Reviewed by David J. Silverman | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 64.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WMQ online. About 424 words from this article are provided below; about 1403 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the William and Mary Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the William and Mary Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Reviewed by David J. Silverman | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 64.1 | The History Cooperative

Reviews of Books

David J. Silverman, George Washington University

Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769–1850. By Steven W. Hackel. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005. Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. 496 pages. $59.95 (cloth), $22.50 (paper).
From his vantage in 1820, Father President Mariano Payeras reflected on the failure of a half century of Spanish evangelization among the Indians of Alta California to realize his Franciscan order's utopian dreams. Wistfully, Payeras recalled the heady days of the 1760s and 1770s when missionaries envisioned bringing the Indians en masse to Christianity, training them to be productive, law-abiding servants of their earthly and heavenly kings, and creating a jewel of a colony characterized by a "beautiful and flourishing church and some beautiful towns" (121). Yet mission-driven colonization in Spanish California had produced nothing of this sort. Though the Franciscans' Christian instruction and examples might have saved a few native souls, the mission's most obvious effect was that it made Indians "miserable and sick . . . especially those who have recently become pregnant" (121). Colonial California had become the site of such "profound horror" that it was at risk of becoming "deserted and depopulated of Indians," making the mission little more than a "skeleton" (121). Payeras could barely grasp how a campaign premised on spreading eternal life had become such a powerful vehicle of death, but he correctly anticipated, with regret, that future generations would forever associate the Franciscans with the disaster.	1
The Indians' demographic collapse during the era of Spanish colonization looms over Steven W. Hackel's superb study of Indian-Spanish relations in the missions of Alta California, as it does in most treatments of this subject, but Hackel pushes far beyond other works by explaining why Indians continued to enter the missions despite their reputations as killing fields and how native people managed to influence mission life despite Spanish pretensions to total control. Moreover Hackel adds rich new detail and important qualifications to seemingly shelf-worn topics such as the missions' disease environment by compiling statistical and genealogical databases from the missions' vital records, particularly those of Mission San Carlos Borromeo, just south of Monterey, and supplementing them with material from court records, official correspondence, travelers' accounts, archaeological surveys, recorded Indian oral traditions, and more. Hackel's impressive research, clear prose, broad contextualization, and effective organization make this book the most comprehensive and satisfying study of Alta California to date and a hard act to follow.	. . .

There are about 1403 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.