0.2 Spanish catholic missions and border history  (Page 5/2)

Spanish Catholic Missions and Border History

This module can help teach units on transatlantic encounters and colonial beginnings. The module’s themes include: religion, border culture, and colonialism. Teachers might begin by introducing the history of mission establishment as one essential aspect of Spanish imperialism and border history, calling students to consider how religious institutions functioned as agents of colonialism. The history of the Texas missions provides an accessible classroom example, and is highlighted by a document in the 'Our Americas' Archive Partnership . John Russell Bartlett’s Personal narrative of explorations&incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, volume 1 , contains a series of sketches and descriptions of the Texas missions from his travels from 1850-1853. This document offers a way to help students visualize and track the growth of empire throughout the southern U.S.

Highlighting the transatlantic beginnings of imperialism and the movements from which Spanish colonization began can help students understand the transnational and national implications of early imperialism. Teachers might begin by discussing what the term “transatlantic” means and how it fits into the history of colonialism, migration, and movement. Spanish colonialism and the Reconquista provide a more specific example. Spanish expeditions and missions in North America were the outgrowth of the Spanish Reconquista (718-1492). The energy of this religious-political movement, which espoused a more militant form of Catholicism, was channeled toward the conquest of the New World and the conversion of natives. Although Spanish political power was strongly affiliated with Catholicism, religion and political imperialism worked both for and against each other. Spanish settlers, soldiers, and Catholic missionaries often disagreed on how to interact and subdue the natives; however, both functioned as influential forms of colonial power. As historian Herbert E. Bolton wrote, “Designedly in part, and incidentally in part, they [the missionaries] were political and civilizing […]and as such they constituted a vital feature of Spain’s pioneering system” (46).

Map of spanish empire

Texas Missions and Border History

Teachers can highlight how Spanish missionaries gradually constructed a series of missions that spans today’s U.S. and Mexican national borders. Showing a map of the Texas Missions, such as the one below or the various maps in Chipman’s Spanish Texas would allow students to chart the growth of Spanish empire and its religious missions. Threatened by the establishment of French settlements in Texas, Spanish missionaries moved from the southwestern U.S. into Texas and established the first mission, San Francisco de los Tejas, in 1690 near present-day Nacogdoches. Due to disease and flooding, the natives grew discontent and threatened the missionaries causing them to leave the area. The initial failure of San Francisco de los Tejas began a pattern of mission establishment, native discontent, and retreat. After the mission’s failure, Spanish missionaries headed further south where they began establishing missions along the Rio Grande and within closer proximity to Spanish and Catholic settlements already working throughout Mexico. San Juan Bautista del Rio Grande was founded in 1700 and became the gateway to Spanish Texas (Chipman 107). Teachers can ask students what factors they think led to this recurring pattern between natives, settlers, and missionaries. What kind of difficulties did missionaries and Native Americans face when encountering each other? This provides an opportunity to discuss colonialism as a meeting of different cultures, languages, religions, and races.