Santa Cruz was established in 1791, by padre Fermin Francisco de Lasuén, as the 12th Spanish Catholic mission in Alta California; it was “baptised” on the 25th of September of that year as “Misión la exaltación de la Santa Cruz”. As the Spanish government feared that other empires (the British) were after the territory, a mission in the very north end of the Monterey Bay was of strategic importance for Spanish rule over the Californian coast. The mission offered an outlook over the whole bay; moreover, it was near the ocean which could be used for trade, next to the San Lorenzo River (named as such by the Spanish explorer Don Gaspar de Portola who “discovered” it in 1769) that could be used to irrigate the lands, and surrounded by the redwood forests that could be logged and used for wood.
Then the information leaflet from the Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park starts getting uncomfortable… Another reason listed under the heading “Why put a Mission here?” are the Native Americans who could start working at the mission. The phrasing remains a bit vague, and we’re left wondering exactely what they mean to suggest: that the Spanish were looking for (cheap) labor, that the Native Americans were unemployed and seeking for a major regional employer, that it was a perfect match?
The Native Americans. Central California had the densest Indian population anywhere north of Mexico before the Spanish arrived. Over 10,000 people lived in the coastal area between Point Sur and the San Francisco Bay. The Spanish called them Costaños, which became Costanoan in American-English. Since the 1960s all the native Americans who used to live around San Francisco Bay and Monterey Bay are referred to by the name “Ohlone” – which might have come from a Spanish rancho called Oljon, or from the name of an Indian site near modern-day San Mateo. The Ohlone people who used to live in the Santa Cruz region – i did not even find traces of how this land used to be called before – were called Awaswas, and this included the Sokel (who lived at Aptos) and the Chatu-mu (who lived near the current location of Santa Cruz).
None of the Ohlone people who lived in this area survived. The mission started in 1791 and ran till 1834 (when the Mexican government secularized it) and none of the Ohlone survived.
The Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park is a very uncomfortable place. It is housed in the only original building of the Mission that remains – which makes it the oldest building in Santa Cruz. A white adobe rectangular building with 7 rooms one behind the other, part of what used to be a larger building with 17 rooms. It was build to house those Native Americans who were considered the most trustworthy and given certain privileges, neophytes they were called. Each of these rooms housed a neophyte family. There is something ironic and immensly sad about the fact that the neophyte dwellings are the only ones that remain from the whole mission enterprise.
Santa Cruz Mission was called the “hard luck” mission; it was also the first one to be closed down by the Mexican government. I suppose one could call the genocide of the Ohlone people “hard luck”, only the genocide doesn’t figure in the leaflet of the Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park. The leaflet does tells us that “many of the workers died of the new diseases”, “a group of native people attacked the Mission and burned buildings”, “natives who didn’t like the mission ran away”, “one of their priests was murdered” (only one, i can’t help asking myself, the Ohlone people were more generous with life than can be said of their colonizers…). Yes, all of this must have made it difficult to run the mission, i suppose. Not easy, to run a mission in those conditions.
And the mission was big. By 1814, an old report reveals, they had 3,300 cattle, 3,500 sheep, 600 horses, 25 mules, and 46 hogs. And imagine the crops needed to feed all those hungry mouths. A handful of padres clearly cannot manage this on their own. When the mission was founded word was spread that there was work in exchange for food, shelter and education; and many Ohlone people came to the mission to work. What they didn’t know: there was no way back. Once you worked at the mission you could not leave, and the mission could count on the Spanish army to make that rule effective.
If the language of the Historic Park’s leaflet and on the educational signs on the site is upsetting, it is a conversation in the Park’s shop during my visist last weekend that made me really angry. When i entered the shop a (white) lady of the Santa Cruz Mission State Park was talking to a girl who must have been 10 years old – one of these beautiful bright ones with inquisitive eyes and a reserved smile full of resolution. The State Park lady was infantilizing the girl with her story of the Mission, but the girl took ignorance with polite reservation. As the lady’s story of the mission unfolded the girls’ parents stopped checking out the merchandise, threw each other glances, and got closer to their daughter. The lady in turn happily continued infantilizing the whole family.
As soon as the Spanish priests came here, she explained, they wanted to get the local people involved. The language of Empire, and how it can make you grasp for air. Involved. Just imagine for a moment. One of the padres writing home: Hermano querido. Llegamos bien en Santa Cruz, y somos listos comenzar nuestra misión. Escucho, tengo una idea. ¿Qué piensa de implicar a la población local? ¿PodÃa ser interessante, no? Many months later a ship brings a letter responding: ¡Eso es una idea genial! Vaya, hermano. ¡Con nuestras bendiciones! And Lo and Behold, a succesful recipe of Empire was born: get the local people involved.
The conversation was marked by the language of empire in different layers. The lady was talking about the Spanish missions of more than 200 hundred years ago, but her discourse was of course situated in the contemporary U.S. Empire. The imaginary exchange between the padres is indeed quite unlikely, for sure their discussions and exchanges were not so tainted by efforts to draw upon a democratic-participatory rhetoric. “Involving the local population” is no doubt a very late capitalism way of talking, now that Empire has “involved” the people of Afghanistan in their own liberation, is “involving” Iraq in their own democracy, and has many more projects of getting people all around the world more “involved”.
In the lady’s story many indians liked to be involved, and some got involved so well that they made trustworthy and good Christians and as a reward got to move into the adobe housing and live with their families. So the others couldn’t live with their families? the mother asked. The lady explained that men were separated from women and children, to prevent them running away, you see. Running away? the mother inquired. So the lady explained that for some of the Ohlone the Mission wasn’t really… well, it wasn’t what they had expected. But once they worked at the Mission they couldn’t leave anymore, you see, those were the rules.
(Thank god for the neophytes! They saved the mission! Give thanks! How unfortunate that the mission didn’t save them.)
Yet another dimension to the conversation added to the anger: the lady remained totally blind for the way the (latino) family was increasingly uncomfortable with her hollywood version of history. There was no listening. The mother kept on asking questions seeking some kind of recognition – “so they couldn’t live with their families?”, “so they all died?”, … She wasn’t searching for a political recognition, it seemed, but a mere recognition of shared humanity and thus shared indignation. What does it mean to do this to other people. But none of that affected our happy guardian of State History.
Although at the end she did sigh. Yes, it had all been very sad, very sad indeed, for the padres, for the Spanish, for the natives. It had been difficult times for everybody…
***
Anger that pushed me to find out a bit more about this history. Not easy to find alternative versions, but on Wikipedia i read that, as far available sources indicate, Santa Cruz mission as the first California mission to come under armed attack by the local population. A history of revolt to be reclaimed:
“On the night of December 14, 1793, Mission Santa Cruz was attacked and partially burned by members of the local Quiroste tribe who inhabited the mountains to the east of Point Año Nuevo. The attack was purportedly motivated by the forced relocation of native Indians to the Mission. In 1812, Father Andres Quintana was assassinated and had his testicles smashed by natives angry over his use of a metal-tipped whip in the punishment of Mission laborers.”
And i found a group that is working towards recognition of the Ohlone people, as there are people of Ohlone origin in other regions of California, see www.muwekma.org
Makkin Mak Haûûesin Hemme Ta Makiû Horûe Mak-Muwekma, Rooket Mak Yiûûasin Huyyunciû Éinniinikma!
We Will Make Things Right For Our People And Dance For Our Children!