Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions

This book is a compelling and balanced history of the California missions and their impact on the Indians they tried to convert. Focusing primarily on the religious conflict between the two groups, it sheds new light on the tensions, accomplishments, and limitations of the California mission experience.

James A. Sandos, an eminent authority on the American West, traces the history of the Franciscan missions from the creation of the first one in 1769 until they were turned over to the public in 1836. Addressing such topics as the singular theology of the missions, the role of music in bonding Indians to Franciscan enterprises, the diseases caused by contact with the missions, and the Indian resistance to missionary activity, Sandos not only describes what happened in the California missions but offers a persuasive explanation for why it happened.

• California Indians: Primary Resources : A Guide to Manuscripts, Artifacts, Documents, Serials, Music and Illustrations (Formerly Ballena Press Anthropological Papers)
• A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California's Indians by the Spanish Missions
• Inigo of Rancho Posolmi: The Life and Times of a Mission Indian (Formerly Ballena Press Anthropological Papers, No. 47)
• Lands of Promise and Despair
• Life in a California Mission: Monterey in 1786
• Delfina Cuero: Her Autobiography - An Account of Her Last Years and Her Ethnobotanic Contributions (Ballena Press Anthropological Papers, No. 38)
• Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization: The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians
• The Destruction of California Indians
• Indian Survival on the California Frontier (Yale Western Americana Series)
• Junipero Serra: California's Founding Father