What are some fun facts about Mission Santa Cruz?
Santa Cruz Mission Facts Santa Cruz Mission was secularized in 1834. The mission was returned to the Catholic Church in 1859 by President James Buchanan. It is now operated as a Parish Chapel under the parish of the Holy Cross of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey. The mission chapel is popular for weddings.
What was taught in the missions?
There they were taught Spanish as well as the tenets of their new religion and trained in skills that would equip them for their new lives: brickmaking and construction, raising cattle and horses, blacksmithing, weaving, tanning hides, etc.
What was life like at the Santa Cruz Mission?
Men hunted and fished to provide food while the women gathered acorns, wild herbs, roots, and berries to help feed their families. Within the first three months 87 neophytes were living at the mission and by 1796 records show almost 500. Life at the Mission was difficult for both the Fathers and the Natives.
Who was forced to live at Mission Santa Cruz?
Diseases continued to kill many of the neophytes and eventually the Fathers went out to search for another tribe to live at the Mission. They found the Yokut tribe in the hills around Mission Santa Cruz and they forced them to live and work at the mission.
What did the children do at the mission?
Children often helped at these chores around the Mission once their religious instruction was over. Depending on the particular industry at the Mission there also might be neophytes leatherworking, metalworking, wine making, and pressing olives for olive oil.
When was the mission of Santa Cruz destroyed?
The land was given back to the Catholic church in 1859 but most of what was left of the Mission was destroyed in a January 1857 earthquake. A small wood church was built in 1858 and remained on the Mission site until 1889 when another Church was built there.