Constructing Lives at Mission San Francisco: Native Californians and Hispanic Colonists, 1776-1821

by Quincy D. Newell

Overview

Located at the tip of the San Francisco peninsula in the heart of what is now the city's Mission District, the Mission of San Francisco de Asís, established in 1776, was the sixth to be founded in the Alta California mission system. Northern California was home to many small tribal communities when the Franciscans began developing missions in the area in 1769. While no firsthand written accounts exist of Bay Area Indians' experiences at Mission San Francisco, there is evidence that, just as Hispanic colonists introduced Hispanic cultural customs to California, Bay Area Indians retained their own cultural traditions as they entered the missions.

In this finely crafted study Quincy Newell examines the complexity of cultural contact between Franciscans and the native populations at Mission San Francisco. Records of traditional rituals and lifeways taking place alongside introduced doctrines and practices reveal the various ways California Indians adopted, adapted, and rejected aspects of mission life. Using baptismal, marriage, and death records to tell the history of these colonized peoples, Newell demonstrates that the priests' conversion and Hispanicization of the Bay Area Indians remained partial at best.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826347077
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	04/28/2011
Pages:	277
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Quincy D. Newell is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Wyoming, Laramie.

Table of Contents

Illustrations viii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Going to Church 21

Chapter 2 Building Faith 49

Chapter 3 Forming Families 82

Chapter 4 Love and Marriage 109

Chapter 5 Ties That Bind 125

Chapter 6 The Varieties of Religious Experience at Mission San Francisco 151

Notes 191

Bibliography 229

Index 253