Julian Brave NoiseCat: Native Americans Decry Sainthood For California's Iconic Missionary

24.9.15

Native Americans Decry Sainthood For California's Iconic Missionary: [huffingtonpost.com] Historians estimate that 60,000 indigenous Californians had died in the missions by the time the Mexican government sold them to private landowners in the 1830s. Over the Spanish mission era, the system contributed to the direct and indirect deaths of half of the California Indian population, which is estimated at 300,000 to 1 million people before contact with the Catholic missionaries. The California Indians subjugated in these missions spoke 64 to 80 distinct languages and were part of the most diverse and densely populated region of indigenous peoples in North America before colonization. They were decimated by disease, war and the conditions in the missions, where Native people were worked and starved to death. By 1910, after a century and a half of missions, gold rushes and reservations, there were only 15,850 California Indians left.

Serra and the California missions represent the brutal history and bloody legacy of colonization to many Native people, including fourth-grade me.