Atlas of Hispanic-American History

As in New Mexico and Texas, mis-

sions were the advance guard of coloniza-

tion. The Franciscan priest Junípero

Serra (1713–1784) founded a mission and

presidio at San Diego. By the 1820s the

Franciscans had built a chain of more

than 20 missions near the California

coast, from San Diego to north of San

Francisco Bay. The local Native

Americans were taught the Catholic faith

while being forcibly resettled near the

missions and compelled to work as man-

ual laborers under the direction of the

missionaries. Poor Hispanic settlers from

New Spain were induced to settle in the

pueblos, or towns, that grew up around

missions. Cattle ranching became a pri-

mary occupation, with hides and tallow

among colonial California’s chief exports.

California cities that originated as mis-

sions founded by Father Serra include

Carmel (1770), San Francisco (1776),

Santa Clara (1777), and Los Angeles

(1781). The Spanish presence is still felt

in California, not only in Spanish place-

names but in the many examples of

Spanish colonial architecture that sur-

vive, including San Francisco’s presidio.

Despite the burst of colonizing ener-

gy represented by the California mission

system, Spain’s heyday as a colonial

empire by that time had long since past.

By the 1830s, nothing would remain of

Spain’s American empire but Cuba and

Puerto Rico, and those fragments would

be gone by the end of the century.

62 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY

California’s Spanish mission system, built between 1769 and 1823, stretched from

present-day San Diego in the south to Sonoma County in the north.

The California Mission System, 1769–1823