Friday, December 16, 2016

HISTORY: Things you didn't know about our central coast missions - 2/3/2017 Presentation

I will be giving a presentation on the Central Coast Missions to a service group on February 3, 2017. I doubt that it is open to the public, but in case it is, I will post information about how you can attend. I will be collecting some of my concepts for the presentation on this web page, so check back often.

I have visited all 21 California missions, and have studied them all in detail over the years. It was an amazing and transformative time in California history - not necessarily for the better, either! I have never given a presentation on this topic, but that is a good thing. I don't like giving presentations that I have already done before - I like new subjects that allow me to pull together my resources in an area of interest such as this. Stay tuned...
Above: My most favorite mission of all - La Purisima! Why? It's fascinating history, and the fact that it is the most completely restored of the 21 missions. Research continues, as the site is among the least disturbed of the missions, thus allowing new facts to continue to reveal themselves. 

 Speaker Biography: Tim Waag has a BS in Math and Computer Science from UCLA, and an MS in Math and an MBA from USC. He has been an adventurer and explorer since the time he could walk, and is a featured speaker at various historical societies across the state. He is an amateur archaeologist and is a member of the SLO County Archaeological Society, and works with various Native American tribes in a variety of social and cultural arenas. He is a trained archaeological site steward for several culturally sensitive sites around the state.

Featured Presentation: While we are all familiar with the California Mission system, there are many surprising facts that have been buried in history and mythology. For instance, Fact or Fiction: There were 21 California missions? Answer: Fiction. There were actually 48, founded between 1697 and 1834, with most located in what we now call “Baja" California. Tim will lead a lively discussion featuring little known facts about our central coast missions, focusing on San Antonio, San Miguel, San Luis Obispo, Santa Ines and La Purisima. While raising his 2 sons, Tim took them to visit all 21 “Alta” California missions, and along the way, was able to dive deep into their rich history.
Definitions. 
New Spain in the 1700's:  colonial territory of Spain in the new world north of the Isthmus of Panama

 Truth or Myth? The Spanish created the mission system in order to convert the Native Americans to Christianty? False. During the 1760's, officials of New Spain heard rumors of Russian and British advances towards the west coast of North America - a territory that Spain considered to be "theirs". Though this rumor was totally and completely false, as a precaution, the Spanish crown ordered the colonization of "Alta" (or upper) California. "Baja" (or lower) California had already been colonized and missionized in the region of Mexico that we know today as Baja California. 

 See the 2 maps above for the locations of the Alta and Baja California missions systems. Many believed that the mission system was forged in order to exploit gold and other resources in the area - also false. The Spanish had determined during previous colonization efforts in the 1500's that there was no gold or other resources of value in California. Oops! Of course, they got that wrong as well! Oh my. The new world, and especially Alta California, was a big place, and not much was actually known about it by the Spanish during their times of conquest.

 Truth or Myth? The 21 California missions were spaced to be “one days ride apart”? False. This is a myth that seems to have been created by the AAA (Automobile Association of America) and perpetuated by our United States school systems, as well as, apparently, the Southern Pacifc Railroad. Interestingly, it’s veracity is actually up for debate for a variety of reasons discussed below. However, at the heart of the matter is the questions: were the mission locations determined primarily or exclusively by their distance between each of them? That claim is, almost without doubt, not true.

 All one has to look at is haphazard order in which the missions were built, and the slow and weak funding mechanism from Spanish authorities for creating the missions. Just for fun, I took a look at the “modern driving distance” between the 21 California missions today, with some interesting results. From south to north, here are the distances between the missions today on modern roads, as measured by Google Maps (numbers are in miles): 41, 33, 61, 29, 61, 30, 32, 19, 60, 37, 41, 45, 45, 37, 36, 32, 16, 54, 19, 27. The average of these 20 distances is 38 miles. When using Google Maps, they give alternate routes and mileages. When given a choice of routes, I used the shortest distance and rounded up to the nearest mile. Two types of distance outliers are of interest: those that are much too long for a “day’s ride” and those that are much closer than average to each other.

 Missions that are much longer than one days ride apart - distance in miles: 61, 61, 60, and 54. Let’s take a look at an example on our central coast of two well-known missions that are much more than one days ride apart at 60 miles. This 60-mile distance is from one of my favorite missions, La Purisima Conception (the 11th mission, founded in 1787), near Lompoc, to our very own Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (the 5th mission, founded in 1772) in San Luis Obispo. 

 In the late 1700's, there is no way you are riding a horse, driving a wagon, or walking on foot and to get from Lompoc to SLO in one day. My research has shown that a prudent horse and rider can cover 20 to 30 miles in a day, thus seemingly to eliminate the longer distances from “one days ride” contention. Modern endurance horse riders often cover more than 30 miles in a day, but horse mortality rates and negative impact on the horse's health increase significantly. It is unlikely that a horse owner in the mission era would risk permanent damage to their horse, just to get from one mission to another in such a short amount of time. Exceptions might be for trained horse and messenger teams of the era, who were prepared for just such tasks.

Asistencias and Estancias:  It would seem that one example alone would blow apart any conception of traveling between San Luis Obispo and La Purisima in a day. Research into whether there were interim facilities between La Purisima and SLO de Tolosa does not indicate that any known assistencias existed along that stretch of the “King’s Highway”. See link to a find web site on known asistencias associated with the California mission system.
Above (click to enlarge): Santa Margarita Asistencia, circa 1906 - author unknown.

 Another interesting phenomen with regard to distance between the mission are the outliers that are much closer than the average of 38 miles. These distances in miles are: 19, 16, and 19 miles, respectively. These closer distances are worth investigating another time.

 The Franciscan missions didn't start in San Diego. The first few we're already in place Baja California in the Sierra Gorda (today Queretaro state, Mexico) before Junipero Serra ever arrived from Spain. As he expanded the central Mexican churches, he built a series of missions stretching from Jalpan (today Jalpan de Serra) to the northwest, with each mission a days apart at walking speed. Junipero Serra was always known for walking. 

 He was later transferred to the California missions, which already were established in Baja California before he arrived. They were spread out along the peninsula and travel between them was normally done by water. Mission San Diego (de Alcalá) was Serra's first new expansion to the already established Baja California missions. From there he moved further into Alta California, establishing the 21 missions in Spanish territory that we know today as "the California missions". 

 During Spanish rule and expansion, any road built by Spanish forces (including the church) was known as a Camino Real (royal road). Official Spanish roads extended all across Mexico, including from Mexico City to Serra's nine original missions and on (overland) to California. The Camino Real from Baja California to San Francisco was just one of many Caminos Reales across Spanish territory. 
Works Cited:
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies - The Settling of North America. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.

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