There is a document in chapter 7 of the book that I found very interesting. It is titled “Missionaries Report on California Missions.” The Catholic missionaries sent regular news and information to their superiors in Mexico City, New Spain’s capital city. These reports described what the missionaries considered success in converting Natives into good Catholics, as well as the troubles caused by the behavior of the Spaniards and the Natives. The document was written by Father Luis Jayme which discusses how he wishes to could report that great progress has been made in converting the Natives but there is no food to offer them and the soldiers aren’t setting a good example. He states that they can not offer them any food because the have not receive enough to last them half a year and he blames this for the little improvement that has been made.
He then talks about the behavior of the soldiers stating that some of them are good examples but some of them deserve to be hanged. The soldiers were raping women he states “they [ the soldiers] are committing a thousand evils, particularly of sexual nature.” He talks about how the soldiers are going the villages around the mission and are raping the Native women. I just found this passage interesting and though I would share.
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It saddens me that these stories are true because I know that my Mexican heritage, which I value so greatly, would not have arose without the mixing of Spanish and native genes. I am a proud Mexican, with a strong belief in respect and unity and family, but those explorers really knew how to re-write the history books, and to a certain extent, it's sad to think I am a product of their unrelenting oppression on Aztecs at the turn of the 16th century.
Great reading of the special sections in the textbook, those are some of the best sections of the chapters. California is a subject we will come to later in the course as well, but it was a place of violence directed at Native peoples. This exemplifies some of the issues of Spanish colonization where actions of soldiers inhibited Native cooperation and Christian conversion.
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