The Fourteenth Colony: Native Californians, Missions, Presidios, and Colonists on the Spanish Frontier, 1769-1848

FAIN: BH-50515-12

CSU, Monterey Bay (Seaside, CA 93955-8000)
Ruben G. Mendoza (Project Director: March 2012 to August 2014)

Funding details:
Original grant (2012) $176,698.00
Supplement (2013) $10,389.48

Two one-week workshops for eighty school teachers to explore the architectural, archaeological, cultural, and historical record of Spanish colonial missions in California.

Two one-week workshops for eighty school teachers to explore the architectural, archaeological, cultural, and historical record of Spanish colonial missions in California. This workshop, sponsored by the Institute for Archaeology of the California State University, Monterey Bay, unfolds around visits to Spanish colonial missions. Inquiry centers on such key questions as: What motives sent the joint Spanish military and religious expedition into "Alta California"? How do primary documents and the missions themselves help us understand the Spanish colonial heritage and its impact? Training in how to "read" a mission provides the interpretative framework of the workshops. In field trips, consideration is given to period artifacts, materials, construction methods, the social implications of built space, and the special features and distinctive functions of each site. The program begins on Sunday with a formal dinner and keynote address on Father Junípero Serra by historians Robert Senkewicz (Santa Clara University) in week one, and by Douglas Monroy (Colorado College) in week two. The focus of the first full day is the Mission San Juan Bautista, with buildings and features dating to 1797, including a soldiers barracks, nunnery, and livery stable. The Alameda (now Third Street) boasts a number of later eighteenth-century Spanish and early nineteenth-century Mexican-Indian adobes, and numerous examples of later architectural styles. On Tuesday, a morning visit to San Miguel Arcangel supports study of the artistic and musical traditions that pervaded daily life; arts curator Carol Kenyon introduces the brilliant fresco murals painted by the Salinan Indian peoples; and Spanish colonial music expert John Warren treats the participants to a demonstration performance by the New World Baroque Orchestra. At San Antonio de Padua in the afternoon, anthropologist Robert Hoover discusses its intact aqueduct system and water-driven mill, distinctive features of this "best preserved and most pristine" of missions in the Monterey Bay. On Thursday, the final field trip is to Mission San Carlos Borromeo and the Royal Presidio of Monterey, where guest scholars guide discussion on a range of topics, with emphasis on indigenous acculturation and change. Wednesday and Friday sessions are organized around "focus" group interactions, resource development using such collections as the Huntington Library's California population database, review of content in relation to classroom teaching, and presentation of curricular projects. On Saturday, historian Douglas Monroy guides concluding discussions in week one, and anthropologist Maria De Fátima Wade (University of Texas, Austin) in week two. The workshop is directed by archaeologist Ruben Mendoza, whose California Missions Source Book serves as a basic text. Other readings, primarily drawn from books and articles by visiting scholars, represent a cross-section of fields, including anthropology, archaeology, history, art history, and music.