California mission clash of cultures: Difference between revisions

The pre-contact population of California (225,000) had been reduced by 33 percent during Spanish and Mexican rule, but that was caused mostly by epidemics. Under American rule (from 1848 on), when most of the twenty-one missions were in ruins, the loss of indigenous lives was catastrophic—80 percent died, leaving just 30,000 in 1870. And nearly half of those losses were due not to disease, but to murder.<ref name=":1">{{cite web|last1=Orfalea|first1=Gregory|title=Hungry for Souls: Was Junípero Serra a Saint?|url=https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/hungry-souls|website=Commonweal|date=31 August 2015 |access-date=11 December 2015}}</ref> [[Baja California]] experienced a similar reduction in native population resulting from Spanish colonization efforts there.<ref>Rawls, p. 6: Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have been based on a number of different sources, and therefore vary substantially; see [[Population of Native California]].</ref><ref>Cook, p. 200: When assessing the relative importance of the various sources of the native population decline in California, including [[Old World]] epidemic diseases, violence, nutritional changes, and cultural shock, it is clear that declines tended to be steepest in the areas directly affected by the missions and the [[California Gold Rush|Gold Rush]]. "''The first (factor) was the food supply...The second factor was disease...A third factor, which strongly intensified the effect of the other two, was the social and physical disruption visited upon the Indian. He was driven from his home by the thousands, starved, beaten, raped, and murdered with impunity. He was not only given no assistance in the struggle against foreign diseases, but was prevented from adopting even the most elementary measures to secure his food, clothing, and shelter. The utter devastation caused by the white man was literally incredible, and not until the population figures are examined does the extent of the havoc become evident''."</ref>