Introduction

Dear Citizen of Spain,

As you know our great nation has established twenty-one missions in the territory of California in the New World. The goals of these missions are to establish a Spanish presence in that part of the world and to prevent incursion from other colonial powers such as Russia, France, and England onto land that is rightfully ours.

In the year 1769 an official government representative set up four planned expeditions to settle the San Diego and Monterey bay areas. On those expeditions, Father Juniper Serra, set out to establish missions to bring religion to the barbarian peoples who inhabit those areas. Since that time twenty-one missions have been established in California by Spain. Some of these missions have had tremendous success in preparing the land for Spanish colonies, while others have struggled. Some of these missions have even strayed from the rule of the King to some degree and have developed some sort of independence!

To balance out our successes the His Majesty the King wants to know how his people are faring in running the missions that have been set up, what improvements can be made, suggestions on what is proving to be effective in some missions that could be incorporated into the running of other missions, and which missions are not being productive.

You, faithful citizen of the Spain, are to be sent to the New World, on behalf of His Majesty, the King, to observe and report on the activities of one of our missions in California and send your evaluation back at which point His Majesty will decide what is to be done.

Sincerely,

The Royal Scribe of His Majesty, King of Spain

Task

You have been specially selected to travel to a mission in California by His Majesty, the King of Spain to evaluate the progress made by that mission and to send a letter to the King of Spain about what you have found out.

1. Some aspects of the mission that you’ll want to look for are the following:

Ø   The conversion of the Natives Americans to Christianity

Ø   Laying the foundation for the establishment of a Spanish colony in California

Ø   The progress in the growing of crops to support the mission and a future colony

Ø   The profitability of the mission

2. What are the living conditions in the mission?

Ø   How and where do the missionaries live?

Ø   How and where do the Spanish soldiers live?

Ø   How and where do the natives live?

3. Self reliance of the mission?

Ø   Are there sufficient crops grown to support the population of the mission?

Ø   What types of crops are grown at the mission?

Ø   Are there other resources that are being or can be used as a means of income?

4. How well has the mission prepared the area for Spanish colonists?

Ø   Is food abundant?

Ø   Will colonists be safe from the savages that live in the area? Have they been converted and are they now safe to be around?

Ø   Will the natives provide a steady labor force to help the colony thrive?

Process

1. Determine which mission you are going to evaluate. Here are your choices:

Mission San Diego

Ø Mission San Antonio

Ø   Mission San Gabriel

Ø   Mission San Luis Obispo

Ø   Mission Dolores

Ø   Mission San Juan Capistrano

Ø   Mission Santa Clara

Ø   Mission San Buenaventura

Ø   Mission Santa Barbara

Ø   Mission La Purisima

Ø   Mission Santa Cruz

Ø   Mission Soledad

Ø   Mission San Jose

Ø   Mission San Juan Bautista

Ø   Mission San Miguel

Ø   Mission San Fernando

Ø   Mission San Luis

Ø   Mission Santa Inez

Ø   Mission San Rafael

Ø   Mission San Francisco

2. Go to the approved website for your mission and do research on your mission. Take notes, remembering what you need to include in your letter to the King. Other sites that may be of use and provide more of a historical background are the following:

Ø   California Missions information

Ø   History of California Missions

Ø   More information on Missions

Ø   The Mission Trail

3. Draw a web diagram to organize your ideas. Your teacher will do a sample with the class.

4. Write you rough draft for your letter to the King. Remember that you want the King to see, hear, feel, and truly understand the way of life and how things are at your Mission, so that means that you need to use lots of adjectives and descriptive language. Click on the evaluation link to make sure that you have covered all questions.

5. Proofread and revise your letter.

Evaluation

Ø   Was the reader of your letter able to see, hear, and truly understand how life was at your Mission?

Ø   Did you include all of the information that you found on this WebQuest about your Mission?

Ø   Was your grammar and spelling correct?

Ø   Were you able to convince the reader that the Mission was doing well or not well based on your opinion?

Conclusion

After reading about the management and reasons for establishing the California Missions, you now realize that life as a missionary was not an easy one. How do you feel about the treatment of the Native Americans? If you were in charge of a Mission in this time period, would you have done things differently and how? Do you think that the reasons for establishing the Missions were good? Think about these questions and talk about them in a class discussion.