All about the ancient tribes
Goals of the Missions The main goal of the California missions was to convert Native Americans into devoted Christians and Spanish citizens. Spain used mission work to influence the natives with cultural and religious instruction.
What is the history of the Mission Indians?
The indians were wanting to hunt and gather food. The indians weren’t used to living indoors and preferred the outdoors. Q. What was one reason the Spanish missions closed down?
INDIAN MISSIONS represented an important form of contact between Indians and Europeans from the 1500s through the 1900s. No Native group escaped contact with Euro-American Christians seeking to restructure and transform Native beliefs and societies into Christian ones.
“Indians provided the workers that the missions needed. Some Indians came to the missions on their own. Others were forced to the missions by soldiers. Indians were taught new skills including farming.
Local tribes were relocated and conscripted into forced labor on the mission, stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. Disease, starvation, over work and torture decimated these tribes. Many were baptized as Roman Catholics by the Franciscan missionaries at the missions.
Most tribes at least initially welcomed the missionaries, although reactions were mixed even among members of the same tribe. Impressed by white technology, many Indians believed that white culture must hold some spiritual power as well, and they were willing to hear what the missionaries had to offer.
Daily life in the missions was not like anything the Native Texans had experienced. Most had routine jobs to perform every day, and the mission priests introduced them to new ways of life and ideas. The priests supervised all activities in the mission. They would often physically punish uncooperative natives.
The Ohlone indians had to clean,make the soap to bath,& they also worked in workshops. Ohlone indians had to make the soap for people to shower. Men had to hunt so the indians could eat. Mission San Francisco De Asis did not grow crops.
Along with their Indian charges, they, too, toiled in the missions, farmlands and ranches. They were responsible for those who lived with them and their welfare, often being the first to rise in the morning and, after bed check and prayers, the last to go to bed.
The main goal of the California missions was to convert Native Americans into devoted Christians and Spanish citizens. Spain used mission work to influence the natives with cultural and religious instruction.
The general purpose of the missions was to “reduce” or congregate the often nomadic tribes into a settlement, convert them to Christianity, and teach them crafts and agricultural techniques.
The Padres of the California Mission Frontier focuses on what it was like to be a priest at the California missions. Padres had many responsibilities beyond simply holding masses. They served as educators, community leaders, and planners and supervisors for many aspects of mission life.
Bells could be used to warn of a raid by Vikings, fire or flood. They pealed joyously on holidays and invited the surrounding country to religious services and festivals. Bells could welcome travelers just as priests Joseph Cavaller and Pablo Mugártegui did for the De Anza expedition in 1776.
The mission contributed to the economy in other ways. It established necessary industries such as weaving, iron working, and carpentry; these were important to the maintenance of the entire military and political structure of the eastern portion of the Spanish American frontier.
Spanish missions were explicitly established for the purpose of religious conversion and instruction in the Catholic faith. However, the mission system actually served as the primary means of integrating Indians into the political and economic structure of Florida’s colonial system.