Discuss The Decline Of The Spanish Mission System In Alta Calfornia

The collapse of the mission system in Alta California is one of the most influential events to occur during the latter years of The Spanish Empire in the early 19th century. Prior to its downfall, it held enormous influence over the daily lives of the Spanish and native communities that resided in the region. However, following many overlapping factors, the dissolution of the mission system resulted. Multiple historians have different opinions on the causes of the decline of the missions; however, there are significant events that took place that heavily influenced its decline. The Spanish mission system in Alta California collapsed because it had adverse effects on the Indian community, served its purpose of colonization, and lost power and

The original aim of the missions was to maximize colonization efforts in the area; thus, as a result of the development of the social and political structure in the Alta Calfornia region, the missions sustained their importance in the region by working with the Indian communities in order to assimilate them as subjects of the Spanish authorities. For example, in the article “The Spanish Missions Of Alta California Rise, Decline, and Restoration”, it is said how the missions were designed to be temporary, frontier institutions which were suppose to perform missionary endeavors and to be later secularized; the mission settlements were supposed to “Be converted into pueblos and mission land, livestock, and other property would become divided among the neophytes” (Aiken, 8).This view can also be seen when it is mentioned how the decline of the Spanish missions occurred because the authorities believed that there was no longer any need to support the mission system. For example, in the article “The Spanish Missions Of Alta California Rise, Decline, and Restoration”, it is said, “By the 1830’s…the missions were no longer of vital importance. As life became more settled and prosperous the missions dwindled in significance. They had served their purpose and could now be dispensed with” (Aiken, 8). In the end, the uselessness of the Spanish mission system in the latter

This can be seen when observing how influential Native attacks against Spanish authorities were in response to numerous levels of violence against Native communities that did not follow Spanish practices wholeheartedly in the missions. For example, in the article “Conjugal Violence, Sex, Sin, and Murder in the Mission Communities of Alta California”, it is said that during the period between 1795 and 1824, Natives were committing acts of violence against Spanish authorities through the courts and through physical acts of violence in order to shift the balance of power in the systems (McCormack, 410). Mistreatment of the Indian communities by the Spanish caused a change in loyalty by the Natives and caused them to overthrow the existing system that produced consequences for the Spanish missions because they lost much political and economic