California History:  Missions and Temples

What's on this Web page:  18th- and 19th-century Spanish missions and mission outposts, 19th-century Chinese temples, and 19th-century Jewish synagogues.

Faith Building

What's one of the first structures erected by early settlers?  A place of worship, of course.  While the British and other Europeans built churches on the East Coast starting in 1607, the Spanish and the Chinese constructed missions and temples, respectively, in California during the 18th and 19th centuries.  Spain's Catholic missionaries were intent on converting the local Indians.

Spain established its first colony in Mexico in 1519.  By the end of the 16th century, there were Spanish settlements in Florida and New Mexico.  California was officially claimed by Spain in 1602 but never colonized until 1769, when a party from Baja California arrived at San Diego (England had claimed California as well in 1579).  The Spanish named the new acquisition Alta California or Upper California, an extension of Mexico's Baja California or Lower California.

The expedition followed the same modus operandi employed by Spain and other European powers:  a combination of military and missionaries--Franciscan fathers in this case, replacing the Jesuits who had founded similar missions in Baja California.  By the early 1820s, Spain had lost its hold on New World colonies; Mexico and other Latin American territories proclaimed independence from the crumbling Spanish Empire.

While the Spanish were the first Europeans to settle in California, the Chinese were the first Asians to settle in the Golden State and the U.S. in general.  By 1790, Sino-American trade had brought many Chinese sailors to the U.S. (direct trade established since 1784).  Earliest government records show the first immigrants from China entering the country in the 1820s.  The first documented Chinese in Spanish California dates back to 1815.

As a result of the Gold Rush (1848-1850), thousands of gold seekers arrived from the East Coast, the Midwest, Europe, China, and South America as California was ceded by Mexico, which had gained independence just 26 years earlier.  By 1870, Chinese Americans had worked and lived in all 58 counties of Gold Mountain, their name for California.  Except for American Indians and maybe Irish Americans, we know of no other group of people who managed to leave their footprints across 19th-century California in the space of a generation.

California Missions (founded 1769-1823), 21 total in series

...ca-missions.org (California Mission Studies Association)
...californiamissions.com (California Missions:  A Virtual Tour)
...parks.ca.gov (California Department of Parks & Recreation:  California State Parks)
...newadvent.org (New Advent:  click on F, then Franciscan Order)
...nafra-sfo.org (The National Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order - USA)

California Mission Outposts (1769-1830)

...missiontour.org (MissionTour:  A Personal Journey)
...ca-missions.org (California Mission Studies Association)

Note that Cathedral Basilica of Saint Joseph is California's first non-mission church (CHL 910, stjosephcathedral.org) founded in 1803 in San Jose (Santa Clara County*).  The first Protestant church in California (CHL 175) was established in Benicia (Solano County*) in 1849 by a Presbyterian missionary from New York; the marker is in City Park (ci.benicia.ca.us).

The first African American Methodist Episcopal church on the West Coast (CHL 1013, ame-church.org) was founded in 1851 in Sacramento (Sacramento County, cityofsacramento.org, sacramentocvb.org, calgold.org).

California Temples (1840s-1900), 60+ total

...cr.nps.gov (U.S. Department of the Interior:  National Park Service—Links to the Past…select Cultural Groups under A Cultural Resource Subject, then click on Five Views:  An Ethnic Historic Site Survey for California)
...khamsin.org (Web Pages of Kevin Baugh)
...memory.loc.gov (The Library of Congress:  American Memory—click on Immigration, American Expansion, then The Chinese in California)
...taoism-directory.com (Taoism Directory)
...taorestore.org (Taoist Restoration Society)
...buddhanet.net (Buddha Dharma Education Association)

Note that San Francisco Chinatown alone had about a dozen defunct temples from the 19th century.  Historical records show there was one more temple in Weaverville, Grass Valley, and Los Angeles, and Merced had two other temples at some point.  We are skipping these temples and others for now for lack of details.  Because historians believe there have been at least 210 Chinese American communities in California, the total number of 19th-century temples could be much higher than 60.

California Synagogues (1852-1861), 3+ total

...magnes.org (The Judah L. Magnes Museum)
...isjm.org (International Survey of Jewish Monuments)

An asterisk indicates San Francisco Bay Area destination.  CHL means California Historical Landmark and NRHP denotes National Register of Historic Places.

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