California Mission

San Gabriel Arcángel

427 S. Junipero Serra Drive, San Gabriel, CA 91776

Native Life | Cultural Impacts | Colonization & Governance | Resistance | Secularization | General Information

Native Life

The Gabrielino ancestral homeland is the area of Los Angeles. Their homes were made of tule, woven together into mats and propped up by wooden poles. The Gabrielino also had a sweat house in each village that was built into the ground. Their rituals and ceremonies spread to other neighboring cultures. Today, other tribes sing songs in the Gabrilino language and perform dances influenced by the Gabrielinos. They harvested soapstone and other raw materials from the cost and passed the materials inland to be worked into tools. The Gabrielino used soapstone to make pots, ceremonial ornaments, and beads.

The Gabrielino traded with other tribes using boat carved out of trees or boats made by tying planks together and using asphalt to keep them in place. They often traded soapstone tools, ornaments, seafood, and other coastal goods for inland foods. The Gabrielino used seashell beads as money, which could be exchanged for these goods. They ate a variety of acorns, nuts, fish, birds, and small animals. The Gabrielino specifically did not eat bears.

Cultural Impacts

San Gabriel Arcángel

The Spanish attempted to force Indians to assimilate into Spanish culture and give up their traditional way of life. Indians were forced to change their religious beliefs, diet, and daily routines, though many Indians resisted. Missionaries required Indians to study Christianity, Spanish language, and Spanish customs in order to assimilate into Spanish life. California Indians were forbidden from speaking in their native language, practicing traditional religious ceremonies, and eating traditional foods. Sugar and milk was introduced to the diet of Indians working the missions, leading to tooth decay, life threatening infections, diabetes and other health issues. Within two years of living in the missions, many Indians lost all of their teeth and died of subsequent infections.

Indians also struggled with the livestock and diseases that the Spanish brought to California. Indians used various techniques, like burning small areas of the forest to restore nutrients to the soil, in order to work the land and harvest plants for food and medicine. Cows, goats, pigs, and chickens overgrazed the lands tended by Indians, turning Indian crops into trampled wilderness. Livestock forced native animals to compete for food, throwing the ecosystem out of balance. The Spanish also brought diseases like Measles, Influenza and Small Pox to California. Unlike the Spanish, the native peoples did not have the opportunity to build up natural immunities to these diseases. The introduction of European diseases devastated native populations, wiping out entire villages.

Colonization & Governance

The Spanish plan for governance and maintenance of the missions in California was supposed to be carried out over a ten year period. The plan called for the missionaries to “convert” the Indians to Christianity and “train” them to perform manual labor. After a period of ten years it was anticipated that the Franciscan missionaries would turn their missions over to parish priests and the Indians in the missions would live “assimilated” into Spanish culture in Indian “pueblos” or towns. This ten year plan was actually carried out over the course of fifty years. There were many factors that contributed to things not going as they had planned. There were large scale resistance efforts by California Indian tribes. The rate of disease and death was high among populations of Indians at the missions. Thus the military and church expended vast resources on continual expeditions to “capture” Indians in the regions of California that had thus far been untouched by disease. Additionally, California Indians did not adopt religious practices and Spanish culture in a way that was satisfactory to the church and government authorities. Thus, the Indian people would have to be forced to maintain the lifestyle the Spanish planned to assimilated them to under a colonial authority.

Mission San Gabriel Arcangel was the site of an Indian resistance led by a Native woman named Toypurnia in 1785. The resistance was in response to the injustices that the missionaries committed against the Indians at the mission; the Indians were also upset that traditional dances had been banned. Toypurina was able to get help from Indians in the mission and from tribal leaders in surrounding villages to help her rebel against the Spanish. Toypurina and her allies were captured by the Spanish and punished for their attempt to resist. She was put on trial for her crimes in front of everyone in the mission. For more details on her trial, see Toypurnia’s biography page.

Resistance

California Indians engaged in widespread resistance to Spanish colonization. Resistance came in many forms. Large scale revolts were organized simultaneously among multiple Indians at several missions. Many individuals and groups attempted to escape. Stock raids were organized with other tribal groups. Others refused to work, attend church services, or bear children fathered by Spanish soldiers. Some groups continued to practice their traditions and ceremonies in secret. Indians were punished by the missionaries for exercising these forms of resistance. Native accounts of punishment describe executions, whippings, shackling, confinement, being made to wear wooden collars with metal hooks and many other forms of physical and psychological humiliation and cruelty.

Secularizations

Mexico won their independence from Spain in 1821 and took control of California. The Mexican government passed laws in 1834 to secularize the missions, meaning that the government took control over the missions away from the priests and gave it to the Indians. The initial plan was for the secularized missions to become Indians towns, or pueblos, and to divide half of the land for the Indians and the other half for the priests. The Indians were also instructed to tend the common area between the two pieces of land. A Mexican government administrator was assigned to each mission to inventory property, livestock and other items of value. Upon the completion of the inventory the official was in charge of distributing the land and valuables to the Indians. Five Indian pueblos were established in total: Flores, Pala, San Dieguito, San Juan Capistrano and San Pasqual.

Many Indians did not receive the lands they were promised and were made to serve Mexican settlers on their ranchos. Settlers and retired soldiers stripped the missions of livestock, supplies and lands and designated Indians as individuals of the lowest social and economic standing. The secularization period is often referred to as the “sacking of the missions” because a majority of the items of value at the missions were seized by corrupt soldiers, government officials, priests, and settlers.

California Indians responded to secularization by accepting it, fleeing, or resisting servitude. About 15,000 Indians experienced secularization at the missions. Some sought refuge from the ranchos by fleeing into the interior of California, while others stayed in pueblos or local Mexican settlements near former mission lands. California Indians who remained near the missions continued to raid livestock and other supplies from the ranchos and fight back against violence perpetuated by the Mexican land owners in certain areas.

General Information

San Gabriel Arcangel

CA aboriginal people:

Tongva

Current CA Indian tribe(s) in area:

Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe, a California Indian Tribe formerly known as San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians.
1875 Century Park east, Ste. 1500
Los Angeles, CA 90067
(310) 587-2203
(310) 587-2281 Fax

Gabrielino Tongva of the Los Angeles Basin. Tribal Council
PO Box 86908
Los Angeles, CA 90086

See wikipedia info »