Franciscan Missions and the Chumash Uprising

Between 1769 and 1834, Franciscan missionaries from the Apostolic College of San Fernando in Mexico City administered missions in what today is California. The Franciscans attempted to convert the indigenous peoples to Catholicism, and reshape their society and culture along with European norms. In 1824, three years after Mexico gained its independence from Spain, Chumash neophytes rebelled following the flogging by a Mexican soldier of a neophyte at Mission Santa Inés. The rebellion quickly spread to two other missions, and lasted a month until soldiers defeated the rebels. This book analyzes the long and short-term causes of the uprising, and the larger historical context. It focuses on the development of Mission La Purísima Concepción where the rebellion lasted the longest. A root cause of the uprising was deteriorating conditions of life on the missions resulting from the outbreak of the independence war in Mexico in 1810.