Founding the Missions
Who helped start the first nine missions in California?
Father Junipero Serra
What was the most important building in a mission?
The church
Name two jobs that the mission Indians did.
Name two things that the California Indians had to give up when they lived at the missions.
Their freedom, their way of life, their own religion, their gender roles.
What did missionaries want to do in California?
They wanted to spread the Catholic religion by teaching it to the California Indians. They may also want to help spread the Spanish way of life.
Name at least two things the Spanish had to think about when deciding where to build a mission.
Good land for farming, fresh water, wood, and near groups of Indians
What was used to let the mission Indians know when it was time to eat, work, and go to church?
Why did Indian villages outside of the missions struggle?
They had less land for hunting and gathering, grazing animals destroyed wild foods, and weeds crowded out native plants. Hunger drove many Indians to the missions.
What did presidios help do?
Presidios protected against attacks from the sea and from Indian attacks.
What was usually at the center of a mission?
A courtyard
What did mission Indians do on Sunday?
They spent hours in church instead of working.
What did Indians who were unhappy with their new life in the missions sometimes do?
Some ran away. Some rebelled or fought back.
How many missions and how many presidios were built?
21 missions and 4 presidios
Why did the Spanish want to build missions near groups of Indians?
So that they can use the Indians as workers and slaves at the mission.
What would happen to mission Indians that worked too slowly?
They were punished, even whipped or put in leg chains.
Why did disease kill so many mission Indians?
They weren't used to the Spanish germs which became deadly to them because they weren't immune to these diseases.
What was the road called that connected all of the missions?
What kind of bricks were used for building the missions?
Adobe which is made of claw and straw then dried in the sun.
If the mission produced more goods than it could use, what did they do with all the extra goods?
Mission priests would sell or trade the extra goods so that they can get other things they didn't have.
What happened to the population of California Indians during the time of the mission system?
It decreased from 300,000 to 100,000.