28 Facts About California missions

Spanish missions in California comprise a series of 21 religious outposts or missions established between 1769 and 1833 in what is the U S state of California.

The California missions began to lose control over land in the 1820s, as unpaid military men unofficially encroached, but officially California missions maintained authority over native neophytes and control of land holdings until the 1830s.

The Alta California government secularized the missions after the passage of the Mexican secularization act of 1833.

The oldest cities of California formed around or near Spanish missions, including the four largest: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco.

Plans for the Alta California missions were laid out under the reign of King Charles III, and came at least in part as a response to recent sightings of Russian fur traders along the California coast in the mid 1700s.

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The California missions were to be interconnected by an overland route which later became known as the Camino Real.

In September 1821, the Rev Mariano Payeras, "Comisario Prefecto" of the California missions, visited Canada de Santa Ysabel east of Mission San Diego de Alcala as part of a plan to establish an entire chain of inland missions.

California missions was months away from the nearest base in colonized Mexico, and the cargo ships of the day were too small to carry more than a few months' rations in their holds.

Some fanciful accounts regarding the construction of the California missions claimed that tunnels were incorporated in the design, to be used as a means of emergency egress in the event of attack; however, no historical evidence has ever been uncovered to support these assertions.

Alta California missions, known as reductions or congregations, were settlements founded by the Spanish colonizers of the New World with the purpose of totally assimilating indigenous populations into European culture and the Catholic religion.

Foreigners who visited the California missions remarked at how the priests' control over the Indians appeared excessive, but necessary given the white men's isolation and numeric disadvantage.

Indians were not paid wages as they were not considered free laborers and, as a result, the California missions were able to profit from the goods produced by the Mission Indians to the detriment of the other Spanish and Mexican settlers of the time who could not compete economically with the advantage of the mission system.

Goal of the California missions was, above all, to become self-sufficient in relatively short order.

California missions represents the "high-water mark" of Spanish expansion in North America as the last and northernmost colony on the continent.

Serra's plan was to extend the string of missions north from the Baja California peninsula, connected by an established road and spaced a day's travel apart.

None of the California missions ever attained complete self-sufficiency, and required continued financial support from mother Spain.

Arguably "the worst epidemic of the Spanish Era in California missions" was known to be the measles epidemic of 1806, wherein one-quarter of the mission Native American population of the San Francisco Bay Area died of the measles or related complications between March and May of that year.

In 1811, the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico sent an interrogatorio to all of the missions in Alta California regarding the customs, disposition, and condition of the Mission Indians.

The Franciscans soon thereafter abandoned most of the California missions, taking with them almost everything of value, after which the locals typically plundered the mission buildings for construction materials.

Pio de Jesus Pico, the last Mexican Governor of Alta California missions, found upon taking office that there were few funds available to carry on the affairs of the province.

California missions prevailed upon the assembly to pass a decree authorizing the renting or the sale of all mission property, reserving only the church, a curate's house, and a building for a courthouse.

When California became a U S state, California law stripped them of legal title to the land.

California missions was appointed by the College of San Fernando de Mexico until 1812, when the position became known as the "Commissary Prefect" who was appointed by the Commissary General of the Indies .

The missions are collectively the best-known historic element of the coastal regions of California:.

Virtually all of the artwork at the California missions served either a devotional or didactic purpose, there was no underlying reason for the mission residents to record their surroundings graphically; visitors found them to be objects of curiosity.

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Popularity of the missions stemmed largely from Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona and the subsequent efforts of Charles Fletcher Lummis, William Randolph Hearst, and other members of the "Landmarks Club of Southern California" to restore three of the southern missions in the early 20th century .

Today, the California missions exist in varying degrees of architectural integrity and structural soundness.

Many California missions have preserved historic features in addition to chapel buildings.