Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary American Latino Heritage |
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Mission San Miguel Arcàngel San Miguel, California |
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The Spanish established 21 Franciscan Catholic missions in a line throughout Alta California during the 18th and early 19th centuries to expand their empire, settle the Pacific Coast region, and convert local American Indian tribes to Catholicism. Many of these historic missions still stand throughout California for visitors to experience. Mission San Miguel Arcàngel was the 16th mission founded in the 21 mission chain, and is today a National Historic Landmark. A unique feature of this mission is that its interior wall murals, originally painted in the 1800s by Salinan Indians who converted to Catholicism, have never been retouched or repainted.
Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuén founded Mission San Miguel Arcàngel on July 25, 1797. The Spanish selected Mission San Miguel’s location along the Salinas River to ease travel between Mission San Antonio and Mission San Luis Obispo. In the mission system, missions were generally placed a day’s walk from one another. The mission’s grounds extended 18 miles to the north and south, 66 miles to the east and 35 miles to the west. Such large land grants were necessary for the mission to grow crops, plant vineyards, raise cattle and sheep, and graze horses and mules for trade and to sustain their community.
Mission San Miguel sat along the El Camino Real, which was the main overland route that connected Spanish missions, presidios, and pueblos in Alta California. The road ran right next to a large Salinan Indian village. The mission’s first padre, Father Buenaventura Sitjar, had a pre-existing relationship with the Salinan people having ministered to them for 25 years at Mission San Antonio. Father Sitjar spoke the Salinan people’s language and was able to baptize 15 Salinan children the day the mission was established. The founding of Mission San Miguel marked the beginning of a friendly relationship between the Salinan people and Spanish padres. Eventually, over 1,000 Salinan Indians would call the mission home. Life at Mission San Miguel changed after Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821. Due to the financial strain of maintaining the missions, the Mexican government began to secularize the mission system and convert church property to private property. In 1834, Mission San Miguel was one of the last missions to be secularized. By this time, only about 30 Salinan Indians remained at the mission and no Spanish padres. A Mexican administrator took control of Mission San Miguel.
In 1846, business partners Petronillio Rios, a retired Mexican military man, and William Reed, an Englishman who had a wife from Monterey, purchased the mission buildings. The Reeds lived in the mission until a brutal attack from three Irish sailors, who had deserted their ship, left 11 of the family members and household staff dead in their house. After the vicious murders of the Reed family and their staff, and because of the mission’s location as a stopping point for gold miners traveling between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the mission’s buildings and grounds were converted for commercial use. At various times, the mission served as retail shops, a hotel, a saloon, and a dancehall.
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