ABSTRACT
The mission system came under attack at the end of the eighteenth century as Spanish enlightened reformers questioned the paternalistic control that the missionaries exercised over the native converts. Missionaries could justify their continued management of the missions as long as there were active congregations, meaning that there were converts receiving religious instruction. As implemented in California, the secularization law entailed the appointment of a civil administrator to administer the mission estates. Prior to secularization there had been several experiments in emancipation of the natives living on the missions. Te government emancipated more acculturated natives living in the missions in southern and central California. The granting of lands and culling of the herds of former mission livestock rapidly depleted the value of the mission estates built up under the direction of the Franciscan missionaries. The demographic collapse of the indigenous populations undermined the acculturation campaign, and many of the survivors chose to not remain under the Mexican sphere of control.
