Learn about the rich history of Mission San José: how it started, the people who ran it, the indigenous population, and its legacy today.

"Missions are memory sites for many descendants of colonial populations and for colonized Native Americans. As such, Spanish missions enshrine complex and contested memories for those whose long-term histories are implicated in the process of mission-building and conversion. From the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, Spanish missionaries traveled to America to convert Native Americans to Catholicism. Here, Franciscan and Jesuit dogma often conflicted with the pragmatic issues of the survival of both secular and missionary settlements. With cogent analysis of archaeological records, Maria F. Wade addresses the long-term processes of development of the mission as an institution in Florida, northern Mexico, Texas, and southwest California." "The missionaries who traveled to New Spain were prepared to wage a battle against evil. They had honed their conversion skills in the trials of the Inquisition against heresy, witchcraft, and on the tribulations of the Europeans afflicted with disease, poverty, and famine. The four geographic areas studied here represent stages (early, middle, and late) in the approach to conversion, all of which were influenced by Hapsburg and Bourbon political and military objectives. Vital to their efforts was the definition of the boundaries between good and evil, a demarcation that engendered conflict and proved a particularly trying point of conversion. Missionaries working in these regions generally encountered Native spiritual practices that did not fit idolatrous definitions. Thus, under the pressures of duty to God and country, these missionaries came to feel trapped by the very system they created." "Missions, Missionaries, and Native Americans provides in-depth information on varied missionary ambitions and native peoples' responses to evangelization and conversion, with an ethnohistorical and archaeological perspective on the structure and daily activities of early mission life."--BOOK JACKET.

Go back in time to learn more about the Spanish missionaries who came to California in the 1700s and how the mission system shaped California's history. Each book in this series examines a region of California that was greatly influenced by missions. Missions introduced in San Francisco Bay Area Missions include San Francisco de Asís, Santa Clara de Asís, San José, Mission San Rafael Arcángel, and Mission San Francisco Solano. In this title, you'll learn about the Native Americans living in the San Francisco Bay area before missionaries arrived; why missionaries chose this area and what happened when they arrived; how the missionaries designed and built the missions; what daily life was like at the missions; what happened to cause the end of each mission; and what the missions look like today. This series also includes California Mission Projects and Layouts, which provides directions for creating models of missions. Get ready for Exploring California Missions!

Indians of the California Mission Frontier talks about what life was like for the neophytes who joined the missions. A controversial subject for many historians, this book provides a balanced picture of the diversity of the California Indians and the mission experience. It shows us what daily life was like, how the mission Indians’ culture changed, and which traditions they were able to keep. It talks about the kinds of conflicts there were between the missionaries and the people they were trying to convert. It also talks about some of the good things that came from the mission experience.

This history of Native Americans, from the period of first contactto the present day, offers an important variation to existingstudies by placing the lives and experiences of Native Americancommunities at the center of the narrative. Presents an innovative approach to Native American history byplacing individual native communities and their experiences at thecenter of the study Following a first chapter that deals with creation myths, theremainder of the narrative is structured chronologically, coveringover 600 years from the point of first contact to the presentday Illustrates the great diversity in American Indian culture andemphasizes the importance of Native Americans in the history ofNorth America Provides an excellent survey for courses in Native Americanhistory Includes maps, photographs, a timeline, questions fordiscussion, and “A Closer Focus” textboxes that providebiographies of individuals and that elaborate on the text, exposing students to issues of race, class, and gender