Missions And Missionaries Of California

Excerpt from The Missions and Missionaries of California, Vol. 1: Lower California This volume has been compiled from original sources for the purpose of furnishing full and accurate information in plain language and as concisely as clearness would permit. It is also intended to serve as an introduction to the history of the missions in Upper California. I herewith cordially acknowl edge my obligation to the Rev. Fr. Ildephonse Moser, O. F. LL, for assisting at the final revision of the manuscript. If, notwithstanding the great care exercised, anything should hap pen to be erroneous, correction will be cheerfully made at the earliest opportunity. I am aware, to use Fr. Francisco Palou's words, that neither Homer among the poets, nor Demosthenes among the orators, neither Aristotle nor Solon among the sages, failed to err, because, although they were eminent sages, orators, and poets, they were always men. The misery of our nature is great; and, while those that write do not cease to be men, there will always be men who observe them. Remember thine own frailty, and thou wilt have com passion ou mine. (prologo de la Vida del Fr. Junipero Serra.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

“Nothing defines California and our nation’s heritage as significantly or emotionally,” says the California Mission Foundation, “as do the twenty-one missions that were founded along the coast from San Diego to Sonoma.” Indeed, the missions collectively represent the state’s most iconic tourist destinations and are touchstones for interpreting its history. Elementary school students today still make model missions evoking the romanticized versions of the 1930s. Does it occur to them or to the tourists that the missions have a dark history? California Mission Landscapes is an unprecedented and fascinating history of California mission landscapes from colonial outposts to their reinvention as heritage sites through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Illuminating the deeply political nature of this transformation, Elizabeth Kryder-Reid argues that the designed landscapes have long recast the missions from sites of colonial oppression to aestheticized and nostalgia-drenched monasteries. She investigates how such landscapes have been appropriated in social and political power struggles, particularly in the perpetuation of social inequalities across boundaries of gender, race, class, ethnicity, and religion. California Mission Landscapes demonstrates how the gardens planted in mission courtyards over the past 150 years are not merely anachronistic but have become potent ideological spaces. The transformation of these sites of conquest into physical and metaphoric gardens has reinforced the marginalization of indigenous agency and diminished the contemporary consequences of colonialism. And yet, importantly, this book also points to the potential to create very different visitor experiences than these landscapes currently do. Despite the wealth of scholarship on California history, until now no book has explored the mission landscapes as an avenue into understanding the politics of the past, tracing the continuum between the Spanish colonial period, emerging American nationalism, and the contemporary heritage industry.