Hunters, Soldiers, and Holy Men: Exploring the Gendered Politics of Mission Landscapes in Alta California

Summary

Space was paramount to Spanish missionary work in 18th and 19th century Alta California. This mission system was designed to irreparably reshape the Indigenous conceptual universe into that of a Christo-European worldview, to transform Native peoples into gente de razón. In addition, missions were the setting against which ecclesiastical and military colonists were in constant contact, and missionaries also used space as a moralizing tool, in an attempt to reform the lax morals of soldiers assigned to guard the missions. In this paper, I examine how the mission system reconfigured California’s natural and cultural landscape, and the gendered politics underpinning these changes. I focus in particular on identifying disparate ideals of masculine gender among mission inhabitants, and suggest masculinity was a significant locus of both conflict and concord that helped to shape not only the missions themselves but Alta California as a whole.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21325