The Twin Cities and Santa Cruz

Santa Clara:

The Santa Clara mission was named the same way the city was. The city of Santa Clara was named after Saint Claire. Saint Claire was from a place known as Assisi. This is why the mission is known as the Santa Clara Asis. The founder of this mission was Fray Tomas de la Peña (Junipero Serra). This eighth mission was founded on January 12, 1777. There is an entire college named after this mission. As well as this there is also a cemetery names after the Santa Clara mission. In this cemetery are buried some of the dead Native Americans that came to this mission too late to be saved. It seems that this college is really connected to it. The first sight that greets visitors to Santa Clara University. on the outside at least, looks exactly lie the restored church of Mission Santa Clara de Asis. Santa Clara University, the oldest college in California, is also the only college in the state to be the successor of a Spanish mission. The history of both institutions is intimately bound up with the history of the state. While researching this mission I learned about the original exploration Gaspar de Portola took in the land that became the Santa Cruz mission. European explorers first saw the Santa Clara Valley in 1769. When Gaspar de Portola’s took his land expedition to Monterey Bay it continued up the coast to San Francisco, then rounded the southern tip of San Francisco Bay. Other early expeditions passed through the valley during the 1770s. The diarists of these expeditions, such as Juan Crespí, Francisco Palou, Pedro Font, and Juan Bautista de Anza, described the Santa Clara Valley as a broad grassy plain covered with oaks and well-watered with marshy creeks and rivers, whose courses could be traced from a distance by the trees growing along their banks.During the original expeditions exploration was overseen by Spanish Viceroy Antonio Bucareli. This mission site had something special about it that I did not know about. This site was the home base of the viceroy’s expeditions. One of these expeditions, in 1774, was specially ordered by the Spanish Viceroy Antonio Bucareli to select sites for future missions. Just as I had said before in the Santa Clara cemetery there are buried some of the dead Native Americans that came to this mission too late to be saved. As one of the mission commodities there was a hospital but because medicine in the colonial period was still a medieval science many were lost and laid to rest in this cemetery. This cemetery still takes recipients and is a part of the cities heritage. Anna S. a local resident and critic of the Santa Clara Mission cemetery from yelp told her story about how the mission cemetery is a part of her life, “This is a cute and well-maintained cemetery. For some reason I used to play here in the sprinklers as a kid. my parents are not exactly the religious type. It’s a pretty peaceful place to hop the fence and just chill out in, at night. not that I’d do that at my age, I am a law-abiding citizen.” One a less present note another interesting part of the missions work was the conversion of the native groups in the area and the connection they had to the mission. “The Indians the missionaries wished to convert, known as Costanoans (from the Spanish Costenos, or people of the coast) or Ohlones (an Indian word of uncertain meaning), had lived in the hills and valleys around the Bay for thousands of years before the arrival of the Spanish. Unlike the Indians of Mexico, the Ohlones built no great cities, nor did they develop agriculture. They lived in tiny settlements, called by the Spanish rancherías, and survived by hunting and gathering. Although their staple food was the acorn, ground by the women in stone mortars and made into porridge or cakes, they varied their diet with fish and shellfish from the Bay and rivers, with seeds and roots from the meadows, and with venison, rabbit, and quail. The Ohlones lived a peaceful life in harmony with their environment, a life that changed irrevocably with the coming of the Franciscan missionaries.” When researching the Mission Santa Clara I realized how this mission is connected with Mission San Jose. Of course the Santa Clara mission came first. The padres did their best to keep the mission and the pueblo separated. They did this with strong knowledge of the detrimental influence of civilians on the neophytes. Ultimately, mission and pueblo grew into the twin cities of Santa Clara and San Jose. 

San Jose:

Mission San Jose was founded June 11, 1797.The founder of the Mission San Jose was Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen. He was the President of the California Missions Chain. As this he had in mind plans for multiple more mission sites in the California area, so this site was almost a headquarters for his mission plants.The site on which the mission president was saying with was no accident. He chose this site because of the access it gave him to the routes to his other missions. The site was part of a natural highway by way of the Livermore Valley to the San Juaquin Valley. Currently the mission of course is in San Jose. The Mission Church and museum are open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. They are closed on New Year's Day, Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. San Jose mission is the only mission east of the San Francisco Bay Many sources incorrectly name Mission San Jose as Mission San Jose de Guadalupe. “The site chosen for the only mission on the east side of San Francisco Bay had been inhabited for countless generations -by the Ohlone Indians. Their village at this site was known as Orisom. The Ohlones lived close to the land in harmony with nature, taking what they needed for their sustenance but never wasting irreplaceable resources. What we could call ecology was a way of life for them. Their food included seeds, roots, berries, acorn meal, small game and seafood. Three years after the founding of Mission San Jose, several hundred Ohlones had come to live at the Mission. They were introduced to a new way of life by the Spanish Franciscan missionaries. Thousand of cattle roamed the mission ranges. Acres of wheat and other crops were planted and harvested under the direction of the padres.” The men did a variety of jobs, having learned from the missionaries how to plow, sow, irrigate, cultivate, reap, thresh, and glean. In addition, they were taught to build adobe houses, tan leather hides, shear sheep, and weave rugs and clothing from wool, make ropes, soap, paint, and other useful articles. The work day was six hours, interrupted by dinner and a two-hour siesta, and ending with supper and social activities. About 90 days of the year were religious or civil holidays, free from manual labor. More recently,  After extensive archaeological excavations and planning, construction began in 1982 on a replica of the 1809 adobe church. It was completed and rededicated on June 11, 1985. With its simple and forthright exterior, the mission church stands as a tribute to those whose efforts made this dream come true. The richly decorated interior follows the descriptions in the historic inventories of the 1830's when the church had been extensively decorated. The walls vary in thickness from 4 to 5 feet. The lumber used in the reconstruction has been given a hand-hewn appearance. Two of the original statues have been placed on the two side altars. "Ecce Homo", a figure of Christ clothed in a scarlet robe and crowned with thorns, stands on a balcony above one of the side altars.

Santa Cruz:

The area along Monterey Bay's northern shore got its name years ago before a mission was built there. In 1769, Captain Gaspar de Portola rode through the area and gave it the name Santa Cruz (which is Spanish for Holy Cross). Father Francisco Palou crossed the San Lorenzo River in 1774. Father Francisco Palou was impressed by the amazing look and feel of the country around him. He all the beauty found in the plants and forest of tall trees, and concluded the place would support a large and successful community. The full Spanish name of the mission is "Misión la exaltación de la Santa Cruz." The mission was named after a feast day in the Church calendar which occurs on September 14: The Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This feast was to celebrate the Christian symbol of the cross on which Jesus was crucified." In the beginning, the new Mission Santa Cruz was successful, and experienced only a few problems. Although the first rainy season in 1791 caused the San Lorenzo River to flood, the padres (priest or "fathers") ended this problem by moving the mission buildings higher up the hill. On February 17, 1793, work began on a new church that had a stone foundation and five-feet-thick adobe made brick walls. It was 112 feet long and 29 feet wide, and took a year to build. This was to be the main church at the mission for about 65 years. Father Fermin Lasuen (the current father-president of the mission system a the time) arrived at the Santa Cruz location 22 years after Captain Gaspar de Portola rode through the area. On August 28, 1791, he raised a large cross on the site he had chosen for the next mission, which officially was named Mission de la Exaltation de la Santa Cruz. A more formal ceremony was planned for about a month later, but when the day came, (September 25, 1791), Father Lasuen was too busy to be able to attend. Therefore, Father I. Salazar and Father B. Lopez, the first Franciscan priest at the mission, conducted the formal ceremony. Either August 28 or September 25th may be considered the founding date of the Mission Santa Cruz, which is the twelfth mission established in Alta California. Branciforte, the county where mission was, was conceived as an 18th Century welfare state, in simpler word this place was an old fashion poor city With the Spanish idea of mixing the races which had proved so effective in colonizing other provinces in Latin America, every Native American chief had a house marked as a residence of an Indian "chief." It was believed that such an arrangement would hasten the development of the natives into ideal Spanish citizens. While the plan had worked admirably in some parts of Mexico, there were no real Indian chiefs in California. What leaders there were presented a dismal contrast to the Spanish kings of the Indian civilizations to the south? Indians did come to Branciforte, but not as fellow citizens. Neophytes were the ministers in training and were usually Native Americans from the area. Usually they were runaway neophytes from across the river who were soon ensnared by the pleasures of the tempting bottle, alcohol,  and pressed into service by the indolent whites. While researching about this specific mission I learned some of the terrible ways in which people killed off native, like poison blankets. The natives not only ran away to avoid the terrifying diseases but also to escape the strict rules and harsh punishment that often occurred at the mission. Some priests would order the soldiers stationed at the missions to carry out beatings for many "offenses," including working too slowly, going near Branciforte, or bringing dirty blankets to church. Punishment also included wearing leg irons, or being thrown into prison. Soon the priest ordered that once the natives were baptized, they could not return to their villages in the hills. However, many natives tried to leave, perhaps not fully understanding this change. Captured runaways received the worst punishment. Even so, in 1798 alone, nearly one-fourth of the native population ran away.


Special Thanks to: http://www.athanasius.com for research purposes.