bushels of wheat and barley; besides $35,000 in merchandise and $25,000 in specie.
That was, indeed, the golden age of the California missions; everybody was prosperous and proportionately happy. In 1826 the Mission of Soledad owned more than 36,000 head of cattle, and a larger number of horses and mares than any other mission in the country. These animals increased so rapidly that they were given away in order to preserve the pasturage for cattle and sheep. In 1822 the Spanish power in Mexico was overthrown; in 1824 a republican constitution was established. California, not then having a population sufficient to admit it as one of the Federal States, was made a territory, and as such had a representative in the Mexican Congress; but he was not allowed a vote on any question, though he sat in the assembly and shared in the debates.
In 1826 the Federal Government began to meddle with the affairs of the friars. The Indians "who had good characters, and were considered able to maintain themselves, from having been taught the art of agriculture or some trade," were manumitted; portions of land were allotted to them, and the whole country was divided into parishes, under the superintendence of curates. The zealous missionaries were no longer to receive a salary—four hundred dollars a year had formerly been paid them out of the national exchequer for developing the resources of the State. Everybody and everything was now supposed to be self-sustaining, and was left to take care of itself. It was a dream—and a bad one!
Lone Mountain, 1856
Within one year the Indians went to the dogs. They were cheated out of their small possessions and were driven to beggary or plunder. The Fathers were implored to take charge again of their helpless flock. Meanwhile the Pious Fund of California had run dry, as its revenues had been diverted into alien channels. The good friars resumed their offices. Once more the missions were prosperous, but for a time only. It was the beginning of the end. Year after year acts were passed in the Mexican Congress so hampering the friars in their labors that they were at last crippled and helpless. The year 1840 was specially disastrous; and in 1845 the Franciscans the pioneer settlers and civilizers of California, were completely denuded of both power and property.
In that year a number of the missions were sold by public auction. The Indian converts, formerly attached to some of the missions, but now demoralized and wandering idly and miserably over the country, were ordered to return within a month to the few remaining missions, or those also would be sold. The Indians, having had enough of legislation and knowing the white man pretty well by this time, no doubt having had enough of him, returned not, and their missions were disposed of. Then the remaining missions were rented and the remnants divided into three parts: one kindly bestowed upon the missionaries, who were the founders and rightful owners of the missions; one upon the converted Indians, who seem to have vanished into thin air; one, the last, was supposed to be converted into a new Pious Fund of California for the further education and evangelization of the masses—whoever they might be. The general government had long been in financial distress, and had often borrowed—to put it mildly—from the friars in their more prosperous days. In 1831 the Mexican Congress owed the missions of California $450,000 of borrowed money; and in 1845 it left those missionaries absolutely penniless.
Let me not harp longer upon this theme, but end with a quotation from the pages of a non-Catholic historian. Referring to the Franciscans and their mission work on the Pacific coast, Josiah Joyce, assistant professor of philosophy in Harvard College, says: [[1]]
"No one can question their motives, nor may one doubt that their intentions were not only formally pious but truly humane. For the more fatal diseases that so-called civilization introduced among the Indians, only the soldiers and colonists of the presidios and pueblos were to blame; and the Fathers, well knowing the evil results of a mixed population, did their best to prevent these consequences, but in vain; since the neighborhood of a presidio was often necessary for the safety of a mission, and the introduction of a white colonist was an important part of the intentions of the home government. But, after all, upon this whole toil of the missions, considered in itself, one looks back with regret, as upon one of the most devout and praiseworthy of mortal efforts; and, in view of its avowed intentions, one of the most complete and fruitless of human failures. The missions have meant, for modern American California, little more than a memory, which now indeed is lighted up by poetical legends of many sorts. But the chief significance of the missions is simply that they first began the colonization of California."