BajaNomad

California Mission issue of News from Native California

gueribo - 3-7-2015 at 08:39 PM

Hello, All. For those interested in the California missions, I highly recommend reading this issue of News from Native California. Very moving.

http://newsfromnativecalifornia.com/store/issues/282/


[img][/img]

sargentodiaz - 3-9-2015 at 07:44 AM

Quote: Originally posted by gueribo  
Hello, All. For those interested in the California missions, I highly recommend reading this issue of News from Native California. Very moving.

http://newsfromnativecalifornia.com/store/issues/282/


[img][/img]



Thank you for the link.

But, let's be honest about this. The site is totally biased. They wish to portray the missions as a blight upon their illustrious history and advanced culture.

The Costanoan people lived in the area from Big Sur to the San Francisco peninsula. They had no skills other than building sweat lodges, used Stone Age tools, and survived day-to-day due to a lack of agrarian skills. Of course they're going to attack the very institution that gave them a chance for survival - it's the politically correct thing to do.

David K - 3-9-2015 at 07:53 AM

In all fairness Dale, while the native Californians may have been stuck in the stone age... and killed each other freely... the death and slave-like treatment brought upon them by many of the Franciscan and Dominican missionaries is what is the popular teaching now, over any good changes. The truth that they were going to be exposed to Europeans sooner or later doesn't spare the Catholics (or all white men) for the wrath they are getting in the past few years, deserved or not.

sargentodiaz - 3-10-2015 at 11:59 AM

Yes, David you are right.

I posted this on my blog and will share it on a number of Catholic sites I routinely visit - also on our favorite history site.

Those interested, check out my response to this @ http://msgdaleday.blogspot.com

elbeau - 3-10-2015 at 02:05 PM

A lot of it comes down to whether you're choosing to judge the enterprise or the individuals.

The enterprise was obviously disastrous to the tribes of Baja where most of the tribes went extinct. It's hard to argue that the enterprise in Alta California did much better considering the huge loss of life and culture, but there are some who still seem to disagree on this point.

On the other hand, if you're judging the individuals then you need to understand the individuals. Although Kino, Salvatierra, Piccolo, and Ugarte made mistakes and didn't adhere to a modern value system, when you read their writings and look at what they risked and worked through, it's hard to think that they weren't honestly well-intentioned. I think that they were decent people doing what they thought was right. I can't say the same about all of the Padres. Some of them didn't seem to care much about their "neophytes". Others were unashamedly cruel. Individuals are individuals, and everyone is different.

You can't judge all of the individuals that were involved in the process of missionization with any singular judgement. They were individuals.

The mission system on mainland Mexico was subservient to the cruel and heavy hand of the military. Kino witnessed this first-hand when Atondo unloaded cannon-fire on the Indians, killing several just to spite them as he sailed away from their lands to find a different spot to settle. This appears to have been a significant, motivating event in Kino's life.

Kino chose to try something completely different. He thought that religious governance would produce results that were morally conscionable compared to military campaigns and he worked with Salviterra and others to implement it.

I think that he spared many Indians the cruelty that other forms of European settlement would have brought had they ever been able to establish themselves in the peninsula. We get to look at his actions through the lens of history and see the other types of destruction that accompanied his plan, but I have a hard time thinking that he didn't honestly have the interests of the Indians at heart, despite the terrible outcome.

So yes, the enterprise brought many horrors. Many of the Padres were also morally bankrupt, but not all of them.

MMc - 3-10-2015 at 02:44 PM

When you are overrun by a greater military force, you are at their mercy. History shows this time and again, to rethink what was is, is pretty pointless. A web site that points out that a group of people were over run and enslaved can be put up by just about any group. History is full of man doing unjust things to each other.

Spain came to the Americas collect riches and to convert souls to Christ, they did both very well. Spaniards had a technology that the locals could not over come, steel, horses and gunpowder, the locals never had a chance. Now it's water under the bridge.

We are using today's standards to judge what happened 250 plus years ago. Slavery has common that that time around the world. We live in a very different world today.

[Edited on 3-10-2015 by MMc]