Santa Barbara Mission-Archive Library | |
---|---|
34°26′19″N119°42′49″W / 34.4385674°N 119.7135889°W | |
Location | Santa Barbara, California |
Type | Independent, non-profit educational and research institution of the California mission system |
Established | 1967 [1] |
Collection | |
Items collected | Historical documents, artifacts, photos, and books pertaining to the Franciscan Missions of California, Arizona; and much of the western United States. |
Other information | |
Director | Jack Clark Robinson, O.F.M., Ph.D |
Employees | around 3 total (2016) [1] |
Website | www |
The Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library was founded in 1967 as an independent, non-profit educational and research institution. [1] The collection of mission documents in the archive-library remain in situ from the founding of the mission system. [2] The collections include named sections, the Junipero Serra Collection (1713-1947), the California Mission Documents (1640-1853), and the Apostolic College collection (1853-1885). [3] The archive-library also has a large collection of early California writings, maps, and images as well as a collection of materials for the Tohono O'odham Indians of Arizona. [3] The institution holds several thousand photo images of various types covering a broad range of subjects and dating back to the late nineteenth century. [4] Their collections also contain nineteenth-century oil paintings of the California missions by Edwin Deakin [5] [6]
SBMAL is the archival repository for registers in which the sacraments of baptism, marriage, and burial were recorded at the California missions. There are mission records from Mission San Diego de Alcalá; Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo; Mission San Antonio de Padua; Mission San Gabriel Arcángel; Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa; Mission San Francisco de Asís (Dolores); Mission San Juan Capistrano; Mission Santa Clara de Asís; Mission San Buenaventura; Mission Santa Bárbara (including Mission, Presidio, and Our Lady of Sorrows); Mission La Purísima Concepción; Mission Santa Cruz; Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad; Mission San Juan Bautista; Mission San Miguel Arcángel; Mission San Fernando Rey de España; Mission San Luis Rey de Francia; Mission Santa Inés; Mission San Rafael Arcángel; Mission San Francisco de Solano; Plaza—Los Angeles
The current archive-library, associated with but not part of the Franciscan Mission Santa Barbara, is a secular institution with an academically trained, lay director. However, the original collection and organization is from the founding of the mission system in Alta California by the Franciscan Order. Santa Barbara became the headquarters of the California mission system, and documents relating to other California missions were collected and stored in Santa Barbara. The mission system was founded during period that Spanish Empire claimed California. With Mexican independence in 1821, religious jurisdiction remained in Franciscan hands, but the Mexican government in the early 1830s secularized the missions, turning them into parish churches. The collection of books and documents held by the Franciscan totaled around 3000 documents and around 1,000 books.
The materials held by the Franciscans was increased by Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, who conducted research on the Franciscan missions in California. He took extensive notes in the California archive in the office of the Surveyor General in San Francisco. Those notes are invaluable, since that office was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
The physical condition of the collection deteriorated, due to dampness in the storage area and mold. In order to prevent further damage, a new facility to house the collection was envisioned. Creating a non-profit corporation, separate from Mission Santa Barbara was accomplished in 1967. [7] For a period, it was headed in succession by Franciscans Geiger, Francis Guest, and Virgilio Biasiol, who initiated steps to better preserve the collection. [8] Following the death Biasiol, the Archive-Library hired a lay professional archivist, Lynn Bremer. The second lay professional historian and archivist is Dr. Mónica Orozco. [9] The current director is Fr. Jack Clark Robinson, O.F.M., who holds a Ph.D. from University of California, Santa Barbara.
Primarily a research facility, the Archive-Library also hosts talks by scholars. [10] Its collection is listed in a finding aid at the Library of Congress. [11]
It has been featured in a segment on C-SPAN, with then SBMAL Director Orozco highlighting aspects of the collection. [12]
The Spanish missions in California formed a series of 21 religious outposts or missions established between 1769 and 1833 in what is now the U.S. state of California. The missions were established by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order to evangelize indigenous peoples backed by the military force of the Spanish Empire. The missions were part of the expansion and settlement of New Spain through the formation of Alta California, expanding the empire into the most northern and western parts of Spanish North America. Civilian settlers and soldiers accompanied missionaries and formed settlements like the Pueblo de Los Ángeles.
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel is a Californian mission and historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. It was founded by Spaniards of the Franciscan order on "The Feast of the Birth of Mary," September 8, 1771, as the fourth of what would become twenty-one Spanish missions in California. San Gabriel Arcángel was named after the Archangel Gabriel and often referred to as the "Godmother of the Pueblo of Los Angeles." The mission was built and run using what has been described as slave labor from nearby Tongva villages, such as Yaanga and was built on the site of the village of Toviscanga. When the nearby Pueblo de los Ángeles was built in 1781, the mission competed with the emerging pueblo for control of Indigenous labor.
The Mission San Francisco de Asís, also known as Mission Dolores, is an historic church complex in San Francisco, California. Operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, the complex was founded in the 18th century by Spanish Catholic missionaries. The mission contains two historic buildings:
Mission Santa Barbara is a Spanish mission in Santa Barbara, California, United States. Often referred to as the 'Queen of the Missions', it was founded by Padre Fermín Lasuén for the Franciscan order on December 4, 1786, the feast day of Saint Barbara, as the tenth mission of what would later become 21 missions in Alta California.
Mission San Miguel Arcángel is a Spanish mission in San Miguel, California. It was established on July 25, 1797 by the Franciscan order, on a site chosen specifically due to the large number of Salinan Indians that inhabited the area, whom the Spanish priests wanted to evangelize.
Mission Santa Inés was a Spanish mission in present-day Solvang, California, and named after St. Agnes of Rome. Founded on September 17, 1804, by Father Estévan Tapís of the Franciscan order, the mission site was chosen as a midway point between Mission Santa Barbara and Mission La Purísima Concepción, and was designed to relieve overcrowding at those two missions and to serve the Indians living north of the Coast Range. Sunset magazine editors wrote of the Hidden Gem of the Missions: “With its simple, straightforward exterior, Santa Inés fits one’s impression of how a ripe old mission should look.”
Mission San Francisco Solano was the 21st, last, and northernmost mission in Alta California. It was named for Saint Francis Solanus. It was the only mission built in Alta California after Mexico gained independence from Spain. The difficulty of its beginning demonstrates the confusion resulting from that change in governance. The California Governor wanted a robust Mexican presence north of the San Francisco Bay to keep the Russians who had established Fort Ross on the Pacific coast from moving further inland. A young Franciscan friar from Mission San Francisco de Asis wanted to move to a location with a better climate and access to a larger number of potential converts.
Saint Junípero Serra y Ferrer, popularly known simply as Junipero Serra, was a Spanish Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Order. He is credited with establishing the Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He founded a mission in Baja California and established eight of the 21 Spanish missions in California from San Diego to San Francisco, in what was then Spanish-occupied Alta California in the Province of Las Californias, New Spain.
Alta California, also known as Nueva California among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of Las Californias, but was made a separate province in 1804. Following the Mexican War of Independence, it became a territory of Mexico in April 1822 and was renamed Alta California in 1824.
The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu in the south to Mt Pinos in the east. Their territory included three of the Channel Islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel; the smaller island of Anacapa was likely inhabited seasonally due to the lack of a consistent water source.
Santa Barbara is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting Alaska, the city lies between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara's climate is often described as Mediterranean, and the city has been dubbed "The American Riviera". According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the city's population was 88,665.
Mission San Miguel was a Spanish mission established on 28 March 1787 by the Dominican missionary Luis Sales among the Kumeyaay people of northwestern Baja California, Mexico. The ruins of the mission are located in present-day Ejido La Misión, Baja California in the municipio of Ensenada. The mission ruins are behind the local school, on the north side of Highway 1.
Mission grapes are a variety of Vitis vinifera introduced from Spain to the western coasts of North and South America by Catholic New World missionaries for use in making sacramental, table, and fortified wines. It is grown in South America, particularly in Chile and Peru, under the names Criolla and Pais. During the 19th century, the grape was known by several other names, including the Los Angeles grape, and the California grape.
The Spanish missions in Baja California were a large number of religious outposts established by Catholic religious orders, the Jesuits, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, between 1683 and 1834 to spread the Christian doctrine among the Indigenous peoples living on the Baja California peninsula. The missions gave Spain a valuable toehold in the frontier land, and introduced European livestock, fruits, vegetables, and industry into the region. Indigenous peoples were severely impacted by the introduction of European diseases such as smallpox and measles and by 1800 their numbers were a fraction of what they had been before the arrival of the Spanish.
Mission Indians are the indigenous peoples of California who lived in Southern California and were forcibly relocated from their traditional dwellings, villages, and homelands to live and work at 15 Franciscan missions in Southern California and the Asistencias and Estancias established between 1796 and 1823 in the Las Californias Province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Father José Joaquin Jimeno was a Spanish missionary to the Americas.
Edwin Deakin was a British-American artist best known for his romantic landscapes as well as his architectural studies, especially the Spanish colonial missions of California. His still lifes are considered to be some of the finest of the genre. Deakin is one of the artists who popularized scenes of San Francisco's Chinatown. His sensitive and highly publicized depictions of the deteriorating missions drew public attention to the necessity of restoring these historically important monuments.
The Mexican Secularization Act of 1833, officially called the Decree for the Secularization of the Missions of California, was an act passed by the Congress of the Union of the First Mexican Republic which secularized the Californian missions. The act nationalized the missions, transferring their ownership from the Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church to the Mexican authorities.
Monica I. Orozco is a historian and archivist. She is the Director of the Santa Barbara Mission-Archive Library as well as Executive Director of Mission Santa Barbara. She earned her doctorate in History at University of California, Santa Barbara in 1999, completing her dissertation entitled "Protestant Missionaries, Mexican Liberals, Nationalism and the Issue of Cultural Incorporation of Indians, 1870-1900." The dissertation focuses on the opening to foreign Protestants during the liberal era in Mexico, and their shared aim of incorporating indigenous culturally. She has published a portion of her dissertation.