Missionary Conquest

When God was the justification back in the world to do whatever you wanted, whether it may be rape, stealing, and pillaging what wasn’t yours. Where was the line to what was ok and wasn’t? This paper will discuss the idea of the Missionary Conquest that happened between the Spaniards and Natives along with their cultural genocide and how the history that went on clearly affected the livelihood of California’s residents, architecture, and culture today. It is not uncommon to see Adobe Spanish style homes, spanish street names, and the teachings in our educational curriculum. It will also discuss the hegemony that went on during this time period as it is evident in the culture and society of San Diego, California. The texts used in this essay
The missionary colonies were designed to totally assimilate the indigenous into the European culture and Catholic religion. Whereas the mercantile colonies were designed to be a mother and child type of system. The colonies would produce raw goods so they could import them and create wealth. They would also leave the mother country to always have exports so to create development at home. (Tinker 5) The Spanish viewed the natives in two ways a form of labor which could be exploited and the success of the Spanish colonies in the Americas was based on this exploitation. On another level, they viewed the Indians as having souls which could be brought to their God. This was how they integrated the local people into their European infrastructures, they focused on conversion and colonization (missionary) and exploitation and harvest (mercantile) The merchants had the ability to exploit the resources as well as harvest the animals that resided there. The depended on the natives, so they could be processors, laborers for them to create more products for the mother country of Spain. (Lightfoot 10) As for the missionary side a man that led the religious conquest is Junipero Serra, who was a Franciscan monk who worked to spread the word of God in Mexico in 1750s and moved to present-day California. He founded the first mission in San Diego where he after spent the rest of his life
(Haas 16) Although there were people that were open to learning what the Spanish had to say, they Spaniards made the mistake to force the submission to the Spanish Crown, it waged a war against anyone that rejected it. As you can see the natives were pieces to play as they were able to convert them into this religion that they didn't know. They were told of a salvation after death if they followed this one true path. So they would blindly follow, because of that promise. These missions, however were ill equipped for the natives on the land. They were subjected to disease, labor issues, unsanitary conditions, social issues with internal struggles. (Cooke 23) They were used to lives of free spirit and cohabiting with each other in harmony (which is ironic since it was seen as barbaric). To the missionaries the things that went on within the tribes were all sins in God’s eyes. Since these were hunter gather people being omnivores was in their diet. Since the crops were sometimes poorly managed the natives were subjected to a barley mush (Frost 24) which weren’t sufficient enough for them to live on. As they were used to nuts, berries, and small fish/animals. So as you can see the lifestyle on these missions was not a happy one, so much so that fugitivism and running away from the missions was their escape. After this we started having repeated acts of resistance or rebellion, (ex