Mission Santa Cruz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Other missions bearing the name Santa Cruz include the Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá
and the Mission San Lorenzo de la Santa Cruz in Texas,
along with four separate outposts located throughout the State of Florida.

**Mission Santa Cruz**
Location	Santa Cruz, California
An exterior view of the reconstructed Mission Santa Cruz chapel.
Name as Founded	La Misión de la Exaltación de la Santa Cruz ^[1]
English Translation	The Mission of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Patron	The Exaltation of the Cross ^[2]
Nickname(s)	"The Hard-luck Mission" ^[3]
Founding Date	August 29, 1791 ^[4]
Founding Priest(s)	Father Fermín Lasuén ^[5]
Founding Order	Twelfth ^[2]
Military District	Fourth ^[6]
Native Tribe(s) Spanish Name(s)	Awaswas / Ohlone, Yokuts Costeño
Native Place Name(s)	Uypi ^[7]
Baptisms	2,439 ^[8]
Marriages	827 ^[8]
Burials	1,972 ^[8]
Secularized	1834 ^[2]
Governing Body	Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey
Current Use	Chapel / Museum
California Historical Landmark	#342
Web Site	http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/7151/

Mission Santa Cruz was consecrated on August 29, 1791 and named for the "Celebration of the Sacred Cross," the name that the explorer Gaspar de Portolà had given to the area when he camped on the banks of the San Lorenzo River on October 17, 1769 and erected a wooden cross.^[4] As with the other California missions, Mission Santa Cruz served as a site for ecclesiastical conversion of natives, first the Ohlone, the original inhabitants of the region, and later the Yokuts from the east. The settlement was the site of the first autopsy in Alta California.^[5] Today, Mission Santa Cruz functions as a museum open to visitors; the replica chapel, located near the original Mission site has weekday masses and is available for weddings and funerals. The Holy Cross Church on the site of the original church is an active and busy parish of the Diocese of Monterey. "Plaza Park," which is situated at the center of the former Mission complex, was at one time the site of 32 buildings.

1 Precontact
2 History
3 Other historic designations
4 Notes
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Precontact

The current prevailing theory postulates that Paleo-Indians entered the Americas from Asia via a land bridge called "Beringia" that connected eastern Siberia with present-day Alaska (when sea levels were significantly lower, due to widespread glaciation) between about 15,000 to 35,000 years ago. The remains of Arlington Springs Man on Santa Rosa Island are among the traces of a very early habitation in California, dated to the last ice age (Wisconsin glaciation) about 13,000 years ago. The first humans are therefore thought to have made their homes among the southern valleys of California's coastal mountain ranges some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago; the earliest of these people are known only from archaeological evidence.^[9] The cultural impacts resulting from climactic changes and other natural events during this broad expanse of time were negligible; conversely, European contact was a momentous event, which profoundly affected California's native peoples.^[10] hellow

[edit] History

Mission Santa Cruz was originally established in 1791 on the floodplain of the San Lorenzo River. That winter, the mission was flooded as the San Lorenzo swelled with the rains. The padres set out to rebuild the mission on the hill overlooking the river. On the night of December 14, 1793 Mission Santa Cruz was attacked and partially burned by members of the Quiroste tribe who inhabited the mountains to the east of Point Año Nuevo. The attack was purportedly motivated by the forced relocation of native Indians to the Mission. On October 12, 1812 Father Andrés Quintana was beaten to death and his body disfigured (allegedly, his testicles were smashed) by natives angry over his use of a metal-tipped whip in the punishment of Mission laborers.^[11]

In 1797, the Spanish governor of Monterey founded the secular pueblo (town) of Branciforte, across the San Lorenzo River from Mission Santa Cruz. The frequent gambling and smuggling which occurred in and through Branciforte brought what the padres of Mission Santa Cruz considered an unwelcome element to the area. In 1818, the Mission received advance warning of an attack by the "pirate" Hipólito Bouchard and was evacuated.^[12] The citizens of Branciforte were asked to protect the Mission's valuables; instead, they looted the Mission. A series of earthquakes in 1857 destroyed the Mission. The lands were put up for sale, but no buyer was found. In 1858, a wood-frame church was built on the old Mission property. In 1889, the current Gothic style Holy Cross Church was built on the original adobe site. There is nothing left of the original Mission except for a row of buildings which at one time housed local Yokut and Ohlone Indian families, and a protected remnant of the mission wall standing behind the current Holy Cross Church. In 1931, Gladys Sullivan Doyle proposed to construct a replica of the Mission; she used her own funds to build a half-size replica of the original church.

[edit] Other historic designations

A view of Holy Cross Church which sits at the site of the former Mission Santa Cruz, circa 1900.

National Register of Historic Places #NPS-76000530 — Mission Hill Area Historic District

[edit] Notes

^ Leffingwell, p. 131
^ ^a ^b ^c Krell, p. 219
^ Ruscin, p. 105
^ ^a ^b Yenne, p. 112
^ ^a ^b Ruscin, p. 196
^ Forbes, p. 202
^ Ruscin, p. 195
^ ^a ^b ^c Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
^ Paddison, p. 333: The first undisputable archaeological evidence of human presence in California dates back to circa 8,000 BCE.
^ Jones and Klar 2005, p. 53: "Understanding how and when humans first settled California is intimately linked to the initial colonization of the Americas."
^ Leffingwell, p. 132
^ There is a great contrast between the legacy of Bouchard in Argentina versus his reputation in the United States. In Buenos Aires, Bouchard is honored as a brave patriot, while in California he is most often remembered as a pirate, and not a privateer. See Hippolyte de Bouchard.

[edit] References

A look inside the reconstructed (half-size) chapel at
Mission Santa Cruz in December, 2004. Note the exposed
wood vigas (beams) that comprise the roof structure.

Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London.
Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, MD. ISBN 0-759-10872-2.
Krell, Dorothy (ed.) (1979). The California Missions: A Pictorial History. Sunset Publishing Corporation, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-376-05172-8.
Leffingwell, Randy (2005). California Missions and Presidios: The History & Beauty of the Spanish Missions. Voyageur Press, Inc., Stillwater, MN. ISBN 0-89658-492-5.
Levy, Richard. (1978). in William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer: Handbook of North American Indians. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. ISBN 0-16-004578-9 / 0160045754, page 486.
Milliken, Randall (1995). A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910. Ballena Press Publication, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-87919-132-5.
Paddison, Joshua (ed.) (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-890771-13-9.
Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA. ISBN 0-932653-30-8.
Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8.