The California missions or Moc’s were built in the late 18th century as a part of the colony expansion plan of the King of Spain. The Spaniards wanted to expand their territories and as their expansion plan sent missionaries of Franciscan order to preach and convert the Native Americans of Alta California into Christianity.
The beginning
The missionaries built missions across the coastal areas of California and its adjourning areas. They built as many as twenty one missions, out of which nineteen where built along the coastal lines and two inland. These missions served as the centre of conversion and as military outposts, the missions were built on simple lines as no missionaries were architects and no locals of the State a skilled laborer. The missions were built on large areas and the converted natives lived on the lands of the missions and worked for the missionaries. Each mission had a chapel of their own.
Mission’s objectives
The missions were built with an objective of converting the primates of the area into Christianity. They did so as a part of colonization plan of Spain. With the objective of colonization, military outposts too were set up on the lands of the mission. The mission provided land for the people of the state to stay and in the process of educating them, they also taught them vocational skills. The missionaries taught the people how to cultivate and rear animals. They also taught them handwork skills like knitting and weaving. The residents of the missions worked as artisans, blacksmiths, and cooks in the mission. Other than vocational skills, the missionaries also provided the people with education of English and Spanish languages. They changed the living ways of the people with an objective to civilize them.
Functioning of MoC’s
The missionaries were Catholics and they came with the motive of converting and baptizing the people into Christian religion believers. The architecture of the missions was simple and the natives were relocated into the lands of the missions. These people cultivated crops and reared animals in their allocated piece of land. The missionaries stayed at one place until and unless the conversion and civilization process of the natives were not complete. Once the task was completed, they converted the missions into churches and moved to other places in search of new set of uncivilized tribes and worked for their conversions.
A number of churches built
As a part of Missions of California, the first mission was built in 1769 in a land which they named as San Diego. After the completion of their first task, they built other twenty missions which were around thirty miles apart from each other. The lands were not chosen as per any plan, they were chosen due to the close proximities to each other. Each journey took the missionaries a day on the horseback or three days if they chose to walk. Wherever they stopped for taking rest, they decided to built and work for the people of that area and hence the other churches came to be where they today stand.
Contact :
Contact Person: Maureen Sullivan
E-mail: [email protected]
Old Mission San Luis Rey de Francia
Address: 4050 Mission Avenue, Oceanside, CA 92057-6402
Tel/Fax: (760) 757-3651
Website: http://www.sanluisrey.org/