| Summary: | During the colonial period and until the secularization of 1833, the Franciscan mission was the institution in which the majority of the population resided in Alta California. Nearly all of the province’s territory was operated under the twenty or so missions founded between 1769 and 1823. Often described as a colonial control device, the mission is most often represented by its central buildings (with the church as the center) and the land surrounding them; yet the land of each is much larger than just these iconic spaces, with pastures and facilities located several hours or even a day or two away. This article seeks, using both written narrative documentation, parish registers, archaeological analyses and cartography, to show the variety of ways of inhabiting the mission, beyond the “central quadrilateral” in order to understand these spaces not only as colonial devices but as territories of cohabitation and to highlight their thickness, allowing forms of autonomy and porosity with the surrounding areas, especially with the non-“reduced” populations.
|
|---|