NOTE.
The Mission Establishments of California.—The plan of the early missionaries in Florida and New Mexico had been to form the converts into villages near the Spanish settlements, in which they were trained to the usages of civilized life. In the numerous Christian villages thus spread over the country, all civil functions were exercised by the chiefs, the missionaries confining themselves to those of a spiritual nature only. The progress of the Indians under this system was slower than was desirable, and experience led to an improvement in the manner of conducting the missions that were subsequently established in New Mexico and California. In the latter, the missionary went in the first place attended by a small guard, with a colony of Indian converts, herds of cattle, and a plentiful supply of agricultural and other implements. Chiefly through the converted Indians, the surrounding natives were drawn to the mission. The next step was to proceed to the erection of the mission building, a rectangular structure eighty or ninety yards square, with a court-yard in the centre, which was adorned with trees and fountains. The church and the pastor’s residence occupied one side, and galleries surrounded the court, opening upon the rooms of the missionaries, stewards, and travellers, the shops, schools, store-rooms, infirmaries, and the granary.
A part of the buildings entirely separated from the rest, and called the monastery, was reserved for the Indian girls, where they were taught by native women to spin and weave, and received such other instruction as was suited to their sex. The boys learned trades, and those who excelled were promoted to the rank of chiefs, thus giving a dignity to labor which impelled all to embrace it. Once in the mission, the native was instructed in Christianity, and constrained to labor. Many of the missionaries being skilled in mechanical art, the Indians were formed to every trade, and the surplus products of their industry were exported yearly in exchange for necessary European goods. The Indians were apportioned into sections, each under a chief who led his party to church or to labor, and who was not backward in enforcing promptness. Against this the Indian at first rebelled: but, as all his wants were satisfied, he soon became attached to his manner of life, and would draw others of his countrymen in, whom he easily persuaded to submit to the routine.
Many learned Spanish thoroughly, and all acquired a knowledge of the Christian religion, which they faithfully practised. Thus they gained two great benefits—peace and comfort in this life, and means of attaining happiness in the next. Those who visited the missions were amazed to see that with such petty resources—most frequently without the aid of white mechanics—the missionaries accomplished so much, not only in agriculture, but in architecture and mechanics; in mills, machines, bridges, roads, and canals for irrigation; and accomplished it all by transforming hostile and indolent savages into laborious carpenters, masons, coopers, saddlers, shoemakers, weavers, stone-cutters, brickmakers, and lime-burners. Around the mission building arose the houses of the Indians and of a few white settlers; at various distances were ranches or hamlets, each with its chapel. In a little building near the mission-house was a picket of five horsemen, who were at once soldiers and couriers.
The regulations of the mission were uniform. At daybreak, the Angelus summoned all to the church for prayers and Mass, after which they went to breakfast. Then all joined their respective bands, and proceeded to their regular labors. At eleven, they returned to dine, and rested till two, when labor recommenced, and continued until the ringing of the Angelus bell, an hour before sunset. After prayers and beads, they supped, and spent the evening in innocent amusements. Their food was the fresh beef and mutton plentifully supplied by their herds and flocks, cakes of wheat and Indian corn, peas, beans, and such vegetables as they chose to raise. The missionaries themselves, bound by vows of poverty, received only food and clothing. The Indians of a mission were not all of the same tribe, but perfect harmony prevailed, and when the season of work was over, many paid visits to their countrymen, and seldom returned alone. Sometimes a zealous Christian would visit his own tribe as an apostle, to announce the happiness which was attainable under the mild rule of the Gospel. In this way the missions constantly received new accessions, for the good missionaries had the art of making labor attractive. All the men and women in the mission were, moreover, well and completely dressed.
It will be seen that this discipline was strict, and the Spanish government, at the time of the forcible withdrawal of the Jesuits, wished to bring odium upon them in connection with this system of administration of their origination. The Franciscans, however, who succeeded the Jesuits, continued the method of their predecessors, convinced of its expediency. An attempt on the part of the government to alter it, in the establishment of a mission near the mouth of the Colorado, on its own principles, a few years after the expulsion of the Jesuits, only resulted in cruel outrages upon the Indians by those who were placed in the temporal administration in lieu of the Franciscans. These outrages provoked rebellion, and led to the massacre of the civil functionaries, and of the religious as well. The government did not repeat the experiment.
Forbes, the author of a work on California, after commending the labors of the California Jesuits, says of their successors, “The best and most unequivocal proof of the good conduct of the Franciscan fathers is to be found in the unbounded affection and devotion invariably shown towards them by their Indian subjects. They venerate them not merely as friends and fathers, but with a degree of devotedness approaching to adoration.” He adds, “Experience has shown how infinitely more successful the Catholic missionaries have been than the Protestant.” These and many other testimonies from unprejudiced sources might be given to show the state of happiness in which the Indians formerly lived. An American traveller, Bartlett, who in 1854 visited the mission of San Gabriel, to which at one time five thousand Indians were attached, says, “Humanity cannot refrain from wishing that the dilapidated mission of San Gabriel should be renovated and its broken walls be rebuilt, its roofless houses be covered, and its deserted halls be again filled with its ancient industrious, happy, and contented population.”
Two classes of persons, therefore—as Marshal remarks in his History of Catholic Missions—“have been instrumental in the irreparable injury inflicted on the Indian tribes: Mexicans who had forfeited their birthright as Catholics, and Protestants who had never possessed it. Affecting to follow the precedents of modern European policy, of which the chief maxim seems to be the exclusion of all ecclesiastical influence in the government of human society, the Mexican civil authorities resolved to secularize all the missions. The result has been as in every land where the same experiment has been tried, a swift relapse into barbarism, from which the church alone has saved the world, the immediate decay of material prosperity, and a vast augmentation of human suffering.
“History might have taught the Mexicans to anticipate these inevitable fruits. When England laid her hand on the possessions of the church, which had been for centuries the patrimony of the poor, she took her first step towards her present social condition. Prisons and workhouses became the dismal substitutes for monasteries, and jailers supplanted monks. England has not profited much by the change. The new institutions are at least ten times more costly than the old, and the benefits derived from them have been in inverse proportion. They now receive only prisoners, and disgorge only criminals; while a whole nation of heathen poor, a burden on the present resources of the country and a menace for her future destiny, have sunk down, as even English writers will tell us, to the level of the most degraded tribes of Africa or America, and are as utterly void of religion or of the knowledge of God as the Sioux, the Carib, or the Dahoman.”