Spanish Mission System

Spanish Mission System
Describe the Spanish Mission System. What was its main purpose? Why did the mission priests treat its neophyte Indians the way they did? (Chapter 4)
Located in every fifty to seventy miles between San Francisco and San Diego were missions, which became the most productive and largest Spanish communities in the entire Alta California. Father Junipero Serra established the first nine of these missions between 1769 and 1784. Father-President Fermin de Lasuen, Serra’s successor later founded nine other missions during his tenure spanning between 1785 and 1803 in efforts to strengthen the colony (Rice et al 81). Lasuen strengthened irrigation systems, expanded agriculture, and diversified industrialization to make missions sufficient and productive. With his administration, the population of neophytes rose to 20,000 by the end of the eighteenth century, thus reflecting the system’s greater wealth, maturity, and strong labor forces. In keeping with a close association between the state in Spain and the church and the empire, the Spanish mission system played different and sometimes contradictory roles in California.
As an institution, the Spanish mission system aimed to integrate and indoctrinate the aborigines into the Catholic religion, the Spanish colonial empire, and various aspects of Hispanic culture. Led by Father Junipero Serra, the spiritual leader of the controversial sacred expedition, the institution was to Christianize, turn aborigines into Spaniards, and transform the natives into a robust workforce (Rice et al 81). The mission served as industrial schools in addition to converting the Indians to Catholicism. Priests found it necessary to discipline neophytes, introduce specialized tasks, and appoint highly skilled Indians as leaders. Through the system, the missions cultivated large tracts of land, set up more reliable and large irrigation systems, and become more reliable than other Spanish settlements (Rice et al 87).
Despite the achievements that the missions had in California, mission priests’ attitudes toward the neophyte Indians ranged from kindly paternalism at best to hostile racism at worst. They had established that the neophytes were without government or religion and had more than superstitions and democracy akin to those of ants. As most of the 142 Franciscans serving before the 1840s were idealistic, deeply religions, and committed to save the souls of Indians, they assumed the role as custodians and teachers guiding neophytes into their culture (Rice et al 82). This explains why the mission priests could treat the neophytes the way they did.
Why did the United States wish to purchase California from Spain, then Mexico? Describe the main events in California from 1846 to 1848 that led to its’ annexation by the United States. (Chapter 9)
The United States demonstrated a growing interest to acquire the western territory since the 1820s. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was particularly part of the efforts of maintaining these interests against encroachment by the Russians, which further led to the relinquishing of the Russian’s claims of the 54o40o north latitude as the U.S. relinquished its claims of north of the line (Rice et al 144). During the 1830s...