Why did Junipero Serra want to establish missions?
And Junipero Serra was undoubtedly on a colonizing mission: he wanted to save the souls of the natives as well as assimilate them into European culture.
What was the purpose of the Spanish missions in Georgia?
Spanish missions were explicitly established for the purpose of religious conversion and instruction in the Catholic faith. However, the mission system actually served as the primary means of integrating Indians into the political and economic structure of Florida’s colonial system.
Why did Father Serra go to the Americas?
It is why he traveled to the Americas and he was determined to build missions and spread his religion. The first mission Father Serra founded in California was San Diego de Alcalá in 1769. For the next 15 years he traveled up and down the California coast and founded eight more missions.
Where did Junipero Serra set up his first mission?
In 1769, Serra began his journey northward where he would do some of his best-known work. Serra established his first mission in San Fernando de Velicatá in May 1769. Moving further north, he founded another mission in San Diego, first of nine missions he created in what is present-day California, that July.
Who was the father of the California missions?
Saint Junípero Serra (1713-1784) Serra is known as the father of the California Missions, and even California’s founding father. He was the first president of the California mission system, and personally founded 9 of the 21 missions. He was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca in 1713 as Miquel Josep Serra Ferrer.
How did Junipero Serra make a lot of money?
While some of that happened after the gold rush in 1849, it began with the mission system that Serra founded. The missions, like the monasteries of the late middle ages (which St Francis had reacted against in starting his order), became vast properties where tens of thousands of head of cattle, sheep, and goats made the friars rich beyond measure.