Skip to main content

What happened to Native Americans at California missions?

What happened to Native Americans at California missions?

Life in the Mission The natives lived in the missions until their religious training was complete. Then, they would move to homes outside of the missions. Once the natives converted to Christianity, the missionaries would move on to new locations, and the existing missions served as churches.

What happened to Native Americans in missions?

Local tribes were relocated and conscripted into forced labor on the mission, stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. Disease, starvation, over work and torture decimated these tribes. Many were baptized as Roman Catholics by the Franciscan missionaries at the missions.

What major problems did the natives face in the missions?

Crowded, harsh living conditions at the missions contributed to the Indians’ health problems, and infant mortality and death rates among young children soared. It was the tribes of the coast, the “Mission Indians,” who were most drastically affected.

How did the Native Americans feel about living at the missions?

They were put to work tending mission farms, livestock, and facilities and discouraged—in some cases prohibited—from leaving their home mission. Many were converted; many died of European diseases to which they had no immunity; and many became dependent upon the missions for subsistence and shelter.

How did Spanish treat natives?

The Spanish attitude toward the Indians was that they saw themselves as guardians of the Indians basic rights. The Spanish goal was for the peaceful submission of the Indians. The laws of Spain controlled the conduct of soldiers during wars, even when the tribes were hostile.

What happened to the Indians after the missions closed?

Many were converted; many died of European diseases to which they had no immunity; and many became dependent upon the missions for subsistence and shelter. When the authority of the missions was officially ended by the Mexican government in 1834, many of the tribes were left adrift.

How did Native Americans respond to missionaries?

Most tribes at least initially welcomed the missionaries, although reactions were mixed even among members of the same tribe. Impressed by white technology, many Indians believed that white culture must hold some spiritual power as well, and they were willing to hear what the missionaries had to offer.

What did Indians do in missions?

What did the Spanish do to the natives in California?

At the missions, Native Americans were converted to Christianity and taught various skills. The Spanish divided California into four military districts, each under the jurisdiction of a military establishment or presidio, which protected several missions and vast areas of land.

Why were California missions secularized?

Between 1834 and 1836, the Mexican government confiscated California mission properties and exiled the Franciscan friars. The missions were secularized–broken up and their property sold or given away to private citizens. Secularization was supposed to return the land to the Indians.

What did the English do to the natives?

The Native Americans were forced to give up their lands so the colonists could grow even more tobacco. In addition to their desire for land, the English also used religion to justify bloodshed. In 1637, New England Puritans exterminated thousands of Pequot Indians, including women and children.

How did the natives respond to the Spanish violence against them?

How did the Natives respond to the Spanish cruelty? They hid their food from the Spanish and hid their wives and children in “lurking holes” [caves]. Some of them ran away to the mountains to escape punishment by the Spanish.

Why did Native Americans reject Christianity?

Of course, there is great truth to this assertion, as many indigenous peoples in the Americas fundamentally rejected Christianity because of its association with the colonial powers that oppressed them. In the United States today only a small percentage of Native Americans identify as Christian.

Did Native Americans resist Christianity?

Most native Americans reaffirmed their traditional beliefs and strenuously resisted Christianity.

What did the Spaniards do to the natives?

From first contact in the Caribbean, Spaniards uprooted natives from their homelands, forced them to give up their treasures, and placed them in captivity.

How did the Spanish exploit the indigenous peoples?

From the onset, the conquistadors sought as their reward control over the Indigenous people to enrich themselves. They implemented in Mexico the encomienda system, a continuation of the pre-conquest tribute and labor system with a redistribution of its benefits to the colonizers (Lockhart, 28).

How did missionaries convert natives?

In converting natives, missionaries had to find various ways of implementing sacramental practices among them. Some sacraments, like Baptism, were already similar to the Nahuatl rituals during birth, usually performed by a midwife.