ABSTRACT
In 1769 the Spanish occupied Alta California and began the construction of a chain of Franciscan missions which would ultimately stretch approximately 500 miles from San Diego Bay in the south, to beyond San Francisco Bay in the north (Fig. 11.1). The missions were built to convert and civilize the Native Americans who lived along the California coast. Their impact was both dramatic and devastating. Indians entering the missions were exposed both to a completely foreign culture and to diseases to which they had no resistance. Cultural change and death came hand in hand. By the time the missions were secularized in 1834, the Indians had been decimated. Those who survived had lost their traditional culture in the missions, and had to adapt to a world with ever-increasing European influences. Historical archaeologists are attempting to understand the changes which occurred in the missions, the processes involved, and the degree to which Indian culture may have survived. This chapter provides an overview of the cultural contact between the Spanish and the California Indians, and examines archaeological approaches which are being used to gain a better understanding of native American acculturation in the Franciscan missions of Alta California.
