Jack Connelly - Discovering Mission Santa Bárbara

Published in 2015 by Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

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Copyright 2015 by Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Connelly, Jack.

Discovering Mission Santa Barbara / Jack Connelly. pages cm. (California missions)

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-62713-100-1 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-62713-102-5 (ebook)

1. Santa Barbara MissionHistoryJuvenile literature. 2. Spanish mission buildingsCaliforniaSanta BarbaraHistoryJuvenile literature. 3. FranciscansCaliforniaSanta BarbaraHistoryJuvenile literature. 4. Chumash IndiansMissionsCalifor-niaSanta BarbaraHistoryJuvenile literature. 5. CaliforniaHistoryTo 1846Juvenile literature. I. Title.

F869.S45C67 2014

. dc 3 2014008345

Editorial Director: Dean Miller Editor: Kristen Susienka Copy Editor: Cynthia Roby Art Director: Jeffrey Talbot Designer: Douglas Brooks Photo Researcher: J Media Production Manager: Jennifer Ryder-Talbot Production Editor: David McNamara

The photographs in this book are used by permission and through the courtesy of: Cover photo by Witold Skrypczak/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; Courtesy CMRC, 1; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, 4; DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images, 6; Courtesy CMRC, 8-9; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, 10-11; 2014 Pentacle Press, 13; Mission Santa Barbara, Cal. Postcard. Mission Santa Barbara, Cal. Postcard/Lake County Discovery Museum/ UIG/The Bridgeman Art Library, 14; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, 16; John Crowe/Alamy, 21; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, 22; Henrik Lehnerer/Shutterstock.com, 25; Courtesy CMRC, 26; Pentacle Press, 30; Courtesy CMRC, 33; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, 34; Chapel Door, Mission Santa Barbara, California (photo), ./Private Collection/Peter Newark American Pictures/The Bridgeman Art Library, 35; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, 36; Witold Skrypczak/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images, 41.

Printed in the United States of America

Sitting on a hill overlooking the seaside city of Santa Barbara, California, is the historic Mission Santa Barbara. Located about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of the bustling city of Los Angeles in Southern California, Mission Santa Barbara is a popular church and tourist destination, hosting visitors who come to pray and learn about the history of the site in its museum. The structure has stood for more than 200 years, long before the formation of the United States, back when Spanish missionaries and soldiers were first settling the land that would one day be California.

In 1492, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus accidentally discovered an area of the world called the West Indies. This was a place that had never before been seen by Europeans. His discovery led the Spanish, for whom Columbus worked, to explore the area around it. In the 1500s they found the rich, fertile land of the Americas (North, South, and Central) and the various indigenous tribes that lived there. The Spanish sent explorers to settle the land, along with friars , or priests, to convert the Native people. Men, including Hernan Cortes, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, and Sebastian

Vizcaino, claimed new land for Spain. But after a while, only the lower part of the new country, which they called New Spain, was built on and explored.

Spanish explorers such as Hernan Cortes landed in the New World and claimed land for Spain.

In the mid-1700s, however, Spain became eager to settle the land in the north and create a mission system. This urgency was because other countries, such as Russia and England, were building forts and villages in the area. Spain wanted to claim what is now California as its own. A mission is a religious community that teaches people about a certain religion. Other missions had been set up in the 1600s by Jesuit priests in lower New Spain, called Baja California. The priests had converted many of the Native people to Christianity . In the 1700s, Franciscan friars were asked to run all missions and start new ones in the upper area, called Alta California. The Spanish government thought that by converting the Native people into Spanish citizens, Spain's empire would become even larger. More explorers, soldiers, and friars helped discover the best places to build missions in Alta California, and eventually twenty-one communities were started along the coast.

The scenic area near today's city of Santa Barbara is home to one of the most beautiful Spanish missions. Mission Santa Barbara, the tenth mission founded, was built in 1786, almost twenty years after the founding of the first mission. Its history is vast, full of triumphs and hardships, and its legacy shapes the continuing story of California today.

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The Native Chumash

European explorers were not the first people to experience the California area. Native people had lived in the area for millennia. They set up communities, called tribes, and lived in different areas, called territories, which offered land and animals for food. When Vizcaino visited Alta California in 1602, it is estimated that more than 300,000 Native people lived there.

The Native group associated with Mission Santa Barbara is the Chumash. Their territory stretched from San Luis Obispo to Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains. They had many traditions and spoke their own language.

chumash villages

The Chumash lived in dome-shaped houses that could hold as many as fifty people. Each house was made of whalebone, reeds, and branches of willow trees. The buildings in the village were covered with mats of tule , tightly woven reeds used to keep out the wind and rain.