| Pages:
1
2
3
4 |
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64490
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
Quote a Native American source???
Native American alive during the Spanish occupation are NO LONGER ALIVE... and developed no books to document events that we can study 200-300+ years
later. THEY were NOT YET ADVANCED to that point. Some cave art that dates back 500-10,000 years shows no advanced communication skills, just
representations of ideas or events. Now elbeau has done some fascination interpretations of cave art, and I welcome them. I do not fear the truth if
some revelation is found in them. I don't need the Catholics in Baja to be superior to the Indians for any opinion.
The Indians were stuck in caveman-like conditions without progress. Maybe they didn't need more out of life or maybe they were awaiting the arrival of
other men from other shores to jump start their evolution. Sad that diseases decimated them so the history is not complete.
So, you can add all the opinions you want on how wonderful life was as a Californian before the evil Europeans arrived, but you have no documentation
to back up those New Age ideas on their life.
I do not assign advanced or superior values to one group over another, I just report what was documented and on what I have observed at mission and
Indian sites in Baja California. I prefer to discover the facts and then let other run with them, hopefully to make more discoveries and not just to
further their political agenda.
|
|
|
sargentodiaz
Nomad
Posts: 259
Registered: 2-20-2013
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Member Is Offline
|
|
Quote: Originally posted by monoloco  | | OK I'll bite. I doubt than anyone knows exactly to what degree Serra was culpable in mistreating
the natives but it certainly seems, from his own writings, that he supported whippings and other punishments of the people whose land the padres
claimed dominion over. Based on that alone, I really don't see how he could be considered a "saint". What exactly were the two miracles (a condition
of sainthood) that he supposedly performed? |
The ONE instance of "whipping" I've explained.
Like all adults of the time, parents looked upon "spanking" as a common way of trying to enforce the way of right and wrong.
In the case of the friars, the general rule was to put the culpable individual before the group (in itself a strong punishment as shame was, by far,
the worst thing that could happen to the Indians) to explain exactly what the error was and what behavior was expected.
They would then be publicly "spanked" using a willow rod - the rule being NOT to bruise and definitely never to draw blood.
This Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child was common into the early to mid 20th Century. In fact, one friar was stripped of his license and forced to
return to Mexico for harsh punishment of the converts of his mission.
|
|
|
rts551
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6699
Registered: 9-5-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: Originally posted by David K |
I do not assign advanced or superior values to one group over another, I just report what was documented and on what I have observed at mission and
Indian sites in Baja California. I prefer to discover the facts and then let other run with them, hopefully to make more discoveries and not just to
further their political agenda. |
Then why not accept someone elses point of view?
|
|
|
sargentodiaz
Nomad
Posts: 259
Registered: 2-20-2013
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: Originally posted by David K | | Stop with the talking points and include the rest of my reply. To the natives the Spanish provided food without hunting. Built houses with roofs.
Communicated with 'talking paper'. The natives were wowed and saw the Spanish as advanced and that was an attraction to join the missions.
|
And the Spanish showed them ways of avoiding famine - which often forced them to put their babies and elderly out in the wild to die - and to find
protection from harsh and hazardous weather. They no longer had to depend upon hunting and encountering the dangerous Grizzly Bears that roamed
everywhere and killed many of them.
As they had no healers, the friars used native herbs to create medicine to help heal injuries and some illnesses.
Most import - and probably least understood - was that the friars, in their teaching of Jesus dying so they might have a life after death, gave them
something to look forward to in their life beyond the time of their death. It gave them hope - something that cannot be quantified
|
|
|
SFandH
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6929
Registered: 8-5-2011
Member Is Offline
|
|
Interesting thread. Thanks to the informed nomads who made time to post a portion of what they know. It's appreciated.
Certainly two sides to this story. The side of the conquerors and the side of the conquered.
From a conqueror:
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, who credited Father Serra with bringing “Christianity to this part of the world,” said he
understood why Indians were upset, acknowledging the whippings and coercive environment. But missionaries also taught school and farming, he said.
Throughout history, a more powerful civilization “will dominate and seek to transform the weaker one,” Archbishop Cordileone said. “European powers
were going to discover this continent and settle here. Were the indigenous people better off with the missionaries or without the missionaries? I
would say they were better off with the missionaries.”
From the conquered:
Mr. Medina was less forgiving. “Father Serra could have gone against the policy of the church and advocated for Indian people,” he said.
Canonizing “the leader of the disastrous, genocidal California mission system is a way that the church further legitimizes the pain and suffering of
Ohlone and countless other California Indians.” Canonization would only deepen the divide between Native Americans and the Roman Catholic Church, he
said.
When he gives tours, Mr. Medina tells students to “imagine walking home from school, and people have taken the things you care about and make you
change your name, your religion and your language.” He spares them the more brutal information, such as how girls and unmarried women were pulled from
their families and forced to sleep in tight quarters until they were married off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/us/to-some-indians-in-cali...
[Edited on 4-2-2015 by SFandH]
|
|
|
elbeau
Nomad
Posts: 256
Registered: 3-2-2011
Location: Austin, TX
Member Is Offline
|
|
A question that occurs to me is whether or not the Jesuit enterprise even had the potential to improve the life of the natives if it weren't for the
epidemics.
Imagine the ideal scenario that Kino, Salvatierra, Piccolo, and the other early Jesuits probably hoped for. Imagine what would have happened if they
had been successful in converting 100% of the Indians, teaching them to dress themselves, and teaching them to live in population centers and practice
15th and 16th century agriculture without any reduction in the native population.
Let's not pretend that the missions were ever self-sustaining. They required a constant flow of foreign provisions just to support the subset of
Indians that resided there, despite aggressive attempts to grow enough food.
If the epidemics hadn't happened and all the Indians had chosen to live the teachings of the Padres, they would have starved to death in very short
order.
Your point about the Indians not caring for the elderly is debatable, but I'll pretend like it's an established fact for the sake of this
conversation. Do you think the Jesuits could have successfully taught the Indians to feed their elders in those circumstances? Do you think they
could have given nursing mothers three times the rations as others (which is what they report doing to solve the abortion problem)?
You can't feed the elderly and feed nursing mothers without food.
Are you seeing the pattern here? You are claiming that the missionaries solved serious social problems by educating the Indians and by teaching them
advanced technologies and skills...but that is not true.
Yes, the Jesuits showed up with beautiful robes, shiny armor, colorful beads, gorgeous textiles, powerful weapons, and strong tools...but none of
those things helped the mission system become self-sustaining. None of these things solved any of the problems you're naming.
On the other hand, the Indians were found naked, uneducated (in the traditional European sense), and with comparatively little technology...but these
"barbarians" were far more successful at scratching out a living in the peninsula than the Jesuits ever were.
The missions only appeared to succeed because the Indians kept living differently than the Europeans until epidemics reduced their numbers to a point
that could be sustained by 16th-century agriculture at the missions.
The solutions to these problems that the Jesuits supposedly solved all revolve around the idea that the Jesuits replaced bad old traditions with good
new traditions. That NEVER happened. The Indians didn't turn their bows into plow-shares, they turned their metate's into grave-markers. They
didn't successfully adopt a European style of living (which, according to comments in this thread, is apparently defined as one free of abuse of the
elderly, abortion, and war(citation needed)).
The Indians simply died off until mission agriculture could support their puny, leftover, cultureless population. It's true that once the native
population reached this point, there might not have been a lot of elderly abuse, there might not have been many abortions, and there weren't any more
tribal conflicts, but are we really going to pretend that these are remarkable social achievements?
I welcome other opinions, but I have a hard time seeing any significant benefits that the mission system brought to the Indians. That's not to say
that I think the missionaries themselves were bad. I think that many of them were kind, well-intentioned people, but I'm not going to give much
credit to their enterprise in general.
|
|
|
monoloco
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6667
Registered: 7-13-2009
Location: Pescadero BCS
Member Is Offline
|
|
Well stated elbeau.
"The future ain't what it used to be"
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64490
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
That is excellent elbeau!
The conditions in Upper California were far better and the Franciscans under Serra were wise to give Lower California to the Dominicans, which was in
decline and far worse terrain and climate for agriculture. The Dominicans received assistance from the Franciscans for the Baja missions when Spain
reduced and stopped sending supply ships with the outbreak of the war for Mexico's independence (1810-1821).
|
|
|
academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
Registered: 9-7-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
David. Oral history is an important swource of information that is as useful and valid as are written documents, and you are wrong when you say that
there are no testimonies left by indigenous peoples who lived on the missions. One example is the text of Manuel Rojo that we discussed earlier. He
interviewed and recorded the accounts of mission residents. THere are other examples as well from the California missions. In the late 19th century
Alphonse Pinart, who was working with Bancroft at the time and happily stole documents from communities in Mexico, also recorded oral history accounts
by indigenous and non'indigenous peoples. They are now housed in The Bancroft Library at my alma mater. One example is the account of Lorenzo Asisara,
that provides important details regarding the assassination of Andres Quintana, O.F.M. at Santa Cruz misssion in 1812.
As regards other comments in the thread. Serra authorized the usee of corporal punishment. In one of his most objectionable publications, Francis
Guest, O.F.M. made the same argument about corporal punishment, that it was equivalent to a parent spanking a child. Not so. The responses madee by a
number of Franciscan missionaries to an 1812 questionnaire sent by the Spanish government documents the differnent forms of corpoiral punishment. And
it is not so easy to dismiss the practice. Corporal punishment was not an element of indigenous culture, and was humiliating as well as painful. The
Franciscans, people like GUest, have attempted to trivialize the practice. In one translation of a colonial'era source published by the Academy of
American Franciscan History, the translation was changed from [beat[ to [spank,[ for obvious political reassons.
As regards other comments, Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, indigenous peoples had religious beliefs and a concept of the afterlife. The
missionaries simply had a different one, When the natives at Sta Cruz assassinated the rather sadistic Quintana 'he had pieces of metal added to the
whip he used to [spank[ the neophytes, he was castrated. The initial investigation of his death to not report this. The natives did this so that
Quintana would be miserable in the afterlife. The natives also had healers who used different remedies that were no better than what the Spanish
brought. Syphilis became a major problem among the native populations, and the missionaries used mercury pills to treat the ailment. One of the most
interesting colonial era codices here in central Mexico is the Codex de la Cruz Badiano, created around 1540. It took the knowledge of a non-existent
native healer on the different herbal remedies used in central Mexico, many still used here. The descriptions are accompanied by paintings of the
plants.
|
|
|
güéribo
Nomad
Posts: 239
Registered: 10-17-2014
Member Is Offline
|
|
Good contributions, academicanarchist and elbeau.
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2
3
4 |
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
