Program in america and california explorations

Unified Interior Regions. Science Centers. Frequently Asked Questions. Educational Resources. Multimedia Gallery. Web Tools. Board on Geographic Names. The National Map. USGS Library. USGS Store. Park Passes. News Releases. Featured Stories. California's missions were one leg of a far-flung mission system that extended to Baja California and the present-day states of Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Spain's empire in the Americas maintained a complex racial classification system that arranged people hierarchically based on the "purity" of their blood. The California frontier — free of imperial bureaucracy and pure-blooded elites — was a place where castas people of mixed ancestry could move up the racial hierarchy.

Much of the population in California that referred to themselves as "Spaniards" in the 18th and early 19th centuries were of mixed Spanish, African, and Native American ancestry. Affluent Spanish families could even purchase certificates of their blood purity from Spain. Wealthy Spanish Californians also held themselves separate from the gente corriente, working-class Spaniards who did not own their own land.

Never as racially stratified as other parts of Spanish America, colonial California s developed a racial hierarchy: land-owning "Spaniards" and missionaries at the top, working-class gente corriente in the middle, and Christianized native Californians at the bottom, with non-Christian natives a constant outside presence.

These racial categories were based more on perception and the ability to influence official record keeping than on actual genetics. As time passed, the lives of Spanish settlers and native peoples became intertwined in a shifting series of uneasy relationships. Spaniards possessed manufactured goods and superior weapons, while natives had far greater numbers and intimate knowledge of the landscape.

Motivated by curiosity and self-interest, many native Californians joined Spanish missions and villages only to discover they were not permitted to leave. Outbreaks of violence became a constant part of life in colonial California, but so did intercultural communication and accommodation.

The Spanish suffered raids on their livestock and lived under a constant threat of uprising, while native groups fashioned new ways of life in the wake of disease, new technologies, and a foreign political structure.

Spaniards and natives together created a new world in California that was dynamic and violent, unfamiliar and fragile. Edward D. Short Overview of California Indian History. How to Make Microwave Fudge. Parents, daycare providers call on government for clear guidance on making child care settings safer.

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