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The Spanish missions in California are an important part of the state's history ? important enough that many want the government to pay for restoring the missions, even if they continue to be used as active churches. At the same time, though, people aren't being completely honest about many of the awful things that religious leaders did to natives in those missions.

Summary

Title: Women and the Conquest of California, 1542-1840: Codes of Silence
Author: Virginia Marie Bouvier
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816524467


Pro:
?  Provides female perspectives on California colonization and evangelization
?  Describes how marriage and sexuality served religious needs

Con:
?  None

Description:
?  Analyzes the colonization of California from a little-recognized perspective
?  Describes how ideologies of gender, religion, and culture were used to control people
?  Explains the means by which natives were uprooted and practically enslaved

 

Book Review

Among those who suffered the most in the religious missions, aptly described by some as ?concentration camps? where natives were held in virtual slavery, were the native women. Spanish friars had almost absolute authority over women?s movements, actions, and lives. Today, we know far less than we should about women?s experiences in the missions because both social and religious assumptions served to keep women silent.

What is available to contemporary scholars has been gathered together into a coherent narrative by Virginia Marie Bouvier in her book Women and the Conquest of California, 1542-1840: Codes of Silence.

An Assistant Professor of Latin American Literature at the University of Maryland, College Park, Bouvier attempts to explain how ideologies about race, religion, culture, and ethnicity served to control native women and shape their experiences while living under Spanish rule.

For the Spanish government, of course, the colonization of the New World generally and Alta California was a military and economic matter. For the Catholic Church, however, it was primarily a religious matter ? a means for converting natives to Christianity and stamping out their pagan beliefs.

• ?In exchange for colonizing Spanish America, the pope gave the Spanish Crown complete control of the establishment of the church in the New World under the patronato real, or royal patronage agreement.?

At times this led to conflict between church and state because too often the Spanish soldiers treated the natives even worse than the friars thought permissible, thus causing them to try to assert their spiritual authority over the colonization efforts. This is not to say, however, that the friars are the heroes of the story ? as noted above, the missions they ran could treat natives as little more than slaves.

• ?Under this system, Indians were entrusted to the care of an encomendero, who was expected to protect and Christianize his charges; in exchange, the encomendero could exact tribute and labor from the Indians in his care.?

There were various efforts to reform this system as it became gradually more untenable, but none of the efforts were entirely successful. The declining Indian population also made things difficult. In the end, this abusive system was only ended after Mexico gained its independence from Spain and declared that half of the encomendero?s property must be given to the Indians and the other half to officials and friars. After this, the missions were left in ruins because they depended upon slave labor to run properly.

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