Post by blackcrowheart on Feb 19, 2006 21:37:51 GMT -5
Revisiting history; More teachers are exploring the adverse effects of
California's missions on Indians
02/20/2004 - SACRAMENTO CA By Stephen Magagnini – Sacramento Bee Staff
Writer
The two sides of Father Junipero Serra took center stage last week at
Del Paso Manor Elementary School in the Arden area, where 30 kids
performed a musical titled "California Missions - and More!"
A pint-sized Father Serra declared, "I'm just a humble Franciscan friar
doing the best service I can," then sang cheerfully, "grain is rising,
so civilizing."
But the Serra character was followed by a mournful chorus of California
Indians left homeless when the missions were sold off after Mexico
gained its freedom from Spain in 1821.
"Where do we go? You gave us shoes and taught us how to plow/But all the
land belongs to you now," they moaned in a minor key. "What do we do?
We've lost the skills to hunt and to track/Too late to learn too late to
turn back."
Serra - who started the system of 21 California missions along El Camino
Real ("The King's Highway") from San Diego to Sonoma built between 1769
and 1823 - looms large in California history. Schools, streets and parks
bear his name. A larger-than-life statue of Serra perches piously in
Capitol Park. A 20-foot concrete-and-steel sculpture of Serra - a finger
pointing out the path to heavenly enlightenment - sits off Interstate
280 ("Father Junipero Serra Highway") near Hillsborough.
But while Serra remains a candidate for sainthood - Pope John Paul II
beatified the priest in 1988 - a growing number of elementary school
teachers are gingerly exploring the devastating effect Serra's beloved
missions had on tens of thousands of California Indians who gave their
lives and freedom to build and maintain them.
Each year in California, elementary school students, typically fourth-
graders, take up the role of the missions as they study the state's
history.
Though fourth-grade textbooks have changed little in the last 30 years,
the emergence of California Indians as a political and economic force
has generated new respect for Indian sovereignty and a less-sanitized
view of California's mission history.
Judy Dronberger, whose students performed "California Missions - and
More!", said that when she first began teaching six years ago, she
taught strictly by the book sanctioned by the state Department of
Education, which "led kids to the point where Father Serra was doing
only what was right, he was basically a good guy. It really doesn't
question him."
Now, Dronberger and other teachers are using plays, videos, extra
readings and field trips to missions so that kids can decide for
themselves whether Serra was a saint or a sinner.
Dronberger's students - like many teachers - were divided on Serra's
sanctity. Jacob Cannon, the 8-year-old who played Serra, said that what
happened to the Indians "was cruel and shouldn't have been done, but it
wasn't his fault."
Jacob's classmate, Brooke Carroll, was less forgiving: "Trying to make
(Indians) into Christians was a good idea, but not making them into
slaves. He tricked people into thinking he was a good guy, but in the
end they found out he was sort of mean."
Before long, even Serra's image as a well-meaning missionary who wanted
to "civilize" native Californians may fade into history.
Edward Castillo, chairman of the Native American studies department at
Sonoma State University, has received a state grant to revamp
California's public school curriculum to address Indian sovereignty and
more fully explore the impact of missions on indigenous people.
"We want to put the Indian back in mission history, not just as victims,
but as active participants," he said. "They had rebellions, they
poisoned priests, they occupied some missions and burned others to the
ground."
Castillo, a California Indian from the Cahuilla and Luiseño nations,
said his ancestors were enslaved at several missions. "My grandparents
called it the 'slave church,' " he said.
His book on the impact of California's missions, "Indians, Franciscans
and Spanish Colonization," paints a picture of genocide.
"About 70,000 Indians died at California missions from 1769 to 1837,
most from measles, mumps and chickenpox, and there's not a single
headstone for any one of them," Castillo said. "The average life span
was 12. As they were dying, the fathers were saying, 'You're dying
because you're pagan.' "
The missionaries, however, kept meticulous records of those who died and
why, and Castillo said he helped raise $32,000 to erect a wall in 1998
at the Sonoma mission listing the names of almost 700 Indians who died
there. "We put an asterisk next to the children's names," he said.
Serra was more quixotic than demonic, Castillo said. "He really thought
he could take these Indians and transform them into a perfect society
under the careful tutelage and strict discipline of the missionaries.
The missions were only supposed to last 10 years, then be turned over to
the Indians, but the Indians kept dying off."
Castillo, a former public school teacher, doesn't think fourth- graders
need all the gory details, such as how soldiers and some priests raped
Indian women. "But you can teach that some of the mission soldiers were
cruel to the Indians and stole their wives, and that some priests were
good and tried to help the Indians," he said.
Castillo and Cindy LaMarr, president of the National Indian Education
Association, said it's up to individual teachers to give the Indian
perspective on California's missions.
Jennifer Stampfli, a teacher at Frontier Elementary School in Rio Linda,
said that she wasn't satisfied with the standard fourth-grade textbook,
"Oh California!" So Stampfli got her Parent Teacher Association to buy
her students "California Studies Weekly," a newspaper that gives a more
detailed history of the mission era, including an account of 600
Kumeyaay Indians who revolted at Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1775,
burning it to the ground.
"I realize I can speak the truth," said Stampfli, 27. " I don't have to
tell what's exactly in the textbooks."
Serra is treated more charitably at Holy Family, a Catholic elementary
school in Citrus Heights.
"Father Serra is presented as a wonderful human being acting in
accordance with his conscience," said Vice Principal Stephanie Jones.
"He believed the native people needed to be disciplined and enlightened
and - just as they've been taught about slavery - the children are
taught that this was thought to be perfectly correct. We've come a long
way since then."
Jones said Serra has a legitimate shot at sainthood.
"He brought Spanish architecture to California, he brought art, he
brought education in a limited form to the Indians, he taught them basic
European agriculture, and he brought Christianity and Catholicism to
California, which exerted positive forces and still do," she said.
But Jones said her students also are taught that Indians were mistreated
and stripped of their culture.
"The teaching of history has changed as we have become a more educated
and sensitive society," she said. "When I was a child ... in San
Francisco public schools in the 1940s - Father Serra was presented as an
absolute savior to the 'heathens.' "
Jones is happy today's kids get a less saccharine view of Serra. Her
fourth-graders now have a choice: They can make a model of a mission, an
Indian settlement or a California ranchero.
"They're usually Styrofoam," she said.
"Things have improved since we had a classroom filled with ants from the
sugar cube missions the kids used to make in the 1970s and 1980s."
Father Junipero Serra (1713-1784) Father Junipero Serra grew up in on
the Spanish island of Mallorca. He was educated by the Franciscans and
was ordained at age 24. Serra taught philosophy at a university for a
dozen years before choosing to be a New World missionary in 1749. One
theory is that he left Spain because he feared the Inquisition would
punish him for having a Jewish grandfather. He landed in Vera Cruz,
Mexico, then walked 260 miles to Mexico City, a trek that left him
disabled for life. After Serra spent 20 years in Mexico, the king of
Spain sent him to New California where on July 16, 1769, he founded San
Diego de Alcalá, the first of 21 missions on the El Camino Real. The
missions included presidios, or fortresses, occupied by Spanish
soldiers.
Mission Education Links
www.angelfire.com/ga/acb/NativeAmericanRing.html
www.duke.edu/~ehs1/education/
www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/native/nativepm.html
www.historyserver.org/HSSWeb/a-part1.html
www.alaskool.org/native_ed/bibliography.htm
catalog.arizona.edu/2000-01/courses/004/AISx.html
jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/BOISE.html
California's missions on Indians
02/20/2004 - SACRAMENTO CA By Stephen Magagnini – Sacramento Bee Staff
Writer
The two sides of Father Junipero Serra took center stage last week at
Del Paso Manor Elementary School in the Arden area, where 30 kids
performed a musical titled "California Missions - and More!"
A pint-sized Father Serra declared, "I'm just a humble Franciscan friar
doing the best service I can," then sang cheerfully, "grain is rising,
so civilizing."
But the Serra character was followed by a mournful chorus of California
Indians left homeless when the missions were sold off after Mexico
gained its freedom from Spain in 1821.
"Where do we go? You gave us shoes and taught us how to plow/But all the
land belongs to you now," they moaned in a minor key. "What do we do?
We've lost the skills to hunt and to track/Too late to learn too late to
turn back."
Serra - who started the system of 21 California missions along El Camino
Real ("The King's Highway") from San Diego to Sonoma built between 1769
and 1823 - looms large in California history. Schools, streets and parks
bear his name. A larger-than-life statue of Serra perches piously in
Capitol Park. A 20-foot concrete-and-steel sculpture of Serra - a finger
pointing out the path to heavenly enlightenment - sits off Interstate
280 ("Father Junipero Serra Highway") near Hillsborough.
But while Serra remains a candidate for sainthood - Pope John Paul II
beatified the priest in 1988 - a growing number of elementary school
teachers are gingerly exploring the devastating effect Serra's beloved
missions had on tens of thousands of California Indians who gave their
lives and freedom to build and maintain them.
Each year in California, elementary school students, typically fourth-
graders, take up the role of the missions as they study the state's
history.
Though fourth-grade textbooks have changed little in the last 30 years,
the emergence of California Indians as a political and economic force
has generated new respect for Indian sovereignty and a less-sanitized
view of California's mission history.
Judy Dronberger, whose students performed "California Missions - and
More!", said that when she first began teaching six years ago, she
taught strictly by the book sanctioned by the state Department of
Education, which "led kids to the point where Father Serra was doing
only what was right, he was basically a good guy. It really doesn't
question him."
Now, Dronberger and other teachers are using plays, videos, extra
readings and field trips to missions so that kids can decide for
themselves whether Serra was a saint or a sinner.
Dronberger's students - like many teachers - were divided on Serra's
sanctity. Jacob Cannon, the 8-year-old who played Serra, said that what
happened to the Indians "was cruel and shouldn't have been done, but it
wasn't his fault."
Jacob's classmate, Brooke Carroll, was less forgiving: "Trying to make
(Indians) into Christians was a good idea, but not making them into
slaves. He tricked people into thinking he was a good guy, but in the
end they found out he was sort of mean."
Before long, even Serra's image as a well-meaning missionary who wanted
to "civilize" native Californians may fade into history.
Edward Castillo, chairman of the Native American studies department at
Sonoma State University, has received a state grant to revamp
California's public school curriculum to address Indian sovereignty and
more fully explore the impact of missions on indigenous people.
"We want to put the Indian back in mission history, not just as victims,
but as active participants," he said. "They had rebellions, they
poisoned priests, they occupied some missions and burned others to the
ground."
Castillo, a California Indian from the Cahuilla and Luiseño nations,
said his ancestors were enslaved at several missions. "My grandparents
called it the 'slave church,' " he said.
His book on the impact of California's missions, "Indians, Franciscans
and Spanish Colonization," paints a picture of genocide.
"About 70,000 Indians died at California missions from 1769 to 1837,
most from measles, mumps and chickenpox, and there's not a single
headstone for any one of them," Castillo said. "The average life span
was 12. As they were dying, the fathers were saying, 'You're dying
because you're pagan.' "
The missionaries, however, kept meticulous records of those who died and
why, and Castillo said he helped raise $32,000 to erect a wall in 1998
at the Sonoma mission listing the names of almost 700 Indians who died
there. "We put an asterisk next to the children's names," he said.
Serra was more quixotic than demonic, Castillo said. "He really thought
he could take these Indians and transform them into a perfect society
under the careful tutelage and strict discipline of the missionaries.
The missions were only supposed to last 10 years, then be turned over to
the Indians, but the Indians kept dying off."
Castillo, a former public school teacher, doesn't think fourth- graders
need all the gory details, such as how soldiers and some priests raped
Indian women. "But you can teach that some of the mission soldiers were
cruel to the Indians and stole their wives, and that some priests were
good and tried to help the Indians," he said.
Castillo and Cindy LaMarr, president of the National Indian Education
Association, said it's up to individual teachers to give the Indian
perspective on California's missions.
Jennifer Stampfli, a teacher at Frontier Elementary School in Rio Linda,
said that she wasn't satisfied with the standard fourth-grade textbook,
"Oh California!" So Stampfli got her Parent Teacher Association to buy
her students "California Studies Weekly," a newspaper that gives a more
detailed history of the mission era, including an account of 600
Kumeyaay Indians who revolted at Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1775,
burning it to the ground.
"I realize I can speak the truth," said Stampfli, 27. " I don't have to
tell what's exactly in the textbooks."
Serra is treated more charitably at Holy Family, a Catholic elementary
school in Citrus Heights.
"Father Serra is presented as a wonderful human being acting in
accordance with his conscience," said Vice Principal Stephanie Jones.
"He believed the native people needed to be disciplined and enlightened
and - just as they've been taught about slavery - the children are
taught that this was thought to be perfectly correct. We've come a long
way since then."
Jones said Serra has a legitimate shot at sainthood.
"He brought Spanish architecture to California, he brought art, he
brought education in a limited form to the Indians, he taught them basic
European agriculture, and he brought Christianity and Catholicism to
California, which exerted positive forces and still do," she said.
But Jones said her students also are taught that Indians were mistreated
and stripped of their culture.
"The teaching of history has changed as we have become a more educated
and sensitive society," she said. "When I was a child ... in San
Francisco public schools in the 1940s - Father Serra was presented as an
absolute savior to the 'heathens.' "
Jones is happy today's kids get a less saccharine view of Serra. Her
fourth-graders now have a choice: They can make a model of a mission, an
Indian settlement or a California ranchero.
"They're usually Styrofoam," she said.
"Things have improved since we had a classroom filled with ants from the
sugar cube missions the kids used to make in the 1970s and 1980s."
Father Junipero Serra (1713-1784) Father Junipero Serra grew up in on
the Spanish island of Mallorca. He was educated by the Franciscans and
was ordained at age 24. Serra taught philosophy at a university for a
dozen years before choosing to be a New World missionary in 1749. One
theory is that he left Spain because he feared the Inquisition would
punish him for having a Jewish grandfather. He landed in Vera Cruz,
Mexico, then walked 260 miles to Mexico City, a trek that left him
disabled for life. After Serra spent 20 years in Mexico, the king of
Spain sent him to New California where on July 16, 1769, he founded San
Diego de Alcalá, the first of 21 missions on the El Camino Real. The
missions included presidios, or fortresses, occupied by Spanish
soldiers.
Mission Education Links
www.angelfire.com/ga/acb/NativeAmericanRing.html
www.duke.edu/~ehs1/education/
www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/native/nativepm.html
www.historyserver.org/HSSWeb/a-part1.html
www.alaskool.org/native_ed/bibliography.htm
catalog.arizona.edu/2000-01/courses/004/AISx.html
jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/BOISE.html