IN MY estimation the work of Father Francis Guest exhibits two notable
qualities: One is the objectivity with which he judges most situations,
without the apologetic bent often found in work of this type. Another is the
impressive number of direct documentary sources which have been used. Among the
paper's significant contributions, I would point to the advice offered regarding
the caution we must use in employing the expression "mission system." Such a
phrase carries the risk of falling into invalid generalizations since, as he
makes manifest, the missions presented a series of variants. Among these stand
out those of Nuevo Santander, established under the influence of José de Escandón.
The general conclusions reached by our speaker are also very
important and I would summarize them in the following manner:
(A) The original projects of the Spanish government for the
colonization of Upper California conceived of a system of mission towns which
were racially integrated, including the presidios, and based on
agricultural production. This was different from the older system of mission
plus garrison (presidio), with the two entities physically separate, as
seen in Baja California. The new system clearly violated the portions of the
Leyes de Indias which required certain minimum distances between Spanish
towns and Indian settlements.
(B) This governmental proposal for racial integration of
mission Indians and civilized men (gente de razón) was achieved in only a
very small way due to two basic factors: (1) The attitude of the missionaries,
who sought to isolate the Indians from people who might present disturbing
examples, and (2) the generally bad conduct which was frequent among both
soldiers and civilian Spaniards.
(C) As a consequence, in their actual functioning, the
missions of Upper California probably did not differ in any significant way from
the older missions to the South.
This last conclusion carries special interest and, given the
similarity which Father Guest demonstrates between the missions of Upper and
Lower California, I think it is worthwhile to present a brief resumé of the
operation of the latter. In that way it may be possible to point out with
greater clarity the similarities which in fact existed, and also to highlight
certain differences.
The Jesuit missionaries established themselves on the
peninsula of Baja California in 1697, imposing themselves with tenacity on the
inhospitable soil. Although the occupation was financed with their own
resources, the Jesuits obtained from the Crown a number of concessions which
made them the supreme spiritual and civil authority in the region. They
established a unique regime in the missions, one with theocratic aspects, which
aspired to a utopia of a fully Christian society based on a reformed Indian
community. Under the administration of the missionaries, the Indians worked the
land in a communal fashion, and the product was distributed in the same way. In
practice, the low productivity of the mission centers, due primarily to the
aridity of the soil, forced the Jesuits to adopt a system of alternating visits
to the missions by the Indians. This circumstance had prejudicial effects on the
Indians, since they were unable to assimilate in a definitive way to the new
life-style. This, in turn, was a factor in their demographic decline.
Afraid that the mission Indians might be exposed to
disturbing influences, the Jesuits avoided as much as possible the settlement of
people in the region who were independent of the Mission network. By the time
the Jesuit period was well advanced, these obstacles to civil colonization
brought the followers of Loyola into conflicts with the authorities and with
private individuals. One is reminded of the conflicts between Fray Junípero
Serra and the Governor Pedro Fages in Upper California, although the context is
somewhat different. While discouraging colonization, the Jesuits also refused to
distribute the land among the Indians as individual property, with the same
result as in Upper California, that the Indian was never prepared for a life
independent of the mission.
Given the peculiarities of their regime, the Jesuit missions
were exceptions within the framework of New Spain which, among other things,
impeded the growth of taxpaying Spanish and Indian towns on the peninsula. To
the contrary, they regularly required aid from the Crown. As a general result of
the mission period, for reasons which have not been adequately explained, the
Indian population suffered a dramatic decline. One must conclude that as of the
expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768, the effort to establish a permanent Christian
society had not only failed, but had been unable to establish the bases of a secular society.
Following the departure of the Jesuits, the viceregal
authorities established a new order which affirmed civil power and subordinated
the succeeding Franciscans and Dominicans to it. In this context the authorities
began to encourage civil colonization by settling people independently of the
missionaries. The ultimate goal was to create towns of Spaniards and Indians
which would supplant in importance the mission settlements. To this end, land
was taken from the missions and distributed to soldiers from the garrisons which
were connected with the missions and to Spaniards and Criollos from the
far side of the Sea of Cortes, in particular from Sinaloa. Lands were also given
to the Indians with the intent of removing them from the tutelage of the missionaries.
In general, the initiatives of the government were failures.
The anticipated new settlement centers failed to develop. As time passed the
population grew—for other reasons—but continued concentrating in the communities
which had originated as missions, considerably changing their character in the
process. The Indians, in spite of legal restriction, sold the lands given to
them and continued in the same lamentable conditions. Consequently, speaking in
terms of racial integration as does Father Guest, we find that it did not exist,
since the Spaniards and Criollos continued to constitute a sector completely
separate from the Indians. The latter continued the drift towards depopulation
and remained in the same cultural backwardness in which they had been discovered
by the missionaries. They never adopted the western life-style as exemplified by
those who called themselves "civilized men" (gente de razón).
Unquestionably there were mestizos on the peninsula, but they were the
product of intermarriage which took place outside the region, in the continental
massif of Mexico. They had no blood relationship with the indigenous
Californians who, dispersed over the hills and debilitated by a series of
diseases, marched towards their extinction.
During the first half of the nineteenth century this process
of extinction intensified, leading to the decay of the missions, which entered
their last phase in the decade 1830-40. From that period, and until the
departure of the last Dominicans in 1855, the majority of the missions had only
a nominal existence.
In summary, it is worth reflecting that, as much in the
process of colonization in Baja California as in that of Alta California, one
notes different tendencies in the missionaries and in the civil authorities.
This was a consequence of substantial differences in goals and especially in the
hierarchies of objectives. For the missionaries the basic objective was
conversion of the Indians and their preservation within the observance of the
Catholic faith. Beside that, everything else was secondary. On the other hand,
for the civil authorities the first priority was the affirmation of royal power
in the region. They sought to turn its inhabitants into loyal vassals of
the King and contributors to his treasury—or at least to
remove them from welfare.
If one keeps in mind this divergence of aims as the
background of the events which transpired during the colonization process, one
understands better the opposing forces which operated within it. These forces
sometimes interfered with colonization, sometimes resisted it, and sometimes
confronted it with violence, as in the previously mentioned altercation between
Fray Junípero Serra—custodian of the souls of the mission Indians—and Governor
Pedro Fages—representative of the temporal power and guardian of royal
interests. In this thundering polemic the actors spoke totally different
languages, each incomprehensible to the other. One wonders how much of either
argument was intelligible to the Indians, passive personalties in a drama which
was deciding their destiny.
