CALIFORNIA MISSION LIFE: An Introduction
Between 1769 and 1823, Franciscan padres established a string of 21 missions along the California coast, reaching from San Diego to Sonoma. Until 1834, when secularization removed them from the control of the Church, the missions were the primary force for change in California.
No two missions were exactly alike in their design or development. A mission’s location influenced its architecture and its industries. The personal characteristics of the padres assigned to a mission shaped the course that life at that mission would take. Attitudes of the local inhabitants of the area differed from mission to mission. Missions founded later in the mission period developed somewhat differently than those founded in the early years.
All these factors created differences among the missions. Yet the 21 missions had even more in common than they had differences. Founded with the same goals -- to secure the land for Spain and to convert the local population to the Catholic faith -- the missions followed essentially the same path. What was accomplished toward those goals was based on the more mundane daily activities inside the missions.
Over the course of the 65 years of the mission period, many changes were taking place in California. Ways of doing things changed. Following the padres and their guards of soldiers there came settlers from Mexico. Pueblos (towns) grew up around many of the missions. The pueblos of Los Angeles and Yerba Buena (later San Francisco) were especially significant.
Mission Life describes the typical mission life and activities at the peak of the mission period. The emphasis is on those factors that were held in common by most of the missions. Some differences are described. The aim, however, is to give a composite view of what being inside the mission was like for most of the people who lived there in the early 1800s.
Most of what we know about what went on inside the missions of California comes from the detailed records, reports, and diaries kept by the padres at each mission. By being the record keepers, the padres somewhat controlled what historians would know about the missions. There are a few reports by visitors who came to California during this time, but there are almost no first-hand accounts or reports from Native Californians who were a part of the missions story.
The most complete description of the California missions is Zephyrin Engelhardt’s The Missions and Missionaries of California: Volume 2, Upper California, published in 1912. Engelhardt was a Catholic priest who used original source documents for his work. His view supports the Franciscan padres side of the story.
Mission Life is based on many sources, including Engelhardt’s work. Throughout the descriptions, however, the experience of the Native Californians has been kept in view in a sincere attempt to present a balanced picture of life inside the missions.
Scroll down to learn about...
Mission Bells
The Mission Church
Mission Music
The Mission Cemetery
Padres' Quarters
Workers' Quarters
Guest Quarters
Soldiers' Quarters
Government Officials
The Mission Library
The Mission Kitchen
The Mission Laundry
The Courtyard
The Winery
The Waving Workshop
Soap and Candle Making
Adobe Bricks and Tile Making
Crops and Gardens
The Tannery
The Blacksmith Shop
The Carpentry Shop
Asistencias
MISSION BELLS
The ringing of the bells started the day at each California mission ... and the ringing of the bells ended the day. The mission bells set the rhythm of life for all who lived at the missions.
All through the day the mission bells rang, announcing that it was time to go to church, time for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, time to work, or time to rest. The first bell in the morning was the Angelus at sunrise, calling the people to prayer. The last bell at night was the Poor Souls’ Bell, saying good-night to all at 8 o’clock in the evening.
The message of the bells changed from joyful, happy tones for a feast or wedding, to sad, somber tones for a funeral. When danger was near, the bells rang a warning. Visitors were announced by the peal of the bells. At Santa Inés, a lookout was posted in the bell tower to watch for visitors. He rang out a code on the bells to signal whether the visitor was a padre, a Spaniard, or a Native Californian.
It was an honor to be chosen to ring the mission bells. The bell ringer must be skillful and reliable. Each bell had its unique tone, and the combination of tones and rhythms was changed to ring out the many messages. Bells were of many sizes. Some were large and heavy, and could be dangerous if the bell ringer was not quick enough to get out of the way of the swinging bell. Some bells were rung by pulling on a long rope from below. Other bells had to be pushed by hand until they spun completely around on their bell-yoke.
Bells for each mission could be purchased with the $1,000 start-up money that came to the new mission from the Pious Fund of the Catholic Church in Spain. Some bells were gifts to the mission, often from the King of Spain. It was customary for Spain to give two bells (one large, one small) to each new mission. Mission San Francisco Solano’s bell was a gift from a surprising source -- the Russians at Fort Ross.
Most of the mission bells were made in Mexico or Peru. Lima (in Peru) was known as “the city of bells” because there were so many bell foundries there. The largest bells were two or three feet high and weighed a thousand pounds or more. Many of the bells had inscriptions on them that added to the unique character of the bell.
The bell-maker often put his name and the date on the bell, and sometimes the name of the mission for which the bell was made. A bronze bell inscribed “Manuel Vargas Me Fecit, Año 1818, Misíon de la Purísima de la Nueva California” was found at Mission Santa Inés in the 1930s, and returned to Mission La Purísima. The La Purísima bells had been made in Lima, Peru, in 1817 and 1818 by Manuel Vargas.
Mission San Juan Capistrano’s bells are rung by pulling on ropes tied to the clapper of each bell, instead of swinging the entire bell. Two of the bells are dated 1796, and two are dated 1804. The largest bell has on it the names of the padres serving at the mission at that time. The San Juan Capistrano bells are rung each March 19 to welcome back the swallows. Legends tell of these bells ringing all by themselves at times of tragic events.
Many mission bells had names; some were named for saints. The bell named St. Gabriel, at Mission San Gabriel, is dated 1800. The largest San Gabriel bell, weighing at least 2,000 pounds, could be heard eight miles away.
A famous bell at Mission San Diego is the Mater Doloroso, which was first cast in Mexico in 1796 and recast in San Diego in 1894. It is three feet across, over three feet high, and weighs over a thousand pounds. As with many other mission bells, the Mater Doloroso has on it the design of a cross made of stars, and a crown.
Mission San Miguel has one of the largest bells. This 2,000-pound bell was cast in 1888 using the metal from bells that had been sent to San Miguel from other missions.
Two of Mission Santa Clara’s three bells were gifts from the King of Spain in 1799. For 126 years they rang every evening at 8:30 PM. In 1926 a big fire destroyed the mission church, by then part of the University of Santa Clara. One bell was melted in the fire, and a second was cracked by the heat. But one of the King’s bells was rescued from the flames. Even on the night of the fire, it was hung from a temporary bar and rang at 8:30 PM, as it has continued to do ever since.
There were certain days during Holy Week when the large bronze bells were not to sound. It may be that the unusual bells at Mission San Buenaventura were made for those days. These two bells are carved from two-foot blocks of redwood, the only wooden bells known at the California missions.
Small bells attached to a wheel were used in some mission churches. These, too, may have been for the days when the large bells were not to be rung. Several mission museums have preserved the unique bell wheels.
At some missions such as Santa Bárbara, San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, and San Buenaventura, the bells hung in bell towers. Other missions built companarios, or bell walls, for their bells. These walls were adjacent to the churches, and had openings in them for the bells. Companarios can be seen at Missions San Diego, San Gabriel, Santa Inés, and other missions. Some missions had places for the bells on the front of the church. At a few of the missions (San Rafael, San Francisco Solano, Soledad) simple wooden frames, set near the entrance to the churches, supported the bells.
A story is told of the day that Father Serra and his companions chose the spot for Mission San Antonio de Padua. Even before unpacking the mules to make camp for the first night, Father Serra hung a mission bell from a tree limb and rang the bell, calling out for people to come to the church. When his friends reminded him that there was not yet any church and no one to hear the bell, Serra replied, “Let me give vent to my heart, which desires that this bell might be heard all over the world.”
The bells of the California missions have been heard for over 200 years. The bells have become a symbol for the history of California. They mark the path of El Camino Real, the old mission road, providing a reminder of this period in the past.
THE MISSION CHURCH
The goal of the Spanish padres was to convert the native people of California to Christianity. For this reason, the church was the most important building in the mission compound. It was usually the first building constructed. At most missions, the church occupied a place of honor at the northeast corner of the mission quadrangle. It was always the tallest building in the mission compound.
The church building was long and narrow. The width of the main room of the church was often determined by the height of tree trunks that were available to use as the roof beams.
Windows were placed high up along the side walls. This helped to prevent thieves from breaking into the church. It also made the walls stronger by having less weight of adobe bricks over the window openings. The windows were covered with specially treated rawhide rather than with glass, so the inside of the church was rather dim. Candles were used to light the church. There were also small candles called votives which were lit in gratitude to a saint, or as a request for a special favor.
While most of the mission buildings were very plain inside and out, the church was decorated as richly as possible. The padres felt that a beautiful church was an honor to God, and that it helped people to worship better. On the inside walls, designs were painted in bright colors. The Native California workers who did much of the painting often used the same designs in the church that they were accustomed to using on their baskets.
The colors the painters used -- red, blue, green, yellow -- were made with dyes from plants or minerals. Berries, mosses, flowers, and soil were used to make dyes. Minerals such as copper, iron ore, and ocher were ground into powder and mixed with cactus juice to make green, red, and yellow dyes. Sometimes the designs were of leaves, flowers, and vines. Often the designs were borders of geometric shapes. A good example of the painted walls can be seen at Mission San Miguel, where the bright colors have been preserved.
Some designs were copied from churches in Spain or Mexico. The padres wanted the mission churches to be as elegant as European cathedrals, so they sometimes had the walls painted to look like they were made of marble. Fake columns, balconies, arches and draperies were drawn on the walls with such fine perspective that they looked real. The fourteen Stations of the Cross (pictures showing events in the crucifixion of Christ) were hung or painted on the long inside walls.
The long narrow main room of the church, called the nave, had an altar (table) at one end, placed in a raised area called the apse. At the back of the apse, behind the altar, was a screen or wall called a reredos. The altar and the reredos were richly carved or painted, and sometimes covered with thin gold (gold leaf).
The reredos often had openings in it for statues of the saints. A railing separated the apse and altar from the rest of the church. A small room at the side of the church was called the sacristy. The sacred vessels and robes were kept here.
In the church were many religious images (pictures, statues, and crosses) to help the people understand the things that the padres taught them about the Catholic religion. Each mission had one special name saint, whose statue had the place of greatest honor in the church. The statues were brought from Spain or Mexico.
Within the church were kept whatever treasures the mission possessed. There were candlesticks and bowls made of silver or gold, and beautifully embroidered cloths on the altar tables. Some of the vestments (robes) that the padres wore on special days were richly decorated. The baptismal font (a basin from which water was sprinkled on the head of a new believer) was made as beautiful as possible.
Some of these fine objects were brought by the padres to California, or sent from Spain or Mexico as gifts to the new mission. Local craftsmen also did elaborate carving from wood and stone for some of the furnishings in the church. The baptismal font at Mission Santa Inez was hammered from zinc and copper by Native California craftsmen. The baptismal font at Mission San Juan Bautista was carved from local sandstone.
The pulpit, behind which the padre stood when he spoke to the people in the church, was sometimes attached to one wall high above the floor of the church. The pulpit was made of richly carved wood, or of wood painted to look like marble. Some pulpits had little canopy roofs over them.
Some mission churches had a choir balcony at the end opposite the altar. Choirs were made up of Indians who enjoyed singing. The padres also trained some of the people to play musical instruments, and they formed orchestras.
Each morning at 6 AM the mission bell called the people to the church. This bell was known as the Angelus bell, calling everyone over nine years of age to prayer each morning and evening.
The floor of the church was covered with adobe tiles. There were no chairs or benches. The people sat or kneeled on the floor, sometimes on mats made of dried tule reed, or on embroidered rugs. Some of the women took great pride in how nicely they had embroidered their church rugs. Women sat on one side of the church; men sat on the other side.
The Native Californians who converted to Christianity at the missions were called neophytes, which means “new grown.” In the mission church, the neophytes listened to the padre say Holy Mass and recite the prayers and doctrines of the Christian faith. Part of the service was in Latin and part in Spanish. Some padres became skilled enough in the native languages to give sermons in those languages.
The church service ended with the singing of a hymn of praise called the Alabado. On feast days and holy days of the Catholic Church, there were special ceremonies and processions. The mission church was also used for weddings and baptisms.
MISSION MUSIC
Music was something that the Spanish padres and the Native Californians had in common.
Music had been a part of the life of the people of California long before the padres arrived. They had special songs for men to sing during their games and dances, and special songs for the women’s games and dances. There were war chants, hunting songs, songs of joy and songs of sadness. There were songs for funerals and burials. There were songs that were especially for children. The people had no written language, so they passed on their history through chants and songs.
With their singing, the people of California used several musical instruments such as drums, flutes, rattles, and clappers. They made these instruments from wood and bone.
The Franciscan padres, too, liked music. They used music as a way to communicate with the Native Californians while they were learning the languages of the people. The people were attracted to the music, and enjoyed it. Some of the padres were more musically talented than others, but each padre had to have some musical training during his college days. Every California mission had a choir of Native Californians, organized by one of the padres.
At first, the music at the missions was mostly a type known as Gregorian chant, or plainsong. This is a very old kind of sacred music with one line of melody. The native people found it easy to learn.
Later the padres added harmony to the simple melodies, creating music for two-part, three-part, and four-part singing. This music was called Catalonian because many of the padres were from the Spanish province of Catalonia.
In addition to the chants, music at the missions included hymns, or songs of praise and joy, and solemn requiems for the dead. Some of the music was not religious. There were love songs, silly songs, and dance music.
Even before the padres had time to organize a choir, there was singing in the mission church. All of the people who attended the church services took part in singing hymns together. They sang the Alabado (A Song of Divine Praise), the Cantico del Alba (Morning Song), and others.
When a choir was organized, it was only for the men and boys. The young men who were considered to be the most intelligent and mild-tempered were taught to read music and to play European-style musical instruments, in addition to singing in both Spanish and Latin. Most reports showed that the young men learned quickly.
The size of the choirs and orchestra differed from mission to mission, depending on the musical talents and interests of the padres. Padre Narciso Durán, who served at Mission San José for 27 years, was a good musician even though he had no professional training. His choir and orchestra usually had about 30 members including, at one time, 20 violins, 4 bass viola, a contra bass, a drum, and a hand organ. Sometimes his orchestra also included flutes.
The musical instruments that were first used at the missions came from Mexico or Spain. Later, some instruments were made by mission craftsmen. The mission instrument makers had to be quite creative in their use of materials and techniques in order to produce playable violins and flutes.
Padre Durán wrote out the music for the choir in a simple notation system that made it easy to read. The choirbook that he made, written on parchment and bound with board covers and leather, is in the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California.
Some of Padre Durán’s choirboys were trained at the music school run by Padre Jose Viader at Mission Santa Clara. Padre Viader’s orchestra had a clarinet, flute, cello, bass, drums, cymbals, and a triangle.
Mission San Antonio and Mission Soledad both had the help of Padre Florencio Ibánez, who was a highly trained musician. He wrote a musical play called Los Pastores, a Christmas nativity play that was a great favorite with people in early California.
The unusual music sheets of Padre Estévan Tápis were written at Mission San Juan Bautista, where he served after he retired as president of the missions. Padre Tápis wrote the choir music on large sheepskins, using one entire sheepskin for each page of music. He used large music notes printed in four colors -- red, yellow, green, and black -- one color each voice part. He used squares to show half notes, and diamonds to show quarter notes. The choir singers followed their color in order to sing their parts in the four-part harmony. The music could be seen by everyone because it was so large.
Several of the mission choirs and orchestras had uniforms that were rather military in style, with stripes down the trouser legs and caps with tassels. The groups wore these uniforms when they performed at military events and for community celebrations.
The mission musicians often were invited to play for festivals at the pueblos (villages) that were established in the early 1800s. From the padres they learned lively dance tunes as well as sacred music. Sometimes the dance tunes were played in the church services as well.
The first barrel organ in California was a gift in 1793 from Captain George Vancouver, British explorer, to Padre Lasuén when he was at Mission San Juan Capistrano. The barrel organ was like a large music box, with a wooden cylinder that had wooden pegs on it. It had been made in Europe, and played tunes when the handle was turned. Several other barrel organs found their way to various missions. One has been preserved at Mission San Juan Bautista. It still plays a variety of 13 religious and secular songs. The music of the barrel organ was very popular with the Native Californians.
THE MISSION CEMETERY
An important part of each of the California missions was the cemetery, or graveyard, where the dead were buried. Today, some two hundred years later when many of the original mission buildings have crumbled away, most of the cemeteries are still marked and protected.
The mission cemetery (the camposanto, in Spanish) was located at the side of the church, outside of the mission compound. The entrance to some of the cemeteries was through the church building. A skull and crossbones above the door marked it as the door to the cemetery. Sometimes the skull and crossbones were actual bones; other times they were carved from stone or wood. Many cemeteries also had entrance gates in the outside wall.
Very soon after each mission was built, there was need for a cemetery. The Spanish padres and soldiers who came to California brought with them from Europe and Mexico diseases that were previously unknown in California. Measles, chicken pox, and smallpox were not necessarily fatal to the Europeans, who had developed immunity to these diseases. For the Native Californians, however, who had never encountered these diseases before, they were deadly.
Adding to the unhealthy situation for the native people were the living conditions at the missions. The crowded quarters, with no separate place for those who were sick, caused disease to spread rapidly. Sanitation facilities (toilets, clean water) were often inadequate. Diseases like smallpox and measles reached epidemic proportions, spreading rapidly among the native people.
In general, the mission padres were not noted for their healing skills, and an infirmary or hospital was not a part of each mission. Though the death rate was high at every mission, it was particularly high at Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores). Perhaps the damp San Francisco climate added to the health problems of the people at this mission.
One of the padres noticed that the weather across the bay to the north was much sunnier and warmer, because the land was sheltered from the ocean by mountains. Mission San Rafael Arcángel, established there in 1817, provided a better place for people to get well. Father Gil y Taboada, who had more medical knowledge than most of the padres, served at Mission San Rafael Arcángel. Sick people from many of the missions were sent there, and some of them did get better.
Still, throughout all the mission years, the death toll for Native Californians was very high. Thousands are buried in each of the mission cemeteries. At Mission Dolores, it is recorded that over 5,000 native people are buried in unmarked graves. Mission San Gabriel’s cemetery holds the bones of about 6,000 Native Californians. A document reporting on the “State of the Missions on December 31, 1832” (after 63 years of the missions in California) lists total baptisms of 87,787 and total deaths of 63,879.
The Native Californians at the missions were often wrapped in their blankets for burial, without a coffin. Wooden crosses marked the graves in the mission cemetery. Over time the wood decayed. Some of the wooden crosses were replaced with stone markers, still visible today, indicating who was buried in that spot.
In many cases the individual names of those buried have been lost, and a common memorial of stone or a statue marks the area where hundreds of Native Californians are buried.
At Mission Santa Bárbara, more than 4,000 Indians are buried in the cemetery. One of these is Juana Maria, the Indian woman who lived alone for 18 years (1835-53) on San Nicolas Island. A marker on the wall of the cemetery tells about Juana Maria. The book Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell is a story based on her life.
Native Californians were the first to be buried in the mission cemeteries. During the mission period, there was a higher death rate among the native people than among the Europeans. However, padres and soldiers also died at the missions. The bodies of mission padres were often buried inside the church, under the floor of the sanctuary. At Mission San Diego, the first of the California missions, five Franciscan priests were buried in the mission church. Father Serra, founder of the mission chain, was buried in the church at Mission San Carlos Borromeo.
The cemetery at Mission San Miguel was the burial place for eleven murder victims. In 1848, William Reed and his family were living in an apartment in the mission, which was no longer being used as a church. The Reeds gave shelter to five sailors one day. William Reed made the mistake of bragging about how wealthy he had become. Later that night, the visitors returned, hoping to steal Reed’s money. Unable to find the money, they killed Reed and his family. A marker in the San Miguel cemetery shows where the Reeds are buried in a common grave.
As more settlers from Spain and Mexico moved into California, the mission cemeteries became the graveyards for the entire community. Dysentery, fevers, and pneumonia were common among the soldiers and the new settlers, causing many early deaths.
At Mission San Francisco de Asís, the Native Californian graves in the cemetery were joined by the graves of Spanish captains, Spanish and Mexican civil officials, Irish-Americans, and other immigrants. It is said that much of San Francisco’s early history is recorded in the tiny cemetery at this mission. Francisco de Haro, the first mayor of San Francisco, is buried here, as is Luis Antonio Argüello, the first governor of Alta California under Mexican rule. Many graves are from the gold rush days.
In the cemetery at Mission Soledad is the grave of one of California’s Spanish governors, José de Arillaga.
A visit today to a California mission cemetery is a somber reminder of the many people whose lives were altered by the mission system.
PADRES' QUARTERS
The plan for each of the California missions was for two padres (or priests) to be assigned to each mission. Usually one of the padres was more experienced, and one was younger. One padre was responsible for the religious affairs of the mission. The other padre took care of business matters, often directing the care of the livestock and crops.
The padres at the California missions were part of a group known as the Franciscans, an Order of Friars Minor. This group was named for its founder, St. Francis of Assisi (in Italy).
In 1206, when Francis of Assisi was 25 years old, he had a vision telling him that he should live as Jesus had lived. He gave away all of this belongings and began traveling from place to place, helping people and repairing churches. He got his food and shelter by begging for it. Soon other young men joined Francis in his vows of poverty and service. More than 500 years later, the Franciscan padres at the California missions followed these vows.
While the church was the richest, most decorated part of the mission, the padres’ quarters were the plainest and most simple. The rooms where the padres slept were in the section of the mission quadrangle called the convento. The convento was usually the building attached to the church, forming the front of the compound. The doors of the rooms of the convento opened toward the courtyard, with a long covered porch running the entire length of the building.
Each padre had a small room called a cell where he slept. The floor of the padre’s cell was bare beaten earth or adobe tile. There were small windows but instead of having glass in them, the windows were covered with cowhides. The hides had been scraped thin and then greased, so some daylight came through them into the room.
Furnishings in the padres’ quarters were simple and sparse. There was usually a bed, a table and one chair, a stand with a pitcher and bowl for water, and a chest for storing things. The furniture was made at the mission. The small bed, or cot, was a simple wooden frame over which hides were stretched as a mattress. On the table the padre had a candlestick and candle to provide light for reading and writing. His clothes were hung on pegs on the wall. Also on the wall was hung a small wooden cross.
Father Serra, who founded the first mission at San Diego and who was in charge of the mission system for many years, died at Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. His cell there has been reconstructed as an example of what the mission padres’ quarters were like. Another padre, Father Palou, wrote a detailed description of Serra’s cell so researchers now know exactly how it was furnished.
Mission padres wore the traditional clothing of the Franciscan friars. The padre wore a loose robe that covered him from his neck to his ankles. The robe had a full skirt, loose sleeves, and a hood called a cowl that the padre could pull up to cover his head. The robe was grey in color, and was made from a rough cloth called sackcloth. A piece of rope was doubled around the waist like a belt and tied in a knot on the right hip. The ends of the rope, with three knots tied in them, hung down from the waist to the bottom of the robe. A string of beads called a rosary hung from the rope at the waist.
When he was outside, the padre wore a large hat that had a broad, stiff brim. Sometimes the padre went barefoot. At other times he wore sandals made of leather.
Written journals that the padres left behind when the missions were abandoned give details about their life at the missions, and about the prosperity of the missions. The padres kept track of all the livestock and crops, and all the supplies. They recorded the names of the Native Californians who came to the mission, and the marriages, births, and deaths.
From their written records, it appears that the padres felt they were improving the way of life of the Indians in whose territory they built their missions. They felt that it was important for the people to be converted to Christianity, and to accept the padres’ ways of living. It seems that the padres did not value the existing culture of the California Indians enough to try to preserve it.
Some of the padres were kind to the Indians. There are records of several padres who were much respected by the people. One story tells of Father Peyri at Mission San Luis Rey, and of how greatly he was loved by the people there. When he decided to leave his work at the mission, his many friends followed him to the ship, pleading with him to stay with them.
Many other times, however, the padres punished the people harshly for not following the rules the padres had set. The padres often treated the men and women like children, not allowing them to make decisions as adults. This made it more difficult for the Native Californians to take part in the community once the missions were abandoned.
WORKERS' QUARTERS
There were four things the padres looked for when choosing the site for a mission: water, fertile soil, building materials, and large numbers of Native Californians. The people who did most of the work at the California missions were the Native Californians. It was the labor and skill of these men and women that made the missions prosperous.
Native Californians, commonly called Indians, had been living in California for centuries before the Spanish padres and soldiers arrived. The Indians lived in villages, in houses of wood, brush, or bark. They were hunters and gatherers, which means that their food grew naturally on the land; they hunted for game and gathered fruits, grains, and nuts. They were a peaceful people.
The Native Californians were of vital importance to the missions. The Spanish government, which wanted to control the southwestern part of North America, needed to have political control over the inhabitants. They used the mission padres in their attempt to accomplish this. The padres themselves were more interested in converting the people to Christianity.
Beads, trinkets, and food were used as lures to attract the local people to the missions. They were curious about these newcomers and their religion. Many Indians accepted the food and trinkets, and many accepted the padres’ religion. Those who agreed to become Christians were called neophytes, which means new grown, or beginners.
Neophytes were expected to live at the mission and to perform a certain amount of work every day. Various types of living quarters were provided for them.
The unmarried women and girls over the age of eight lived in a dormitory-like building called a monjerío. The monjerío faced onto the mission courtyard, and could be entered only from the courtyard. A matron, an older woman, was in charge of the monjerío. The doors to the monjerío were locked at night, either to protect the young women from harm or to prevent them from leaving the mission.
There was a similar dormitory building for the young men, usually on the opposite side of the courtyard from the women’s quarters. The dormitory buildings were sometimes divided into several rooms. The beds were mats on the floor, or wooden benches.
Mission workers who were married lived with their families in separate houses. Usually these houses were just outside the mission quadrangle, in a cluster. Often the houses were built in the style that was customary to that group of Indians. Other times the married workers’ housing was made of adobe bricks.
Each person capable of working had a task to do at the mission. Men worked in the orchards and vegetable gardens, and cared for the livestock. They made adobe bricks and tiles, did blacksmithing and carpentry, made wine, and tanned the cowhides. Both men and women did spinning and weaving, and made soap and candles. The women prepared the food. There were quotas for the amount of work that each person must finish. Many Native Californians were proud of the skills they learned at the missions, but they had to work hard there.
When the bells announced a meal time, a member of each family group would come with a bowl to receive his or her family’s ration of food for that meal. The food was different from what the Indians were used to eating.
The padres required that the mission workers dress in a certain way, quite different from the way the Indians were used to dressing. The workers at the mission made all of their own clothing. They were allowed to have one new shirt or one new skirt and blouse every seven months.
The Indian men at the missions wore loose trousers made of a coarse cloth, and long shirts with V-necks. The shirt was worn on the outside of the trousers, with a sash of cloth or cord. The men’s clothing was usually white. They sometimes wore multi-colored serapes (small blankets) over their shoulders.
The women’s dress was more brightly colored, with a full skirt gathered at the waist and a plain blouse with short sleeves and a round neck. The women wore shawls for warmth. They were fond of ribbons and lace on their dresses, and sometimes wore flowers in their hair. Many women and men wore kerchiefs around their necks.
Life at the mission was very different for the Indians than when they lived in their villages. They were no longer free to make choices about what they ate or wore, or what they did with their time. They were required to go to church at certain times, to eat at certain times, and to stay at the mission unless the padre gave them permission to leave.
Once having made the decision to accept the padres’ religion, the Indians were not allowed to change their minds. They could not go back to live in their old villages. If they tried to leave, they were punished. They were often given new Spanish names. For a people who had previously had complete freedom, life at the mission could seem like slavery.
Under Governor Neve, the Indians were asked to elect several members of their group to share in the supervision of mission work. These men were called alcades, and were not to be punished by the soldiers or padres. Sometimes the alcades gave lashings to other Indian workers.
The records of life at the missions were mostly written by the padres, and preserved by the Catholic Church. Little exists as a record directly from the mission workers, to show what mission life seemed like to them. No doubt some were as happy as the padres reported. Just as surely, many were not happy. Visitors to California during this time reported cruel treatment of the Indians.
Whether happy or not, the mission period was a step in the destruction of the Native Californian culture. By the time the missions closed, the number of Indians had been drastically reduced. Those who had survived the mission period were not well equipped for life in the changing society of 19th-century California.
GUEST QUARTERS
When the last of the California missions was founded in 1823, the chain of missions reached 650 miles from San Diego to Sonoma. Since they were spaced about a day’s walk apart along the El Camino Real (The Royal Road), the missions were found by travelers to be good stopping places for a night’s rest. Each of the missions had rooms available to guests.
Guests were important to the people who lived at the mission. From travelers they heard news of what was happening at the other missions, and in the world beyond California. Sometimes the visitors were ship captains, fur traders, or explorers with exciting tales to tell. The mission padres especially welcomed guests who brought news of the padres’ comrades and families in Spain and Mexico.
Though all of the missions had quarters for guests, Mission San Gabriel and Mission San Fernando Rey were especially well situated for visitors. Mission San Gabriel was located at the junction of the north-south road (from Mexico to northern California) with an east-west route (from what was then the United States to the frontier area of California). Mission San Gabriel was noted for its gracious hospitality, and for its accommodations for many guests.
Mission San Fernando Rey had the most extensive guest quarters of all the missions. Its location on the road from the eastern United States to the new pueblo (village) of Los Angeles made it a popular resting place for travelers. The guest quarters at Mission San Fernando Rey were large. The building was known as the Long Building because of its unusual size -- 235 feet long by 65 feet wide, with 21 rooms.
The reception hall in the Long Building had paintings decorating the walls, and an eight-candle iron chandelier hanging from the roof beams. In addition to the ordinary guest rooms, Mission San Fernando Rey had a special “governor’s chamber” which was for more important guests. It was somewhat nicer and more comfortably furnished than the other guest rooms.
Guest quarters were usually located in the section of the mission called the convento, which is also where the padres’quarters were located. The convento was at the front of the mission compound, often extending from one side of the church.
The reception room, called the sala, was the largest room in the convento wing, and often was the largest room (except for the church sanctuary) in the entire mission. Besides being used to welcome and entertain guests, the reception rooms were sometimes used as classrooms where the padres would give instruction to the young native workers.
In the reception hall there was usually a long, heavy table handmade by the mission craftsmen using local wood. Guests sat in plain, straight chairs or on wooden benches. The seats and backs of the chairs were made by stretching rawhide over the wooden frame. As Native Californian craftsmen became more skilled in furniture building and carving, the tables, chairs, and chests that they made were more finely crafted and decorated.
Only a few mission rooms had fireplaces to provide heat. Other areas may have been heated by metal pans filled with hot coals from the kitchen fires.
Mission guests were given small bedrooms for the night. The beds in these rooms were much like the beds that the padres used. A rough wooden frame was covered with rawhide. There were no sheets on the beds. The blankets were of coarsely-woven cloth, and were often prickly because the burrs and bits of thistle had not been removed from the wool before it was spun into yarn and woven into cloth. It is also reported that the blankets often harbored fleas, which would bite guests during the night.
Though the rooms and furnishings were not fancy, guests at the missions felt a warm welcome. Food and lodging were free. A mission worker was often stationed at the door both day and night, to help the guests remove their traveling gear and to unsaddle their horses. A very popular chocolate drink called champurrado was always offered to guests. Meals were prepared for guests and served to them by the mission Indians.
The variety of guests at the missions was a source of interest for the padres and the Indians. Some missions had famous guests. Mission San Gabriel entertained Juan Bautista de Anza in 1774, as he was looking for a land route between Sonora, Mexico, and Monterey, California. In 1776 Anza returned with 240 settlers whom he was leading to San Francisco Bay, where they would establish a town.
Trapper Jedediah Smith and his band stayed at Mission San Gabriel for two months in 1826. Jedediah Smith, who was also a guest at Mission San José, was an explorer of the American West. Another well-known visitor at Mission San José was Kit Carson, frontier guide and soldier.
In addition to ordinary travelers and important visitors, the California missions welcomed people who were fugitives from the law. The Catholic Church rules said that all the missions were to be places of refuge, where someone accused of a crime would be safe until that person could have a fair trial.
The lawbreaker could only be taken away from the mission by an official who gave written promise that there would be a fair trial. This Church ruling was intended to prevent hasty executions of criminals, and to protect those accused of breaking the law from being lynched by angry mobs. Mission Soledad, because of its isolated location away from other communities, was often used as a place of refuge by criminals.
SOLDIERS' QUARTERS
Each of the California missions had a group of soldiers assigned to it by the Spanish governor. Soldiers were sent with the padres each time permission was granted by the government to establish a new mission. The job of the soldiers was to protect the mission and the padres.
The group of four to six soldiers assigned to a mission under the command of a corporal was known as an escolta. The soldiers’ barracks were called the cuartel. These buildings were usually separate from the mission compound.
Each soldier had a small bed or cot, made of a wooden frame with rawhide stretched over it for a mattress. The cots were lined up in one room, so the soldiers had no privacy. Each soldier’s uniform and equipment hung on pegs on the wall beside his bed.
The mission soldiers were called soldados de cuera, meaning leather-jackets. The leather jackets which gave them this name were sleeveless vest-type jackets made of six or eight layers of tanned deerskin or sheepskin. The jacket was protection against arrows, which could not go through all the layers of leather.
The soldiers also wore thick leather chaps (leggings) to keep their legs from getting scratched when they rode through brush. As additional protection, each soldier had a shield called an adarga. The shield, which the soldier carried on his left arm, was made of two layers of raw oxhide.
Most of the mission soldiers were given several horses and a mule. Horses had not been known in California before the Spanish arrived. When riding horseback, the soldier wore a leather apron that was fastened to the saddle and hung down on both sides, covering his legs.
Across his shoulders, the soldier wore a belt that held bullets and gunpowder. His weapon was a lance (a long wooden shaft with a sharp metal tip), a broadsword (a sword with a wide blade), and a short flintlock musket. A flintlock musket was a gun with a smooth bore inside the barrel. The spark to set off the charge was made by a flint striking a piece of steel. Though not very accurate when fired, this musket was easy to load.
Although the soldiers were supposed to assist the padres, the padres had no control or authority over the soldiers. The soldiers were responsible only to the Spanish governor. In fact, the padres and soldiers often were not happy with each other. In one of the padre’s diaries is recorded the prayer, “From soldiers, deliver us, O Lord.”
By 1791, four military garrisons or forts, called presidios, had been built near four of the missions. The presidios had many more soldiers (25 to 50 each) than the smaller groups assigned to other missions. When the first presidio was built near Mission San Diego, Father Serra soon saw that having the soldiers so close caused trouble. He gave directions for the mission to be moved several miles away from the presidio. This distance between the mission and the presidio was kept when the other presidios were built near Mission San Carlos Borromeo (the Monterey Presidio), near Mission Santa Bárbara, and near Mission San Francisco de Asís.
Many of the soldiers sent to California were young men who were forced to serve a tour of duty in the military. They did not like being so far from home, and they did not like living in quarters that were sometimes cold, damp, and uncomfortable. Meals were simple, mainly due to shortages of supplies. Uniforms and shoes wore out and there were no replacements. Ammunition was in short supply. The soldiers were often lonely and homesick for the sunnier, warmer climate of New Spain (Mexico).
In addition, the soldiers received harsh punishment from their officers when they committed even a small offense. Some of the soldiers had committed crimes in New Spain, and were being punished by being sent to California for duty. Most of the soldiers could not read or write. Fages, a military commander in California, called the soldiers “perverse and obstinate.” He reported that many soldiers deserted and left their place of duty.
The officers in command of the cuartel or presidio were usually from Spain rather than Mexico. The Spanish king felt that Spanish-born officers would be more loyal than Mexican-born soldiers. This caused resentment among the soldiers. After Mexico became independent from Spain in 1822, the Mexican government ordered all the Spaniards under age 60 to leave California.
The soldiers felt that it was beneath them to do any labor in the fields or other work at the missions. They said it would damage their position with the Native Californians, whom they expected to respect and obey them. Sometimes soldiers served as supervisors over crews of mission workers. The padres’ reports indicate, however, that the soldiers did not have enough duties to keep them busy, which led to them causing trouble.
The Native Californians could choose whether or not they wanted to convert to Christianity and live at the mission. However, once they made that decision, they were no longer free to come and go as they pleased. They were not free to change their mind and return to live in their villages. Any one who left the mission was hunted down by the soldiers and brought back. The person was then punished by being beaten, or by being put in the stocks (a heavy wooden frame with holes for the ankles and wrists) for several days.
In addition to this role of enforcing the loss of freedom of the Indians, the soldiers also committed crimes against the people by abusing the Indian women. Armed conflict sometimes resulted when the men tried to protect the women in their families from the assault of the soldiers. For these reasons, it seems that the Native Californians did not trust nor respect the soldiers assigned to the missions.
When Mexico began its bid for independence from Spain, support for the upkeep of the soldiers decreased. The soldiers began demanding more supplies from the missions. As the soldiers got more and more unhappy with their situation, they were involved in more incidences of violence with the Indians.
There were a few times when the soldiers and the Indians cooperated with each other. In 1818 the padres at Mission Santa Bárbara learned that the French pirate Bouchard was going to attack the mission and presidio. The padres quickly drilled and armed 150 Indians living at the mission. The Indians and soldiers together confronted the pirates. When Bouchard saw such a large force waiting for him, he sailed away without attacking.
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Father Junípero Serra and the Franciscan priests who followed him were the religious leaders of the California missions. They did not, however, have final authority over the missions. That was the responsibility of a government official appointed first by the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico, and later by the Mexican government.
At first this official served as comandante (military commander) of Alta (Upper) California, reporting to the governor of both Alta and Baja (Lower) California who was headquartered in Baja California. Later, the governor’s headquarters was moved to Monterey in Alta California. The relationships between the governors and the padres changed things at the missions.
Gaspár de Portolá was governor of California in 1769. He accompanied Father Serra from Baja California to San Diego, and then explored north looking for Monterey Bay, where the second mission was to be founded.
Serra respected Portolá, who is reported to have been a diplomatic person. However, Portolá made a decision to abandon Mission San Diego just seven months after it was founded. A supply ship expected to arrive from Mexico had not come. Some people at the mission had died, and others were ill and weak. Though Father Serra pleaded with Portolá, the governor set a date for the group to head back to Mexico. As if in answer to Serra’s prayers, when that day came the sails of the supply ship were seen on the horizon. Portolá allowed the padres to stay in San Diego.
When Portolá went back to Baja California, he turned over command in Alta California to a young military officer, Pedro Fages. Serra and Fages did not agree on many things. In 1772 Serra was anxious to found more missions than the five already started, but he had to have permission from Fages. Fages believed there were not enough soldiers to protect any more missions, so he refused to give permission. Fages also kept supplies that were supposed to go to the missions.
In 1772 Serra traveled to Mexico City to plead his case before the viceroy. Serra asked that Fages be replaced as comandante of Alta California. Serra was successful in persuading the viceroy that the missions were important. The viceroy approved plans to found more missions, ordered supply ships to be sent on a regular schedule to Alta California, and relieved Fages of his duties there.
Unfortunately for Father Serra, the comandante who replaced Fages was Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, and he was no easier for Serra to work with than Fages had been. When Mission San Diego was destroyed by fire in 1775, Rivera y Moncada objected to rebuilding it. He also wanted to punish the Indian leaders of the rebellion as an example to others. Serra opposed him on both issues and again appealed to the viceroy in Mexico City, who decided in favor of Serra.
In 1777, Governor Felipe de Neve moved his headquarters from Baja California to Monterey. He was now the governing official for Alta California and the missions. For the next five years, Father Serra had bitter conflicts with Felipe de Neve about the missions.
Governor de Neve did not approve of how the missions were being run. He wanted the Indians to remain in their villages, so the government would not have the expense of feeding and housing them. He wanted civilian pueblos (towns) to be established around each mission. Father Serra felt that the pueblos would hinder the work of the padres in converting the Indians. He felt that it would be dangerous for the padres to go to the Indian villages to hold religious services.
De Neve established the pueblos of San Jose and Los Angeles, despite Serra’s objections. He called Serra “arrogant,” “obstinate,” and “deceitful.” Serra saw de Neve as the enemy of the missions and said that de Neve was the reason he was unable to sleep many nights.
The only mission founded while de Neve was governor was San Buenaventura, in March 1782. De Neve had agreed for there to be a mission at Santa Barbara also. He allowed a presidio (fort) to be founded at Santa Barbara, but then made no move to found the mission. He said the padres had not followed the rules at Mission San Buenaventura, and would have to wait for another mission. Serra was very unhappy about this, but was unable to change the situation.
De Neve left California later in 1782, but his replacement cannot have been a good sign to Father Serra. It was Pedro Fages, whom Serra had complained about in 1772. Serra died before Fages agreed to the founding of Mission Santa Barbara in 1786. One more mission, La Puríisima, was founded while Fages was governor.
The governors who succeeded Fages were not so opposed to the missions. Two new missions were opened in 1791. In 1797 Diego de Borica became governor. This began a period of cooperation between the government and the missions. Borica arranged to have skilled tradesmen come to teach the Indians blacksmithing, carpentry, and other skills. He authorized the founding of five new missions in 1797 and 1798.
The relationship between the missions and the government changed again when Mexico began rebelling against Spain in 1810. Years of turmoil followed. Mexico officially declared its independence from Spain in February 1821. Due to the distance and difficulty in communications, the last Spanish governor was not replaced by the first Mexican governor until November 1822.
The padres hoped that Alta California would remain under Spanish rule. However, they were soon asked to swear their allegiance to Mexico and the new governor, Luís Antonio de Argüello.
The national government in Mexico City was no longer sending financial support to the province of Alta California. Governor Argüello decided to tax the missions, which held the most productive land in California. The padres fought this idea. The next plan was even more disastrous for the missions. In August 1833 the Mexican congress decided that all mission lands should be transferred from the Catholic Church to the pueblos. This transfer was called secularization, and it was the end of the mission period in California.
The governor of California at this time was José Figueroa. It may be that Governor Figueroa intended that half of the land used by each mission should be divided among the Indians who lived at that mission. If so, his plan was not carried out.
Each mission was placed under a civil administrator. These government officials ignored the interests of the Indians and divided the land and wealth of the missions among their friends and relatives. Between 1834 and 1842, more than 300 ranchos (farms) were granted, mostly from lands that had been used previously by the missions.
An example of what happened is in the story of Mission San Luis Rey. When this mission was secularized in 1833, the governor appointed Pío and Andrés Pico to oversee the mission lands. In 1841, the brothers were granted title to almost 90,000 acres of the land. In 1845 Pío Pico himself became governor and gave many more hundreds of acres of former mission lands to his friends and relatives.
THE MISSION LIBRARY
The first library in California was at a mission.
Most of the Franciscan missionaries who came to California were well-educated men. They had been students at universities in Spain. Often they had gone on to become university professors themselves before deciding to be missionaries to the New World.
Books were important to the padres. They were a familiar part of home and their roots, comforting to them in the strangeness of a new land. The padres used the books in the mission libraries for information and for mental stimulation.
Each of the California missions had a library or collection of books of some sort. Sometimes the books were kept in the reception room of the guests quarters, or in the padre’s office. We know that even the smallest mission had a library, for the records reveal that in December 1834, the library at Mission San Rafael was sold for $108.
Perhaps the largest mission library was at Mission San Carlos Borromeo. For many years, this mission served as the home of the president of the missions. As such, it had all of the books owned by Father Junípero Serra. At the time of Serra’s death, it is estimated that the library here had between 1,500 and 2,500 books in it. The Mission San Carlos Borromeo library has been recreated and it can now be visited and viewed.
Most of the books in mission libraries were, of course, much older than the missions themselves. They were printed in Spain in the early 18th century and brought to the Americas by the Franciscan missionaries. Many of them had heavy leather bindings that have lasted through the decades.
As would be supposed, many of the mission library books were on religious topics -- theology, biblical studies, lives of the saints. The padres used these books in preparing their sermons and teaching the Indians. These religious books were in Latin as well as in Spanish.
There were also practical books on agriculture, medicine, and architecture. It was from one of the books of architecture that Padre Antonio Ripoll at Mission Santa Bárbara copied the design of the church there. This book was entitled The Six Books of Architecture, written in 27 BC by the Roman architect Vitruvius Polion. The book had been published and republished in Europe through the centuries. A Spanish translation published in Mexico was the one that Padre Ripoll used at Mission Santa Bárbara. Decorative designs used in the mission churches were copies from other books in the libraries.
The mission libraries also contained books of biography and fiction, which the padres read for pleasure and relaxation. A copy of Don Quixote by the Spanish novelist Cervantes was in one of the mission libraries.
Each time a new padre came to a California mission, there was hope that he would bring books. In a report from Mission San Diego to Father Serra (then living at Mission San Carlos Borromeo), the padres said that the library there had been enriched by the addition of more books.
As the years passed, the Franciscans at the California missions produced books themselves. First there were the record books. Each mission kept detailed accounts of the activities of the mission. The names of all the Indian converts were entered in a register, as were births, marriages, and deaths. Listings were kept of the livestock and crop production at each mission. List of supplies were detailed.
When Father Serra made the first trip to San Diego in 1769, he brought a large leather-bound book with blank pages. On the first page he inscribed the name of the mission and the date of its founding. Similar books were prepared for each mission when it was founded. Some of these original mission record books still exist, with their first pages written by Father Serra or Father Lasuén as president of the missions.
The Franciscans also kept detailed personal diaries of their daily activities. Padre Juan Crespi kept a diary of the journey from Mexico to California in 1769. That diary tells modern historians most of what we know about the Sacred Expedition.
Before the establishment of the Spanish missions, the languages of the California Indians had not been written down. The Indians passed on their history to their children orally, through stories and songs. There were no books to help the Franciscan padres learn the Indian languages. Some padres had difficulty in learning the Indian languages. Others became skilled in many local dialects.
Several mission padres produced books in the languages of California Indian groups. These could be considered the first books “published” in California. Buenaventura Sitjar worked for 37 years at Mission San Antonio de Padua. During that time he produced a 400-page grammar and vocabulary of the Mutsun Indian language.
At Mission San Juan Bautista, Padre Arroyo de la Cuesta learned more than a dozen Indian languages. He published a lengthy study of the Mutsumi language, for which he received international recognition in 1860. He also compiled a summary of Indian phrases.
The library at Mission San Juan Bautista includes musical manuscripts written in hand on parchment by Padre Estévan Tápis. He colored the notes in red, yellow, black and blue to help the Indian choir learn the parts of the harmony.
These early books produced in California were handwritten. They were bound in vellum, which is a fine leather made from calfskin. The mission tannery produced the bindings for these books.
By the 1820s and 1830s many settlers had come to California from Mexico. Those who were interested in books and reading made friends with the padres at the missions. The padres were always happy to discuss books and the ideas in them. For a brief time during this period, the missions were the intellectual centers of the community.
Today, several of the restored missions contain libraries housing some of the books from the original mission libraries, as well as many of the records, letters, and diaries of the padres. The largest collections are at Missions San Carlos Borromeo, San Fernando Rey, San Antonio de Padua, San Gabriel, and Santa Bárbara.
In the archives at Mission Santa Bárbara is the journal written by Father Serra. The library at Mission San Gabriel has a book that was produced in 1489.
Continuing the tradition of learning that a library represents, several of the missions became the site of colleges. The first college in California was the College of Our Lady of Refuge, founded on the grounds of Mission Santa Inés in 1843. In 1851 the authority for the church at Mission Santa Clara was transferred to the Jesuits, who founded a college there that became Santa Clara University. Mission Santa Bárbara was a school for the training of Franciscan priests from 1896 to 1968.
THE MISSION KITCHEN
Food was prepared both indoors and outdoors at the California missions. Feeding all the people who lived at a mission -- usually several hundred people -- took a great deal of time. Many of the Native Californian women and girls at the mission spent much of their day preparing meals.
The indoor kitchen was often a smoky room. A long fireplace, with the wide hearth raised several feet off the floor, was built along one side of the room. Several fire pits were spaced along the hearth, with holes in the roof above for the smoke to escape. Both wood and charcoal were used as fuel. Large pieces of meat were cooked on spits over these fires.
Food for the padres and guests was often prepared inside, while food for the mission workers was prepared in the courtyard. Some reports say that the padres had more nutritious meals than the Indians at the missions.
Adobe ovens, called hornitos, were used both in the inside kitchen and in the courtyard. The ovens were shaped like round beehives, with small openings on one side. Wooden doors covered the openings so that heat would not escape. To heat a beehive oven, a fire was built inside and kept burning until the oven was very hot. Then the hot coals were raked aside and loaves of bread were placed inside the oven to bake. Long wooden paddles were used to put the bread in and out of the oven.
Each mission raised cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens. Meat was cooked at the fireplaces on spits or open grills. Some of the meat was dried after being salted. The best pieces of meat were cut into strips several inches wide, about 12 inches long, and one inch thick. These strips were dipped into salted water and then hung out in the sun to dry. After several days in the sun, the meat was hard and black. The dried meat could be saved for many months.
The main food for the Indians at the missions was a type of gruel or mush called atolé. It was made from wheat, barley, or corn that had been roasted before being ground. The ground grain was cooked in large iron kettles. The people had atolé for breakfast in the morning, and for supper at six o’clock in the evening. Nuts and berries were sometimes added to the evening meal.
At noontime, chunks of meat and beans, peas, lentils or garbanzos were added to the mush to make a dish called pozóle. The noon meal was the largest meal of the day. On fiesta days, whole beef or chickens were roasted and special feasts were prepared.
Tortillas, the flat thin cakes popular in New Spain (Mexico), became a standard part of the mission meal. The tortillas were made from corn flour and water, mixed into a soft dough. Small balls of dough were patted flat by being flipped back and forth from hand to hand. The tortillas were baked on a hot iron plate, and were served at every meal.
The food eaten at the missions was much like the food of Mexico. Since the mission padres came from Mexico, they brought the recipes and methods of food preparation with them. Some of these foods and methods were strange to the California Indians, who had been gathering most of their food from the fields and woods.
The padres did not know about the variety of foods that grew naturally in California. From the Indians, they learned which nuts, seeds, and berries could be eaten. The Indians gathered acorns and ground them into flour, as they had been doing for centuries. Sometimes the Indians were asked to hunt for game (deer, rabbits, ducks) and fish for use in the mission kitchen.
Gradually, the Mexican cooking brought by the padres blended with the Indian cooking to produce a unique California-style cuisine.
Wheat, corn, and other grains were grown on the mission lands from seeds brought by the padres. The wheat was pounded into a coarse meal or flour with a stone mortar and pestle. The Indians had used the mortar (a hollowed-out stone) and pestle (a hammer-shaped stone) before the padres came, to grind acorns into flour.
To make the corn flour for tortillas, dried corn was removed from the cobs by rubbing them together. The kernels of corn were then soaked in a large kettle of water to which powdered lime had been added. After boiling over a fire, the kernels were ground on a stone metate, a flat stone used with a stone roller called a mano.
Later, gristmills operated by water power or by horses walking in circles were built at many missions. The gristmill did the work of grinding the wheat into flour by turning large stone circles against each other.
Each mission had a garden where vegetables were grown. Beans, peas, red peppers, squash, melons, tomatoes, onions, and pumpkins were common crops. Orchards of fruit trees provided oranges, lemons, figs, pears, apricots, peaches, apples, and plums. Walnuts, almonds, and pomegranates were also grown.
Chocolate was a great favorite of people at the missions. Cacao seeds, from which chocolate comes, were not grown in California. Chocolate for the missions came from Mexico, or from trading ships that stopped along the California coast. A thick, sweet chocolate drink called champurrado was served hot at the missions.
THE MISSION LAUNDRY
Water and its availability was an essential factor in the selection of a site for a mission. Water was necessary for washing clothes, for drinking and cooking, and for irrigating the crops. There are several instances of missions being moved in order to be closer to a better water supply. Sometimes, in their desire to be close to a water source, the padres located the mission too close to a river or stream. Floods damaged the buildings and the mission had to be moved further away from the river.
The mission laundry was called a lavandería. Some missions had much larger lavanderías than other missions.
The lavandería at Mission San Luis Rey was large. A wide stairway led from the mission compound down to a big pool surrounded by an elaborate sunken garden. The pool was lined with adobe tiles. Water for the lavandería came from two springs, spilling into the pool from the mouths of two stone gargoyles (distorted animal figures). From the pool, the water ran out to the orchards and gardens to provide irrigation for the crops.
The terraces, steps, and pool at Mission San Luis Rey have been excavated and can be visited and viewed today.
The Native Californian women who lived at the mission brought the dirty clothes to the lavandería and soaked them in the pool. They spread the wet clothes out on the stone steps, rubbed soap on them, and then beat them with wooden paddles. After being rinsed in clean water, the clothes were spread out on the bushes to dry.
Laundry day was a social occasion for the women. It took many hours to wash and dry the clothes. The women could visit with each other as they scrubbed their clothes, and as they waited for them to dry in the sun.
The lavandería at Mission Santa Bárbara was part of an elaborate water system designed by Padre Estévan Tapis. Under his direction, the Indians built two dams on Pedragoso Creek, on the hillside above the mission. A stone aqueduct carried the water two miles down the hillside to a storage reservoir. From this storage reservoir, some of the water was channeled off through another aqueduct to a settling tank and then through a third aqueduct to the mission compound, where it was used for drinking and cooking.
Some of the water from the storage reservoir ran into another 110-foot square reservoir and then through a second aqueduct and into the fountain in front of the mission church. From the fountain, the water flowed into the lavandería through the mouth of a stone California bear. The lavandería at Mission Santa Bárbara was a 70-foot-long stone basin. Part of this water system is still usable today. The original lavandería and the stone bear are still there, in front of the mission church.
La Purísima’s water system brought the water from springs three miles away, through a series of adobe tile pipes. The water flowed into three large basins and a cistern (tank). Drinking water was filtered through three feet of charcoal and sand. Water for the two lavanderías flowed into circular pools. The women used the brick rims of the pools to spread the clothes out for soaping. The water from the lavandería was drawn out into a settling pool, and then used to irrigate the fields.
At some missions, the water system provided water power to turn a gristmill wheel to grind corn and wheat.
Each mission had a different water system, depending on where the water source was located. At Mission San Buenaventura, the main aqueduct was seven miles long. At Mission San Francisco Solano, the stone cistern to which the water was piped was located right in the middle of the mission courtyard. Here water could be dipped out for cooking as well as for doing the laundry.
Those who lived at Mission San José had the added convenience of warm water in the lavandería. In the plaza in front of the church was a fountain, surrounded by a basin about ten feet square. This basin was used both for bathing and for washing clothes. The warm water came from a natural hot springs nearby. It was carried through an aqueduct to the fountain. This area was known as Warm Springs long after the mission period ended and the lavandería had disappeared.
THE COURTYARD
The buildings at a California mission were arranged in a quadrangle (four-sided enclosure), creating an open courtyard in the middle of the quadrangle. The quadrangle of buildings made the courtyard completely enclosed. There was usually only one opening to the courtyard from outside the quadrangle. The courtyard was a safe, protected place.
On one side of the quadrangle was the convento wing, adjacent to the church, where the padres’ quarters were located. On another side of the quadrangle was the monjería, with rooms for unmarried women. The men’s dormitory was usually on the opposite side. Taking up the remaining areas around the courtyard were the kitchen, workshops, and storerooms. The soldiers’ quarters were usually outside the quadrangle, as were the tannery, mill, adobe brick making, and barns.
The doors to all of the buildings opened onto the courtyard. The church was the only building in the quadrangle that had a door opening onto the outside, as well as a door into the courtyard.
The size of the courtyard varied from mission to mission. The courtyard at Mission San Juan Capistrano was about 100 yards square. At Mission Santa Ines, the courtyard was a rectangle about 145 feet by 368 feet. The only one of the 21 California missions that was not built in this style was Mission La Purísima, where the buildings were laid out in a line.
Around the inside of the quadrangle, facing the courtyard, was a covered walkway or corredor. This walkway was formed by the overhanging roofs of the buildings. The roofs protected the adobe walls of the buildings from rain, which would soften the adobe bricks and make them sag. It also provided shade in the summer for the Indians and padres.
The courtyard was actually a large outdoor room where much of the life of the mission took place. Because the adobe buildings had few windows and little light, it was often more pleasant for the people to do their work in the open-air courtyard. Due to the mild climate in California, the courtyard was a pleasant place to work throughout much of the year.
Each mission had an outdoor kitchen area with a beehive oven in the courtyard. During the day, women and girls would be making tortillas, baking bread, and preparing meals there. Large kettles would be simmering over the fires all day, cooking the food for the many people who lived at the mission.
The women would also be pressing the oil out of olives, or grinding wheat or corn into flour with a mortar (a hollowed-out stone) and pestle (a hammer-shaped stone).
Other women would be washing wool in large tubs, or dying it in smaller pots. They would be combing the wool to get out the burrs and stickers, and preparing it for spinning. The women might pull their spinning wheels out into the sunlight of the courtyard, and do the spinning of yarn there.
Some courtyards had water piped into them from nearby springs. The water would flow through adobe tile channels and into a large stone cistern (tank). This made it easier for the women to wash clothes and prepare food.
As their mothers worked, the young children played in the courtyard. For older people, it was a place to rest and watch the many activities going on. Lunchtime at the mission was from 11 AM until 2 PM. The Indian workers gathered in the courtyard for the noon meal, and then had time to rest and visit awhile before going back to their tasks.
Again in the evening, the courtyard was the meeting place. Here the Indians played some of their traditional games, which often included dice games and gambling. A favorite activity was a game in which a black and white bone was tied to a cord and passed around a circle of players. The trick was to discover who had the bone.
Although the mission padres wanted the Native Californians to become model Spanish citizens, they did permit them to perform their traditional dances. These rhythmic dances were often accompanied by chanting and the music of drums and rattles.
On special feast days, the courtyard was the scene of festivities. People took part in contests to show their skill or speed or strength. There were foot races. Boys and men competed in a game of “hoop and pole” to see who could throw a pole or shoot an arrow through a rolling hoop.
Women and girls participated in games also. One game was played with a wooden ball and a stick. The players were divided into two teams. Each team tried to hit the ball over the opposing team’s goal line.
Cock (rooster) racing was a common activity in the courtyard at fiesta time. The rooster was buried in the ground up to its neck. Riders on horseback would pass by the rooster and try to grab it by its head. This was not a pleasant game for the rooster, but was a show of skill and agility for the young men.
The courtyard was sometimes the scene of a bull fight during fiesta time. Unlike bull fights in some countries, in California the bull was usually not killed during the fight. Instead it was teased and jostled around by vaqueros (cowboys) on horseback. The aim was to show the skill of the rider. The Indians who had learned to ride horses and herd cattle at the missions were very good riders and loved to show their abilities on horseback.
Sometimes men on foot would tackle a bull. For these bull fights, the horns of the bull were blunted and cloth was tied around them to make them less dangerous. The men would twist the bull’s tail, jump on his back, or try to vault over the bull by using poles to push themselves into the air.
Whenever there was a bull fight in the courtyard, temporary barricades were set up to protect the people who were watching. This was especially important when a bear or a mountain lion was brought in to do battle with a bull. An American trader, Alfred Robinson, visited California in 1829 and described these bull fights at the mission.
THE WINERY
California’s modern wine industry began at the missions. The mission padres considered wine to be an essential item. It was used as a drink with meals and as a medicine. It was an important part of the church service, used in the sacrament (ritual) of communion. When the mission wineries were thriving, wine was used as an item of trade.
There were grapes growing in California before the Spanish padres came. The Indians ate these grapes (now called Vitis californica and Vitis girdiana) but they did not make a fermented drink from them. Instead, the Indians used wild cherries to make a fermented drink they called pispibata. Like the Indians, the padres found that the wild grapes did not make a good wine.
The grapes that provided the start of California’s winemaking were brought here by the padres. These grapes are called Vitis vinifera.
Father Junípero Serra has traditionally been credited with bringing the first grape vines to California. The story says that he brought them with him in July 1769 on the first Sacred Expedition from Baja California to San Diego. These first grape vines are described as gnarled, black, lifeless-looking sticks.
Recent historians have questioned whether it was indeed Father Serra who brought the first grape vines, and whether it was in 1769 or later. They base their doubt on the fact that none of the records of the missions nor letters from the padres written before 1778 mention grape vineyards nor winemaking.
In December 1781, from Mission San Carlos, Serra wrote to the padre at Mission San Diego, inquiring about the health of the grape vine cuttings. He hoped they were “living and thriving, for this lack of altar wine is becoming unbearable.” Other letters have led researchers to believe that the first grape vine cuttings were brought to California on the San Antonio, a ship which arrived from Baja California in May 1778.
It is possible that Serra did bring grape vines with him in 1769, and that he planted them as California’s first vineyard. If so, the vineyard may have been washed away by rainstorms the next spring, as were most of the crops and gardens planted at Mission San Diego. This would explain why there was no mention of winemaking for some years. Still, some believe that those first vineyards survived and that winemaking began by 1771 at Mission San Gabriel.
Historians agree that by the early 1780s, wine was being produced at the California missions. A letter from Father Serra written in October 1782 mentions that a barrel of wine on its way to Mission San Carlos from San Juan Capistrano had fallen off the mule and broken open.
When a new mission was founded, the other missions were expected to help it out by sending grapevine cuttings, livestock, and seeds for planting.
Though winemaking was to become one of the most successful and profitable mission industries, it was not an immediate success. In 1800, wineries were operating at Missions Santa Clara, San Buenaventura, Santa Bárbara, San Luis Obispo, and San Gabriel. Father Fermín de Lasuén, then president of the missions, wrote about winemaking in 1801: “In most missions, despite our endeavors, we have no success.”
By 1823, when the last mission was founded in California, the winemaking picture had changed. All but four of the missions had wineries that were flourishing. The leader was Mission San Gabriel, where three wine presses and eight brandy stills produced nine thousand gallons of wine and three thousand gallons of brandy during its best years.
Fences around the vineyards kept animals from straying into the grapes. At the southern missions, these fences were made of cactus such as prickly pear. At the northern missions, stones or adobe bricks were used. Birds were a particular problem. At some missions, platforms were built in the vineyards where Indian boys stood beating drums to scare away the birds.
It was the Indians at the missions that did the work of tending the vineyards and pruning the vines. Men, women, and children helped with the harvesting of the grapes.
The grapes were crushed on a wooden platform or on an area where the ground sloped. The crushing platform was covered with clean, well-cured hides. Indian men crushed the grapes by trampling on them with their feet.
Before crushing the grapes, the men cleaned their feet and tied cloths over their head and hands. The cloths on the hands were for wiping the sweat off their bodies as they worked. They each held a pole to help them keep their balance in the slippery grapes.
As the grapes were crushed, the juice drained off into cowhide bags tied to the sides of the platform. It was then stored in wooden tubs or barrels for two or three months. During this time the grape juice fermented and became wine.
Later, grapes were crushed in large brick vats set into the ground. The juice drained out through openings in the bottom of the vats and was collected in hide bags. Some of these vats can be seen today at Mission San Gabriel.
One of the problems at the mission wineries was having enough containers to hold the wine. Hide bags were gradually replaced by wooden barrels, but there were never enough of either. When wine was shipped to another mission, there was usually a written request to be sure to return the barrel.
Between 1823 and 1833, winemaking at the California missions reached its peak. Several missions became known for their wine. Mission San Diego had 50,000 acres of land planted in grapevines. Mission San Fernando Rey was famous for its wine, as was Mission San José. Though Mission Soledad had only about 20 acres of vineyard, its location in the Salinas Valley became a grape-growing center in the 1960s.
Second to Mission San Gabriel in wine production was Mission San Francisco Solano, the last California mission to be founded (1823). By 1824 the mission vineyards were thriving. The mission was closed just nine years later. When General Mariano Vallejo acquired the land around the mission, he replanted cuttings from the mission vineyard. He also started a winery, which led to the Napa Valley wine industry. The restored mission is the site of the annual blessing of the grapes during the Vintage Festival there each autumn.
THE WEAVING WORKSHOP
It was the goal of the Spanish padres that each of the California missions be self-sufficient, producing all that they needed right there on the mission grounds. In the early days of the missions, blankets and cloth for clothing came from Mexico by ship. However, the missions soon had large flocks of sheep which provided the wool that they needed to make their own cloth.
The sheep were sheared each spring. The native Californian men soon became very skilled at using the steel shears, which the padres brought from Mexico. A shearing team of men could shear about 3,000 sheep in one day.
When the fleeces had been cut from the sheep, they were cleaned by the women and children. The children helped to pick out bits of brush and thorns. Then the fleeces were put in large kettles and washed with soap to remove some of the oils that are natural to sheep’s wool. They were then spread out over the bushes or on racks to dry. In spite of this cleaning process, blankets sometimes ended up with burrs or pieces of thistle woven into them.
The first spinning wheels and looms on which the mission workers spun the yarn and wove the cloth were made by Spanish carpenters. Father Lasuén, who had become the leader of the California missions after Father Serra’s death in 1784, reported in his diary in 1792 that he had arranged for a craftsman named Antonio Domingo Henrique to make the journey from San Diego to Monterey, stopping at each mission along the way.
At each mission, Henrique made spinning wheels, looms, and other equipment needed for weaving cloth. Henrique also showed the mission workers how to card (straighten) the strands of wool, spin them into yarn, and weave the various types of cloth. One type of cloth made at the missions was a coarse woolen cloth called Sayal Franciscano.
After the wool fleeces were cleaned and dried, the strands of wool were straightened using brushes made from spiny seed pods. At this point, the wool was ready to be made into yarn on the spinning wheels. The yarn was then woven into cloth on the wooden looms.
Both men and women worked in the weaving workshops at the missions. The Native Californians were already highly skilled in weaving baskets from reeds, sumac, willow roots, and bark. They wove baskets in many shapes and sizes. Some were so firmly and finely woven that they would hold water.
At the missions, Indian women continued to weave baskets. Mission San Antonio de Padua was especially known for the beautiful handwoven baskets made there. The Chumash Indians of the Mission San Buenaventura area were also known for their finely-woven baskets. Many Native Californians soon became as skilled in weaving cloth on the looms as they were in basket weaving.
The woolen cloth woven at the missions was used to make blankets and serapes. A serape is a small blanket with a hole in the middle so that the blanket can be put on over a person’s head and worn like a jacket or poncho. A lightweight woolen cloth called jerga was woven for making clothes.
Each mission had a weaving workshop where cloth was made for that mission. This workshop was part of the square of buildings that enclosed the central courtyard.
At one point Mission San José reported that there were five looms in operation there, producing about 150 blankets each week, plus another loom that was used to make serapes. A weaver could make about 10 yards of woolen cloth in a day.
Mission San Francisco de Asís and Mission Santa Clara were known for the quantity and excellence of the weaving done there.
Weaving was also a major industry at La Purísima, where it is estimated that 40,000 woolen blankets were woven over the years. Not only did the mission workers supply blankets for the mission, but for the soldiers at the presidios as well.
In the early 1800s an artisan weaver named Mariano Mendoza spent some time at Mission San Juan Capistrano, teaching the Indian women about weaving. In addition to the large quantities of blankets and serapes, the workers produced woven carpets to cover the adobe floors.
Cotton and linen were also woven at the missions. Cotton and flax plants provided the fibers from which the yarn was spun. Cotton material was used to make much of the clothing for the mission Indians. The Indian women also made the gray cloth for the robes that the padres wore.
Each Native Californian who lived at the mission was given one blanket each year. Each man received a pair of pants every six months, and a shirt every seven months. The women each received a skirt and a blouse every seven months. The cotton and woolen clothing was new to the Native Californians, who were accustomed to wearing cloaks made of animal skins or aprons woven from reeds and grasses.
The cloth woven for the women’s clothing at the mission was often brightly colored. The yarns were colored with dyes made from plants and flowers. Indigo (blue) was a popular color.
SOAP AND CANDLE MAKING
Tallow was an important by-product of the cattle and sheep industry at the California missions. Tallow was used in the making of soap and candles. It was also used as an article of trade with the ships that regularly sailed along the California coast.
Tallow was made from the excess fat scraped from the hides of cattle or sheep. The fat was cooked over a low fire in a large metal vessel or vat. Some of the metal vessels were obtained from whaling ships, where they had been used to heat whale blubber.
The heating process melted the fat down to a whitish, solid wax-like substance. The melted fat was first drawn off from the liquid, allowed to cool into a solid, and then stored until it was needed for making candles or soap, or for trade. Often the tallow was stored in large bags made from the hides of cattle.
Soap was made by mixing the tallow with a substance called potash that contained a chemical called potassium hydroxide. The potash was obtained by leaching, or running water through, the ashes from a wood fire.
The tallow and potash were placed in large kettles and boiled. After several days of heating, the tallow became liquid. It combined with the potash to form lumps of soft soap. The soap floated to the top of the liquid in the kettle, so it could easily be skimmed off. The cooled soap was put into molds to shape it into large blocks. When it began to harden, the soap was cut into bars and allowed to dry.
Mission San Gabriel was known for the large quantities of soap that were made there. This mission had four large vats or boilers that were used in soap making. The vats were made of adobe bricks and lined with several inches of iron. They held over 2,500 gallons of liquid. Mission San Gabriel made so much soap that they could supply it to many of the other missions.
The soap made at the missions was rather harsh and did not have a pleasing smell, but it worked well for cleaning the clothes. The women rubbed the bars of soap directly onto the wet clothes. On Saturday mornings, one cake of soap was given to each worker.
When daylight was gone, candles were the source of light for the padres and for the mission workers. Each padre kept candles on his desk in his room. In the evenings, by the candlelight, he would write out his reports on the mission activities, and read his religious books.
Since the windows in the mission buildings were small, rooms were not well lit even in the daytime. Candles were needed for light for many indoor tasks. Candles were also used in each church service, to light the room as well as part of the worship. Some churches and a few of the guest reception halls in the convento wings of the missions had chandeliers that hung from the ceiling and held candles to light the rooms.
Tallow was used to make the candles for the missions. Sometimes the tallow was mixed with beeswax collected from the hives of wild bees. Lengths of string were cut to serve as wicks in the candles. The strings were coated with the melted tallow to form the candles.
There were several methods of candle making that produced a number of candles at one time. Each involved a device made of wood.
At some missions, the candlewick strings were attached to wooden cross-arms that extended from a central post. A container of melted tallow, with a small fire burning beneath it to keep the tallow liquid, was placed under the cross-arm. The cross-arm was lowered so that the strings dipped into the tallow. When the cross-arm was raised, some of the melted tallow stuck to each string. Each cross-arm in turn was lowered so that the strings were dipped into the melted tallow and then were raised up. This allowed time for the wax to harden slightly on the strings, before that cross-arm came around again to be dipped. Each time a set of strings went into the tallow, another layer of wax was added to the candle.
At other missions the candle making frame was round, like a wooden wheel laid flat. The pieces of string for the candlewicks hung from the rim of the wheel. Melted tallow was poured from a small container over the hanging strings. The wheel was turned slowly so that each string in turn got a coating of tallow. A container below caught the excess tallow as it dripped off the wicks. With many layers of tallow, the candles were formed. Making candles took careful attention. The melted tallow had to be kept at just the right temperature. If it was too hot, it would melt off the wicks. When the tallow cooled, it became too thick to dip the wicks into it. The fire had to keep burning at just the right hotness to keep the tallow at the correct temperature.
Both candle making and soap making were done during the cold months, because of the need to keep a fire burning all through the process. Indian children were kept busy at this time, gathering wood for the fires.
Whenever a mission produced more tallow than was needed for making soap and candles, it was traded to the merchant ships for objects that could not be produced at the mission. There was a market for tallow in eastern North America and in South America.
Near the end of the mission period, some lamps were used in addition to the candles. Olive oil was used as fuel in the lamps.
ADOBE BRICKS AND TILE MAKING
The Spanish padres were not trained as engineers or architects or carpenters. They had no certain sources of a supply of building materials from beyond the California coast. They had to find materials around them to use in building. The building material most readily available to them was the soil under their feet.
The California soil used to make adobe bricks and tiles was a clay type of soil that hardened when heated or dried. This made it possible to construct permanent buildings with bricks that were made mostly of dirt. Making adobe bricks was one of the first crafts that the Native Californians learned at the mission.
Hundreds of adobe bricks were needed to construct each mission building. Many people worked at the task. The first step was to prepare the clay mixture. If the soil was dry, it had to be pounded to a smooth powder. The soil was combined with dry manure, straw, and water in a wide, shallow pit in the ground. The mission workers used their bare feet to mix the clay, tramping around in the pit until the mixture was the right consistency for pouring into the molds.
The molds for making adobe bricks were wooden frames (like boxes with no bottoms). One worker shoveled in the wet clay mixture, while another patted it into the corners of the mold and smoothed the top. Then the mold was lifted carefully from the newly-formed brick, and was filled with more adobe clay to make another brick. The molds were washed often to keep the adobe mixture from sticking.
Filling and removing the mold was a task that required special skill. The men who could do this task well were respected by the other workers. One report states that nine men could make 360 adobe bricks in a day.
After the adobe bricks were molded, they were left in the sun for several days to begin drying. When they were partially dry, they were turned up on one edge, so they would dry more completely. The workers placed the bricks in rows, in a zigzag pattern that kept the bricks from toppling over while they were drying. If the weather was dry, the bricks would be ready to use in about ten days. It took almost a full year, however, for the adobe bricks to become completely dry. This meant that they were used in building long before they were totally dry.
The use of sun-dried adobe bricks to construct the mission buildings made it necessary to make the walls of the buildings low. The bricks were too heavy to stack them up very high. Also, the walls had to be made very thick to hold the weight of the bricks. Since these adobe bricks would dissolve if they got wet, the roofs of the buildings had to extend out over the walls, to keep the rain from hitting the bricks.
The size and quality of the adobe bricks differed from mission to mission, depending on the type of soil available. The most common size was about 12 inches wide, 20 to 22 inches long, and 4 inches thick. The bricks each weighed about 60 pounds. Sometimes specially-shaped bricks were formed to be used at the edges of doors and windows.
When these adobe bricks were ready to be used to make a building, they were cemented together with more sticky adobe mud, or with lime mortar. The workers used handmade wooden trowels to spread the sticky mud or lime mortar between the bricks.
Lime mortar was made from limestone and seashells, heated in a very hot kiln (brick oven) until they became soft. When water was added to the softened seashells and limestone, the mixture could be used to hold the adobe bricks together. A similar mixture of limestone, water, and sand was sometimes used as a plaster to spread over the adobe walls. The limestone plaster helped to protect the adobe bricks from the rain.
The roofs of the earliest mission buildings were made of thatch (dried reeds). These roofs caught fire very easily. When the padres began to use tiles for the roofing material, the mission buildings were much safer. This use of tile roofs was an important development, not only to enable the missions to prosper, but also because it set a trend in California architecture. Similar tiles had been used for roofs in Spain.
Roofing tiles, called tejas, were made from the same materials as the adobe bricks. A flat rectangle of clay was formed. It was then carefully placed over the round piece of a log which had been sanded so the clay wouldn’t stick to the wood. Some stories tell that the roof tiles were molded over the legs of the Indian workers, but other sources say that is just a legend.
After the clay was molded into the curved shape, it was dried in the sun for several days. Then the tile was baked in a kiln for many days. The baking at a high temperature caused the adobe clay to turn red.
Mission San Luis Obispo has been credited with the development of roofing tiles. Father Serra’s diaries, however, say that the first roofing tiles were made at Mission San Antonio de Padua. Mission San Luis Obispo then perfected the process. They made the tiles in large quantities and supplied them to other nearby missions. At San Luis Obispo, horses were kept walking in circles to mix the adobe clay with their hooves.
Some mission buildings had tiles on the floor. These floor tiles, called ladrillos, were made from a thicker mixture of adobe clay, straw, and water. They were molded in much the same manner as the adobe bricks, partially dried in the sun, and then baked in kilns to make them hard.
Adobe tiles were also used as water pipes at many missions, to carry the water from a river or stream to the mission compound, or to the fields for irrigation.
Pottery bowls and pots were made at the missions, though not in great quantities. Clay pots were not commonly made by the California Indians, who instead made excellent baskets which served their needs for storing food. However, in later years some missions had pottery wheels for making bowls.
CROPS AND GARDENS
California’s great agricultural tradition began with the missions.
Most of the Indian groups that lived in California before 1769 were hunters and gatherers. Only those in the southeast, along the Colorado River, planted any crops. The Indians who came to the Spanish missions were not familiar with growing crops.
The plan for each of the 21 California missions was that it would become a self-sufficient community, producing whatever was needed for the people who lived there. To that end, one of the first things the padres did at a mission was to clear land and plant crops. The Spanish king granted a large number of acres of land to each mission for crops and livestock. This land was not owned by the padres, but kept in trust for the Indians.
The padres brought seed with them when they came from Mexico. When a new mission was started, the other missions were expected to send seeds and livestock to help it get started.
Though the Indians had no previous experience at farming, they soon learned to do all of the work on the mission farms. The Indians were good farmers. They also learned to ride horses and herd cattle.
The Indian farmers used wooden plows to till the land. The first plows were tree branches with metal points attached to the end to break up the hard ground. Oxen were used to pull these plows over the ground as the Indian workers guided the plows. The workers tossed seeds of grain into the furrows made by the plow. They then dragged a small bush or tree limb across the furrow, to push the soil over the seeds.
The major field crops at the missions were wheat, barley, corn, beans, and peas. These crops had to be watered, so irrigation systems were devised by the padres. They brought water to the fields through stone troughs or adobe clay pipes.
During planting and harvesting seasons, the workers would stay in the fields longer hours. In the afternoon, a young boy would bring jars of sweetened water to the field for the thirsty farm workers.
When the grain was ripe, it was harvested by hand using a sickle (a curved knife with a short handle). The stalks of grain were loaded onto a carreta (wooden cart) pulled by oxen and taken to the threshing area.
After the grain was harvested, it was placed on a stone threshing floor where the horses stamped on it with their hooves to break the grain away from the husks. Workers loosened the grain from the straw and lifted the straw out with large wooden forks. The grain was then winnowed by being tossed up and down in large, flat baskets. This allowed the chaff (or husks) to be blown away by the air and the heavier grains of wheat to fall back into the basket.
In addition to the field crops, each mission planted orchards, vineyards, and vegetable gardens. Orange, lemon, apricot, peach, pear, plum, pomegranate, apple and fig trees yielded fruit. Walnut and almond trees were planted. Most of these trees had not grown in California before. The oldest pear tree in California is said to be at Mission San Antonio de Padua.
The first pepper tree was reportedly brought to California from Peru in 1830. Many missions soon had pepper trees. One of the original trees is still growing at Mission San Luis Rey.
The first olive trees in California were planted from seeds brought by the padres. By 1803 Father Lasuén, the president of the missions, reported that several missions were harvesting olives. The oil was used in cooking, in lamps, and as an item for trade. To make the oil, the olives were washed and placed inside woolen bags. The bags were put into an olive press, which squeezed out the oil. The oil was strained through the woolen cloth, which kept the pulp and skin from mixing with the oil.
In the mission vegetable gardens, the Indians grew tomatoes, onions, garlic, melons, potatoes, squash, pumpkins, and peppers. Some padres encouraged the Indians to plant family gardens as well.
The gardens were surrounded by fences to keep out wandering cattle and wild animals. The fence at Mission San Gabriel was twelve feet high, a living fence formed from fruit-bearing prickly pear cactus. The sharp spines of the cactus kept animals out of the garden. While cactus was used for fencing in the south, the northern missions used rock walls to protect their gardens.
At first, the field crops and gardens were close to the mission buildings. As the missions grew, they used ranch land further away for farming and livestock. Some missions had several ranches, each specializing in one crop such as wheat or grapes.
The first cattle, pigs, goats, sheep and oxen were brought to California from Mexico by the padres. Corrals made with low adobe brick walls housed the animals near the mission compound. The herders took the animals to good grazing places. As the herds increased in size, ranch land was used for livestock. Each mission had its own cattle brand. The ranch land was not fenced and animals often got mixed up on the open range.
Even with the effort given to planting gardens, the first few years were difficult ones for the mission farms. Crops failed due to floods in some places and drought in others. During the winter of 1773-74, the padres at Mission San Carlos Borromeo lived on gruel and peas. They sent the Indians out to hunt and fish. There were many years of poor crops at Mission Soledad. Padre Vicente Francisco Sarría died there of starvation.
The later success of the crops and gardens did enable the missions to become almost self-sufficient for some years. Many raised more food than they needed. They were expected to supply the presidios with food, and still had enough to use for trade. It may have been the success of the farms that led to the Mexican government’s decision to take the rich land away from the missions.
The English sea captain George Vancouver visited Mission San Buenaventura in 1793. He reported on the excellent quality of the vegetables and fruits that he purchased there. It took 20 pack mules to carry the food back to his ship.
Other ships also stopped at San Buenaventura for supplies. At this mission the climate and soil were right for growing more tropical plants such as sugar cane, bananas, and coconuts.
Mission San Gabriel was credited with having the most productive farms of the 21 missions. Mission San Luis Rey was second in amount of crops, but first in livestock with 27,000 head of cattle, 26,000 sheep, and several thousand horses.
In 1834, as the mission period ended, records show that the missions owned 296,000 head of cattle, 321,000 hogs, sheep and goats, and 62,000 horses. They had been harvesting 123,000 bushels of grain a year. Just 65 years earlier, there had been no cows, horses, hogs, sheep, goats or wheat in all of California.
THE TANNERY
When Father Serra made the trip from Baja California to San Diego in 1769, he brought cattle with him. The first five missions established in California each started with 18 head of cattle, four hogs, and some chickens. In later years when a new mission was founded, it received gifts of cattle from the other missions nearby.
The small herd of cattle at each mission increased greatly over the years. At some missions, the herds soon numbered in the thousands and required many hundreds of acres of land for grazing.
Cattle raised on California mission lands were equally as important for their hides (skins) as for the meat. Cowhides were used in many ways at the missions. In addition, they were a leading item of trade for the mission community.
Merchant ships from the New England states and from Great Britain regularly sailed along the coast of western North America. At first they traded for furs, but by the early 1800s, hides and tallow (melted animal fat) had replaced furs as the leading trading products. New England merchants wanted the hides to take back to shoe manufacturers on the east coast of America.
In addition to hides and tallow, the missions traded their excess olive oil, wheat, barley, beans, honey, figs, wool, and cotton. But the cowhides were always the main article of trade. In fact, cowhides were called “California banknotes,” because they were used by the mission people like money to purchase goods from the trading ships.
The padres purchased things that could not easily be produced at the missions, such as large iron cooking pots, farm tools, musical instruments, gunpowder, church robes, coffee and tea, spices, cocoa, sugar and molasses, and silks, ribbons and lace.
In the early 1800s, hides were worth $1 each. By 1830, the value had doubled to $2 each. It is estimated that more than 300,000 hides were shipped out of California between 1831 and 1836.
A writer named Richard Henry Dana, Jr. was on a trading ship from Boston that called at San Diego in 1835. He used his journal from this trip to write Two Years Before the Mast, a book that has become a classic. In this book he describes his visit to Mission San Diego, and the collecting of hides as the ship sailed up and down the California coast. He tells about the dried, stiffened hides being thrown off a cliff, one by one, to the beach several hundred feet below. This happened near Mission San Juan Capistrano.
In order to prepare the hides for shipping, they were first scraped and then spread out on the ground to dry. The corners of each hide were staked to the ground so the hide would not curl up as it dried. Several days later, the hides were cured by soaking them for many hours in water with salt. They were then spread out again to dry. When the hides were totally dry, they were very stiff. More salt was put on them so they wouldn’t rot. Then they were folded in half with the hair side out, and they were ready to be shipped away.
Cowhides that were to be used to make things for the mission went through a process called tanning. This changed the raw hide into leather.
After the hides were cured, they were washed and soaked in clear water to remove the salt that had been used in curing. Then they were soaked in a solution of lime and water for three or four days, to soften the hide and loosen the hair. A knife was used to scrape off all the hair. After another washing, the hides were placed in the tanning vats, where they soaked in the tanning solution for at least three months, and sometimes as long as six months.
The tanning vats were deep pits in the ground, lined with adobe bricks. The tanning solution was made by pouring water through crushed oak bark, which released the tannic acid from the bark. More oak bark and water were added from time to time, to keep the solution active. After months of soaking in the tanning pits, the hides were again washed and then rubbed with grease and tallow to soften them. Finally, they were hung in a drying room.
Because the tannery usually had a rather strong odor around it, the tanning vats and the tannery workshop were often located outside the main quadrangle of the mission. A good example of the mission tanning vats can be seen today at Mission San Juan Capistrano.
In the tannery, the leather was made into many things that were needed at the mission. The work in the tannery was done by Indian men at the mission. The leather working skills that they developed were very important to the welfare of the mission.
The leather workers made sandals and boots. They made saddles, bridles, and reatas (ropes used to tie or lasso cattle). Workers at Mission Santa Inés were especially noted for the splendid saddles that they made, some decorated with silver. Leather was also used in making furniture, for the chair seats and backs. Hides were stretched over wooden frames to make beds.
Nails were in scarce supply at the missions, so rawhide strips (thongs) were used instead of nails. Rawhide strips held together the rafters and roof beams in most mission buildings. The strips were first soaked in water and then wound tightly around the places where rafters and roof beams crossed. When the rawhide strips dried, they made a strong binding that lasted many years. Strips of rawhide were also used to hold together the bundles of reeds that were placed beneath the roof tiles. They worked well, too, for attaching handles to wooden or metal tools.
The large record books in which the padres recorded all the business of the mission were bound in fine tanned calfskin. Some of these bound volumes can be seen today in the museums and displays at the missions.
Perhaps the most unusual use of cowhide at the missions was as a substitute for glass in the windows. When the hide was scraped very thin and greased heavily, it became translucent, allowing some light to shine through. The cowhide window panes kept the cold out, while still letting in some daylight.
BLACKSMITH SHOP
Master craftsmen from Mexico visited the California missions at the request of the padres. The padres were not skilled in all of the trades necessary for the operation of the mission community. They wanted the Native Californians to be trained in such crafts as blacksmithing and carpentry.
Blacksmiths were among the most prized craftsmen. The padres felt that no mission community could survive without a blacksmith. The master craftsmen came to teach the mission workers how to work with iron.
There was a Spanish blacksmith with Padre Junípero Serra when he first entered California in 1769. His name is recorded as one of those wounded in an Indian attack on the mission. In most cases we do not know the names or backgrounds of the craftsmen who came from Mexico to teach the Indians.
Before 1769, when Serra and his expedition came to California, iron was unknown to the California Indians. Their tools were made of stone or wood.
Iron is a mineral found in the earth, as an ore. The iron must be extracted from the ore in order to be used. This process was taking place in many parts of the world by 1000 B.C., but had not developed in the Americas. The colonists brought knowledge of iron to the New World in the 1600s. By 1775, blast furnaces on the east coast of America were producing many tons of cast iron. None of this metal had found its way to California.
Since raw metals were not readily available in California, iron and copper had to be brought from Mexico. There were never great quantities of the metals at the missions, but most missions had a blacksmith shop that did some work with iron.
The blacksmith shop had a forge (a big fireplace or hearth where metals are heated). This was usually a pit lined with adobe tiles where a fire was kept burning all day. The fuel used for the fire was charcoal that had been made by burning hardwoods in a slow, smoldering fire. This made the wood char (blacken, or burn partly) rather than burning it completely into ashes. When the resulting charcoal was burned in the forge, it did not make any smoke.
A bellows was used to pump air onto the fire, to make it burn hotter. Operating the bellows was often the task of a younger man who was learning to be a blacksmith.
The blacksmith shop always had a big barrel of water handy, to use for cooling off the red-hot iron. The other important object in the shop was the anvil, a large heavy block of metal on which the blacksmith hammered his work into shape.
The blacksmith heated bars of iron until they became soft enough to bend a little. Then he hammered the iron into the shape that was needed. Being a blacksmith not only took a great deal of strength to lift the heavy iron, but also much skill. The iron had to be heated to just the right temperature in order to be shaped without cracking or breaking.
The blacksmith commonly made tools for the kitchen and garden. He made nails, hammers, axes, saws, hinges, locks and keys. He also made horseshoes, stirrups, bits for the horse bridles, and branding irons. Plowshares (the part of the plow that cuts into the earth) were made of iron, as were hoes and pitchforks.
Some mission blacksmiths became skilled enough to make scissors and even bells.
Since metal was scarce, nothing made of iron was ever thrown away. The blacksmith could mend old tools and kettles. He could use pieces of worn-out tools to make new tools. Sometimes parts of the old cannons used at the presidios were melted down to use for new iron products. A hole in a metal pot or a shovel could be mended by heating a little iron until it became liquid, and then pouring it over the hold. As it cooled, the blacksmith would hammer it until it was smooth.
The Indian blacksmiths at Mission San Fernando Rey were known for especially fine metalwork. They made fancy wrought-iron grillwork called rejas to cover the window openings, and ornate crosses to go on the roof peaks of the churches. Some of the delicate grillwork can still be seen on the Long Building (convento) at this mission. The San Fernando Rey blacksmiths also made an eight-candle chandelier that hangs from the beams in the Long Building.
Several missions today have remains of the blacksmith shops. At Mission San Juan Capistrano, the smelter pit lined with adobe tiles can be seen. The Mission calls this the “oldest metalworks in California.”
At Mission La Purísima the blacksmith shop has been restored. A blacksmith works at the forge during special Living History Days. He makes iron implements using the same tools and methods as the mission blacksmith used. At La Purísima, the living quarters for the blacksmith and his family were located behind the forge room, in the same building.
CARPENTRY SHOP
Some California Indian tribes had considerable skill in woodworking before the Spanish came to California. The Chumash people who lived along the Santa Barbara Channel of the Pacific Ocean were fine boat-builders. The boats they made from wood, using stone tools, were large enough to hold 10 or 12 people, and were sea-worthy. The California Indians also carved wooden utensils.
The first metal woodworking tools (axes, saws, adzes) were brought from Mexico by the padres. The padres also brought skilled carpenters to teach the Indians how to use these tools. The Indians were quick to learn these skills.
History has not recorded the names or backgrounds of many of the craftsmen who came from Mexico to California in the early years. We do know that Father Serra went to Mexico City in 1773 to plead the needs of the missions with the Spanish viceroy governing there. He asked that carpenters be sent to California, and that they be given the same pay and rations as the soldiers. Serra particularly wanted married carpenters who would bring their families with them.
Most mission buildings were made of adobe bricks, but there had to be supports for the roofs. For this, huge wooden beams were used as ceiling rafters and corbels (supports extending from the walls). Mission carpenters shaped these wooden beams with axes and adzes.
Timber was scarce at many of the missions, which were situated near the coast where there were few large trees. Some missions had a source of lumber nearby, but others had to bring tree trunks from 40 or 45 miles away. They hauled the wood on carretas, wooden carts with wooden wheels, pulled by oxen or donkeys. The width of the church sanctuary at the mission often depended on how tall the trees were that were available for making rafters.
Pine, sycamore, and oak were used for rafters in the southern missions. The church at Mission San Luis Rey has a dome with a wooden cupola (smaller dome) made of pine wood. This is the only one of the 21 missions to have a wooden cupola atop the church. The logs for this cupola were floated 20 miles down the river from the Palomar Mountains.
The 28 rafter beams at Mission San Miguel, in central California, were each cut from a single sugar pine tree. These trees had been hauled 40 miles down from the Santa Lucia Mountains to the west. For the missions further north, redwood was the most popular wood. The ceiling of Mission San Francisco de Asís still has its original redwood beams and planks.
Some mission churches had balconies that stretched across the back of the church. These balconies were constructed of wood.
Nails were in short supply at the missions. Instead, carpenters often used rawhide strips to hold pieces of wood together.
By the early 1800s, all of the basic hand tools now in use for woodworking were available to the mission carpenters. At first logs were sometimes used after stripping off the bark, without even splitting them. Later, whipsaws were used. These large saws were operated by two men, one on the ground and one perched on a beam of the saw. Sometimes a pit was dug out and the lower man stood in the pit while the upper man was on ground level. The men moved the saw blade back and forth between them. Beams could be cut from heavy logs with the use of the whipsaw.
Much of the furniture used in the missions was made by the mission carpenters. They made bed frames, benches, chests, tables and chairs. At first this furniture was very simple in design. As the carpenters became more skilled in the use of metal woodworking tools, they were able to decorate the furniture with carvings.
Some of the fanciest carving was done on furnishings for the church. The pulpit, where the padre stood to deliver his sermon to the congregation, was like a box attached to the wall of the church. The padre climbed a small set of stairs to get to the pulpit. The pulpit was often decorated with carvings or paintings. A small canopy roof over the pulpit, also attached to the wall, was likewise decorated. The pulpit in the church at Mission San Buenaventura is one of the finest examples of mission carving.
The interior of the church was always decorated as much as possible with paintings and statues. Some statues were carved by Indian wood carvers.
As mission carpenters’ skills grew, they made handles for metal tools from the blacksmith shop. The first plows had forked tree trunks for the handles. Later, handles were crafted by the carpenters. Mission carpenters also made coffins for the burials of padres or soldiers.
Some carpentry work that has survived the years are the wooden doors on some of the original mission buildings. The doors at the missions were important, and were often carved with a special design. A favored design was called the “River of Life.” Pairs of wavy lines were carved from top to bottom of the door. This was an Indian design, a reminder that life is not always good and not always bad, but that life just goes on, like a river.
Though most of the missions were near the coast, the padres did not encourage boat building. There was one ship built at a mission. This was at Mission San Gabriel in 1830, just a few years before the missions were secularized (taken from the Catholic Church). A 99-ton schooner named the Guadalupe was built at the mission. When it was completed, the ship was taken apart and hauled in pieces to the harbor at San Pedro. There it was reassembled and launched. It sailed to San Blas in Baja California with a load of mission goods.
ASISTENCIAS (SUB-MISSIONS)
The California missions were established in a chain along the coast line, none of them far from the ocean. The Franciscan padres realized that there were many Native Californians living inland, away from the coast, who were not being brought into the missions. They wanted to establish more missions inland, but the government officials did not agree with this.
As a compromise, the padres were allowed to build sub-missions, or asistencias, in places where there was an Indian population that was not coming to the main mission. The asistencia served as a sub-mission or branch of the “mother” mission. The asistencia was much smaller than the main mission, though there were living quarters, workshops and crops in addition to a church.
Mission San Rafael began as an asistencia for Mission San Francisco de Asís in 1817, but grew to a size where it was granted full mission status in 1823. Besides San Rafael, there were four other asistencias: Nuestra Señora de los Angeles founded by Mission San Gabriel in 1784; Santa Margarita de Cortona founded by Mission San Luis Obispo in 1787; San Antonio de Pala founded by Mission San Luis Rey in 1810; and Santa Ysabél founded by Mission San Diego in 1818.
Many missions had large ranchos or estancias at some distance from the mission compound. More than 20 of these estancias had small chapels for the use of the people who worked and lived at the rancho. A padre would come occasionally to conduct services at the estancia chapel. These chapels were sometimes referred to as asistencias, but were not considered as sub-missions according to church records.
San Antonio de Pala
In 1795 Padre Juan Mariner chose a mission site in the Pala Valley, along a river where many Indians lived. This site was overlooked when Mission San Luis Rey was founded closer to the ocean. As the years passed, Padre Peyri at San Luis Rey was unable to convince the Indians in the Pala Valley to leave their beautiful home and come to San Luis Rey. On June 13, 1816, a church was dedicated at Pala and a sub-mission founded. Before this, Mission San Luis Rey had used land in the Pala Valley as a rancho.
The Pala asistencia was named for St. Anthony, an early Franciscan missionary. A church was constructed of adobe bricks with a tile roof. Soon other buildings -- a granary, dormitories for women and men, and storehouses -- were added to the compound. An irrigation system brought water to the crops that were planted there. The fields of grain at San Antonio de Pala were large enough to supply most of the grain for Mission San Luis Rey. San Antonio de Pala also had a vineyard and orchards of fruit and olive trees.
One of Pala’s charming features is its bell wall that was made separate from the rest of the buildings. Two bells hang in the bell wall, one above the other. A cross tops the wall, and at the foot of the cross, a cactus is growing out of the adobe. Some say that Father Peyri planted the cactus there when the church and bell wall were new. Others say that a bird dropped a seed and the cactus grew from that.
San Antonio de Pala functioned as an asistencia until 1835, when it was taken over by the Mexican government. In the early 1900s some restoration was attempted. In the 1960s the buildings were rebuilt. The church is now used for services by the Indians living nearby.
Santa Ysabél
In 1816 the padres at Mission San Diego had asked the governor for permission to found a mission 60 miles east of San Diego in the Santa Ysabél Valley. Their request was denied. In September 1818, the padres went ahead and put up a temporary chapel there to serve the 250 Indians living in the area. Soon there was a permanent adobe church, granary, and living quarters.
Santa Ysabél was in operation until the Mexican government secularized all the missions, taking them from the Catholic Church. The Santa Ysabél buildings were destroyed, but a padre continued to hold services in a brush shelter. For some years the two bells of Santa Ysabél hung from a wooden frame. They had been purchased by the Indians, for six burro loads of barley and wheat, to preserve them.
The chapel at Santa Ysabél was rebuilt in 1924 with money from a Canadian-born missionary priest, Edmond La Pointe, who served there for 29 years. La Pointe is buried at Santa Ysabél. The church, now known as St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, is a parish church.
Santa Margarita de Cortona
The asistencia of Santa Margarita was once a rancho of Mission San Luis Obispo. It was named for St. Margaret of Lavinio and Cortona, Italy. The rancho was granted asistencia status in 1787.
Santa Margarita was located about ten miles northeast of Mission San Luis Obispo and about 30 miles south of Mission San Miguel. Padres from these missions as well as from Mission San Antonio de Padua sometimes met at Santa Margarita to visit and to discuss religious matters.
From its beginning as a rancho, Santa Margarita was a success. It covered 17,000 acres with grain fields and pastures for cattle, sheep and horses. As an asistencia, it had a chapel, priests’ quarters, storage rooms, a mill, and tallow vats. It was a stopping place for travelers on El Camino Real, and a place of refuge for the people of Mission San Carlos Borromeo when they fled from the pirate Bouchard.
Today there is only one small portion of a ruined building to show where Santa Margarita stood.
Nuestra Señora de los Angeles
This church was founded by the padres at Mission San Gabriel after 44 settlers established the pueblo (town) of Los Angeles in 1781. A new church was built in 1814. The present church, known as the Old Plaza Church, was constructed from materials of the previous church.
The City of Los Angeles has grown up around the site of this former asistencia. The church continues to be the parish church for the neighborhood.