Children of Coyote, Missionaries of St. Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850 (review)

Steven Hackel's book, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of St. Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850, examines the Spanish Franciscans' treatment of the indigenous Indian population and traces the history of the California missions from their beginnings through the period in which Mexico secularized the missions. In his first chapter, Hackel described the pre-contact Indians as having a flexible government and society that was well adapted to the environment and was able to meet the short- and long-term needs of the community including trade, food, and healthcare. Hackel used this description as a contrast to his portrayal of the missions that he saw as bringing cultural devastation to that part of the world. Assessing the environmental impact of the settlers, Hackel maintained that the rapid growth of the Spanish herds and the introduction of new plant species upset the local ecological balance and the traditional hunting and gathering lifestyle of the Indians. The introduction of diseases, especially syphilis, that spread quickly through the Indian population in the missions combined with the low birth rates resulted in a steadily decreasing Indian population. Hackel describes the missions as places of horrible suffering and death, punctuated by the senseless beating of Indians by the Franciscans.

Hackel has a dim view of the Franciscans' religious program. Rather than trying to adapt to the Indians' beliefs or trying to build on them, the Franciscans, Hackel maintains, simply tried to eradicate the Indians' religious beliefs, which the Franciscans saw as demonic. Unwilling to learn the Indians' languages, the friars sought to further the destruction of Indian culture by imposing the Spanish language. Hackel repeatedly uses the term "indoctrination" to describe the Franciscans' efforts to instruct the Indians, in order to convey the idea that the Franciscans forced the unwilling Indians to memorize prayers and follow the strict morals of the Catholic Church. In Hackel's book, accounts of anything positive that the missionaries accomplished are quite rare. At these missions, evangelization, for Hackel, consisted of pressuring and humiliating any Indians who sought to maintain their traditional beliefs, and whipping those who violated the morals of the Church; indeed Hackel says that the "Franciscans considered violence toward Indians integral to their missionary approach. . ." (p. 326). Hackel is truly tireless in providing criticism of the Franciscans: the friars used soldiers to force labor from the Indians, they arranged marriages for the Indians, they humiliated them with intrusive questions prior to marriage, they "scrutinized Indians' sexuality and marital fidelity" (p. 200), and the "Franciscans no doubt pressured the young to marry early. . ." (p. 216). Hackel frequently uses phrases like "the Indians might have," "could have," "must have," "perhaps," and "doubtless" to vent his own criticisms of the Catholic doctrine since he has no evidence to support these musings. For example, Hackel says, "Catholicism's strict linking of marriage and sexuality could have only intensified the emotional burdens that accompanied rape" (p. 225-226). The following is another of the many examples of Hackel's enthusiasm for speculation: "Perhaps adding to the Indian's frustration and consternation was a Catholic provision known as the Pauline Privilege. . . . Yet, from these exceptions, Indians might have come to wonder why the Franciscans insisted that no marriages were dissoluble. . ." (p. 192). In his introduction, Hackel further illustrates his personal aversion to the Catholic conception of marriage when he says, "The Indians encountered a Catholic system that insisted upon uncompromising adherence to monogamy and marital fidelity yet contradicted itself in tolerating or pardoning exceptions" (p. 3). Furthermore, Hackel has no problem explaining why Indians left the missions, but he is rather puzzled concerning those Indians who accepted the Catholic faith. "What lay behind these Indians' seeming embrace of Catholicism is not clear" (p. 162). He, nevertheless, hastens to explain...