Lucinda Torres

1
Voices of the Saved
Native California Accounts of the Mission Years

• Lucinda Torres
• Sociology 65
• June 10, 2003

2
Introduction

• The following are accounts of California Natives
  regarding their experience with the mission
  system. It is a small glimpse into the minds of
  the people whose tales are not widely known.

3
The Missions

• Santa Barbara Mission was founded on Dec 4, 1786
  by Padre Francisco Fermin
• Father Juniperro Serra had raised the cross for
  the mission in 1782

• San Gabriel Arcangel first location was
  established in Sept 1771 but flooding of the
  crops forced to move from Montebello
• In 1775 the mission was moved to its present
  location in San Gabriel

4
The Missions

• San Luis Rey de Francia was founded by Fermin de
  Lasuen in June 1789 and named after Luis IX king
  of France
• Located in Oceanside in
• San Diego County

5
Santa Barbara Family of Chumash

• Excerpts from Six Generations of Women Speak
  The Chumash Experience in Santa Barbara
• Alexehanawa baptized Maria Paula born in the
  Village of Shniwax in approximately 1769
• Maria Ygnacia baptized at five years old and
  given her name on April 17, 1803. She was born in
  the mission
• Luisa Ygnacio baptized Luisa de Jesus and was
  born in approximately 1853.

6
Alexehanawa

• Most of us saw very little of the missionaries
  and soldiers
• By the time we moved to Syuxtun, half the people
  had been baptized, including the old chiefour
  family stayed away as long as we couldwe
  permitted both of our daughters to be baptized in
  1803

• 1769- This is was the year the invasion began,
  when the Spanish-speaking people came into our
  land and we greeted them in innocence
• Maria Paula was told that by the fathers that
  the daughters had gotten sick with the white
  mans disease because the girls were not
  baptized.
• Her family finally moved to the mission after a
  number of dry years in order to survive.

7
Maria Ygnacia daughter of Maria Paula

• Because my parents had permitted my baptism, they
  came once a year to visit the pali (father) at
  the mission to receive my annual clothing
  allotment of a blanket and a dress.
• Our elders said that is was the giant serpents
  beneath the earth moving.They were so displeased
  we had given up our religion that they writhed in
  anger-regarding an earthquake that struck Sta.
  Barbara

• The priest explained to my parents that if they
  allowed me to be baptized, God would heal me, and
  I did recover
• The implication that those who were not baptized
  got sick. This would have made others choose to
  be baptized in order to avoid the illness.

8
Luisa Ignacio daughter-in-law of Maria Ygnacia

• The priests did not let them dance very many
  dances or songs, but they did let them perform
  the Shutihiwish Seaweed Dance

• I was angry with the priest for this harsh
  treatment of my sister. How she must have feared
  to have morning comeFather Himeno , sent my
  father to San Luis Obispo to bring her back
• Regarding the thirty lashes a day for nine days
  for running away.

9
San Gabriel Arcangel Toypurina- Gabrielina

• October 25, 1785-The woman told them that the
  padres were dead and so they went to the Mission
  of San Gabriel Archangel. There they saw the
  dead priests lying in wake. As the Indians
  stared at the bodies the priests leaped to life
  wild shrieks rent the night air. Armed soldiers
  then took all the warriors prisoners.
• As Toypurina entered, she who held her people
  in thrall the mere flick of an eyelash, started
  fiercely at Fages, than at Verdugo. The others,
  she didnt even notice as she kicked aside the
  proffered stool, and stood before the expectant
  board in all her native dignity. interrogation
  by Corporal Manual de Vargas questions by
  Governor Pedro Fages

• Taken from an entry of the Masterkey
• A revolt against padres and soldados of the
  mission in San Gabriel years later I found among
  Bancrofts notes a story of how the local
  neophytes and pagans were tempted by a woman to
  attack the mission and kill the padres and
  soldiers

10
Toypurina

• And I commanded him to do so for I hate the
  padres and all of you, for living h ere on my
  native soil- these were her exact words-for
  trespassing upon the land of my forefathers and
  despoiling our tribal domains.
• -article of the Masterkey
• It is not clear if this is an actual quote by
  Toypurina or if it is a narrative by Temple the
  author.

• She responded that the only harm that she had
  experienced was that we were living on their
  land Jose Maria Pico interpreter
• - Investigations of Occurrences at Mission San
  Gabriel

11
San Luis Rey de FranciaPablo Tac-Here he
describes the first meeting with Spaniards

• Thus we lived among the woods until merciful God
  freed us of these miseries though Father Antonio
  Peyri, a Catalan, who arrived in our country..
• The captainfound the whites all right, and so
  they let them sleep therethis was the happy day
  in which we saw white people, by us called
  Sosabitom.
• Pablo Tac was born in 1822 on the mission. He
  was taken to Italy where he died on 1841.

• O merciful God, why didst thou leave us for many
  centuries, years months and days in utter
  darkness after Thou camest to the world? Blessed
  be Thou from this day through future centuries.
• It was a great mercy that the Indians did not
  kill the Spanish when they arrived, and very
  admirable, because they have never wanted another
  people to live with them and until those days
  they were always fighting
• Account taken in Spanish from Tac when he was
  about 25 years old

12
Bibliography

• Olivera, Jose.From Investigations of Occurances
  at Mission San Gabriel on the Night of October
  25,1785 .Lands of Promise and Despair
  Chronicles of Early California,1535-1846. Ed
  Rose M. Beebe and Roberty M. Senkewicz. Santa
  Clara Malcom Margolin.2001.p247-249
• Soto, Ernestine Ygnacio de. Six Generations of
  Women Speak The Chumash Experience in Santa
  Barbara.
• Tac, PabloIndian Life and Customs at Mission San
  Luis Rey A record of Calif. Mission Life.
  Rome (cerca 1835)
• Temple II, Thomas Workman. Toypurina the Witch
  and the Indian Uprising At San Gabriel.The
  Masterkey. 1985