Book Review: "Converting California:Indians and Franciscans in the Missions, 1769-1836" by James Sandos

By Rennett Stowe (Flickr: Mission San Luis Obispo) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

James A. Sandos, Converting California, Indians and Franciscans in the Missions, 1769-1836 (Yale University Press, 2004)

 Scholarship surrounding the Spanish Missionary period in California abounds with different interpretations. Some vilify the Spanish missionaries for essentially wiping out the Native American populations in California and disrupting their lives to destruction. Others opt for a more benign approach, complicated by cooperation and agency among the Native populations. James Sandos’ work on Franciscan conversion of the Native Americans is just such a work.

  Sandos’ overarching thesis is that the goal of the Franciscan mission was conversion of the Native Americans, however the meaning was limited or framed within their understanding of eighteenth and nineteenth century religious ideologies. While the relative intensity of faith the Native Americans brought to their conversion was diverse and somewhat unknowable given the sources, the Franciscan priests believed that once baptism and conversion was “sealed,” the Native Americans assumed not only the unspoken contract of living a pious, Christian lifestyle, but also agreed to a form of “spiritual debt peonage” to the missions (108). Sandos further emphasizes that these conversions were likely driven by survival interests like food, protection, and other material benefits that came to those who participated in musical arrangements that supported the mission.

  Sandos further argues that Franciscans were not intentional agents of a genocidal mission against the populations of the Native communities. In fact, there was a lot of internal concern for the maintenance of the population numbers given that the missions relied on these new populations not only for their spiritual goals, but as a steady supply of labor to support their mercantile efforts in trades like oils, candles, tallow and cattle. Sandos’ analysis, however, does seem to limit the discussion to physical genocide, particularly at the level of populations. What is important to recall here is the fact that the Franciscans did intend to commit a kind of cultural genocide, in that they did (ideally) want to replace the indigenous culture with a Christianized, Hispanic-oriented culture. In practice, however, this has been shown to not be the case, as Sandos illustrates with his argument that the missionary period formed a complex hybrid culture that the Franciscans and Native Americans both contributed to, where villains and heroes are not easily defined (184).

  Such arguments mirror other discussions within American West and Southwest borderlands’ communities, such as with James Brooks’ article "Violence, Exchange, and the Honor of Men", as well as Gutierrez’ chapter on "The Spanish Conquest of New Mexico," particularly outlining the conflicts between military conquest before 1573 and the focus on religious conversions by the Franciscans afterwards (Gutierrez, 46). A seemingly coherent argument between Gutierrez and Sandos is the relationship the Native Americans had to the celebration of Mass, where Gutierrez emphasizes not only the familiar aspects of the celebration with Native religious rituals, but also the pacifying effect such a “universal” celebration would have on the population (Gutierrez, 63).

  Sandos, however, emphasizes too the level of resistance the Native Americans had against the religious colonization efforts, particularly in the context of a “hidden transcript,” where the public display of acquiescence belies the very real, private resistance that exists under the surface. What is interesting here is the concept of the “hidden transcript,” as expanded upon in James C. Scott’s book Domination and the Arts of Resistance (a highly recommended work) which deals with the condition of Southern slavery. Sandos emphasizes that the experience of the Native Americans within the missionary system was not one of slavery as we understand it, but of pre-existing “debt peonage.”

  Sandos wishes to emphasize that his analysis avoids the dichotomous camps of Spanish missionary California, particularly the “Christophilic Triumphantalist” that overemphasizes the positive aspects of the Franciscan missions, against the “Christophobic Nihilist” who condemns the Franciscans for their disruptive, destructive efforts. While this point of view is admirable, modern scholarship almost always seem to avoid such black and white “camps” in favor of a more nuanced, gray area reading of what the experience was like. Sandos also mentions the role disease had on the Native American populations, particularly the spread of venereal disease. While these discussions are interesting, it may strengthen a future edition to consider works by Steven Hackel, whose work in ethnographic and environmental factors could strengthen Sandos’ own arguments.

  There are problems with parts of Sandos’ arguments. His discussion of how patriarchy was introduced by the Franciscan missionary system, which relies on the idea that there was a strong matriarchal culture or at least female agency previously, is somewhat problematic based on such assumptions and reduction of the diverse cultures of Native American communities. Further, the role of disease on the native populations also could be strengthened with further diving into more demographic information that would strengthen or counter his treatment of diseases’ impact. Steven Hackel’s later work Children of Coyote, for example, emphasizes the “dual revolutions” of disease introduction AND environmental factors that limited the traditional lifeways of the Native American communities, further influencing many of the men’s participation in the missionary system. Finally, Sandos’ reliance on French artist Louis Choris’ impressions of Native American male expressions places the reasoning on inherent psychological issues, when in fact ethnographic research shows it more to be a reflection of indigenous forms of etiquette, a fact that was not as deeply addressed as it could have been.

  Overall, this work is a useful addition to the historiography, particularly in the treatment of music and its role in Christianizing the Native American populations. The most original aspects of Sandos’ work is in this chapter, as he emphasizes the material benefits of participation in the musical activities. His treatment, too, of their acquisition of the Spanish language, and its potentially unifying role in communication across cultural groups, though Sandos isn’t sure of its full role. The prose is highly readable and quick, meaning historians and lay readers alike will benefit quickly from the salient arguments without getting bogged down in unnecessary complications.