1.
Spanish missions in the Americas
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During the Age of Discovery, the Christian Church inaugurated a major effort to spread Christianity in the New World by converting indigenous peoples. As such, the establishment of Christian missions went hand-in-hand with the efforts of European powers such as Spain, France. For these nations, the enterprise was based on the necessity to develop European commerce. According to Adriaan van Oss, Catholicism remains the principal colonial heritage of Spain in America, more than any set of economic relationships. The Catholic religion continues to permeate Spanish-American culture today, creating a cultural unity which transcends the political and national boundaries dividing the continent. Christian leaders and Christian doctrines have been accused of justifying and perpetrating violence against Native Americans found in the New World, according to Colin Calloway, the Spanish missions also produced massive population decline, food shortages, increased demands for labor, and violence. However, other scholars point out that the Catholic Church often defended the rights of Native Americans, for example, Jesuits devoted themselves to the interests of Native Americans. The Spanish missions in the Carolinas were part of a series of religious outposts that Spanish Catholics established to spread Christian doctrine among the local Native Americans, the principal coastal mission and fort in the area was Santa Elena, which survived until 1587. The Spanish chapter of Georgias earliest colonial history is dominated by the mission era. The early missions in present-day Georgia were established to serve the Guale and various Timucua peoples, later the missions served other peoples who had entered the region, including the Yamassee. These missions brought grain, cattle, and a homeland for the California Native Americans. They had no immunity to European diseases, with subsequent indigenous tribal population falls, overland routes were established from New Spain that resulted in the establishment of a mission and presidio - now San Francisco, and a pueblo - now Los Angeles. The clash of Spanish and native cultures during the Spanish Las Californias-New Spain and these aspects have received more research in recent decades. The missions gave Spain a valuable toehold in the land, and introduced European livestock, fruits, vegetables. Eventually, a network of settlements was established each of the installations was no more than a long days ride by horse or boat from another. As early as the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the Kingdom of Spain sought to establish missions to convert pagans to Catholicism in Nueva España, New Spain consisted of the Caribbean, Mexico, and portions of what is now the Southwestern United States. To facilitate colonization, the Catholic Church decided to award these lands to Spain, the missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to colonize the Pacific Coast region, and gave Spain a valuable toehold in the frontier land. The government of Mexico shut down the missions in the 1830s, in the end, the mission had mixed results in its objective to convert, educate, and civilize the indigenous population and transforming the natives into Spanish colonial citizens
2.
Spanish missions in Baja California
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The missions gave Spain a valuable toehold in the frontier land, and introduced European livestock, fruits, vegetables, and industry into the region. Mexico secularized all missions in its territory in 1834 and the last of the departed in 1840. Some of the mission churches survive and are still in use, as early as the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the Kingdom of Spain sought to establish missions to convert pagans to Catholicism in Nueva España. New Spain consisted of the Caribbean, Mexico, and portions of what is now the Southwestern United States, to facilitate colonization, the Catholic Church awarded these lands to Spain. In addition to the presidio and pueblo, the misión was one of three major agencies employed by the Spanish crown to extend its borders and consolidate its colonial territories, asistencias were small-scale missions that regularly conducted Catholic religious services on days of obligation, but lacked a resident priest. Smaller sites called visitas also lacked a resident priest, and were attended only sporadically. Since 1493, the Crown of Spain had maintained missions throughout Nueva España, each frontier station was forced to be self-supporting, as existing means of supply were inadequate to maintain a colony of any size. Scarcity of imported materials and lack of skilled laborers compelled the Fathers to employ simple building materials, although the Spanish hierarchy considered the missions temporary ventures, individual settlement development was not based simply on priestly whim. The founding of a mission followed longstanding rules and procedures, the paperwork involved required months, sometimes years of correspondence, and demanded the attention of virtually every level of the bureaucracy. Once empowered to erect a mission in an area, the men assigned to it chose a specific site that featured a good water supply, proximity to a population of indigenous peoples. The padres, their military escort and often converted mainland indigenous people or mestizos initially fashioned defendable shelters, from which a base was established, construction of the iglesia constituted the focus of the settlement, and created the center of the community. The majority of mission sanctuaries were oriented on a roughly east-west axis to take the best advantage of the position for interior illumination. Indian peoples encountered by the Spanish missionaries in Baja California were the Kumeyaay, Cocopah, Pai Pai, Kiliwa, Cochimi, Monqui, Guaycura, and Pericu. The Indigenous peoples were housed often by gender, forcibly converted to Catholicism, recalcitrant indigenous peoples often ran away or revolted, and many missions maintained a precarious existence during the colonial era. Use of firearms, corporal punishment in the form of whippings and religious ritual and psychological punishments were all employed by the missionaries to maintain. At the time of first contact with the Spanish, the Native Americans living in Baja California may have numbered as many as 60,000, by 1762, their numbers had fallen to 21,000 and by 1800 to 5,900. The primary reason for the decline was recurrent epidemics of European diseases, primarily smallpox, measles, the spread of disease was facilitated by the missionarys practice of congregating the population near the mission. Endemic Syphilis resulted in higher mortality and a reduced birth rate
3.
Spanish missions in California
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The missions were part of a major effort by the Spanish Empire to extend colonization into the most northern and western parts of Spains North American claims. Following a long-term secular and religious policy of Spain in Latin America, Mexico achieved independence in 1821, taking Alta California along with it, but the missions maintained authority over native neophytes and control of vast land holdings until the 1830s. At the peak of its development in 1832, the mission system controlled an area equal to approximately one-sixth of Alta California. The Alta California government secularized the missions after the passage of the Mexican secularization act of 1833 and this divided the mission lands into land grants, which became many of the Ranchos of California. In the end, the missions had mixed results in their objectives, to convert, educate, today, the surviving mission buildings are the states oldest structures, and its most-visited historic monuments. Prior to 1754, grants of lands were made directly by the Spanish Crown. The missions were to be interconnected by a route which later became known as the Camino Real. The detailed planning and direction of the missions was to be carried out by Friar Junípero Serra, work on the coastal mission chain was concluded in 1823, completed after Serras death in 1784. Plans to build a mission in Santa Rosa in 1827 were canceled. The Santa Ysabel Asistencia had been founded in 1818 as a mother mission, in addition to the presidio and pueblo, the misión was one of the three major agencies employed by the Spanish sovereign to extend its borders and consolidate its colonial territories. Each frontier station was forced to be self-supporting, as existing means of supply were inadequate to maintain a colony of any size. California was months away from the nearest base in colonized Mexico, to sustain a mission, the padres required converted Native Americans, called neophytes, to cultivate crops and tend livestock in the volume needed to support a fair-sized establishment. The scarcity of imported materials, together with a lack of skilled laborers, compelled the missionaries to employ simple building materials, although the missions were considered temporary ventures by the Spanish hierarchy, the development of an individual settlement was not simply a matter of priestly whim. The padres blessed the site, and with the aid of their military escort fashioned temporary shelters out of tree limbs or driven stakes and it was these simple huts that ultimately gave way to the stone and adobe buildings that exist to the present. The first priority when beginning a settlement was the location and construction of the church, once the spot for the church had been selected, its position was marked and the remainder of the mission complex was laid out. The cuadrángulo was rarely a perfect square because the missionaries had no surveying instruments at their disposal and it was a doctrine established in 1531, which based the Spanish states right over the land and persons of the Indies on the Papal charge to evangelize them. It was employed wherever the indigenous populations were not already concentrated in native pueblos, the civilized and disciplined culture of the natives, developed over 8,000 year, was not considered. A total of 146 Friars Minor, mostly Spaniards by birth, were ordained as priests, sixty-seven missionaries died at their posts, while the remainder returned to Europe due to illness, or upon completing their ten-year service commitment
4.
Spanish missions in Florida
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Augustine to the area around Tallahassee, southeastern Georgia, and some coastal settlements, such as Pensacola, Florida. A few short-lived missions were established in locations, including Mission Santa Elena in present-day South Carolina, around the Florida peninsula. The missions of what are now northern Florida and southeastern Georgia were divided into four provinces where the bulk of missionary effort took place. These provinces roughly corresponded to the areas where those dialects were spoken among the varying Native American peoples, thus, there were also ephemeral attempts to establish missions elsewhere, particularly further south into Florida. It ended in failure after six weeks with de Cancers death at the hands of the Tocobaga natives, the first Spanish missions to the Indians of Florida, starting with the foundation of St. Augustine in 1565, were attached to presidios. Between 1565 and 1567 ten presidios were established at major harbors from Port Royal Sound to Tampa Bay to prevent other European powers from establishing bases in the area, most of the presidios were unsustainable. By 1573 the only remaining presidios in Florida were St. Augustine and Santa Elena, the missions at the presidios were staffed by the Jesuits. Due to the hostility of the Indians, which resulted in the murder of several of the missionaries, franciscan friars entered into La Florida in 1573, but at first confined their activities to the immediate vicinity of St. Augustine. The Franciscans began taking their mission to the Guale and Timucua Indians along the Atlantic coast in 1587, starting in 1606 the Franciscans expanded their mission efforts westward across Timucua territory, and by 1633 had established missions in Apalachee Province. The network of missions took its heaviest blow with Carolina Governor James Moores raids into the area during Queen Annes War, most of the Spanish missions in the Apalachee Province were wiped out during the Apalachee massacre. The mission buildings of La Florida were built with posts set into the ground, the walls were palmetto thatch, wattle and daub or plank, or left open. The floors were clay, and scholars believe the roofs were thatched, the church buildings in the missions averaged some 20 m by 11 m. Other buildings situated within a palisade included a convento to house the missionaries, a barracks for the soldiers, the Spanish used the term province for the territory of a tribe or chiefdom. There was no fixed definition of province boundaries, as tribes and chiefdoms lost population and importance, the provinces associated with them would no longer appear in the records. Other provinces expanded to take in their territories, most of the people taken into the mission system were Timucua speakers. Three major groups that other languages were also taken into the mission system. The Guale Province was the territory the Guale, and covered what is now coastal Georgia, the Guale were among the first people to be taken into the mission system, in the 1580s. Later in the 17th century, Guale Province was sometimes referred to as extending southward, the Apalachee Province included the Apalachee people, who spoke a Muskogean language, and were brought into the mission system in the 1630s
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