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Medics of the soul and the body: sickness and death in Alta California, 1769-1850

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Medics of the soul and the body: sickness and death in Alta California, 1769-1850

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Content Medics of the Soul and the Body: Sickness and Death in Alta California, 1769-1850

by

Anne Marie Reid

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

December 2013

Copyright 2013 Anne Marie Reid
ii

To my parents who helped to make me what I am today;
To my grandparents whose lives teach me about the past;
And to Alex, whose future I look forward to sharing for many more years.
iii

Acknowledgments
Like every scholar, I have accumulated debts of gratitude that can never be fully
repaid. First and foremost I would like to thank my dissertation advisors and committee
members for their ongoing support. Bill Deverell and Peter Mancall, who remember me
as an employee of the Huntington Library before I became their student, took a chance on
me that I could translate my professional work into a doctoral dissertation. I thank them
for sticking by me, pushing me intellectually, and encouraging me to pursue my
professional goals. Bill has been an especially thoughtful advisor. He knows that the last
mile of the marathon that is the dissertation is the hardest to run. Sensing my fatigue at
various points during the writing process, Bill regularly reminded me of my proximity to
the finish line.
María Elena Martínez, a meticulous scholar and educator, modeled how to read
critically, communicate precisely, and teach passionately. I am most grateful for her keen
insights, clear expression, and sense of humor. Jody Vallejo joined my committee very
late in my graduate student career, but I am indebted to her commitment to my project.
When my dissertation defense date happened to coincide with her delivery date, Jody still
participated in my defense and provided me with very constructive comments. I would
also like to recognize the USC history department staff, particularly Sandra Hopwood,
LaVerne Hughes, and Lori Rogers, who readily offered responses to administrative
questions and gave words of encouragement to weary students. It has been my pleasure to
work with these tireless and remarkable individuals.
During my twelve years at the Huntington Library, I have had the opportunity to
meet and know some of the wonderful people who make this research center such a
iv

special place. My heartfelt thanks go to Roy Ritchie, whose generosity, counsel, and
assistance have shaped my professional and intellectual development. Always ready to
lend an ear, Roy has been a conscientious supervisor and exemplary coach. Special
thanks to Steve Hindle, Carolyn Powell, and Holly Moore for taking an interest in my
studies and going to great lengths to ensure that I would have a space in which to work.
Peter Blodgett, one of the world’s greatest advocates of graduate students everywhere,
merits recognition for his enthusiasm in my project and career. I also wish to
acknowledge David Zeidberg and Dan Lewis for sharing their honest and sound advice
on professional matters.
My time at the Huntington and USC has enabled me to cross paths with
exceptional scholars who have freely given of themselves to discuss and challenge my
ideas about missions, colonialism, and health in the borderlands. The Huntington hosted
bi-weekly dissertation writing meetings that proved enormously beneficial to this project.
I thank my fellow dissertators for their excellent questions and comments. Steve Hackel,
who introduced me to the study of early California, has encouraged my studies from the
beginning and offered me invaluable feedback for which I am most grateful. Countless
others have imparted their expertise on specific issues, including M. Kat Anderson,
Veronica Castillo-Muñoz, Karen Halttunen, John R. Johnson, Alexandra Puerto, Charles
Rosenberg, Jim Sandos, Kathryn Sinkovich, and many others.
I have had the joy of researching and writing in superlative archives. I would like
to thank the Huntington Library staff, in particular the amazing people of the Reader
Services, Research, and Manuscripts Departments for their assistance. I would also like
to thank the helpful and efficient personnel at the University of California Berkeley’s
v

Bancroft Library and the Graduate Theological Union’s Flora Lamson Hewlett Library;
they made me feel at home during my trips to Northern California. I would also like to
thank the team at the Santa Barbara Mission Archives-Library, principally Dr. Monica
Orozco, for being so welcoming and amenable. The friendly staff at both the Archivo
General de Indias (AGI) in Seville and Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) in Mexico
City helped me to navigate their rich and incomparable collections. None of this research
would have been possible without funding from the USC-Early Modern Studies Institute
(EMSI), USC-Institute for California & the West (ICW), USC-Science, Technology and
Society Initiative, Del Amo Society, and the Historical Society of Southern California.
This work would not have seen the light of day without the intellectual and
emotional support of my immediate cohort. Sarah Keyes, Jessica Kim, and Raphaelle
Steinzig helped to keep me in graduate school. I thank them for their generosity,
encouragement, and friendship. Not only are they brilliant scholars but they are also some
of the best comrades a graduate student could have. I have learned a great deal from these
women and I look forward to learning even more from them.
I owe the greatest debt to my family, who has always had confidence in me. My
parents, Tony and Angie, are the hardest working people I know. Their sacrifices – those
known and unknown to me – have made it possible for me to reach this point. They also
lent their medical expertise to this project and patiently bore my endless questioning
about diseases, symptoms, and death rattles. Most important, their love and tenacity
sustain me.
I am blessed to have wonderful siblings. Jennifer, Christina, and Anthony shower
me with their good humor and kindheartedness. I appreciate those moments when they
vi

remembered to contact their older sister who was too wrapped up in the details of
sickness and death in colonial California to drop them a line. (I’m so sorry!) Their lives
remind this historian not only of the importance of the present but also the hopefulness of
the future.
My maternal grandparents, Luis and Maclovia Olvera, played a formative role in
my childhood. They have been fostering and sharing my curiosity about the past since I
was a child. I am grateful for their stories of early twentieth-century life in their native
Mexico and their willingness to teach me Spanish at such a young age. I especially thank
my abuelo, who graciously reviewed my translations with an editor’s eye. I would also
like to honor the memories of my paternal grandparents, Louise and Eugene Reid, whose
fiery yet caring spirits endure in my heart.
My beloved partner, Alex, nourished this project with inquisitiveness, astuteness,
and constancy while nourishing me with much more than he could ever imagine. He fed
my doubts with faith, challenged my frustrations with affirmations, responded to my
ideas with insightfulness, and encouraged my endeavors with nothing but love. I dedicate
this work to him, my grandparents, and my parents.

vii

Table of Contents

Dedication

ii
Acknowledgments

iii
List of Figures

viii
List of Tables

ix
Introduction

1
Chapter One

Indigenous Conceptions of and Responses to the Sick Body 21
Chapter Two “A Change of Airs:” Missionaries, Sickness and Environment in
Alta California

56
Chapter Three

Baptismal Cesarean Operations in the Alta California Missions

87
Chapter Four

The Persistence of Burial Practices in the Alta California
Missions

115
Epilogue

134
Appendix A

Santa Barbara Mission Burials by Year (1786-1822)

139
Appendix B

All Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for Individuals from the
Village of Shishuch’i’

146
Appendix C

Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for the Year 1803

155
Appendix D

All 1803 Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for Individuals from
the Village of S’axpilil

176
Appendix E

All 1803 Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for Individuals from
the Village of Mikiw

180
Appendix F

Numbers of baptisms of Native recruits (adults and children) for
La Purísima Concepción, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, and
Santa Inés Missions in the years 1815 and 1816

189
Appendix G

Biographical sketches of the families whose mothers had fetal
extractions performed on them

209
Appendix H Church Burials at Santa Clara Mission

221
Bibliography 224
viii

List of Figures

Figure 0.1 Map of the Franciscan missions in Alta California in order of their
founding

4
Figure 1.1 Map of the Chumash villages on the mainland of the Santa Barbara
Channel area

24
Figure 1.2 Map of the Chumash villages on the Northern Channel Islands of San
Miguel (Tuqan), Santa Rosa (Wimal), and Santa Cruz (Limuw)

24
Figure 1.3 Datura wrightii Regel

47
Figure 2.1 Plaster cast depicting an advanced case of syphilis

77
Figure 2.2 Page from Juan de Esteyneffer’s Florilegio Medicinal (1732)

82
Figure 3.1 Image of the Santa Clara Mission burial records for Francisca and her
son, Francisco

100
Figure 4.1 Illustrations of pendants and shell beads found in the excavations of
the Santa Clara cemetery
125

ix

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Santa Barbara Mission Burials by Year (1786-1822)

32-33
Table 1.2 Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms by Year (1786-1822)

36-37
Table 1.3 Santa Barbara Mission Marriages by Year (1786-1822)

38-39
Table 3.1 List of Alta California Cesareans Organized by Date

102-103
Table 4.1 Number of Baptisms and Deaths at Santa Clara Mission, 1790-
1829
119-120

1

Introduction
Shortly after his arrival in California in August 1790, Fr. Antonio Dantí traveled to San
Francisco Mission to become a missionary to the area’s Miwok Indians. The Catalonian’s
preparation for this moment began some thirteen years earlier when as a teenager of 17 years he
entered the Franciscan Order at Barcelona, where he specialized in moral theology. In 1786
Dantí left the port city of Cadiz to extend his training at the San Fernando College in Mexico
City, one of the principal seminaries in New Spain where religious men prepared for the work of
evangelizing the vast region’s Native populations. Upon the then 28-year-old’s departure from
Spain to the Americas, an official described the moralist in his passport papers as “pockmarked
and lacking some upper teeth,” clear signs that he had not escaped the ravages of ill health during
his earlier years.
1
His edentulism could have been the result of any number of health insults:
signs of decay, gum disease, trauma, injury, or serious nutritional deficiencies. The trace of
smallpox on his face signified both that he had suffered from the disease and that he was
fortunate to have survived, especially in an age when one-third of all childhood deaths in Europe
could be attributed to smallpox mortality.
2

Upon his arrival in California, Dantí continued to experience health troubles. Pains in his
legs and heavy discharge from his eyes prohibited him from fully carrying out his duties. The
absence of qualified medical professionals in this far-flung corner of the Spanish empire made it
difficult for sick missionaries like Dantí to receive regular or skilled medical attention.
Missionaries and their consulting physicians assumed that the ill had little chance of
improvement if they remained in California. What is more, missionaries concluded that the

1
Dantí’s biographical information and quotation taken from Maynard Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic
California, 1769-1848: A Biographical Dictionary (San Marino: Huntington Library Press, 1969), 61-63.
2
J.N. Hays, Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History. Rev. ed. (New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 2009), 120.
2

region’s environment adversely influenced one’s health. Friar Fermín Francisco de Lasuén,
Dantí’s superior in California, granted the friar permission to leave the province in 1796, after
only six years of service, because he feared that the ailing missionary would lose his sight
entirely due to his ophthalmic condition.
3

The image of Dantí as a sickly, impaired man clashed with the depiction offered by the
Indians of San Francisco Mission. The Natives described a man capable of meting out corporeal
punishment or firmly able to direct others to punish on his behalf, a missionary entirely insensate
to the physical and emotional afflictions of others. During Dantí’s tenure at San Francisco,
Natives fled the mission by the hundreds. Upon the friar’s departure from the province, Spanish
officials undertook an investigation to ascertain why so many Indians sought escape from the
mission in the first place. Their responses, so consistent in their quality, reveal the sufferings that
Indians faced under missionization under Dantí’s gaze and lash:
Tiburcio, known as Obmusa among his people, reported that he left the mission because
when he wept for his deceased wife and daughter Father Dantí ordered him to be
whipped on five separate occasions.
Magin Ttucal Jasuam took leave because he was hungry and he was placed in the stocks
when he was ill.
Ostano Quilixe stated that he left the mission because his wife, son, and two siblings
died.
Roman reported that he went to join his wife and child who returned to their village and
because he was whipped often and there was no one at the mission to feed him.
Timoteo Guecusia reported that the Indian overseer beat him when he was ill. After the
overseer beat him, Father Dantí thrashed him too.
Otolon explained that he left because his wife did not care for him or give him food
because she was in another relationship. Dantí ordered him to be beaten because he
lacked control over his wife.
Milan Alas stated that all day long he labored in the tannery without food. Neither his
wife nor child had food. One afternoon after he finished his work he went in search of
clams to feed his family and Dantí beat him for it. The next day he and his family
escaped across the bay, where his wife and child died.

3
“P. Fr. Antonio por enfermo de Dolores de piernas, y Fuertes fluxiones en los ojos, de suerte q.e teme perder
enteram.te la vista.” Fermin Francisco de Lausen to Governor Diego de Borica, dated July 20, 1796 (copy), Santa
Barbara Mission Archive Library, California Mission Document (CMD) 271.
3

Orencio Caustole declared that on various occasions his father and young niece did not
receive their rations of meat from Father Dantí and his niece died of hunger. And the
missionary always beat him.
Lopez reported that one day he went to the Presidio in search of food and then when he
went to the mission to fetch his ration Father Antonio Dantí did not want to give it to
him, saying he should go the forest to forage.
Magno Cuegila stated that he left because his son was sick and since he took care of his
son he could not go to work; because he did not work he could not receive his rations.
His son died of hunger.
Prospero Chichis declared that one evening he went to the lagoon to hunt geese to feed
himself. Because of this Father Antonio Dantí beat him. The following week he went
fishing and Dantí beat him again.
4

Time and again, the Indians reported Dantí at the center of their abuse, hunger, misery,
sickness, and death. This is not to imply that Natives had no knowledge of violence, scarcity, and
illness in pre-mission times: centuries of environmental and health-related problems wreaked
havoc upon indigenous communities prior to the arrival of the missionaries. What was different,
as scholars have repeatedly demonstrated, was the accelerated rate of depopulation and illness
that Dantí and other missionaries triggered.
The Franciscan Presence in the Spanish Borderlands
The missionary presence in the Spanish Americas had a long history before Dantí
reached California’s shores. Since the beginning of Spain’s colonial project, mendicants took the
lead in establishing missions throughout New Spain.
5
While various religious orders, such as the
Jesuits and Dominicans, founded and operated missions in Spanish North America, Franciscans

4
Indian testimonies taken from, “Averiguaciones que por ordenes de Don Diego Borica…”, dated August 12, 1797,
Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Gobierno Virreinal, Californias, Volumen 65,
Expediente 2, pages 108-109. The original document contains the testimonies of twenty-three Indians total. The
native names of the respondents were not included in the original document: I located most of the native names
using the Early California Population Project Database. See San Francisco Mission baptisms (SFD) 01108, 01484,
01505, 01159, 01479, 01507, 01500, and 01628 in The Huntington Library, Early California Population Project
Database, 2006.
5
There are various excellent studies dealing with missionary-Indian relations and/or Indian life in the missions of
early New Spain. Some of these include Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan,
1517-1570 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Susan M. Deeds, Defiance and Deference in Mexico’s
Colonial North: Indians under Spanish Rule in Nueva Vizcaya (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003); and
Ramón A. Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New
Mexico, 1500-1846 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
4

Figure 0.1.Map of the Franciscan missions in Alta California in order of their founding. Image
adapted from “Parallel Histories: Spain, the United States, and the American Frontier” of the
Library of Congress at http://memory.loc.gov/intldl/eshtml/es-1/es-1-4-4.html#track1_1

dominated missionary efforts from Florida to California over the course of three centuries.
Franciscans first arrived in Alta California in 1769 with the intention of establishing missions in
New Spain’s far northwestern periphery. Starting in San Diego, the Franciscan friars established
a chain of twenty-one missions that would eventually extend to San Francisco Solano in present-
5

day Sonoma County. Conceived by the Spanish Crown as a defensive apparatus against possible
encroachment by other European powers, these religious institutions and the towns that grew
around them existed to show international trespassers that Spain had an active presence in the
region.
But Franciscans believed that their missions amounted to more than a defense against
interlopers. For them Alta California represented an exciting opportunity to right the wrongs of
earlier missionary efforts in New Spain, efforts that the Franciscans deemed disastrous due to the
corrupting influences that soldiers, settlers and officials had on indigenous populations. Under
the direction of Fr. Junipero Serra, the architect of the missions in Alta California, the
proselytizers forged ahead in the conviction that they could create Christian communities of
Natives largely shielded from society’s vices. Like their predecessors in other parts of New
Spain, the Franciscans quickly encountered resistance from civil authorities, whose agenda was
at odds with that of the clerics. For Serra and his religious brothers, the Crown’s ongoing efforts
to rein in the excesses of the church became a source of conflict that pitted missionaries against
officials.
From 1700 to 1821, the Spanish Bourbon monarchy instituted certain reforms designed to
centralize authority, especially in the Americas. The accession of the Bourbon regime in the
eighteenth century empowered officers who yearned to restore Spanish power in Europe.
Stimulating the economy and reforming society became priorities for administrators, who looked
to Spain’s American holdings to generate income. But official visitors and viceroys in New
Spain believed they had found an impediment to the Crown’s plans for economic revitalization
and social reform: the Church. Citing corporate independence, wide-ranging jurisdiction,
extensive wealth, and laxity, administrators accused clerics – especially those in religious orders
6

– of being too autonomous, moneyed, and permissive. Officials therefore sought to amplify their
control over ecclesiastical affairs. They took such actions as limiting the number of novices
admitted into religious professions, restricting mendicants to urban ministry or missionary work
in isolated areas, and most dramatically, expelling the Jesuits from the Crown’s territories in
1767.
6

These reforms and administrators’ efforts to enforce them helped to shape the political
landscape in Alta California. Given the increased scrutiny and interference from governmental
officials, friars looked for ways to guard their interests. Protecting themselves politically became
a necessity for missionaries because of their status as temporary workers. They knew that the
Crown had long considered missions to be short-lived institutions charged with the speedy
conversion of diverse Amerindian peoples into “civilized” subjects. The theory held that once
Native peoples accepted Catholicism and lived and labored among Spaniards in settlements for a
period of ten years, the missionaries’ work of propagating the faith would be complete. The
missions would then be transferred to secular clergy who reported to bishops rather than to
religious orders.
7
The process would repeat itself at decadal intervals as missionaries moved into
new regions, converted and instructed the local Indians, and handed over churches and lands to
parish priests. But missionaries in California resisted the Crown’s model of missionization for
years, contending that Native peoples remained unprepared for the transition to secular living.
Rather than laboring among foreign peoples in the service of the Church for years only to be
rewarded with dismissal, the Franciscans instead worked to retain control over the Alta

6
D.A. Brading, Church and State in Bourbon Mexico: The Diocese of Michoacán, 1749-1810 (Cambridge
[England]: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1-9. A large body of scholarship exists on the Bourbon reforms. For
more information on the reforms’ impact on the church during the eighteenth century, see Stanley J. Stein and
Barbara H. Stein, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759-1789 (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2003), Chapter 1 and William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and
Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), Chapter 1.
7
David Weber, Bárbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2005), 107.
7

California missions, which they did until the 1830s, well after Spain lost its claim to the
province.
Franciscans entered this political environment when they secured the entitlement to
missionize Alta California after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. Yet their entry into and
settlement of Alta California also introduced them to another environment, a physical one
perceived as unfriendly toward good health, at least in the opinions of the missionaries and the
few doctors who infrequently attended to them. It is those landscapes of health and ill health that
are at the center of this scholarly analysis. Missionaries suffered from strokes, fevers, ulcers, and
body aches as well as psychological anxieties and disorders, such as hypochondria and hysteria.
Their understandings of the environment led them to believe that the physical landscape made
them ill or, at the very least, kept them from achieving good health. Like the Natives in the
missions, the friars also felt the effects of poor health during their tenures in California.
In the midst of chronic poor health among missionaries and Indians, missionaries often
assumed the responsibility to administer medical care to each other and to Natives. The
Franciscan missionaries functioned (or attempted to function) as healers of bodies and spirits,
just as their predecessors had before them in various parts of the Spanish Americas. In fact, the
idea that priests could be physicians of the body and soul had been circulating since the time of
the conquest of the New World. As early as the sixteenth-century, the Franciscan missionary
Gerónimo de Mendieta declared that evangelizers were “doctors of the soul” who “cure
[Indians’] souls, confessing and giving communion and extreme unction, and helped them (and
the religious always help) to cure bodily sickness with medicines and food.”
8
This concept of the

8
“los médicos de las almas” and “en cualesquiera enfermedades, los religiosos, demás de curarles sus animas
confesándolos y comulgando y dando la extremaunción, también les ayudaban (y siempre ayudan) a la cura de la
enfermedad corporal con algunas medicinas y con comida.” From Libro IV, Capitulo XLVI and XXXVI of
Gerónimo de Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana (1596; reprint, México: Antigua Librería, 1870), 560 and 515.
8

priest as a corporeal and spiritual healer persisted. Exhorting all ministers to deliver medical care
to their parishioners, particularly expectant mothers, the eighteenth-century Sicilian priest
Francesco Cangiamila, for example, instructed the religious to be “medics of the soul and the
body.”
9
When Franciscans arrived and settled in California, they applied a similar ethos, going
so far as to perform fetal extractions on the bodies of recently-deceased pregnant Indian women
in order to baptize the remains of the unborn.
Medical awareness, diagnosis, and treatment came not only by the hands and through the
instruments of the colonizers. Yet Indians also acted as “medics of the soul and body” as they
had for millennia. California indigenous peoples actively used botanical knowledge and drew
upon cosmological beliefs to relieve their physical and emotional sufferings. The historical
record clearly demonstrates that Indians created and relied upon elaborate varieties of shamanism
to diagnose and treat sickness despite the efforts of Franciscans to eradicate or belittle such
practices. Furthermore, the use of certain plants, such as datura, continued to have physical and
spiritual significance for Indians throughout the Spanish era. Indigenous peoples also persisted in
the practice of burying their dead according to their customs.
This study seeks to explore and explain how Native Americans and Spanish missionaries
in colonial California understood and responded to sickness. This study is constructed around a
central theme of omnipresent sickness and a central argument that European and Native
American ideas about sickness could not be divorced from religious beliefs, conceptualizations
about the body, attitudes toward the environment, and burial practices. This inquiry employs
quantitative and qualitative approaches to the problem of sickness. On one hand, it uses data
from parish records to reveal the numbers of Indians who entered and/or died at the missions. I

9
“los quales vienen á ser Médicos de las almas y de los cuerpos,” taken from D. Joaquin Castellot’s translation of
Francesco E. Cangiamila’s 1745 work Embriologia Sagrada (Madrid: Imprenta de Pedro Marin, 1774) p. xviii.
9

also use these church records to reconstruct the actions and movements of past peoples and to
suggest reasons that may have motivated their choices. On the other hand, this study aims to
capture the experience of human suffering that has been hidden in statistical data. It assumes that
missionaries, in addition to Native Americans, experienced illness. Sometimes the friars became
patients, individuals receiving medical attention under the care of a practitioner. Yet many chose
not to seek medical care, preferring instead to embody the original meaning of the term patient, a
sufferer who calmly endures pain and affliction. This project attempts, in the words of medical
historian Roy Porter, to “lower the historical gaze onto the sufferers.” Reconstructions of how
past peoples experienced and expressed pain, patients’ characterizations and classifications of
their own illnesses, and the responses (or non-responses) of sufferers to pain illuminate the ways
in which illness gave meaning to life.
10
The purpose of this study is to show how Franciscans and
Indians made sense of their lives in a landscape of persistent sickness and suffering.
Viewing colonialism through the lens of sickness and mortuary practices, as this
dissertation demonstrates, allows for a better understanding of the consequences of imperial
expansion in the Spanish North American borderlands. The Crown may have had visions of
missionaries transforming its far-flung territory into a region replete with Native subjects serving
as a buffer against international competitors, but these dreams could not be realized. Sick
missionaries thwarted Spain’s colonial project. The friars’ inability to cope with the physical and
psychological demands of their work meant that they could not carry out the Crown’s objective
to “civilize” the colonized. For their part, Native peoples determined if and when they would
subject themselves to the yoke of the missions. Starvation and ecological pressures likely had
more to do with indigenous groups entering the missions than the influence of missionaries. In

10
Roy Porter, “The Patient’s View: Doing Medical History From Below.” Theory and Society 14, no. 2 (1985): 192-
193
10

other words, enervated bodies and unstable minds frustrated imperial objectives. Moreover,
whatever real or imagined boundaries that may have separated colonized from colonizer became
blurred when both missionaries and Indians occupied the realm of sickness.
While historians may lack indigenous sources on the subject, it is clear from the registers
of mission burials that Indians suffered disproportionately from illness. But Indians took matters
into their own hands. Far from disappearing during the colonial period, shamanistic practices
persisted as the number of Indians deaths rose. For their part, Franciscans seemed obsessed with
their health, or more precisely, the lack of it. Missionaries wrote about their poor health
extensively: they complained about illness or bore it tolerantly; they fought sickness with
curatives or accepted it as providential phenomenon; and they left California for health reasons
or died at the missions from their ailments. Missionaries’ diverse responses to sickness suggest
that they were not as homogenous as previous scholars have indicated. They grappled with the
meaning of their ill health as well as the ill health of Indians. Realizing that dwindling Native
populations meant fewer souls in their communities, some missionaries went to extremes to
baptize indigenous peoples, going so far as to extract and christen the fetuses from the recently-
deceased bodies of pregnant Indian women. While Franciscans had little interests in the medical
practices of shamans, they accommodated some traditional Native practices, especially those that
concerned burial.
For these reasons, California presents an important case study for examining the issues of
sickness in the borderlands. The environmental changes and health outcomes that occurred over
a roughly 50-year period of Spanish rule are striking for the rapidity of their effects. Arguably
the adverse health effects experienced by Natives began when explorers such as Cabrillo, Drake,
and Vizcaíno made their way to the California coast in the sixteenth and early seventeenth
11

centuries. Nonetheless, Europeans’ permanent settlement of the area starting in 1769 brought
with it devastating consequences for indigenous peoples for years afterward.
For much of the twentieth century, the historiography of California’s missions fueled an
ongoing debate about whether missions and missionaries functioned as brave agents of progress
or cruel purveyors of extermination. The historian Herbert E. Bolton, who introduced the term
“Spanish Borderlands” in the 1920s, advanced the field of mission studies for California, the
Southwest, and the Southeast. His work illustrated the importance of understanding Spain’s role
in the history of North America. Yet Bolton and his adherents portrayed a romanticized past
where missions became the loci of Spanish “pioneers” converting and civilizing indigenous
peoples.
11
Bolton devoted little time to issue of disease or sickness, often mentioning the
sicknesses of the Europeans as often if not more than those of the Natives. At the same time,
however, critics such as Sherburne F. Cook, challenged Boltonian notions about the missions.
Cook’s demographic analyses concluded that thousands of Natives lost their lives due to the
missions, where missionaries congregated them against their will and exposed them to highly
contagious diseases.
12
Franciscan historians such as Zephyrin Engelhardt and Maynard Geiger
produced scholarship that countered Cook’s narrative, casting missions and missionaries in a
favorable light. Their works, however idealized, made room for discussions of physical sickness
among the missionaries.
13

11
Bolton used the expression “pioneer” or “pioneers” multiple times to refer to both settlers and missionaries. See
Herbert E. Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands: A Chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1921).
12
A sampling of Cook’s works include Population Trends Among the California Mission Indians. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1940) 1-48; Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1976); and Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1976).
13
I am specifically referring to Zephyrin Engelhardt, The Missions and Missionaries of California, Vol. I-IV (San
Francisco: J.H. Barry Co., 1908-1915) and Maynard Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769-
1848: A Biographical Dictionary (San Marino: Huntington Library Press, 1969).
12

Yet a historiographical shift coincided with the 500
th
anniversary of Columbus’s landing
in the Americas. Scholars increasingly turned their attention to demographic studies of
Amerindian communities, including those in Northwest New Spain and specifically Alta
California.
14
These studies, to which this work is clearly indebted, revived or built upon Cook’s
quantitative studies with more precision but with the same conclusion: missions had deleterious
health effects on Indians. But while demographic studies of historic populations are numerous,
studies of how people experienced sickness are far fewer. This is partly due to the fact that
investigations of how the sick understood illness are impressionistic and subjective. Factors such
as belief systems, the seriousness and duration of illnesses, and the state and delivery of medical
care affect how an individual understands ill or good health. Compound these factors with
sociopolitical and ideological pressures and the problem of studying how people dealt with
illness becomes more unwieldy. In the case of California, European missionaries attempted to
impose their views on indigenous peoples, requiring Natives to accept new forms of religion,
familial relationships, settlement patterns, and labor practices. The Franciscans also brought their
ideas of health and sickness to the missions, a fact that previous scholars have neglected to
investigate. The ancient medical systems of Hippocrates and Galen as well as religious values
informed missionaries’ medical understandings. Native Americans also had their own ideas
about sickness and the body. While the assortment of indigenous medical practices reflected the
diversity of Native California, many Indian groups regarded sickness as a cosmological

14
See, for example, Daniel T. Reff, Disease, Depopulation, and Culture Changes in Northwestern New Spain, 1518-
1764 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991); Phillip L. Walker, Patricia Lambert, and Michael J. DeNiro,
“The Effects of European Contact on the Health of Alta California Indians,” in Columbian Consequences:
Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West, Volume 1, ed. David Hurst Thomas
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute, 1989), 349-364; Phillip L. Walker and John R. Johnson, “Effects of
Contact on the Chumash Indians,” in Disease and Demography in the Americas, ed. John W. Verano and Douglas
H. Ubelaker (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute,1992), 127-139; and Jackson, Robert H. Indian Population
Decline: The Mission of Northwestern New Spain, 1687-1840 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1994).
13

imbalance of supernatural powers that could be remedied through shamanic intervention.
Therefore multiple belief systems and social experiences among Natives and missionaries
constitute the fabric of the narrative of illness in colonial California.
Historians of the Native Americas have shown the effects of disease on indigenous
communities in post-contact times. Scholars also agree that Natives suffered from endemic
threats to health prior to prolonged contact with Europeans. Yet the diseases that European
settlers brought to the New World caused widespread loss of life among indigenous
communities. Most studies of disease in the early Americas contend with the issue of “virgin soil
epidemics.” Historian Alfred W. Crosby described them as those diseases that affect an at-risk
population with no prior contact with the diseases that afflict them and are thus practically
immunologically defenseless.
15
Although Crosby’s nuanced model considered environmental
and social factors that contributed to ill health, subsequent generations of historians have chosen
to emphasize Amerindians’ lack of immunity.
16
The resulting historiographical effect has been to
show Native peoples as weak-bodied or biologically inferior. Fortunately recent scholarship has
offered much-needed correctives to counteract this effect.
17
This work considers itself among
them. While acknowledging the devastating effects of introduced diseases on Native peoples,
this project endeavors to move beyond the trope of the weak Indian by pointing to other factors,
such as ecological causes, that influenced Native American health outcomes.

15
Alfred W. Crosby, “Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America,” William and
Mary Quarterly 33, no. 2 (1976): 289.
16
References to Amerindians as persons “born to die” or “doomed to die” may be found in Noble David Cook, Born
to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) and Colin G.
Calloway, New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1997), 33. Other scholars have characterized Indians as “unprotected” or “lacking” the biological
tools to ward off diseases. See, for example, Gregory H. Nobles, American Frontiers: Cultural Encounters and
Continental Conquest (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997), 41 and Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of
North America (New York: Penguin, 2001), 42.
17
These works include David S. Jones, “Virgin Soils Revisited,” William and Mary Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2003): 703-
742; Paul Kelton, Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 2007); and Warwick Anderson, “The Colonial Medicine of Settler States: Comparing Histories
of Indigenous Health,” Health and History 9, no. 2 (2007): 144-154.
14

In a similar vein, this project challenges the gendered notions of empire. According to
historian Philippa Levine, imperial rhetoric celebrated groups of “pioneer men taming wild
terrain into productivity and profitability.”
18
This image of European men forging a path into the
wilderness to transform it into “civilized” space included missionaries, whose imperial mandate
instructed them to convert faraway places and foreign peoples. Yet the writings of missionaries
suggest that they had little to celebrate. Instead of triumphalist narratives of material or spiritual
prosperity, the friars mostly produced complaints of their state of chronic ill health. Even the
prevalence of hypochondria and hysteria among them insinuates that missionaries’ doctors
believed these agents of empire had gone “soft.” Lacking the vigor and virility needed to execute
the hard work of empire-building, missionary patients received diagnoses that carried with them
the stigma of being less-than-manly. Therefore, this work aligns itself with those studies that
confront dominant narratives of empire and masculinity, exposing gendered anxieties among
colonizers.
19

Whether in its discussion of dolor de costado or Indian shamans, this project is
principally concerned with bodies: sick bodies, suffering bodies, pregnant bodies, lifeless bodies,
and buried bodies. A rich and growing literature on the histories of bodies informs this study,
particularly those works that document the relationship between Christianity and the physical
self. These works reveal how corporeal practices, such as fasting or self-flagellation, assumed
religious or spiritual value for ecclesiastics and laypersons alike. Similarly, studies of how
indigenous people understood disease and health through a religious framework are equally

18
Philippa Levine, “Why Gender and Empire?” in Gender and Empire, ed. Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 7.
19
See for example, Ann L. Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) and Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and
Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995), particularly Chapter One.
15

important to this study.
20
Like this project, these works assume that human bodies matter,
especially with respect to religious practices.
21

This work lies at the crossroads of the histories of colonial Latin American and early
America. In particular, this project owes an intellectual debt to the works of scholars of the
borderlands of the Spanish Americas, such as David Weber, Ramon Gutierrez, Steven Hackel,
Quincy D. Newell, and Cynthia Radding.
22
Additionally, studies of the body or medicine in the
Spanish Americas are fewer but nonetheless significant to this study.
23
More generally,
anthropological, archaeological, and ethnographic studies also inform this project.
This work contributes to the small but growing historiography that specifically examines
missionaries and medicine. Many of these works focus on Protestant missionaries in various
parts of Africa, Asia, and North America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth

20
Works that address the relationship between Christianity and the body include Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy
Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1987); Esther Cohen, The Modulated Scream: Pain in Late Medieval Culture (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2010). Studies that focus on indigenous conceptions of illness and religion include Maureen Lux,
Medicine That Walks: Disease, Medicine and Canadian Plains Native People, 1880-1940 (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2001) and Phillip L. Walker and Travis Hudson, Chumash Healing: Changing Health and Medical
Practices in an American Indian Society (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1993).
21
I draw my understanding of the connection between bodies and religions from the work of sociologist Meredith B.
McGuire. McGuire has written about how religions utilize practices, rituals, and ceremonies that require the
engagement of the physical body (as well as the mind and the spirit), a process she calls “embodiment.” She argues
that spirituality cannot be divorced from material human bodies. See Meredith B. McGuire, “Why Bodies Matter: A
Sociological Reflection on Spirituality and Materiality.” Spiritus: The Journal of Christian Spirituality 3, no. 1
(2003): 1-18.
22
Especially important works that address Indian and European relations in the Spanish borderlands include David
J. Weber, Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Ramón A. Gutiérrez,
When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991); Steven W. Hackel, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis:
Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2005); Quincy D. Newell, Constructing Lives at
Mission San Francisco: Native Californians and Hispanic Colonists (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 2009); and Cynthia Radding, Wandering Peoples: Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces, and Ecological Frontiers in
Northwestern Mexico, 1700-1850 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997).
23
These works include Sherry Fields, Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2008); Adam Warren, Medicine and Politics in Colonial Peru: Population
Growth and the Bourbon Reforms (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010); and Martina Will de Chaparro,
Death and Dying in New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 2007).
16

centuries.
24
Yet few of these works direct the lens of inquiry onto the missionaries themselves.
Although this study considers an earlier period, it nonetheless contributes to the body of
literature on missionary ideas of health and medical practices and indigenous populations.
Sources
The study of California’s Indian peoples during the mission period would be much more
straightforward had they left volumes of written records but this was not the case. A handful of
Native sources describing life in the missions exist though most of these were written very late in
or after the Spanish and Mexican periods.
25
Conversely, European writers, including the
Franciscans themselves, penned a significant corpus of documents detailing their experiences.
From informal correspondence to legal testimonies, Europeans wrote extensively about their
lives and the lives of Natives in Alta California. Their commentaries reveal degrees of
misunderstanding and disdain they had for cultures different from their own. Taken at face value,
Europeans’ descriptions are inadequate surrogates for the lived experiences of Indians. Yet
reading these same texts against the grain can shed light on Native peoples’ motivations and
actions. Furthermore, archaeological, anthropological, and ethnographic sources – all of which
are employed in this study – enrich our understanding of the histories and cultures of California’s
Native peoples.

24
The literature on this topic, much of it dating from a very recent period, includes such works as Megan Vaughan,
Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1991); David
Hardiman, ed., Healing Bodies, Saving Souls: Medical Missions in Asia and Africa (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006); and
Pamela E. Klassen, Spirits of Protestantism: Medicine, Healing, and Liberal Christianity (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2011). This latter work critically examines religious practitioners and their modes of healing.
25
Pablo Tac’s narrative, also known as Studi grammaticali sulla lingua della California (c. 1835), is arguably the
most well known account written by a California native. Tac, an Indian from San Luis Rey Mission, wrote the piece
as an adolescent while he was studying for the priesthood in Rome, where he died in 1841. Around this time, a
handful of Indians started to initiate formal correspondence with Mexican officials. Examples include Tomas
Tajuchi’s 1833 letter to Governor Jose Maria de Echeandia (Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor Collection, Box
7, item 4:0390-91) and Indian petitions to disaffiliate from the missions.
17

In studies of California’s missions in particular, scholars have used the numbers of
baptized, married, and deceased individuals recorded in sacramental registers to produce
important analyses of demographic changes that occurred in California during Spanish
colonization. Such quantitative studies have reinforced the fact that the number of Indians,
especially women of child-bearing age, significantly dwindled due to missionization, most often
from the proliferation of crowd diseases, infertility, and the effects of social dislocation.
26
This
study draws heavily from such records, which contain rich information about all the Natives and
non-Natives who entered the orbit of the missions. Data taken from the Early California
Population Project (ECPP) – an electronic database containing all the baptisms, marriages, and
burials performed at the twenty-one Alta California missions from 1770 to approximately 1850 –
comprise the basis of the statistical information contained in this study. Recorded by the
Franciscans in separate registers, these entries document names, dates of events, and location of
events for each individual who was baptized, married, or died at a given mission. The database
allows researchers to follow a given individual from the time she entered the mission to the day
of her death. While the database contains a trove of information on the lives of Indians, settlers,
and missionaries in Alta California, the data are not without limitations. First, Franciscans
approached these records idiosyncratically: some records contain more information than others,
such as individual’s native name, place of origin, extended familial relationships, or cause of
death. Second, the records are not wholly complete: pages missing from registers omit valuable
information about persons who received baptism, got married, or passed away. Absent records

26
Quantitative studies that borrow heavily from the missions’ sacramental records include Randall Milliken, A Time
of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769-1810 (Menlo Park, CA:
Ballena Press, 1995); Steven W. Hackel, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish
Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro
Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2005); and Phillip L. Walker and John R. Johnson, “For Everything
There Is a Season: Chumash Indian Births, Marriages, and Deaths at the Alta California Missions” in Human
Biologists in the Archives: Demography, Health, Nutrition and Genetics in Historical Populations, ed. D. Ann
Herring and Alan C. Swedlund (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
18

hinder the scholar’s ability to account for the whereabouts of certain individuals or worse yet,
make it easier for the researcher to miss patterns of migration or disease. Third, while the
missionaries managed to keep track of thousands of individuals at one time, they were not
perfect recorders. They made clerical errors or omissions, such as failing to record a sacrament,
confusing one individual for another, or duplicating burial records. These oversights made their
way into the database. Therefore, I have tried to control for duplicative data and inaccuracies in
my own analysis of the data. Captions under the tables and complete appendices describe my
methodology.
27

A significant portion of this study draws on historical and contemporary knowledge of
Chumash culture. A rich ethnographic literature on Chumash culture exists today thanks to the
work of twentieth-century ethnologists, anthropologists, and other scholars. The ethnologist John
P. Harrington started his research on the Chumash around 1912, collecting the bulk of linguistic,
ethnographic, and archaeological data during the 1910s and 1920s. He conducted field interviews
with elderly consultants of Chumash-speaking communities at San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara,
Santa Ynez and San Luis Obispo. These informants provided Harrington with oral histories and
folkloristic narratives, which he compiled into several hundred thousand pages of notes. The
notes, in turn, have since served as the basis of what we know about Chumash cosmology.
Scholars such as Lowell J. Bean and Thomas C. Blackburn, who followed in Harrington’s
footsteps, analyzed these narratives to glean what they could about Native conceptions of
creation, sickness and death. The result is a wealth of information both valuable and problematic.
Born after the secularization of the missions, Harrington’s informants interpreted a past of which
they had only second-hand knowledge, which was passed down from their ancestors or

27
A more detailed description of the Early California Population Project explaining the nature of the information as
well as its completeness may be found at www.huntington.org/Information/ECPPuserguide.htm
19

acquaintances. Additionally, other Native and Catholic influences emerge from these
narratives.
28
Therefore, the challenge for scholars using this material is to be both highly
selective and honestly speculative. I have attempted to apply this twentieth-century knowledge to
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with nuance and sensitivity. I also rely on the works of
Bean and Blackburn, as well as more contemporary scholars such as Phillip Walker, Travis
Hudson, Lynn Gamble, and M. Kat Anderson, all of whom utilize the narratives of Harrington’s
informants. Taken together, these works begin to assemble a composite of an indigenous belief
system.
Summary
Focusing primarily on California’s Spanish and Mexican periods between 1769 and 1850,
this dissertation explores how Spanish Franciscans and Native peoples thought of and responded
to sickness and death. The first chapter examines how Native Americans conceived of and dealt
with illness. While sources on California Indians’ medical practices are scant, anthropological
and ethnographic scholarship is available for certain groups. The focus of this chapter is on the
Chumash Indians of the Santa Barbara Region of southern California. An examination of that
group’s medical practices and missionaries’ attitudes toward those practices reveals that the
Chumash adhered closely to their traditional practices, despite the rate of population loss that the
Santa Barbara area missions experienced. I argue that ecological changes may have had a greater
influence on the Chumash’s migration to the missions than historians have acknowledged.
Furthermore, Franciscan strategies to congregate large numbers of Natives actually helped the
Chumash to retain their medico-religious beliefs, especially shamanic practices.

28
Brian D. Haley and Larry R. Wilcoxon, “Point Conception and the Chumash Land of the Dead: Revisions from
Harrington’s Notes.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 21, no. 2 (1999): 215.
20

Chapter two investigates Franciscan sickness. Missionaries used sickness as a tool to
achieve certain ends. On one hand, friars cited illness as a reason to leave the province, believing
that California had the ability to sicken its inhabitants. On the other hand, friars used their
ailments to demonstrate the extent of their piety through physical suffering: for those
missionaries who remained in the province, relating incidents of continual illness became an
expression of one’s faithfulness to the cause of evangelization. The chapter also discusses the
various ailments that afflicted missionaries as well as their varied responses to those ailments. I
demonstrate that Franciscan responses to sickness contradict the stereotype of agents of empire
as being virile.
The third chapter considers what I argue is the most radical of medical interventions
employed by the Franciscans on Native bodies: postmortem cesarean sections, which I term
“baptismal caesareans.” Missionaries extracted the fetuses from recently-deceased pregnant
women in order to baptize the unborn. That the expectant women were almost exclusively Native
American demonstrates the urgency that friars had to show the effectiveness of their
evangelization efforts among Indians. Missionaries made certain allowances baptize extracted
fetuses even when it was unclear as to whether they were alive.
Poor health and invasive medical procedures often resulted in death. Therefore, the final
chapter considers burial practices, specifically the treatment of the body. Excavations of
mission’s cemeteries, particularly those of Santa Clara, have revealed that Natives continued to
practice their traditional customs to the point of the grave, but they incorporated Christian or
European goods into their burials. Evidence from excavations of other burial grounds in
California reveals that missionaries, too, engaged in practices that Natives would have
recognized, such as the placement of grave goods.
21

Chapter One: Indigenous Conceptions of and Responses to the Sick Body
Tamechcat ailed. On the 13
th
of May of 1800, the local Christian missionary visited him.
Aside from being in poor health, Tamechcat was elderly, about 80 years of age. Seeing that the
aged Chumash man was unwell and unable to go to the mission for any kind of aid, the
missionary Father Estevan Tapis took the initiative of baptizing Tamechcat at his home village of
Shishuch’i’, not far from the Spanish settlement and the mission known as La Señora Bárbara,
Virgen y Mártir (Our Lady Barbara, Virgin and Martyr). Tamechcat conceded, though he must
have thought it was strange that the missionary sprinkled water upon him while uttering foreign
words. Upon baptizing him, Tapis gave Tamechcat a new name, a Spanish one: Nereo, after
Saint Nereus, the martyr whose feast day occurred the previous day.
Nereo Tamechcat died sometime before July of that year. The Native peoples of his
community bestowed upon him his last rites according to their custom. The undertakers, or „aqi,
dug a grave for him in the cemetery, where they sang for him as they interred his body with some
of his belongings and shell beads. The people of Shishuch‟i‟ believed that the old man‟s spirit
resided in the area for three or five days before heading out on its journey to Šimilaqša, the Land
of the Dead. At the close of this days-long period, the people saw Nereo Tamechcat‟s light-filled
spirit stir, leaving a blue trail behind it as it moved. They saw his sickness, too, visible as a “fiery
ball” traveling alongside his spirit.
1

1
Nereo Tamechcat‟s date of baptism, age, and origin were taken from his baptism and burial records in the
Huntington Library‟s California Mission Records Collection, MSS Film 528:12, Reels II and V, Santa Barbara
Mission baptism number 1454 and burial number 623. Nereo Tamechcat‟s village of Shishuch’i’ (or in its
hispanicized form, Sisuchi) was alternately known as La Quemada, the same village cited by John P. Harrington‟s
Ynezeño Chumash informant, Maria Solares, who identified the place as a spiritually relevant site. Solares also
made the reference to illness being visible as a “fiery ball.” See Thomas Blackburn, December’s Child: A Book of
Chumash Oral Narratives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 99. Information about the role of the
‘aqi, third-gender individuals who served as undertakers, and Chumash burial practices may be found in Sandra E.
Hollimon, “Death, Gender, and the Chumash Peoples: Mourning Ceremonialism as an Integrative Mechanism.”
Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 10, no. 1 (2001): 47-48.
22

Scholars have documented the devastating effects of diseases on indigenous
communities, especially among Native American populations in California. What remains
understudied however, are Native conceptions of illness. This chapter explores indigenous ideas
about and responses to sickness, including theories of etiology and treatment. Just as the
Franciscans sought to understand their sicknesses through the lens of religion, Native peoples
also looked to religion to better grasp what ailed them, how to treat themselves, and their bodies‟
relationships to the cosmos. I trace the movement of the Chumash into the Santa Barbara area
missions and demonstrate that Native peoples retained their medico-religious and shamanic
traditions even in the face of massive demographic decline. In fact, Franciscan recruitment of the
Chumash, particularly women of child-bearing age, in 1803 may have actually helped to
preserve traditional practices. Furthermore, even though the friars wanted to bring more Indians
into the Christian fold of the missions, the Chumash likely felt compelled to enter the missions
due to environmental factors more than the influence of the Franciscans themselves.
Unearthing Natives‟ conceptions of illness is a difficult task. California Indian peoples
did not maintain written records documenting when they became ill or how the community dealt
with a particular disease. Most records available to historians include sources mediated by
Spanish authorities and missionaries. Nonetheless, archaeological, ethnographic and historical
materials help to demonstrate what Natives thought of sickness and how they responded to it.
Environmental data also help to explain what may have motivated Natives to join missions.
Although this chapter employs examples from throughout Alta California, the main tribe
discussed here is the Chumash of southern and central California to which Nereo Tamechcat
belonged.

23

The Chumash in the Pre-Mission Period
Nereo Tamechcat and his community knew their village of Shishuch‟i‟ as the “den of the
woodrat.”
2
Situated on the coast between present-day Refugio and Gaviota State Parks,
Shishuch‟i‟ and its surroundings offered a diverse range of resources to its inhabitants, such as
rodents, wild game, marine products, and a variety of plants. The area occupied by the Chumash
encompassed a miscellany of aquatic and terrestrial flora and fauna that extended from Topanga
Canyon in the south to the Monterey County line in the north, eastward to the San Joaquin
Valley, and westward to the Northern Channel Islands of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel,
and Anacapa. These canyons, valleys, beaches, and islands sustained an estimated population of
approximately 20,000 persons by the last third of the eighteenth century.
3
Collectively, the
Chumash constituted one-third of the entire Indian population living along the coast in 1769 and
six percent of the entire Native American population living in the present boundaries of
California.
4

The first Franciscans who explored the Santa Barbara area in 1769 expressed their
astonishment at the quality of the environment and the health of its numerous inhabitants.
Amazed at the numbers of people that the land could support, Father Juan Crespí, who visited the
Santa Barbara region in August of that year, commented that “the heathen population at this spot

2
Richard B. Applegate, “Chumash Placenames.” Journal of California Anthropology 1, no. 2 (1974): 189.
3
Although population estimates vary, Lynn H. Gamble posits that the population at the time of Franciscans‟ entry
into the region was between 18,000 and 20,000 people. Alternatively, Sherburne F. Cook conjectured a wider range
of a minimum of 15,000 and a maximum of 25,000 persons. See Lynn H. Gamble, The Chumash World at European
Contact: Power, Trade, and Feasting among Complex Hunter-Gatherers (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2008), 6 and Sherburne F. Cook, The Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1976), 37.
4
Sherburne F. Cook estimated the 1769 Amerindian population of California‟s coast at 64,000 and the entire
population of California at 310,000. See Sherburne F. Cook, The Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 42-43.
24

is vast; indeed the villages we have been meeting are becoming larger with every day…most of
[the Natives] are very fair, well-formed and robust, and very cheerful. They brought us such vast

Figure 1.1. A map of Chumash villages on the mainland of the Santa Barbara Channel area. Note
that the village names appear in Spanish as opposed to Native spellings. For example,
Shishuch‟i‟ is spelled as “Sisuchi” on the map. Source: Daniel O. Larson, John R. Johnson, and
Joel C. Michaelson, “Missionization Among the Coastal Chumash of Central California: A Study
of Rick Minimization Strategies” American Anthropologist 96, no. 2 (1994): 264.

Figure 1.2. A map of the Chumash villages on the Northern Channel Islands of San Miguel
(Tuqan), Santa Rosa (Wimal), and Santa Cruz (Limuw). Source: Sally McLendon and John R.
Johnson, Cultural Affiliation and Lineal Descent of Chumash Peoples in the Channel Islands and
the Santa Monica Mountains: Final Report, Vo1. l ([Washington, DC]: National Park Service,
1999), 52.
25

quantities of very large fish that it was needful to tell them to bring no more, as it would spoil on
our hands.”
5

Yet European observations of a large, healthy populace gifting the copious products of
the land‟s natural wealth elided a darker history of indigenous people‟s struggles with sickness
and their ambivalent relationship to the environment. California was “anything but an island of
immunity” before Franciscans erected the first Alta California mission at San Diego in 1769.
6

Pathogens traversed land and sea to reach Indian settlements throughout California via human
contact with other indigenous peoples and non-human disease carriers, such as mosquitoes, fleas,
and rodents. Endemic diseases such as treponematosis and tuberculosis afflicted Indian
communities throughout North America, including the Chumash.
7
Episodic encounters with
European explorers– Cabrillo (1542), Drake (1579), and Vizcaíno (1602) – and their crews also

5
English translation taken from Alan K. Brown‟s Spanish-English edition of Juan Crespí‟s A Description of Distant
Roads: Original Journals of the First Expedition into California, 1769-1770 (San Diego: San Diego State
University Press, 2001), 423.
6
William Preston, “Serpent in the Garden: Environmental Change in Colonial California,” in Contested Eden:
California Before the Gold Rush, ed. Ramon A. Gutierrez and Richard J. Orsi (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1998), 260.
7
Treponematosis refers to individual or collective diseases caused by the bacterial species Treponema pallidum.
Although there has been extensive debate on the origins and antiquity of syphilis in the New World, a growing body
of scholarship supports the idea that treponemal organisms – those associated with endemic syphilis, pinta, and
yaws– existed in some form in pre-Columbian North America. Skeletal remains of two individuals, one from Point
Mugu, Ventura County and the second from Santa Rosa Island, dated from the late Middle (300-1150 CE) and Late
(1150-1782 CE) Periods respectively, show indications of treponematosis. See Patricia M. Lambert, “Health in
Prehistoric Populations of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands” in Prehistoric California: Archaeology and the Myth
of Paradise, ed. L. Mark Raab and Terry L. Jones (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2004), 104 and Phillip
L. Walker and Russell Thornton, “Health, Nutrition, and Demographic Change in Native California” in The
Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere, ed. Richard S. Steckel and Jerome C. Rose
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 514.
Scholars agree that tuberculosis was present in the pre-contact Americas, but they question whether the
disease‟s New World manifestation was the same as that of the Old (i.e., the bovine form of mycobacterium). Clark,
Kelley, Grange, and Hill posit that tuberculosis in the New World may have derived from mycobacteria present in
aquatic environments, infecting human hosts through inhalation, consumption of contaminated water, or inoculation
through wounds. See George A. Clark, Marc A. Kelley, John M. Grange, M. Cassandra Hill, et al., “The Evolution
of Mycobacterial Disease in Human Populations: A Reevaluation.” Current Anthropology 28, no. 1 (1987): 45-62.
The positive identification of tuberculosis in skeletal remains found in present-day Pleasanton, Alameda County
suggests that the disease also existed in California prior to the arrival of Europeans. See Michael R. Fong and David
G. Britten, “Skeletal and Dental Abnormalities at a Prehistoric Central California Site.” Proceedings of the Society
for California Archaeology 7 (1994): 124.
26

introduced opportunities for California‟s Native peoples to come into contact with human
vectors.
8
In fact, Cabrillo and his crew passed the winter on San Miguel Island in 1542 and 1543.
Their appearance among the Chumash in the mid-sixteenth century coincided with the sudden
abandonment of what had been continuous Native occupation of certain settlements for over
1,500 years, suggesting that Old World diseases may have decimated Indian communities well
before permanent European settlement of the area.
9
Oral tradition, too, corroborates the
archaeological record: several waves of pestilence nearly annihilated the Indians of the Santa
Barbara Channel area after the arrival of Cabrillo but before the establishment of the missions.
According to one Chumash informant, “People went about feeling sick until they fell backwards,
dead.”
10

Paleopathological data taken from Channel Island villages prior to missionization also
reveal patterns of poor health among Southern California‟s coastal peoples. Belying the protein-
rich, largely marine diet that Chumash peoples subsisted on for centuries, skeletal remains
riddled with lesions suggest nutritional deficiencies, infectious diseases, and physical trauma
took their toll on the island dwellers starting 1,000 years prior to the establishment of the first
Franciscan mission. During the same time, ecological changes disrupted Native lifeways:
warmer ocean temperatures decreased the availability of marine resources and extended droughts

8
William Preston, “Serpent in the Garden: Environmental Change in Colonial California,” in Contested Eden:
California Before the Gold Rush, ed. Ramon A. Gutierrez and Richard J. Orsi (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1998), 268.
9
Archaeological investigations of the area known as Tecolote Canyon (about 15 miles west of Santa Barbara
Mission) reveal a correlation between the time of Cabrillo‟s winter residence on the Channel Islands and the Native
desertion of the Hel‟apunitse site that had been inhabited for more than 1,500 years. For additional information, see
Jon M. Erlandson, “History and Historical Archaeology,” in A Canyon Through Time: Archaeology, History, and
Ecology of the Tecolote Canyon Area, Santa Barbara County, California, eds. Jon M. Erlandson, Torben C. Rick,
and Rene L. Vellanoweth (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2008), 103-104.
10
Fernando Librado, The Eye of the Flute: Chumash Traditional History and Ritual As Told by Fernando Librado
Kitsepawit to John P. Harrington, ed. Travis Hudson, Thomas Blackburn, Rosario Culetti, and Janice Timbrook
(Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 1977), 11.
27

reduced harvests and shrunk sources of potable water. Food and water shortages instigated armed
conflict between tribes, as evidenced by the numerous projectile points found in the bones of pre-
mission era grave sites. By the time Crespí visited the Chumash settlements in 1769, the coastal
populations started to make a comeback.
11
Yet they continued to experience ongoing
environmental stresses such as rising sea temperatures and erratic precipitation rates.
12

The Chumash Worldview
Chumash cosmology helped to explain and cope with intermittent disease outbreaks and
health problems. For Nereo Tamechcat and his ancestors, illness and death could not be
separated from the powers wielded by the supernaturals. Found in life forms, celestial objects,
and natural forces, the ubiquitous supernaturals exercised different degrees of power. The sun
and moon, particularly powerful beings, embodied life, death and health. Illness signified the
absence or presence, use or nonuse, control or lack of control of supernatural forces extant in all
facets of the universe. Sickness was not the end result of happenstance: it originated from
interference by supernatural powers casting malevolent forces toward humans.
13

While it is unknown if Nereo Tamechcat or someone else attempted to counteract the
malevolent forces in order to save his life, the Chumash believed that such a strategy was
possible. In other words, humans had the ability to combat such antagonists by attaining
supernatural powers themselves. Human manipulation could control natural circumstances, such

11
Patricia M. Lambert, “Health in Prehistoric Populations of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands” in Prehistoric
California: Archaeology and the Myth of Paradise, ed. L. Mark Raab and Terry L. Jones (Salt Lake City: University
of Utah Press, 2004), 99-106.
12
Using tree-ring analysis and reconstructed data on sea temperatures, Larson, Johnson, and Michaelson found wide
variabilities in climate and oceanic temperatures in the Santa Barbara region during the mission period. See Daniel
O. Larson, John R. Johnson, and Joel C. Michaelsen, “Missionization among the Coastal Chumash of Central
California: A Study of Risk Minimization Strategies.” American Anthropologist 96, no. 2 (1994): 280-282.
13
Travis Hudson and Ernest Underhay, Crystals in the Sky: An Intellectual Odyssey Involving Chumash Astronomy,
Cosmology and Rock Art ([Socorro, NM]: Ballena Press, 1978), 51-53 and 75-77; and Phillip L. Walker and Travis
Hudson, Chumash Healing: Changing Health and Medical Practices in an American Indian Society (Banning, CA:
Malki Museum Press, 1993), 35.
28

as the cause and healing of diseases. All natural things contained different amounts of power
which could be used for or against other creatures. Employing the appropriate tools and
conducting ritualistic activities enabled humans to acquire this power. As elite members of
society, shamans had access to the knowledge and instruments needed to mitigate between the
spiritual and physical worlds. Their understanding of the occult allowed them to communicate,
oppose, or manipulate the supernaturals as long as individuals adhered to the strict rules
concerning the acquisition and exercise of power.
14

Shamans served as the primary religious functionaries among California Indian groups,
their power extended to the realms of the arts, politics, philosophy, science, and medicine as all
of these arenas were inseparable from each other. Acting as mediators between the sacred and
profane, they gained supernatural aid for their people, learned about the universe to assist the
souls of the deceased to the land of the dead, and mystically received instructions on diagnostic
and curative techniques. Shamans derived their inspiration and powers from physical and cosmic
resources. The amount of power one received or controlled dictated the degree of curing and the
position of the shaman. For example, shaman-doctors obtained their power from the highest
order of supernaturals, making them more effective healers in the eyes of those in their
communities. Ordinary healers on the other hand received their powers from lesser beings,
rendering them less efficient.
15
Regardless of the type of curing, supernatural or natural, the
healer‟s duty remained the same: the restoration of harmony or balance in nature. This search for
restoration assumed primacy as the spread of Old World diseases devastated indigenous
communities.

14
Phillip L. Walker and Travis Hudson, Chumash Healing: Changing Health and Medical Practices in an American
Indian Society (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1993), 35-36.
15
Lowell J. Bean, “California Indian Shamanism and Folk Curing,” in California Indian Shamanism, ed. Lowell J.
Bean (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1992), 53-56.
29

The Effects of Disease on Reproduction During the Mission Period
Starting in the late eighteenth century with the beginnings of missionization, the spread of
European diseases started to take its toll on Native communities. Within 50 years of the time that
Crespí first visited the Santa Barbara area, Chumash residents either died or relocated from their
villages to nearby missions. The establishment of San Luis Obispo Mission, the first mission
founded in northern Chumash territory in 1772, marked the beginning of this process. Other
missions soon followed – San Buenaventura (1782), Santa Barbara (1786), La Purísima
Concepción (1787), San Fernando (1798), and Santa Inés (1804) – which accelerated
demographic change. Like their predecessors in other parts of the Spanish Americas, the
ecclesiastical and secular authorities employed the policy of reducción or “reduction” in Alta
California. Reducción attempted to spatially consolidate Natives communities through coercion
or persuasion.
16
This consolidation occurred as part of an ongoing, years-long process punctuated
by ebbs and flows. Periodic waves of migration from villages brought greater numbers of
Chumash into the orbit of the missions.
At its height in 1805, the mission Chumash population numbered 6,000 persons. Over the
next 30 years that figure declined, excepting the period between 1814 and 1816 when Natives,
clerics, and military officials collaborated to bring the remaining Chumash islanders to the
missions. By 1832, the Chumash population had been reduced to 1,182 people.
17
The high rates
of infant mortality provide part of the explanation for depopulation. During the decade between

16
For a more in-depth discussion of the policy of reducción, see Cynthia Radding, “The Común, Local Governance,
and Defiance in Colonial Sonora” in Choice, Persuasion, and Coercion: Social Control on Spain’s North American
Frontiers, ed. Jesús F. de la Teja and Ross Frank (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 180 and
182.
17
Phillip L. Walker and John R. Johnson, “For Everything There Is a Season: Chumash Indian Births, Marriages,
and Deaths at the Alta California Missions” in Human Biologists in the Archives: Demography, Health, Nutrition
and Genetics in Historical Populations, ed. D. Ann Herring and Alan C. Swedlund (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), 58-60.
30

1781 and 1791, the birth-to-death ratio among mission-born Chumash fell from a high of 3 to 1.4
births per death. Most infants died during the first four years of life. Furthermore, Native women
of reproductive age (aged 20 to 34 years) experienced a disproportionate death rate compared to
males. Forcibly sequestered into single-sex dormitories called monjeríos, adolescent girls and
unmarried women slept in close, unsanitary quarters.
18
This practice would have created an ideal
environment for the spread of contagions, especially among women of childbearing age.
These figures underscore the reproductive problems that Chumash families faced. Low
fertility among men and women of child-bearing age accounted for large part of the problem. At
Santa Barbara Mission alone, the fertility rate steadily declined from about 100 births per 1000
women in 1786 to less than 40 births per 1000 by 1825.
19
Complications resulting from disease
likely contributed to the depressed rate of fertility. Venereal diseases such as syphilis and
gonorrhea not only have devastating effects on individuals but also to the reproductive ability of
a population. More specifically, the diminished capacity to reproduce, also known as
subfecundity, affects the major biological aspects of reproduction.
20

The specific reproductive effects of syphilis vary, depending on whether pregnancy
occurs during the primary, secondary, or latent stages of the disease. The greatest danger resides
with pregnancy during the primary or secondary phases, when infection is most intense. For

18
Barbara L. Voss, “Colonial Sex: Archaeology, Structured Space, and Sexuality in Alta California‟s Spanish-
Colonial Missions” in Archaeologies of Sexuality, ed. Robert A. Schmidt and Barbara L. Voss (London: Routledge,
2000), 43-45. Additional information on the monjeríos may be found in Virginia M. Bouvier, Women and the
Conquest of California, 1542-1840: Codes of Silence (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001), 82-84 and 99;
and Chelsea K. Vaughn, “Locating Absence: The Forgotten Presence of Monjeríos in Alta California Missions.”
Southern California Quarterly 93, no. 2 (2011): 141-174.
19
Walker and Johnson note that the fertility rates in 1796, 1803, and 1816 actually rose. The rise, however, can be
explained by greater efforts on the part of missionaries to recruit Indians from the outside the Chumash region to the
missions rather than by any natural increase of the extant population. See Phillip L. Walker and John R. Johnson,
“For Everything There Is a Season: Chumash Indian Births, Marriages, and Deaths at the Alta California Missions”
in Human Biologists in the Archives: Demography, Health, Nutrition and Genetics in Historical Populations, ed. D.
Ann Herring and Alan C. Swedlund (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 61-64.
20
James Sandos, Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2004), 124.
31

example, at least 30 percent of fetuses carried by women in the early stages of a syphilitic
infection will spontaneously abort. Pregnancies in women in the later stage of syphilis are
somewhat more likely to result in viable births, but these infants are nearly certain to suffer from
life-threatening congenital syphilis. In the absence of treatment, congenital syphilis almost
invariably results in death. Moreover, it is not unusual for a pregnant woman with syphilis to
develop a sterilizing infection following a spontaneous abortion.
21

Gonorrhea can also have a diminishing effect on a population‟s rates of reproduction.
Among its female hosts, the disease travels upward from the urethra and cervix to infect the
uterus and the fallopian tubes, resulting in pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). A single episode
of PID may result in tubal occlusion and sterility in nearly 12 percent of cases; two episodes
triple the risk; and three or more episodes cause tubal occlusion and sterility in up to 75 percent
of cases. Women run a greater risk of infection: at least 50 to 70 percent of females will become
infected after one or two acts of coitus with an infected partner, compared to a likelihood of 20 to
30 percent among males. Prior to the invention of antibiotics, up to 85 percent of males infected
with gonorrhea probably contracted prostatitis (an inflammation of the prostate gland) or
epididymitis (the swelling of the tube that connects the testicle with the vas deferens). Fifty to
eighty percent of men with epididymitis become sterile. Even if sterility did not result, severe
coital pain would have lowered fecundity among both infected males and females.
22

Indigenous Responses
Nereo Tamechcat was the twenty-first person to be baptized from Shishuch‟i‟ since the
mission‟s founding in December 1786, an indicator that the missionaries made very modest gains

21
David E. Stannard, “Disease and Infertility: A New Look at the Demographic Collapse of Native Populations in
the Wake of Western Contact.” Journal of American Studies 24, no. 3 (1990): 338-340.
22
David E. Stannard, “Disease and Infertility,” 337-338.
32

in reaching out to the Natives of that community over the course of thirteen years. It took disease
to move greater numbers of Native peoples from their homes to the mission. One year after Tapis
baptized Nereo Tamechcat, a respiratory ailment of epidemic portions affected the Chumash of
the Santa Barbara Mission area.
23
Sadly, the Franciscans recorded 146 burials in 1801, a record
up to that point and the first time in fourteen years that that mission‟s burials reached triple digits
(see Table 1.1).
24
From Shishuch‟i‟ to the Channel Islands, Indians both affiliated and
unaffiliated with the mission succumbed to the disease.
Table 1.1. Santa Barbara Mission Burials by Year (1786-1822)
Year Number of Burials Notes
1786 0
1787 6
1788 22
1789 22 Includes one record without a burial date
1790 43 Includes four records without burial dates
1791 55 Includes two records without burial dates
1792 49 Includes two records without burial dates
1793 37 Includes six records without burial dates
1794 28 Includes two records without burial dates
1795 35 Includes one record without a burial date
1796 74 Includes three records without burial dates
1797 54 Includes three records without burial dates
1798 68 Includes five records without burial dates
1799 94 Includes nine records without burial dates
1800 77 Includes seven records without burial dates
1801 146 Includes 36 records without burial dates
1802 83 Includes 25 records without burial dates
1803 131 Includes 26 records without burial dates

23
There appears to be some disagreement over what disease was at the cause of the epidemic. Heizer referred to the
epidemic as pneumonia and pleurisy, both of which are close to the language that Tapis used to describe the
outbreak (“una epidemia de pulmonia y dolor de costado”). However, John R. Johnson and Phillip L. Walker
identify the disease as diphtheria, a diagnosis borrowed from Sherburne F. Cook. Yet Cook classified the epidemic
as both pneumonia and diphtheria. The disagreement is likely rooted in how best to label “dolor de costado” – a
condition that I discuss in greater detail in chapter two – in contemporary terms. See Sherburne F. Cook, The
Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976) 19;
Phillip L. Walker and John R. Johnson, “Effects of Contact on the Chumash Indians” in Disease and Demography in
the Americas, ed. John W. Verano and Douglas H. Ubelaker (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992),
133-135; and Robert F. Heizer, “A Californian Messianic Movement of 1801 Among the Chumash.” American
Anthropologist 43 (1941): 128.
24
See Table 1.1 and Appendix A (“Santa Barbara Mission Burials in 1801”) explaining how I arrived at this figure.
33

1804 160 Includes 30 records without burial dates
1805 130 Includes 18 records without burial dates
1806 217
1807 113 Includes two records without burial dates
1808 106 Includes one record without a burial date
1809 96 Includes two records without burial dates and excludes
one burial that occurred at San Diego Mission
1810 87 Excludes one burial that occurred at Santa Ines Mission
1811 77 Excludes one burial that occurred at Santa Ines Mission
1812 84 Excludes one burial that occurred at La Purísima
Concepción Mission
1813 89
1814 83 Includes one record without a burial date
1815 70
1816 97 Includes one record without a burial date
1817 80
1818 93
1819 98 Includes 12 records without burial dates
1820 72 Includes one record without a burial date
1821 133
1822 84
Total 2,993
Note: The following data come from the Early California Population Project database. I isolated
Santa Barbara Mission burials by year for every year from 1786 through 1822. I also noted when
a death occurred outside of the mission, but the exact date is unknown. Excluded from this count
are skipped records as these records do not correspond to individuals but merely are placeholders
where numbers were omitted. Also excluded are the burials of the missionaries who died at the
mission (two, in this case). I also tried to omit the duplicate records from this tally, but it is not
always clear if a record is duplicative of another one for individuals with similar personal
backgrounds. A total of 2,993 Santa Barbara Mission burial records were retrieved for the years
1786 through 1822.

The Indians who chose to remain outside of the mission did not so easily escape the
ravages of sickness. Opportunities to spread disease among non-mission Indians abounded: a
family member or acquaintance returned home from the mission to visit her village; a runaway
from a mission sought refuge among a tribe different from his own; or traders from distant parts
visited villagers near the mission to engage in commercial activity. For example, in May 1806,
Fr. Estevan Tapis wrote to a colleague at the College of San Fernando that “in the 10 villages of
one of the two islands [of the Channel of Santa Barbara] 180 heathens died as a result of
34

measles. From what I can infer that is a great number of heathens on said island.”
25
The islanders
routinely visited the mainland to trade, hunt, or connect with relatives. When their acquaintances
living at or near the mission became ill, the visiting islanders became hosts for highly contagious
diseases. These persons in turn transmitted viruses back to their island communities. Through
these means, Indians who never entered the missions found themselves ailing from some of the
same sicknesses that plagued missionized Natives. This process repeated itself as the missions‟
sphere of influence widened to encompass Indians from more remote regions.
Seeing their numbers greatly reduced, Natives returned to their traditional customs in
search of answers. The answer arrived that same year in the form of divine intervention. A
baptized Chumash woman reported that she had received a vision from the supernatural being
Chupu. Chupu warned that the Indians would die from the epidemic if they allowed themselves
to be baptized and that the same would befall the baptized Indians if they failed to propitiate the
deity and spiritually cleanse themselves with water. News of the revelation travelled swiftly
among the Indians in the mission and countryside. According to Father Tapis, who later
recounted the incident, “nearly all the neophytes, including the Indian assistants to the
missionaries, went to the house of the visionary to offer their beads and seeds and to undergo the
ceremony of renouncing Christianity.”
26
Chupu also alerted the Indians that those who informed

25
“en las 10 Ranch.s de una de las dos Yslas han muerto de resultas del serampion [sic] 180 gentiles. De lo q.e se
puede inferir que es mucha la gentilidad de dicha Ysla.” Estevan Tapis to José Viñals, dated May 31 1806, Archivo
General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Regio Patronato Indiano, Bienes Nacionales (014),
Volumen 88 (2), Expediente 29.
26
In his letter to Governor José Joaquin de Arrillaga, Estevan Tapis described the incident as follows, “En el año del
[1]801, en q.e una epidemia de pulmonía, y dolor de costado quito la vida a muchos gentiles y Christianos basto una
sola Neofita para alucinar a los Christian.s de Sta Barb.a fue el caso q.e después de un fingido paracismo [sic], dijo
q.e se le había aparecido el Chupu (Ydolo q.e se adoraba en la Canal) asegurando la q.e los Gentiles morirían de la
Epidemia si se bautizaban y q.e lo mismo sucedería a los Christianos q.e no ofreciesen limosna al Chupu, y no se
labasen la cabeza con cierta agua: Corrio en la misma hora q.e era la media noche la noticia de la revelación por
todas las casas de la Mision y casi todos los Neofitos inclusos [sic] los Alclades, fueron a la casa de la visionaria a
ofrecer de su [sic] abalorios y semillas, y a la ceremonia de la renuncio del Christianismo; Lo particular de este
35

the missionaries of the incident would die immediately. The Natives successfully concealed the
revelation from the friars for three days. A baptized Indian man eventually disclosed the news to
the missionaries. How the friars dealt with this uprising is unknown but it is clear that the
incident left the missionaries mistrustful of Natives‟ traditional practices. Reflecting on the
situation four years later, an anxious Tapis speculated that “Had the Indian woman added that in
order to stop the disease it would be necessary to kill the missionary fathers, the two soldiers of
the guard, and the Indian assistants, the remaining Natives would have also believed it, as they
did the first part of the revelation.”
27
Moreover, the appearance of the prophecy reveals that
Indians, even those who had seemingly adjusted to the rhythms of mission life, refused to
relinquish their traditions. As Natives moved from their ancestral villages to the mission, they
brought with them not only their ideas about health and sickness but also their spiritual beliefs.
While Indian migrations from villages to the missions began as in the late 1780s, the
single largest relocation did not occur until 1803. In that year, 83 villagers from Shishuch‟i‟ –
Nereo Tamechcat‟s community – left their homes to enter the mission. The last individuals from
that village, Maria Ygnacia and her three-year-old child Maria Antonia, accepted baptism at
Santa Barbara in May 1804, most likely marking the complete exodus from Shishuch‟i‟.
28
The
year 1803 marked a watershed in the recruitment of indigenous peoples to the mission. The

enrredo [sic] y q.e hace al caso es q.e se extendió la nota por todas las Rancherias de la Canal y de la Sierra, y los
Misioneros ignoraban todo el suceso; porq.e el Chupu revelo al mismo tmpo q.e morirían inmediatam.te los q.e lo
participasen a los Padres. En efecto tres días estubimos en la ignorancia de esta novedad asta q.e al fin de ellos un
Neofito depuesto el miedo, no refirió todo lo acontecido. Si la Yndia hubiese añadido q.e paraq.e cesase la
enfermedad era preciso matar a los PP Ministros, y dos Soldad.s de la Escolta y los Alcaldes y los demás hubiesen
dado tanto crédito a esta parte como a la primera.” Estevan Tapis to José Joaquin de Arrillaga, dated March 1, 1805,
Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library, California Mission Documents Collection, CMD 676.
27
Ibid.
28
I arrived at these figures by analyzing the data contained in the Early California Population Project database. I
located 145 baptism records dated between December 1787 and May 1804 for Shishuch‟i‟ villagers. Eighty-three
records were dated for the year 1803. Maria Ygnacia and Maria Antonia appear to be the last individuals from that
village to be baptized at Santa Barbara Mission in 1804. After May 1804, no additional persons from that area
appear as new recruits in the baptism register. See Appendix B (“All Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for
Individuals from the Village of Shishuch‟i‟”) for the raw data.
36

Franciscans performed a total of 834 baptisms at Santa Barbara Mission in that year,
representing almost 30 percent of the total number of baptisms performed since the mission‟s
founding and the highest number of baptisms recorded at that mission during the entire Spanish
period (see Table 1.2).
29

Table 1.2. Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms by Year (1786-1822)
Year Number of Baptisms Notes
1786 3
1787 185 Includes one “supli ceremonias” record
1788 148
1789 139
1790 45
1791 141
1792 68
1793 46
1794 40
1795 55
1796 153
1797 193 Includes one record out of chronological order
1798 85
1799 95 Includes one record out of chronological order
1800 147 Includes one record out of chronological order
1801 301
1802 153
1803 834
1804 263 Includes one “supli ceremonias” record
1805 125
1806 62
1807 48 Includes one “supli ceremonias” record
1808 52
1809 39
1810 31
1811 48
1812 67
1813 50
1814 117
1815 105

29
An analysis of the Early California Population Project database reveals yearly fluctuating cycles of baptisms
between 1786 and 1822. From the time of the mission‟s establishment to the end of 1803, there had been 2,831
baptisms total. The greatest number of baptisms to occur in this 36-year period is 834 in the year 1803, including the
mission-born population. The 834 baptisms account for about 29.5% of all baptisms performed at the mission to that
date.
37

1816 124
1817 51
1818 76
1819 59
1820 47
1821 39
1822 55
Total 4,290
Note: The following data come from the Early California Population Project database. I isolated
Santa Barbara Mission baptisms by year for every year from 1786 through 1822. I also noted
when a baptism when was recorded out of chronological sequence and when a “supli
ceremonias” occurred but the original baptism date is unknown. Excluded from this count are
skipped records as these records do not correspond to individuals but merely are placeholders
where numbers were omitted. A total of 4,290 Santa Barbara Mission baptism records were
retrieved for the years 1786 through 1822. If an individual received a provisional baptism (i.e.,
near death or at the point of death) and the individual later survived her/his ordeal, “the
Franciscans would execute the complete rite of baptism, stating in the record that they had „supli
las ceremonias‟ or, supplied the full ceremonies. This was not a second baptism but the
completion of the original baptism.”
30

Very few of these 834 souls were infants born at the mission to parents who had already
accepted baptism; in fact, over 93% of them were the young and old who were born and/or raised
in nearby villages.
31
Like in Shishuch‟i‟, adjacent villages emptied, their inhabitants streaming
into Santa Barbara Mission. In nearby S‟axpilil ninety-one men, women and children left behind
their village to start new lives at the mission. In Mikiw, which was situated between
Shishuch‟i‟and S‟axpilil, 199 persons vacated their homes to live at the mission, about 73% of
them during the month of May alone.
32

The more striking aspect of this migratory data is the demographic composition of this
group of recruits. Exactly half of the new recruits to Santa Barbara Mission (417 persons) were

30
From the Early California Population Project Database‟s User Guide. Available online at
http://www.huntington.org/Information/ECPPuserguide.htm#fieldbap12
31
This information is derived from the Early California Population Project database. See Appendix C (“Santa
Barbara Mission Baptisms for the Year 1803”) for the raw data and explanation of the methodology.
32
The figures for both villages were also taken from analysis of the Early California Population Project database.
See Appendices D (“All 1803 Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for Individuals from the Village of S‟axpilil”) and E
(“All 1803 Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for Individuals from the Village of Mikiw”) for additional information
on S‟axpilil and Mikiw, respectively.
38

adults of prime reproductive age at the time of their baptisms.
33
Women represented a higher
proportion of the recruits aged 16 through 44 years (242 women to 175 men). Furthermore, the
highest number of marriages celebrated at the mission occurred in the same year. After years of
performing matrimonies in the single or occasionally double-digits, the missionaries solemnized
the marriages of 203 couples, nearly 87% of them already married in their pre-Christian state, in
1803 (see Table 1.3).
34

Table 1.3. Santa Barbara Mission Marriages by Year (1786-1822)
Year Total Number of Marriages Number of marriages that were renewals
1786 0 0
1787 47 33
1788 45 21
1789 34 13
1790 9 0
1791 28 7
1792 21 0
1793 6 0
1794 11 0
1795 8 0
1796 33 13
1797 39 19
1798 32 3
1799 18 5
1800 24 8
1801 52 11
1802 36 11
1803 203 176
1804 73 50
1805 51 18
1806 58 0
1807 24 0
1808 15 3
1809 13 0
1810 22 0
1811 25 3
1812 33 9
1813 18 0
1814 24 10

33
By prime reproductive age, I am referring to individuals aged 16 to 44 years.

39

1815 30 17
1816 24 16
1817 24 1
1818 17 7
1819 28 0
1820 13 4
1821 19 0
1822 10 3
Total 1,174
Note: The following data come from the Early California Population Project database. I isolated
Santa Barbara Mission marriages by year for every year from 1786 through 1822. A total of
1,174 Santa Barbara Mission records were retrieved for the years 1786 through 1822. It should
also be noted that the last renewals were recorded in 1822, even though the database contains
marriage records through 1850.

These figures suggest two simultaneous phenomena. First, missionaries targeted
Chumash women at a higher rate than men to enter the mission. Realizing that women suffered
disease and death disproportionately, Franciscans recruited greater numbers of Indian women to
help grow the indigenous population through natural increase. Missionaries probably
misunderstood the reasons behind the women‟s susceptibility to sickness and higher mortality
compared to their male counterparts, but the mounting death toll at Santa Barbara Mission would
have given the friars reason to want to bring more child-bearing women into the mission.
Second, Franciscans wanted to create a stable environment for families of all ages. While
the vast majority of couples married in 1803 had already been wedded according to their Native
customs, their presence in the missions helped to demonstrate the model Christian family unit in
that their unions were recognized by the Church. Yet this strategy likely had the opposite effect:
hundreds of Chumash Indians entering Santa Barbara Mission in record numbers allowed them
to conserve their traditional practices. With more persons to control and manage, the
40

missionaries probably became overwhelmed with their objective to change individual behaviors,
leading to higher retention of cultural customs.
35

Environmental Factors
Franciscans may have wanted more Indian women to join the missions, but Native
women and men had to have reasons to join. Indians may have been motivated to enter the
missions due to their ongoing tenuous relationship with the environment. Although the Chumash
enjoyed the benefits of a place rich with biodiversity, coastal zones can be inherently variable
environments. The ecology of the relatively arid Santa Barbara area depended upon much-
needed rainfall and moisture to support certain plant and animal species. In the same way, the
delicate marine environment required stable sea temperatures to maintain the kelp forests,
fisheries, and sea mammals on which the Chumash relied. Even minor changes to precipitation
and ocean temperatures could adversely affect the availability of terrestrial and marine
resources.
36
These ecological transformations slowly came to fruition in the Santa Barbara area.
A period of high climatic variability and warming ocean temperatures coincided with the
establishment of missions in the region. For example, moderate to severe droughts occurred at
approximately ten-year intervals between 1780 and 1830.
37
These factors may have in part
influenced the Chumash to leave their homes and join the missions.
The Franciscans intuited that rain brought Indians into the missions because precipitation
enabled the mission to grow crops that would in turn feed hungry people whose resources were

35
The work of ethnohistorian James A. Sandos also supports this theory. According to Sandos, the overwhelming
volume of new recruits meant that missionaries could exercise less control over mission Indians, who were able to
preserve more elements of their culture. See Sandos, “Christianization Among the Chumash: An Ethnohistoric
Perspective.” American Indian Quarterly 15, no. 1 (1991): 76.
36
Summaries of the climatic variability and hydrology of the Santa Barbara region may be found in Daniel O.
Larson, John R. Johnson, and Joel C. Michaelsen, “Missionization among the Coastal Chumash of Central
California: A Study of Risk Minimization Strategies.” American Anthropologist 96, no. 2 (1994): 271-272.
37
Larson, Johnson, and Michaelsen, “Missionization among the Coastal Chumash of Central California,” 281.
41

diminishing. In their study of grain yields and baptism rates, anthropologists Gary Coombs and
Fred Plog found a correlation between successful years of harvest and higher numbers of
baptisms in the Santa Barbara area missions.
38
This would suggest that rainfall, food, and higher
recruitment rates of Indians to the missions were interrelated. Moreover, the Franciscans
themselves provided direct evidence that water and food attracted Natives the missions. In March
1813, for example, Fathers Mariano Payeras and Antonio Ripoll of La Purísima Concepción
Mission delighted in the fact that they welcomed “60 newly baptized heathens because of the
famous and abundant cultivated land and for the copious water in the river.” Large amounts of
water and plentiful harvests had made the mission “famous” among the Chumash, who were
likely drawn to the mission‟s ability feed many mouths.
It is possible that the 1803 exodus of Natives from their villages into the missions may
have also had an ecological basis. Certainly, environmental factors played a key role in the next
massive wave of migration into the missions that later occurred between 1815 and 1816. The
majority of the missions in the Santa Barbara region saw an increase in the number of new
recruits in those years. And unlike the mass migration from 1803, this cohort of Natives,
particularly the women, seemed older. At La Purísima Concepción 90 Native adults and children
entered the mission in 1815. Forty of these were identified as adult women – compared with 25
adult men – but thirteen of these women were also 45 years of age or older, past their
reproductive prime. The following year 92 recruits, nearly all of them from the Channel Islands,
asked for baptism at Santa Barbara. Adult women outnumbered adult men 44 to 19, but sixteen
of the women were also over 45 years of age. Also in 1816, 175 islanders came to San
Buenaventura. The baptismal register at that mission shows that almost every single man,

38
Gary Coombs and Fred Plog, “The Conversion of the Chumash Indians” An Ecological Interpretation.” Human
Biology 5, no. 4 (1977): 309-328.
42

woman, and child came from villages on Limuw, known to the Spanish as Santa Cruz Island.
Eighty-three adult women accepted baptism there that year, compared to 92 men, but 27 of those
women were also 45 years of age. That same year at Santa Inés 167 adults and children entered
the mission, at least 140 of them from the villages of the Channel Islands. Eighty-five of these
were adult women whereas only 53 adult men joined Santa Inés that year. Yet 43 of the adult
women, about one-half of them, were also beyond their reproductive years.
39

The demographic data suggest that Franciscans were not necessarily targeting women of
reproductive age as they had earlier. Instead, environmental evidence points to a different
phenomenon. The Natives‟ arrival corresponded to the most severe El Niño event over the
course of three centuries. The resulting warmer water temperatures in the northeastern Pacific
Ocean and scarce rainfall would have triggered a series of ecological disasters for the islanders.
For example, the kelp beds, normally sensitive to rising temperatures, would have deteriorated.
The fish that called the kelp forest home would have lost their protection against predators as
well as the nutrients they need to reproduce. The sea mammals would have starved and ceased to
breed with the collapse of the fisheries.
40
In short, environmental changes caused significant
resource depletion that likely gave the islanders the reason they needed to leave behind their
villages. Fr. José Señán of San Buenaventura acknowledged that ecological problems brought
Natives to the missions. In a letter to a military officer of the Santa Barbara Presidio, Señán

39
These figures and the demographic profile of the Native recruits from the above mentioned missions for the years
1815 and 1816 were gleaned from analysis of the baptism records contained in the Early California Population
Project. Refer to the Appendix F (“The numbers of baptisms of Native recruits (adults and children) for La Purísima
Concepción, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, and Santa Inés Missions in the years 1815 and 1816”) for a
tabulation of the baptisms for those years and a discussion of the methodology.
40
Larson, Johnson, and Michaelsen discuss the 1815-1816 El Niño event in addition to the effects of rising oceanic
temperatures on kelp, fisheries, and sea mammals. See Daniel O. Larson, John R. Johnson, and Joel C. Michaelsen,
“Missionization among the Coastal Chumash of Central California: A Study of Risk Minimization Strategies.”
American Anthropologist 96, no. 2 (1994): 282 and 272.
40
Larson, Johnson, and Michaelsen, “Missionization among the Coastal Chumash of Central California,” 281
43

noted that the Natives of the Channel Islands entered the mission, “willingly enough because of
famine conditions on Guimá Island and because they had been told that meat is plentiful at San
Buenaventura.”
41
After resisting the missions for about 30 years since their founding, the
islanders of Wimal, or Santa Rosa Island, chose baptism to mitigate the environmental problems
that brought them famine.
Shamanism
Massive demographic decline forced new ways of thinking about the role of the shaman.
Among some Indian communities, the shaman‟s “old” medicine seemed ineffective against the
outbreak of diseases and his authority was challenged. However, other shamans found ways to
integrate new materia medica that Europeans brought with them, expanding the number of
resources they had available to them. The more immediate reaction of shamans appears to have
been to experiment with old medicines and procedures in treating new diseases, while
simultaneously incorporating new European medical tools.
42

Missionaries recognized that shamans continued working in their capacity as healers and
that Indians continued following the advice of shamans. In his confessional manual, Father José
Señán, who learned a Chumash dialect to communicate with and hear the confessions of mission
Indians at San Buenaventura, wrote targeted questions designed to ascertain the extent of
indigenous customs, specifically shamanic practices and observances. In the manual, Señán
suggested asking a confessing Indian “when you danced did you believe it to be true [that] you
wouldn‟t get sick?... And when you were sick, did you ever have yourself healed (badly)? Are

41
José Señán to José de la Guerra y Noriega, dated June 15, 1816. English translation and transcription taken from
José Señán, The Letters of José Señán, O.F.M., Mission San Buenaventura. trans. Paul D. Nathan and ed. Lesley
Byrd Simpson (Ventura: Ventura County Historical Society, 1962), 86.
42
Lowell J. Bean, “California Indian Shamanism and Folk Curing,” in California Indian Shamanism, ed. Lowell J.
Bean (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1992), 62-63.
44

you an evil healer? How often have you cured the sick in this manner? Don‟t cure in this manner,
because it is evil, you deceive the people…Do you believe in dreams? How often have you
believed in dreams?”
43

Similarly, Father Juan Cortés, Señán‟s contemporary at Santa Barbara Mission, also
compiled a confessional manual in which he attempted to determine how much the Chumash
Indians there retained elements of their religious and medical practices. In his 1798 confessional,
Cortés included the phonetic pronunciations of the questions in the local vernacular. Had Nereo
Tamechcat lived long enough to participate in the sacrament of confession, Cortés probably
would have asked him in heavily accented Chumashan, Palanto coluchun? “Are you a medicine
man?”
44
The missionary would have probed further, “Have you believed in those they say…cure
sicknesses? How many times have you believed in those m[e]n? Do you believe in dreams? In
the owl?”
45
The friar knew that the muhu, the horned owl, held a significant place in Chumash
tradition as a shaman.
46
These questions reveal that Señán and Cortés had a working knowledge
of Chumash religious and medical practices. Both men used this knowledge and employed
language to intentionally demean the role of the shaman. Señán used expressions such as “evil”
and “healed (badly)” and Cortés stating “those they say [who] cure sicknesses,” revealing his
skepticism in Native customs. The pursuit of shamans and their followers by way of

43
Señán, José. The Ventureño Confesionario of José Señán, ed. and trans. Madison S. Beeler. (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1967), 24-27. Beeler‟s translation is used here. Although the confessional manual is
undated, Señán likely wrote it sometime between 1797 and 1823, when he was the resident missionary at San
Buenaventura Mission.
44
Cortés, Juan. The Doctrina and Confesionario of Juan Cortés, ed. by Harry Kelsey. (Altadena, CA: Howling
Coyote Press Coyote Press, 1979), 85. Note that Cortés translated the Chumash words “Palanto coluchun” into
Spanish as “¿Eres curandero?”
45
Cortés, Juan. The Doctrina and Confesionario of Juan Cortés, ed. by Harry Kelsey. (Altadena, CA: Howling
Coyote Press Coyote Press, 1979), 66. Cortés wrote “Has creído tu esos q.e decís vosotros…que curan las
enfermedades…Quantas veces has creído en esos hombre [sic]. Crees en sueños? En el tecolote?”
46
References to the horned owl as a shaman appear in Thomas Blackburn, December’s Child: A Book of Chumash
Oral Narratives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 36 and 197.
45

confessionals demonstrates the degree to which missionaries like Señán and Cortés felt
threatened by the persistence of indigenous traditions, so much so that Franciscans recorded their
bilingual manuals so that the clerics who followed in their footsteps would continue the struggle
to eradicate Native practices.
To the vexation of the Franciscan missionaries, Native peoples continued to place their
faith in shamans. For example, during his time among the Chumash at La Purísima Concepción
Mission, Fr. Gerónimo Boscana observed that even those who had been acculturated by the
Franciscans still embraced traditional medical practices. Boscana recounted the story of a young
man in his early twenties, who had been raised at the mission, instructed in Christian doctrine,
and taught to speak Spanish by the friars at La Purísima Concepción. In 1808 the young man
became gravely ill but refused to take the medicines offered to him by the priests. Instead the
sick man called for the healer, who used his skill to try to cure the patient. Seeing that the man‟s
condition worsened day by day, the missionaries urged him to participate in the sacrament of
penance in preparation for his impending death. The young man resisted the missionaries‟
exhortations, insisting that he was well. The healer also noticed his patient‟s decline. According
to Boscana, this caused the shaman to declare the young man‟s battle for his life a lost cause,
blaming the young man for accepting the missionaries in the first place and incurring the wrath
of the spirits as a result. Only after traditional healing failed did the young man agree to the
sacrament of confession. But he held back. Boscana noted that the young man “did not confess
with that satisfaction with which the priest desired.”
47
Even at this point on his death bed, the

47
The account and the quote were taken from Gerónimo Boscana‟s Chinigchinix (undated), a fragment of which I
consulted in the Bancroft Library, “Archivos de las Misiones, 1769-1856,” Document 319, MSS C-C 4-5, reel 3
(microfilm). The same account with minor variations also appears in Alfred Robinson, Life in California: During a
Residence of Several Years in the Territory…To Which is Annexed a Historical Account of the Origins, Customs,
and Traditions of the Indians of Alta California (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846), 325-326 and in John P.
46

young man withheld something of himself, denying the missionaries his full participation in the
last rites.
The young man‟s healer likely used the plant Datura wrightii (formerly Datura
meteloides), alternately called jimson weed or toloache, to assess and treat his patient‟s ailment.
Known for its extreme toxicity, datura induces death in its users even in small quantities, either
through ingestion or extensive skin-to-plant contact.
48
Despite this, Native groups from
throughout the Americas sought this plant for its pain-killing and vision-producing abilities. In
Alta California, Indians from San Diego to San Francisco used datura internally and externally to
relive stomach pains, earaches, and fevers among other ailments. They also used the plant as a
tonic, purgative, sedative, narcotic, and hallucinogen.
Among southern California tribes, ingestion of the plant gave the shaman access to
sources of power needed for healing, divining, diagnosing, dancing, singing for long periods,
bringing rain, and hunting as well as for sharper visions and sorcery. Healers crushed the leaves,
roots, and seeds of datura in combination with other plants to make a pain-numbing paste to use
when setting the broken bones of patients or relieving the sting of snake bites. In central
California, Indians consumed datura to receive knowledge about the causes of sickness or other
problems in addition to information about missing objects and a guide to them. Occasionally
ritual participants under the influence of hallucinogens engaged in contests to “shoot” each other
with the plant or to dance for long periods of time to the point of unconsciousness. These same

Harrington, ed. A New Original Version of Boscana’s Historical Account of the San Juan Capistrano Indians of
Southern California (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1934), 55.
48
Janice Timbrook, Chumash Enthobotany: Plant Knowledge among the Chumash People of Southern California
(Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, 2007), 66.
47

groups also used the plant more informally to ensure luck in gambling, to treat specific illnesses,
and to attain personal visions.
49

Figure 1.3. Datura wrightii Regel. Image taken from the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). 2013. The PLANTS
Database (http://plants.usda.gov). Permission granted by the photographer, Gary A. Monroe.

Nereo Tamechcat and his contemporaries knew the plant as momoy, named after one of
the First People of Chumash legend. Known for her gifts of wisdom and precognition, the
wealthy widow Momoy transformed herself into the datura plant after a flood. She was also
noted for using “medicine for reviving the dead:” when Momoy‟s pregnant daughter died from a
bear attack, the seer used her medicine to give life to her unborn grandchild.
50
By ingesting the
water that Momoy used to wash her hands, the Chumash believed that they too could acquire
some of her abilities. These abilities allowed Native peoples to enter into altered states of
consciousness or access supernatural power that they believed could also restore vitality.

49
Lowell J. Bean and Sylvia Brakke Vane, “California Religious Systems and Their Transformations” in California
Indian Shamanism, ed. Lowell J. Bean (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1992), 43-45 and Sandra S. Strike,
Ethnobotany of the California Indians: Aboriginal Uses of California’s Indigenous Plants, Vol. 2 (Champaign, IL:
Koeltz Scientific Books, 1994), 49-51.
50
Thomas Blackburn, December’s Child: A Book of Chumash Oral Narratives (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1975), 36 and 104.
48

Among the Chumash, the use of datura revolved around the ’antap, a religious and
political society whose purpose was to attain and employ supernatural powers needed to preserve
the balance of the universe. All chiefs and their families, shamans, and other elite members of
the community were required to partake in the group. This secret organization‟s rituals united the
Chumash with their celestial, physical, and social environment, timing important ceremonies
with harvest times, solstices and the appearance and positions of the certain planets or stars. In
their study of the calendric cycle, Chumash astronomers posited that certain months of the year
in which sickness and death posed the greatest threat to the community. The community in turn
required the ’antap to perform special rituals during these times, such as the month of March
when some were born sickly.
51

All persons had access common folk medicine for the treatment of ordinary ills. Those
techniques available to all included use of herbs, sweating, massage, and bed rest. Yet elites, like
those of the ’antap, had access to highly specialized knowledge. Within this hierarchical system,
the possession of esoteric knowledge was guarded by institutionalized procedures of schooling
and professional privileges that were available to the various classes of healers, like diviners,
diagnosticians, lower-level shamans, and higher-level shamans. Medical instruction among
’antap members likely consisted of established teachers sharing their knowledge and experience
of therapeutics, pharmaceutics, human anatomy, and osteology.
52
Disease treatment was also
hierarchical in that the cause was treated by the persons most capable to handle it. If an ailing

51
Phillip L. Walker and Travis Hudson, Chumash Healing: Changing Health and Medical Practices in an American
Indian Society (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1993), 41-43; Travis Hudson and Ernest Underhay, Crystals in
the Sky: An Intellectual Odyssey Involving Chumash Astronomy, Cosmology and Rock Art ([Socorro, NM]: Ballena
Press, 1978),129; and Lowell J. Bean and Sylvia Brakke Vane, “California Religious Systems and Their
Transformations” in California Indian Shamanism, ed. Lowell J. Bean (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1992), 46.
52
Phillip L. Walker and Travis Hudson, Chumash Healing: Changing Health and Medical Practices in an American
Indian Society (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1993), 46-48.
49

community member required medical attention, he first had to seek knowledge of the cause of
sickness and treatment starting with the lower levels of power, such as those techniques available
to all people. If his illness persisted or worsened, he had to seek out higher and more specialized
forms of diagnosis and healing.
53

To achieve the restoration of health in the community, members of the ’antap sought out
the sick. A lesser member of the society called the ’alaqlapsh visited the various towns and
villages and inquired whether anyone was ill. If he found a sick person, the ’alaqlapsh
summoned the ’alchuklash, or smoke doctor, as well as the relatives of the patient. The
’alchuklash questioned the patient‟s family on the nature of his illness. Once the ’alchuklash
diagnosed the ailment, he employed a variety of techniques to remedy the patient‟s problems. If
a supernatural being was involved directly or indirectly, the doctor would exorcise its
manifestation from the patient‟s body, using smoke and sweat baths. More complicated cases
called for the involvement of yet another specialist, the ‘alaxtut’uch or sucking doctor, who
focused on the removal of foreign objects from the patient‟s body.
54
That the ’antap persisted
into the mission period is evident from missionary writings. In March 1814 Father Estevan
Tapis, the same missionary who baptized Nereo Tamechcat fourteen years earlier, wrote that the
curative method of the Indians of Santa Inés Mission consisted of:
deceptions…whose creators are some Indians who in their heathen state were healers.
These [healers] make the sick believe that the cause of the illness is some feather, a
leopard‟s claw, splinters, hairs, etc. that are inserted in the body. The patient, desirous of
attaining his health, handsomely pays such charlatans, who with their arts and guiles
feign to remove the feather, etc. from the body, but in reality takes [the object] from out
of his own hand: and so the patient‟s sickness remains, but not his beads and other things
which the healer takes as payment for his lie. Other healers have the office of removing

53
Lowell J. Bean, “California Indian Shamanism and Folk Curing,” in California Indian Shamanism, ed. Lowell J.
Bean (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1992), 55-56.
54
Phillip L. Walker and Travis Hudson, Chumash Healing: Changing Health and Medical Practices in an American
Indian Society (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1993), 58 and 61.
50

blood from the patient without a single incision in the body… the blood is from an ulcer
or wound of the mouth of the same healer; and when he offers to suck the blood… he
takes in his mouth hot water and pretends to suck or extract the blood from the patient‟s
body, which he removes from his own mouth mixed with water…
55

Tapis‟s description of “other healers” demonstrates that even after the establishment of the
missions the Chumash maintained the hierarchical system that guarded esoteric knowledge,
particularly with regard to the ‘alaxtut’uch who specialized in sucking objects out from patients‟
bodies. Fr. José Señán of nearby San Buenaventura Mission reported that the same practice in
1815. According to Señán, the Indians had “their quid pro quo bleeding, lancing with a sharp
flint and sucking the blood and the irritation occasioned by this crude operation does not produce
a beneficial effect in some.”
56
Notably, Señán stated that the procedure failed to effect beneficial
change in some, suggesting that in others the practice yielded positive outcomes. Therefore what
Tapis mistook for charlatanry the Chumash understood as legitimate practice since the custom
persisted throughout the mission period.
Doctors employed other forms of treatment aside from the “sucking” method. The
patient‟s body might also be purged by inducing vomiting or diarrhea. Fr. José Señán attested to
this method. He wrote that “for purging [Indians] have various herbs and to induce vomiting they

55
“…el método curativo q.e observan en sus enfermed.s consiste en engaños…cuyos autores son alg.s Yndios q.e en
la gentilidad se tenían por curanderos. Estos hacen creer al enfermo, q.e la enferm.d la ocasiona alguna pluma, uña
de leopardo, astilla, cabellos, etc. q.e tienen metido en el cuerpo. El enfermo deseoso de lograr la salud paga muy
bien a semejantes embusteros, q.e con sus artes y mañas aparentan q.e le sacan la pluma etc. del cuerpo, sacándola
realm.e de su propia mano: y así el paciente queda su enferm.d, pero no con sus abalorios y otras cosas q.e lleva en
curandero en paga de la mentira. Otros curanderos tienen el oficio sacar sangre del enfermo sin incisión alg.a en el
cuerpo…siendo así q.e la sangre sale de la boca del mismo curandero, el qual mantiene en ella una llaga o herida; y
q.do se ofrece chupar sangre…toma en la boca agua cariente [sic], y fingiendo q.e chupa, o extrahe la sangre del
cuerpo del enfermo, la saca de su propia boca, mezclada con agua…” Estevan Tapis in response to a questionnaire
from the Spanish Secretary if the Department of Overseas Colonies, March 8, 1814 from Santa Inés Mission in
Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library, “Preguntas y Respuestas.”
56
“Tienen su quid pro quo sangría, sajándose con un pedernal agudo y chupando la sangre y esta ruda operación por
la irritación q.e ocasiona no surte en algunos buen efecto,” José Señán, “Contestación del infra-escrito, Presid.e de
las Misiones de esta Alta California, al Ynterrogatorio,” dated August 11, 1815 from San Buenaventura Mission, in
Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library, “Preguntas y Respuestas.”
51

drink water in abundance, mixed with much salt or sea water.”
57
In lieu of emesis, some doctors
ordered patients to ingest. A common cure would have been a saxtin, or diet. Frequently
consisting of a light broth made from a mixture of clams and thick acorn gruel, otherwise known
as atole, the saxtin was prescribed explicitly for the sick. Another saxtin required patients to
consume datura as a cure. If the patient were gravely ill and narrowly escaped death, the doctor
commanded the patient to consume another dose of datura to counter any adverse reactions to the
traumatic experience.
58
Other cures called for the resumption of cultural traditions. For example,
doctors also used ritual songs, dances, and prayers to petition the intercession of the
supernaturals to achieve a cure and both doctors and relatives engaged in private ritual activity to
ensure the patient‟s return to health.
Some missionaries clearly felt frustration when supposed “Christian” Natives refused to
give up their traditional medico-religious practices. At nearby Santa Inés Mission, for example,
Fr. Francisco Xavier de Uría wrote to the corporal of the Santa Barbara Presidio in 1819 in
regard to a female shaman, an older woman named Juliana. “Give that whore-witch a thrashing,”
he ordered the military commander.
59
The fact that the woman had a Spanish name means that
she probably received baptism, a sacrament that the missionaries assumed made Christians of
heathens. How the aged woman incurred the missionary‟s wrath is unclear. Perhaps she
committed some act in her official capacity as shaman. Or perhaps her status as a woman and a
shaman was enough to embitter the missionary to demand that she undergo corporeal

57
“Para purgarse tienen varias yervas y p.a el vomito beben agua en abundancia, mesclada con mucha sal o agua del
mar.” José Señán, “Contestación del infra-escrito, Presid.e de las Misiones de esta Alta California, al
Ynterrogatorio,” dated August 11, 1815 from San Buenaventura Mission, in Santa Barbara Mission Archive-
Library, “Preguntas y Respuestas.”
58
Phillip L. Walker and Travis Hudson, Chumash Healing: Changing Health and Medical Practices in an American
Indian Society (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1993), 63.
59
“Al vieja Juliana dele unos palos a esa perra hechicera,” Francisco Xavier de Uría to José Antonio de la Guerra y
Noriega, dated May 6, 1819, Huntington Library, HM FAC 667 (982), Guerra Family Papers, San Marino,
California.
52

punishment. Whatever the reason, Uría used the occasion to look for and root out other
traditional religious practices among the Chumash at Santa Inés. Six days later, the friar wrote
again to the corporal to inform him that he had found “two idols that I have taken away from the
old invalids.” The angry missionary added, “the devil has already taken away these [people].”
60

Uría‟s comment demonstrates his level of discontent with Native peoples‟ desire to retain their
customs. Alternatively, his remark may also reveal his feelings of futility and frustration with his
own evangelization efforts.
Uría was not alone in sharing his disgust with traditional Native practices. For example,
when Father Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta of San Juan Bautista Mission recorded the death of one
of the mission‟s hechiceros, or witch doctors, he seemed particularly satisfied by the shaman‟s
demise. In the man‟s death record dated February 5, 1829, Arroyo de la Cuesta wrote that the
deceased Pascual, who was also known by his indigenous name Ynmacñe, “had fame among the
neophytes as a witch doctor.” The missionary added, “I had warned that all the witch doctors
[are] finishing off just like the dead [Pascual].”
61
A few months later, a second shaman at the
same mission died. In a death record dated April 27, 1829, Arroyo de la Cuesta recorded the
death of Francisco de Paula, who “drank [from] a certain wild plant, or the juice of a certain
venomous herb and without being sick, he died like that. He was one of what the Indians call

60
“le remito también dos ídolos q.e les he quitado a los inválidos viejos… ya se los lleva a estos el Diablo”
Francisco Xavier de Uría to José Antonio de la Guerra y Noriega, dated May 12, 1819, Huntington Library, HM
FAC 667 (982), Guerra Family Papers, San Marino, California.
61
Pascual Ynmacñe “Tubo entre los Neof.s fama de echicero… y he advertido q.e todos los echiceros acaban como
lo finado…” Record number 2584. Francisco de Paula‟s death record, number 2600, starts with “Dicen q.e bebió
cierta silvestre, o el zumo de cierta yerba venenosa y sin estar enfermo murió así. Era uno de los q.e los Yndios
llaman hechiceros o Uten…” Pascual Ynmacñe was baptized by Pedro Antonio Martinez on October 8, 1797 and
Francisco de Paula by José Manuel de Martiarena on December 7, 1798 (see SJB baptisms 00043 and 00262). The
other references to shamans at San Juan Bautista may be found in the book of burials, record numbers 2953 and
2978. In 3533Y (3333 in the margin), the father of the deceased child was identified as an “echicero.” The burial
records are located in Huntington Library, California Mission Records Collection, MSS Film 528:13, Reel I, San
Juan Bautista Burials. Baptism records are located in Huntington Library, California Mission Records Collection,
MSS Film 528:13, Reel II, San Juan Bautista Baptisms.
53

witch doctors, o Uten.” The poisonous plant that Francisco de Paula consumed was almost
certainly datura.
Tellingly, neither man was identified as a shaman in his baptism record from 32 and 31
years earlier, respectively. In fact, both men had spent a significant number of years at San Juan
Bautista. Pascual Ynmacñe entered the mission as a teenager in 1797, the year of that mission‟s
founding. Francisco de Paula, who also went by the names Achicul or Jumalox Maloas, received
the sacrament of baptism as a young man of approximately 23 years in 1798. Both men led
seemingly normal lives at San Juan Bautista: both married and both had children, who were also
baptized at the mission. These men‟s marriage records and their children‟s baptism records
reveal nothing about their status as shamans. Perhaps the omissions can be attributed to the
baptizing priests who may not have known or attempted to hide the fact that Pascual Ynmacñe
and Francisco de Paula were shamans. It is also possible that both men had not developed as
shamans at the time of their baptisms. When these men acquired their shamanistic powers is
unclear and their accomplishments remain unknown to us.
Despite the lack of additional information on these two individuals, it is clear that the
missionaries certainly did not approve when shamans exercised their craft. Friars, such as Uría
and Arroyo de la Cuesta, considered indigenous practices, especially those tied to religion and
healing, detrimental to evangelizing efforts that sought to supplant traditional customs with new,
Christian ones. Yet Arroyo de la Cuesta‟s assertion that the shamans were “finishing off” proved
to be inaccurate. In fact, the shamans outlasted Arroyo de la Cuesta‟s tenure at San Juan
Bautista. Four years after he recorded the deaths of Pascual Ynmacñe and Francisco de Paula,
Arroyo de la Cuesta handed over the administration of San Juan Bautista to his Mexican
54

successor, the Franciscan Father José Antonio Anzar.
62
This moment in 1833 saw the
secularization of the California missions from Spanish, missionary-operated institutions to
Mexican, priest-operated churches. Anzar recorded the deaths of two more shamans at San Juan
Bautista in 1834, one year after Arroyo de la Cuesta was forced to surrender the former mission.
And in 1842, two years after Arroyo de la Cuesta‟s death, an Indian man at San Juan Bautista
laid his child‟s body to rest. Anzar did not record the father‟s Spanish name, but simply referred
to the man as “el [h]echicero,” the shaman.
63

Conclusion
Even when population loss threatened their survival, the Chumash continued to
demonstrate their allegiance to their customs. Despite Franciscan efforts to bring unprecedented
numbers of Native peoples – especially women of reproductive age – into the Santa Barbara area
missions to lead “Christian” lives, Native peoples entered the missions holding on to their faith
in their medical and religious practices to understand and treat their ailments. The influence of
the friars to recruit more Indians into the Christian fold likely had a minor effect. Instead,
environmental factors, such as low precipitation rates and dwindling marine resources, probably
had a greater influence on the Chumash Indians‟ reasons for entering the missions. Large
influxes of Natives in the missions allowed for the Chumash to preserve shamanic traditions as
evidence from the post-Spanish period demonstrates.
Throughout the Spanish mission period, Native peoples continued to serve as medics of
the soul and body. Franciscans also functioned in this role for each other: they sought to

62
Maynard Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769-1848: A Biographical Dictionary (San
Marino: Huntington Library Press, 1969), 22.
63
The two 1834 death records in question are SJB 02953 and SJB 02978. Arroyo de la Cuesta‟s 1840 death record is
SI 01400. The 1842 death record containing the reference to the father of the child as “el echicero” is SJB 03533Y.
See Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.
55

understand their sicknesses through the lens of religion, too. Believing that Alta California‟s
environment sickened its inhabitants, Franciscans responded in a variety of ways to their own
illnesses. The following chapter chronicles those varied responses.
56
Chapter Two: “A Change of Airs:” Missionaries, Sickness and Environment in Alta
California

In fall 1791 Friar Pedro Benito Cambón, a Franciscan stationed at San Francisco
Mission in Alta California, felt sick – again. This was not the first time that the
missionary fell ill. His first term in the province ended in 1779, after eight years of
evangelizing, when poor health forced him to leave. Deemed sufficiently well to resume
his duties, Cambón returned to missionary life. Although he volunteered for an
assignment in the Philippines, he found himself back in Alta California in 1781 when the
ship carrying him had to anchor at the port of San Diego and release him due to another
bout of illness. The friar stayed on for the next 10 years. Despite his ongoing medical
problems, he administered the sacraments to Natives and Spanish settlers at San Gabriel,
San Buenaventura, San Carlos, Santa Clara, and San Francisco Missions.
Cambón‟s mounting health issues prompted two physical exams by two different
surgeons in September and November 1791. The first surgeon, Francisco de Flores
Moreno, diagnosed the missionary with “an affection interior and hypochondriatic.”
Pablo Soler, the second surgeon, concurred, stating that Cambón suffered from general
consumption, produced by a “hypochondriatic effect.” The surgeons used the term
“hypochondriatic” to describe a patient who complained of both physical and emotional
problems. Abdominal pains, gastrointestinal problems, sputum, and frequent urination
prompted by the accumulation of bile in the liver comingled with feelings of depression
and tearfulness due to a melancholic temperament.
1
Medical treatises, such as Juan

1
“La Hipocondría es aquel mal, en que se quexan [sic] los enfermos de dolores en varias partes del cuerpo
(principalmente en el vientre) de flatos, estreñimientos, esputos, y orinas abundantes; y asorada [sic]
continuamente su imaginación, se entristecen, lloran, ponderan inconsolablemente sus achaques...La causa
inmediata es la congestión en el hígado de la bilis viscida [sic]...[y] del temperamento melancólico...;
Curación de la Hipocondría...las labativas [sic] suaves son provechosas: los remedios calientes exacerban el
57
Manuel Venegas‟s Compendio de la Medicina, outlined a therapeutic regimen that a
general practitioner or layperson could have prescribed for someone like Cambón. These
would have included enemas, vigorous exercise, and the consumption of warm, but not
hot foods, such as beef stews. Yet in this case Moreno issued a dire prognosis and an
even more radical remedy. The surgeon maintained that a cure would be “impossible…
without a change of airs,” adding that the friar was so ill he would have to “abandon
entirely the indispensable customs of his ministry.”
2

It is not clear if Cambón exhausted other, more routine therapies before he was
ordered to surrender missionary life. What is clear is that despite the nature of his
“interior” condition, a cure for the friar would have to come from the exterior, that is, a
change in the environment. Moreno‟s prescription of a “change of airs” is in keeping with
early modern Spanish medical thought that emphasized maintenance of health through
regulation of environmental conditions, nutritional regime, physical activity, and even
psychological welfare.
3

The writings of Spanish missionaries in Alta California reveal the strong
connection they made between the environment and well-being. These newcomers made

mal. Se abstendrá pues el enfermo de todo lo indigesto, sujetándose a tomar con moderación el chocolate
quemado, la sopa de caldo simple...Hará mucho exercicio [sic]...” From Juan Manuel Venegas, Compendio
de la Medicina: o Medicina Practica, En que se declara laconicamente lo mas útil de ella, que el Autor
tiene observado en estas Regiones de Nueva España, para casi todas las Enfermedades que acometen al
cuerpo humano (México: Por D. Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1788), 185-186.
2
“D. Fran.co de Flores Moreno: Cirujano de la Clase de primeros de Rl Armada…certifico q.e…el P. Fr.
Pedro Benito Cambon, Min.o mission.o de la Mis.on de Sn Fran.co…ha hallado padeciendo un afecto
interior e Hipocondríaco...será imposible curarse sin pasar a mudar de Ayres y abandonar enteram.te los
indispensables cursados de su ministerio... 24 de Sep.re de 1791; D. Pablo Soler...certificamos q.e hemos
reconocido al R.P. Fr. Pedro Benito Chambón...y lo hemos hallado en un principio de Caquercria o
comsumsion [sic] general producida p.r un efecto hipocondríaco...18 de Nov.re de 1791...” copy of doctors‟
certifications in Lasuen to Romeu, dated November 19, 1791 in Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor
Collection, Box 1, item 1:0060. For biographical information concerning Cambón‟s length of service in
California, see Maynard Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769-1848: A
Biographical Dictionary (San Marino: Huntington Library Press, 1969), 38-40.
3
Sherry Fields, Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2008), Chapter Four.
58
clear that their natural surroundings had the capacity to make people ill. California
missionaries were no strangers to sickness: they witnessed years of demographic collapse
among Indian peoples. Scholars of colonial California have documented the devastating
health effects that Spanish settlement and missionization wrought upon Native
communities. Historians have also demonstrated the myriad of ways that missionaries
understood diseases among indigenous peoples. Robert H. Jackson and Edward Castillo
assert that missionaries believed disease was a form of divine retribution that did not
necessitate human intervention. Additionally, Jackson and Castillo cite millenarian
thinking as yet another barrier to effectively combating infirmities among Native
populations, since missionaries assumed earthly afflictions prepared sufferers for better
lives in heaven.
4
Other scholars have pointed out that missionaries believed there was “no
human recourse” to fighting what the friars saw as the origin of widespread sickness,
sexual promiscuity among Native peoples.
5

These valuable historical perspectives increase our understating of missionaries‟
conceptualizations of Native ill health. Yet they do little to illuminate what missionaries
thought of their own ill health or how non-Native peoples struggled with diseases. Did
missionaries believe that their own infirmities were also providential punishments? Did
they assume that there was no recourse for their physical and mental sufferings? Relying
primarily upon missionary correspondence, this chapter explores how Spanish
Franciscans in Alta California manifested anxieties about their own health. The health

4
Robert H. Jackson and Edward Castillo, Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization: The Impact of
the Mission System on California Indians (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), 42.
5
Quoted in Steven W. Hackel, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish
Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2005), 121. See also, James A. Sandos,
Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2004), 111-112.
59
problems they cite can be best understood in the context of early modern ideas of the
relationship between environment and the human body. To employ historian Conevery
Bolton Valenĉius‟s expression, the “geography of health” played a critical role in
migrants‟ sense of the natural world: their efforts to conquer the province were in part
hindered by what they believed was the relationship between their surroundings and their
physical conditions.
6

Moreover, ailing missionaries impeded Spain‟s colonial project. The friars
presented themselves as helpless patients to the few doctors who attended to them.
Unable to manage the physical and psychological difficulties of their work, missionaries
could not accomplish the Crown‟s objective to “civilize” and convert California‟s Native
peoples into subjects. Doctors often gave sick friars diagnoses that eighteenth-century
medical practitioners would have recognized as unmanly labels, such as hypochondria
and hysteria. Therefore this work helps to disrupt dominant narratives of empire and
masculinity by demonstrating how these agents of empire lacked the vigor and virility to
carry out the mandates of the Crown.
7

This chapter is not concerned with diagnosing the symptoms that missionaries
self-reported but instead examines their attitudes toward sickness and the responses that
those illnesses elicited. In the words of medical historian David S. Jones, the
rationalization of health disparities among historic populations can be investigated
“without attempting to establish the „true‟ diagnosis of a past epidemic. The focus is not

6
Conevery Bolton Valenĉius, The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves
and Their Land (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 11.
7
Philippa Levine offers a concise summary of the work of gender in creating imperial rhetoric in colonial
settings. See Philippa Levine, “Why Gender and Empire?” in Gender and Empire, ed. Philippa Levine
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 1-13.
60
on diseases themselves, but on beliefs about disease and disparities.”
8
More specifically,
disease categories have their own histories. For example, when in 1819 Fr. Marcelino
Marquinez wrote to the Governor of Alta California to inform him that his fellow
missionary died of dolor de costado, the author was referring to the common name for a
specific disease with its own set of recognized symptoms.
9
The features of this illness
comprised more than its literal translation – “pain in the side” – would indicate: acute
chest pains, respiratory difficulties, dry coughing, and occasional high fevers. Yet the
very description of this condition underscores the problem of diagnosis: the symptoms
associated with dolor de costado mirror those common to many other respiratory
diseases. In other words, had the sick missionary lived in another era, his peers might
have cited his cause of death as emphysema, pneumonia, or tuberculosis.
10
Therefore this
study seeks to preserve the historicity of disease categories (as well as the historicity of
diagnosing) and instead focus on how past peoples understood diseases.
11

Residing “in lands so remote”: Sick Missionaries and Doctors in Alta California
Records pertaining to numerous eighteenth-century parish priests living and
working in rural Mexican towns described these men as being perpetually ill. The
widespread problem led to a popular impression that American priests over a certain age

8
David S. Jones, Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 5.
9
Marcelino Marquinez to Pablo Vicente de Solá, dated March 24, 1819, Huntington Library, Alexander
Taylor Collection, Box 4, Item 2:0914.
10
Dolor de costado was a common ailment of the colonial period of the Spanish Americas, synonymous
with pleuritis or pleurisy, which is a condition characterized by the inflammation of the lungs and chest
resulting in chest pains during inhalation or exhalation. Early nineteenth-century medical descriptions of
dolor de costado may be found in Antonio Ballano, Diccionario de Medicina y Cirugía, o Biblioteca
Manual Médico-Quirúrgica Tomo Primero (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1805), 241-242. Historian Sherry
Fields equates this respiratory illness to emphysema, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. See Sherry Fields,
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2008), 186.
11
For a detailed discussion of the problem of diagnosing and the evolution of disease categories, see
Charles Rosenberg, Our Present Complaint: American Medicine, Then and Now (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2007), 13-37.
61
were chronically sick.
12
Yet the situation in Alta California was different. The vast
majority of Alta California‟s missionaries came from Spain. Additionally, the afflictions
that overwhelmed the Franciscans seemed to transcend age. Even those who were
relatively young could not escape the negative effects of illness. From 1769 through the
end of 1815, missionaries routinely cited health issues as the primary reason to leave
California, a place that they and their attendant surgeons believed could not afford an
effective cure. Out of 119 missionaries who arrived in Alta California during that time
period, 58 departed the province. Among the latter group, forty-eight friars cited health-
related reasons as impediments to the continuation of their service. Another twenty-six
died from old age, sickness, or homicide.
13
The deceased and the ailing departers
accounted for 62 percent of the total missionary population by the start of 1816. But
retaining missionaries in the province became a perennial challenge well before then.
From the outset, missionary recruitment efforts for the Alta California missions
encountered obstacles due to political and religious changes in Spain. Mendicant orders
enjoyed support of the Pope and Crown in the seventeenth century, but by the mid-
eighteenth century Bourbon policies limited the power of religious institutions.
Additionally, religious orders on both sides of the Iberian Atlantic teemed with members

12
William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 197-198, 631-632n, and 104-n105.
13
These figures are derived from the licenses granted to missionaries leaving the province, copies of which
are located in the Alexander Taylor Collection, Huntington Library, Boxes 1-2, Archivo General de la
Nación, Mexico City, and the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library in addition to the arrival, departure,
and death data for Spanish California missionaries listed in Appendix II of Maynard Geiger, Franciscan
Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769-1848: A Biographical Dictionary (San Marino: Huntington
Library Press, 1969), 282-293. It should be noted that missionaries José Antonio Calzada, Martín de
Landaeta, José de Miguel, and José Señán left due to illness but returned to the province within the above
noted time period. With the exception of Fr. José Loriente, a Dominican friar who spent a short time
ministering at San Diego Mission, all were members of the Franciscan order.
62
but many preferred the security of the monastery to the hardship of missionary life.
14

These phenomena translated into chronic scarcity of friars to attend to the Alta California
missions.
In 1797 the missionaries found themselves notably shorthanded. That year proved
to be challenging due to the construction of four additional missions of San José, San
Juan Bautista, San Miguel Arcángel, and San Fernando Rey. This brought the total
number of missions in the province to seventeen, the largest expansion to occur during
the Spanish period. To meet the needs of expansion and to replace friars who had left or
died, the seminary at San Fernando College sent eleven missionaries to California. One
of these, Fr. Julian López, requested to see the doctor only 25 days after being in
California. The doctor diagnosed him with tuberculosis, a disease which killed him three
months later.
15
Another missionary in the same cohort, Fr. Antonio de la Concepción
Horra, left only within months of his arrival. Due to his violent fits and negligence of
duties, doctors declared Horra insane. Both Horra and José María Fernández, who was
also declared mentally ill, returned to the seminary in Mexico. Diego García also left the
same year. Described as suffering from a “diseased mind,” García received his permit to
leave California due to “physical ailments.”
16
Two other friars left the same year, having
completed their ten-year service but citing fatigue and illness as their reasons for
relinquishing missionary life. Even though the college sent eleven missionaries, the
missionaries remained short-staffed just when they were at the point of expansion.

14
David Weber makes reference to the problem of getting the religious to leave the comfort of the seminary
for missions, but the issue has received scant attention by scholars. David Weber, Bárbaros: Spaniards and
Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 117.
15
Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769-1848, 144-145.
16
The information on Horra and Fernández appears in Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic
California, 1769-1848, 97.
63
Frustrated by ongoing staffing issues, the governor of the province wrote to the
guardian of the Franciscan seminary in Mexico City in 1803, asking him to send more
missionaries to California because the remaining sick and aged friars could not keep up
with the demands of their work.
17
While the seminary responded to the call for additional
clerics in 1803 and 1804, the number of missionaries heading to the province continued
to decline thereafter, as friars died at the missions and new recruits ceased to arrive.
18

Undoubtedly certain friars claimed health problems to evade missionary service.
The superiors of the California missions and the Franciscan seminary watched for
malingerers in their midst. For example, in 1798 then-President of the Alta California
missions Fr. Fermín Francisco de Lasuén informed Governor Diego de Borica that his
fellow missionary, Fr. Manuel Fernández, suffered “various indispositions” but that
above all the friar “possessed an invincible tedium and repugnance toward the country
and to serve in it.” Lasuén added that he considered denying Fernández‟s request to leave
the province “for his own good” because the missionary “did little to nothing sensible
with the exhortations, advice, and persuasions” given to him. Ultimately, the president of
the missions decided that it would be best to let the unhappy Fernandez go, even though
he had only served four years of his decenio, or ten-year period of service asked of all

17
See José Joaquin de Arrillaga to the guardian of the College of San Fernando, dated March 8, 1803,
Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Gobierno Virreinal, Californias,
Volumen 21, Expediente 15. Between 1803 and 1804, dozens of religious from Spain traveled to the
Mexico City seminary for training as missionaries. Twenty-four of these received assignments to work in
Alta California. See Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Regio Patronato
Indiano, Misiones, Contenedor 2, Volumen 4, Expedientes 7-9 and 35.
18
The problem of recruiting missionaries actually began in Spain around 1769, about the time of the
establishment of the first Alta California mission. Eager to assert greater control over ecclesiastics and
clerical matters, the Crown pressured the Franciscan Order to curtail the number of novices entering its
seminaries during the late eighteenth century. For more on this subject, see Rose Marie Beebe and Robert
M. Senkewicz, “Uncertainty on the Mission Frontier: Missionary Recruitment and Institutional Stability in
Alta California in the 1780s,” in Francis in America: Essays on the Franciscan Family in North and South
America, ed. John F. Schwaller (Berkeley, CA: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2005), 302; and
David Rex Galindo, “Propaganda Fide: Training Franciscan Missionaries in New Spain” (Ph.D. Diss.,
Southern Methodist University, 2012), 81-89.
64
missionaries who went to California. Lasuén preferred the malcontent‟s absence to the
“evil results of a disdainful and disagreeable spirit” potentially disrupting the life of the
community.
19

Yet feigning illness to be excused of duties fails to explain the pervasiveness of
sickness among missionaries. Even those who did not petition to leave the province
complained extensively of poor health. These health concerns partly stemmed from the
missionaries‟ apprehension about their physical vulnerabilities as they ministered and
settled in foreign lands far removed from medical care facilities. Their vulnerabilities
ranged from the persistent cough to physical manifestations of mental illness. As an
example of the latter, in 1797 Lasuén, reported to the governor that friar Fr. Hilario
Torrent of San Diego Mission was preparing to leave the province in the following state:
partly paralytic, very absent-minded, his head perturbed, vision clouded, his
speech turbid, he cries and laughs openly like a child: and in the judgment and
view of everyone, impossible [for him] to serve in this ministry, without hope of
being able to cure himself here, and in the hopes of him being able to recover in
the other side with the aid of medicines and doctors…
20

Lasuén‟s reference to the “other side” is an allusion to Alta California‟s
underdevelopment, which presented a problem for the ill. Despite the varied backgrounds
of the Spanish missionaries who made their respective journeys to California, nearly all

19
“Se me ha presentado el R.P. Fr. Man.l Fernandez…con una mui fuerte instancia p.a retirarse al Colegio:
exponiéndome q.e padece varias indisposiciones…sovre todo q.e se halla poseído de un invencible tedio y
repugnancia al Pays, y a servir en el, he visto q.e se ha hecho poco o nada sencible a las exortaciones,
consejos y persuasiones, conq.e le he mostrado, quererme negar a su Solicitud por su propio bien, y
deduzco de esto por natural conseq.a q.e el tal Religioso no solo hade ser aquí de algún buen servicio si no
mui expuesto a las malas resultas de un ánimo displicente y desabrido con detrimento suyo propio, y del
común.” Lasuén to Borica, dated October 20, 1798, Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor Collection, Box
1, item 1:0206.
20
“Haier tarde salió el P. Hilario para el Presidio a fin de embarcarse hoi en la Princesa. Se halla…medio
perlático, mui desmemoriado, y perturbada la Ca[be]za, ofuscada la vista, entorpecida la lengua, llora y ríe
a rasos como un niño; y esta a juicio y vista en todos imposibilitado para [s]ervir en este Minist.o
desa[h]uciado de poder curarse aqui, y [en] esperanzas de poder restablecerse en la otra vanda auxi[l]iado
de medicam.tos y facultativos…” Lasuén to Borica, dated November 5, 1797, Huntington Library,
Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 1, item 1:0140.
65
of them spent time in Mexico City where the Franciscan college of San Fernando was
located. Although the capital of New Spain suffered a wave of successive epidemics
during the late eighteenth century, this major metropolitan center still afforded a certain
standard of living not found at the far fringes of empire.
21
To Spanish missionaries
accustomed to the city‟s offerings, the “other side” implied civilization, with its attendant
hospitals, medics, and pharmacies, many of which were operated by various religious
groups. These resources existed because urban living presented its own health hazards,
such as water-borne diseases spread by contamination or vermin-infestations caused by
the accumulation of waste.
Yet for all the disparities in the quality and effectiveness of care, Mexico City‟s
medical resources remained the most advanced that New Spain had to offer. Despite the
existence of infirmaries at individual missions, California‟s remoteness ensured that even
a licensed physician‟s care was episodic at best. The best the province had to offer was
the services of a single surgeon stationed at Monterey, who was responsible for attending
to the health of the military officers and missionaries from San Diego to San Francisco,
an area over 500 miles in length. Even governmental officials in New Spain understood
the challenges of providing the distant province with a qualified medic. In a 1785 letter
written by Pedro Ignacio de Ariztegui to the Real Audiencia (the highest tribunal in New
Spain), the administrator complained that not a single surgeon would subject himself to
the “long trek and navigation” to California, “much less reside in lands so remote.”
22

21
A series of epidemics plagued Mexico City during the time that certain California-bound missionaries
would have been in residence at the College of San Fernando. These outbreaks occurred 1761-1762, 1779-
1780, 1784-1787, 1797-1798 and 1813. For more, see Donald B. Cooper, Epidemic Disease in Mexico
City, 1761-1813: An Administrative, Social, and Medical Study (Austin: Institute of Latin American
Studies by the University of Texas Press, 1965).
22
“no encontrando ninguno [Cirujano] que quiera resolverse a caminata y navegación tan larga, y mucho
menos a residir en Países tan remotos…” Pedro Ignacio de Ariztegui to the Real Audiencia and Fiscal de
66
Ailing from a “pestilential catarrh,” Lasuén succinctly commented on the situation of
California‟s medical underdevelopment in a letter to Governor Borica: “one thing is for
certain, if I were at the College [of San Fernando], they would have been curing me by
now and [I would be] in good care at the infirmary.”
23

Even two of the surgeons who were stationed in California petitioned to leave the
province due to illness. Doctor Pedro Prat, the province‟s first physician, suffered from
hypochondria. Governor Pedro Fages reported that Prat was “beyond the limits of
madness.”
24
The physician spent only two years in the province before his illness forced
him to leave. Like Prat, Pablo Soler, who spent the 1790s in California, pleaded with the
governor in April 1799 to allow him to return home. Initially suffering from melancholy,
Soler believed that the source of his illness was “without doubt, the isolation of this
country…this sad destination.” By August of the same year, Soler‟s condition apparently
worsened. Diagnosed with hypochondria, Soler and the governor both appealed to the
viceroy to allow the physician to travel to Mexico City or to Guadalajara to seek medical
attention. The governor noted that Soler had a “grave case of hypochondria which he has
suffered from for some time, and on occasion I have seen him with his mind disturbed.”
25

Real Hacienda, dated January 22, 1785, Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales,
Gobierno Virreinal, Californias, Volumen 46, Expediente 13.
23
“Lo cierto es, q.e si yo estubiera en Colegio, me tuvieran ahora en cura, y a buen cuidado en enfermería”
Lasuén to Borica, dated April 14, 1798, Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 1, item
1:0170.
24
Regarding Pedro Prat, the Governor Pedro Fages stated that “la enfermedad que tenia de Iprocondria
[sic], a pasado a los Limites de Locura.” Pedro Fages to the viceroy [Carlos Francisco de Croix], dated June
20, 1771, Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Gobierno Virreinal,
Californias, Volumen 66, Expediente 63.
25
In the joint letter to the viceroy, Borica and Soler stated that the latter suffered “en un estado de
hipocondría”; in the same letter, Governor Borica said of Soler that“la grave hipocondría que padece hace
mucho tiempo, de manera q.e [en] ocasiones se ha visto con la caveza turbada.” Pablo Soler and Diego de
Borica to the Viceroy [either Josef de Azanza or Félix Berenguer de Marquina], dated August 15 and
August 27, 1799, Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Real Hacienda,
Archivo Historio de Hacienda (008), Volumen 1400, Expediente 20.
67
Environmental Factors
Beyond the dearth of both medicines and medical facilities, missionaries
expressed more deep-seated concerns about California‟s environment. As missionaries
became ill during their time in the province, they often employed a change of
environment as a means to improve health. Sometimes the change did little, as in the case
of Fr. Romualdo Gutiérrez. In 1806, then-president of the missions Fr. Estevan Tapis
wrote to Governor José Joaquin de Arrillaga to inform him that he had given Gutiérrez
license to leave for the College of San Fernando in hopes of reestablishing his health,
which, Tapis stressed, his colleague had completely lost. Tapis explained that Gutiérrez
had been reassigned from Santa Inés Mission, where he was in poor health, to San
Buenaventura Mission, “to experiment if the change in temperament would contribute to
his alleviation; and far from favoring him this change has made him constantly worse and
forced him to live secluded in his room since his arrival at the said mission…”
26

The reference to temperament connoted distinctive yet related meanings during
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. On one hand, it referred to the
condition of the environment as affected by air, heat, coldness, humidity or dryness. On
the other hand, it also signified the constitution and proportional disposition of the
humors in the human body. Even during the early part of the nineteenth century,
medicine was based largely upon the concept of humoralism, which had its roots in
Hippocratic and Galenic traditions. Emphasizing the relationship between mental and

26
“…he concedido mi licencia al RP Fr. Romualdo Gutiérrez M[i]n[is]tro de la Misión de S. Buenaventura,
paraq[u]e se retire a su Colegio de S. Fernando de Megico [sic] restablecerse en la salud, que enteram[ent]e
ha perdido. Traslade a SR de la Misión de Sta Ynes...y casi siempre enfermo, a la de S. Buenaventura, para
experimentar se la mudanza de temperam[ent]o contribuiría a su alivio; y lejos de favorecerle esta mudanza
se ha hallado siempre mas malo, y precisado a vivir recogido en su quarto [sic] desde su llegada a la
expresada misión...” Tapis to Arrillaga, dated September 17, 1806, Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor
Collection, Box 2, item 2:0149.
68
physical processes, the basic premise of this holistic medical system held that good health
was the product of a favorable balance of four main bodily fluids, known as humors.
Sickness resulted from an upset in that balance. Early writings on the subject describe the
body in perpetual flux, open to potentially harmful elements and external stimuli such as
certain hot foods and temperature extremes. Only the right balance of humors could
remedy internal or external disturbances and restore health. Humoralism was
idiosyncratic in that each individual had his own humoral composition or temperament; at
the same time it was universal because the variation of diseases was finite and the same
pattern of disease could affect many persons.
27
The effort to achieve the right humoral
balance was a delicate act, and an environment perceived as unhealthful could create a
life-or-death situation. This was especially true for Gutiérrez. One month after Tapis
alerted the governor of his colleague‟s health problem, two visiting surgeons declared
that Gutiérrez suffered from a “hysterical affect,” which caused in him an “insuperable
debility in this clime” that carried with it the potential for a “fatal catastrophe without a
change in temperament.”
28

For missionaries and doctors, these environmental disturbances afflicted not only
the health of individuals but also that of entire communities. For example, in 1813 after a
devastating earthquake near La Purísima Concepción Mission in the Santa Barbara
region, missionaries Mariano Payeras and Antonio Ripoll asked the governor for
permission to move the mission to another site, contending that the original location,

27
Sherry Fields, Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2008), Chapter Four.
28
Luis Fernández and Luis Paba certified that Fr. Romualdo Gutiérrez had “un afecto Ysterico…por cuya
causa ha venido a caer en una debilidad insuperable en esta clima…el mal venga a terminar en un funesto
catrastrofe [sic] sin muda de temperamento…” Luis Fernández and Luis Paba, dated October 20, 1806,
Huntington Library Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 2, item 2:0151.
69
Lalsacupi, was harmful to its inhabitants.
29
According to the friars, the location where the
mission was settled prior to the quake was
at the base of a swamp, in the middle of various springs…and [known] for its
dense and unbroken fog that make for a continuous, difficult winter. Here,
according to consulted doctors, arise fevers, rheumatism, bone pains, crippleness
among the people of Reason [i.e. non-Natives], Natives, and the missionaries to
an extreme unknown in this California, only those affected who depart from here
recover their health…
30

The missionaries‟ complaints of exposure to the swampy waters and fogs have their roots
in an ancient tradition that regarded the environment as the provoker of sickness. As early
as the fifth century B.C.E., scholars warned of the dangers of brackish waters and
unwholesome airs. In Airs, Waters, Places, one of the texts of the Hippocratic Corpus,
the author contends that both the cold north wind and south hot wind should be avoided
for the hazard of disease they contained. Altitude, winds, bodies of water, or forests also
were crucial factors when selecting a habitable location. The most dangerous waters were
those that were stagnant.
31
While it is unknown if those missionaries had studied Airs,
Waters, Places, they both demonstrated their familiarity with the Hippocratic tradition in
their recommendations for the transfer of the mission. Both friars made a case for the
mission to be moved to Los Berros, a place they argued offered drier conditions, less fog,
and more importantly, the promise of health. Payeras and Ripoll specifically cited the
topography of the new location as ideally suited for habitation: the walls of its narrow

29
Lalsacupi was alternately known as Algsacpi and Algsaxsupi.
30
“Lalsacupi…por estar al pie de una ciénaga, en medio de varios ojitos de agua… y por las densas, y
continuas nieblas q.e lo hacen un continuo, y pesado invierno…De ai [sic] según los facultativos
consultados, han dimanado las calenturas, reumas, dolores de huesos, tullimientos en los de Razón, en los
Yndios [sic], y en los PP [Padres] hasta un[a] extrema no conocido en esta California, las quales [sic] con
solo salir de aquí recobraron la salud...” Mariano Payeras and Antonio Ripoll to José Joaquin de Arrillaga,
dated March 17, 1813, Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 2, item 2:0257-026.
31
Sherry Fields, Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2008), 116.
70
ravine retarded the force of the northeast winds; its soil yielded better crops; and it even
received one additional hour of sunlight during winter, unlike Lalsacupi.
32

The Use of Diagnoses
Fr. Romualdo Gutiérrez left the province in 1807 in the company of another friar,
Fr. Pedro de la Cueva. Cueva‟s example demonstrates how a diagnosis could be used to
mask a missionary‟s medical problems rather than elucidate them. According to
physician José María Benitez, Cueva suffered from a fistula in his upper right jawbone,
epilepsy, two head contusions, and several ulcers on his thighs, all of which impeded the
missionary‟s ability to continue his work. As a result, Cueva‟s superior in California
granted him permission to leave only after two years of service.
33
What the physician did
not mention is Cueva‟s excessive consumption of alcohol, which had become common
knowledge among the missionary‟s peers and superiors as well as the Native peoples.
Tellingly Cueva‟s intemperance did not come to light in any official correspondence until
his problem had become so severe that the college‟s superiors implored the viceroy to
expel the friar from New Spain. In their case against the missionary, Cueva‟s elders and
colleagues testified that his excessive drinking had begun before he set foot on
Californian soil. Fr. José Gasol, the Guardian of the College, stated that Cueva was
recalled from the California missions because of the “vices that he concealed, mortifying
the other ministers of those missions, scandalizing the Neophytes there and trying the
patience of his prelates here; all arising from the reprehensible excess of drinking.” Even

32
“Los Berros es piso reseco, por la q.e se observa menos neblinoso, y q.e promete mas salud.” Mariano
Payeras and Antonio Ripoll to José Joaquin de Arrillaga, dated March 17, 1813, Huntington Library,
Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 2, item 2:0257-0261.
33
José María Benitez certified on July 9, 1806 that Cuevas had “una fistula en la parte superior del borde
albiolar [sic] del hueso maxilar del lado diestro y de Epilecia [sic] la q.e impede exercer su
ministerio…sucedió haber experimentado con dos contuciones conciderables…y unas ulceras en los
muslos.” On July 11, 1806, Fr. Estevan Tapis gave Cuevas permission to return to the College of San
Fernando. See Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 2, items 2:0145 and 2:0146.
71
Romualdo Gutiérrez declared that he noted in Cueva an “immoderate use of drink”
during the trek to California. According to Gutiérrez, Cueva‟s problem so inhibited him
that he threatened fellow friar Fr. Juan Sancho with a dagger, fought with his peers, and
attempted to sexually violate several of his female hostesses who provided him with
accommodations during his months-long journey to the missions.
34

Yet none of these facts made their way into Benitez‟s written health examination
of Cueva; alternately none of the doctor‟s findings on the status of the missionary‟s
health factored into the clerics‟ petition to remove him from his post or from the
viceroyalty of New Spain. Cognizant of civil authorities‟ scrutiny of religious
institutions, the clerics of the College of San Fernando likely wished to police their own
without interference from the Crown‟s officials. Interference would have only confirmed
the popular belief among Bourbon administrators that the Church refused to embrace
efficiency and reason. Benitez‟s diagnosis, therefore, gave Cueva‟s superiors a legitimate
reason to relieve him from his duties without having to call attention to any behavior that
could be considered scandalous. The College‟s clerics decided to reveal Cueva‟s drinking
problem to government officials only after the friar threatened to kill himself and
destroyed the walls of his cell during a fit of alcohol-fueled rage. Faced with an
uncontrollable, fearsome man in their midst, the clerics successfully appealed to the
viceroy to have Cueva returned to Spain at the expense of the College.
35

34
On November 7, 1808, Gasol wrote of Cueva “los vicios q.e ocultaba, mortificando así a los otros PP de
aquellas Misiones, escandalizando a aquellos Neofitos y egercitando [sic] acá la paciencia de sus Prelados:
todo dimanado del exceso repre[h]ensible en beb[er].”Gutierrez testified that “advertimos en el P. Fr. Pedro
de la Cueva un u[so] inmoderado de la bebida.” Gasol‟s letter and the remainder of Gutierrez‟s testimony
may be found in Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Gobierno Virreinal,
Californias, Volumen 61, Expediente 28, pages 373-394.
35
José Gasol to Virrey Pedro Garibay, dated November 7, 1808 in Archivo General de la Nación de
México, Instituciones Coloniales, Gobierno Virreinal, Californias, Volumen 61, Expediente 28, pages 373-
394.
72
Hypochondria
The missionaries‟ words reveal numerous concerns about the environment and its
impact on health. Yet their sicknesses and diagnoses reveal another pattern: the
prevalence of hypochondria among missionaries. Friar Pedro Benito Cambón was not the
only one diagnosed with hypochondria. Fr. Tomas de la Peña, who served over 19 years
as a missionary in California, experienced “very severe hypochondria,” prompting his
retirement in 1794. Two years later, the president of the missions gave Fr. Baldomero
López permission to return to the College of San Fernando due to “a continuous
hypochondria that each day incapacitates him for this ministry.”
36
Fr. Martín de Landaeta
suffered from the condition for at least eight years, until his death at San Fernando
Mission in November 1809.
37
Even health professionals at the time would have
understood Gutiérrez‟s “hysterical affect” as an expression of hypochondria. Although
doctors used the terms hypochondria and its counterpart hysteria as catch-all, protean
categories to describe a broad range of ailments, the recurrence of hypochondria among
the missionaries deserves greater scholarly attention because of the gendered implications
of being diagnosed with hypochondria.
Originally the term hypochondriasis referred to a disorder involving the right or
left hypochondrium, the area just below the rib cage encompassing the liver and gall
bladder in the right and the spleen in the left. The ancient humoral model of medicine
stipulated that the cause of this somatic disorder could be traced to one of the

36
Tomas de la Peña‟s condition was described by Fr. Fermín Francisco de Lasuén in a letter to Joseph
Juaquin de Arrillaga, dated August 1, 1794, Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 1, item 1:0090, Huntington
Library. Lasuén also mentioned Fr. Baldomero López‟s hypochondriac condition in a letter to Governor
Diego de Borica dated July 20, 1796, Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library, California Mission
Documents Collection, CMD 271.
37
Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California,135-136.
73
hypochondria exuding a surfeit of black bile, or melancholia, into the body; the bile‟s
fumes traveled to the head resulting in cognitive and emotional disorientation.
38
The
seventeenth century ushered in significant changes in medical discourse on hypochondria
as afflictions of the mind assumed greater significance. Works such as Robert Burton‟s
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) contended that hypochondria fell under the
diagnostic rubric of melancholy, characterized by a combination of physical and
emotional symptoms. Yet in less than a generation‟s time other clinicians such as Thomas
Willis and Thomas Sydenham reasoned that both hypochondria and hysteria could be
classified as weaknesses of the nervous system with a shared cerebral origin. In the 1670s
and 1680s Willis and Sydenham coined the new diagnostic category of “hystero-
hypochondriasis,” which referred to digestive disorders coupled with an eclectic
assortment of mental and physical indicators. According to Willis and Sydenham, the
principal difference between the two ailments rested on the following premise: women
suffered from hysteria while hypochondriasis affected men.
39

Debates on whether hypochondriasis and hysteria were clinically analogous or
identical continued into the eighteenth century and physicians‟ attempting to distinguish
between the two engaged in exercises in “hair-splitting” rather than identifying
observably discrete sets of diseases.
40
Many in the international medical community
agreed, however, that a gendered distinction could be made between hypochondria and
hysteria, usually (but not exclusively) assigning the former to men and the latter to

38
Mark S. Micale, Hysterical Men: The Hidden History of Male Nervous Illness (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2008), 18; Andrew Scull, Hysteria: The Disturbing History (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011), 35; and Susan Baur, Hypochondria: Woeful Imaginations (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988), 22.
39
Quoted in Mark S. Micale, Hysterical Men: The Hidden History of Male Nervous Illness (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2008) 18; see also Susan Baur, Hypochondria: Woeful Imaginations (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1988), 24-27.
40
Andrew Scull, Hysteria: The Disturbing History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 9.
74
women. For example, German anatomist Lorenz Heister emphasized that “hysteria in
women is the same as hypochondria in men, with the exception that [women] are
equipped with more delicate fibers that attack with greater vehemence.”
41
Scottish
physician William Cullen also maintained a gendered interpretation of the diseases, but
recognized a more fluid boundary between the two. “It has been generally supposed, that
the two diseases differ only in respect of their appearance in different sexes; but this is
not well founded,” Cullen wrote. “Although the hysteria appears most commonly in
females, the male sex are not absolutely excluded…and, although the hypochondriasis
may be most frequent in men, the instances of it in the female sex are very common.”
42

Eighteenth-century medical thinkers in the Spanish Americas took a similar
position. In Compendio de la Medicina (1788), Juan Manuel Venegas made a direct link
between hysteria and hypochondria. In his discussion of hysteria, he described it as a
“sickness in women and sometimes in men” that can be cured in part by employing the
cure for hypochondria.
43
As for hypochondria, Venegas offered an array of causes
indicative of the many physical symptoms associated with the disorder. In addition to
melancholic temperament, other causes included obstructions of the viscera, constipation,
indigestion, and consumption of bitter or glutinous foods. But the ultimate root of the
problem could be traced to the “grave anxieties,” “profound attentions of the mind,”

41
“El mal histérico en las mugeres [sic], es lo mismo que el mal hipocondriaco en los hombres, con la
excepción de que estando aquellas dotadas de unas mas delicadas fibras, se hallan acometidas con mayor
vehemencia…” (emphasis original) in Lorenz Heister, Compendio de Todo la Medicina Práctica,
Compuesto por el Doctísimo Profesor Don Laurencio Heister, traducido y añadido por el Doct. N.N. y lo
Publica D. Andrés García Vázquez … (Madrid: La Imprenta de Pedro Marín, 1776), 280-281.
42
William Cullen, First Lines of the Practice of Physic, for the Use of Students in the University of
Edinburgh, Vol. 3 (Edinburgh: William Creech, 1783), 379
43
Juan Manuel Venegas, Compendio de la Medicina: o Medicina Practica, En que se declara
laconicamente lo mas útil de ella, que el Autor tiene observado en estas Regiones de Nueva España, para
casi todas las Enfermedades que acometen al cuerpo humano (México: Por D. Felipe de Zúñiga y
Ontiveros, 1788), 187-188.
75
“continual studies,” and “sedentary life” of the patient.
44
Venegas‟s characterization
suggested that effeminacy, sedentariness, nervousness, and psychological anguish
exemplified the sufferers of this disease.
In many respects, the missionaries embodied this characterization. From the time
they began their religious training, they devoted themselves to hours of study. For
missionaries it was preferable to be seen as Christ-like, self-sacrificing than to be accused
of being idle or effeminate. Missionaries used their illnesses to demonstrate their
commitment to evangelization, even to the point of sickness and sometimes death. Yet
outsiders of the mission systems, such as the doctors who examined the missionaries
outside of California, clearly interpreted the friars‟ ailments in gendered terms.
Syphilis
Many Franciscans openly bemoaned the high rate of syphilis among the Indians,
but the missionaries seemed reticent to discuss the rate of syphilis among each other.
While infection rates among the Franciscans are unknown, instances of certain
missionaries contracting syphilis have been documented. For example, in January 1793
Fr. Mariano Rubí, one of the missionaries at La Soledad Mission, received permission to
leave the province due to sickness. Without naming the illness or listing the patient‟s
symptoms, the surgeon Pablo Soler simply described Rubí as suffering from “a sickness,
the recovery from which is long.” Adding that the missionary was at risk for relapses, the
surgeon concluded that it would be best for Rubí to leave California. The sick
missionary‟s superior, Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, concurred, stating that Rubí‟s

44
Juan Manuel Venegas, Compendio de la Medicina, 186.
76
sickness “reduced [him] to total unsuitability for missionary work in these parts.”
45
With
these cryptic pronouncements, the friar returned to the seminary in Mexico City after
having spent only two and one-half years in California. In September of the same year
Rubí‟s health condition came to light. In a letter to the viceroy of New Spain, the
guardian of the College of San Fernando explained that the friar‟s true ailment was
syphilis, for which he had been receiving individualized treatments of mercury-based
ointments for a period of two months.
46
Exactly when Rubí developed the disease is
unclear, but it is certain that the missionary‟s superiors and doctor in California elided
this information in their official reports. Instead they employed vague language to
communicate the fact that the missionary was indeed sick and required a long period of
recovery.
In a separate case, Fr. Luis Gil y Taboada, a friar who served at a minimum of
eight different missions, contracted syphilis. A Native of Santa Cruz Mission described
the priest as “easily infatuated” with women. “He would embrace and kiss the Indian
women,” reported Lorenzo Asisara, “and he would have relations with them until he
caught syphilis and lesions erupted on his skin.”
47
The soldier José María Amador

45
The surgeon Pablo Soler stated that Rubí “se halla agravado de una enfermedad cuya curación es larga y
que aun verificada esta considero a dicho Padre muy expuesto a nuevas recahídas…” A copy of this
medical assessment may be found in the letter from Fr, Tomas de Pangua to Fermín Francisco de Lasuén,
dated January 10, 1793, Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library, California Mission Documents Collection,
CMD 156. Lasuén noted that “la enfermedad del R.P. Fr. Mariano Rubí Mntro q.e era de la Mission de la
Soledad, lo reduso [sic] a una total inaptitud [sic] para el exercicio de Mission.o en estas partes…” Fermín
Francisco de Lasuén to Joseph Juaquin de Arrillaga, dated January 31, 1793, Huntington Library,
Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 1, item 1:0070.
46
“la enfermedad de q.e vino contagiado el P. Fr. Mariano Rubí es la q.e comunm.te llaman morbo Gálico
p.a cuya curación después de averlo preparado por espacio de dos meses… q.e necesitaba tomar las
unciones mercuriales…” Tomas de Pangua to Conde de Revillagigedo [Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla
Horcasitas y Aguayo], dated September 13, 1793, Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones
Coloniales, Gobierno Virreinal, Provincias Internas, Contenedor 003, Volumen 5, Expediente 12, pages
220-227.
47
The English translation of Lorenzo Asisara‟s narrative is contained within José María Amador‟s
reminiscences of life at the missions. See Californio Voices: The Oral Memoirs of José María Amador and
77
corroborated this information, claiming that he frequently treated Gil y Taboada for
venereal disease because the missionary “had carnal contact with them until he contracted
syphilis and developed buboes.”
48
“Bubões” referred to the swollen, enflamed nodes that
syphilis and other venereal disease cause (see Figure 2.1). Although Gil y Taboada‟s
improprieties had become common knowledge, his superiors regarded him as imprudent
but innocent, preferring to ignore or not draw additional attention to his scandalous
behaviors.
49
In short, elisions and avoidances characterize the Franciscans‟ discussion of
their own sexually-transmitted diseases, particularly when those diseases affected Native
peoples.

Figure 2.1. Plaster cast depicting an advanced case of syphilis. Papules, the wart-like,
elevated areas of skin, may appear on all surfaces of the body should the disease go
untreated. Image taken from the online gallery of the Musée des Moulages, available
through the website of the Société Française d‟Histoire de la Dermatologie at
http://www.bium.univ-paris5.fr/sfhd/

Missionary Responses to Illness
Missionary responses to illness varied enormously from steadfastly declining
medical attention to desperately imploring it. Although his health problems were

Lorenzo Asisara, trans. and ed. by Gregorio Mora-Torres (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2005),
127.
48
The quote was taken from Virginia M. Bouvier, Women and the Conquest of California, 1542-1840:
Codes of Silence (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001), 135.
49
Maynard Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769-1848: A Biographical
Dictionary (San Marino: Huntington Library Press, 1969), 106.
78
seemingly unrelated to the environment, Friar Junipero Serra habitually refused medical
treatment for self-induced ailments. Known as the architect of Franciscan evangelization
in Alta California, Serra was also known for his severely ascetic existence. Plagued by
asthma and ulcers on his foot and leg, he continued to engage in practices that
compromised his physical wellbeing, all the while repeating the words of Saint Agatha,
“I have never applied carnal medicine to my body.”
50
In addition to rejecting medical
care for his longstanding maladies, the friar intentionally punished his body, giving
himself new injuries in the process. Fr. Francisco Palóu, Serra‟s former pupil, confessor,
and fellow missionary, documented his mentor‟s exacting penitential practices, stating
that Serra inflicted upon himself,
grave pains in the chest…without doubt occasioned by the blows from a stone
that he gave himself in the acts of contrition…and by extinguishing a lit candle
[against] his bare chest in imitation of Saint John of Capistrano, who on
extinguishing it would usually tear out a chunk of skin; on various occasions he
was badly wounded; and none of these pains would cause him to open his mouth
for the slightest grumble, nor to ask for medicine, since it seemed that in these
pains he had his consolation, the effect of his fortitude: He is strong who consoles
himself somehow in the midst of pain.
51

That Serra intentionally maimed himself in emulation of the saints does not necessarily
suggest that he viewed his injuries as having providential origins; rather he may have
been seeking divine strength through pain. Such efforts were in keeping with a
theologically-based asceticism as expressed by Church doctors such as the Franciscan

50
“Medicinam carnalem corpori meo nunquam exhibui” in Francisco Palóu, Relación Histórica de la Vida
y Apostólicas Tareas del Venerable Padre Fray Junípero Serra, y de las Misiones que fundó en la
California Septentrional y Nuevos establecimientos de Monterey. (México: la Imprenta de Don Felipe de
Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1787), 261 and 305.
51
“…los graves dolores de pecho que padecía, sin duda ocasionados de los golpes de piedra que se daba en
los actos de contrición…como también de apagar en su pecho desnudo la acha [sic] encendida a imitación
de S. Juan Capistrano, que apagándosela solía arrancar un pedazo de cuero; de los que varias veces le
resultó quedar muy mal herido: y ninguno de estos dolores le hacía abrir la boca para la menor quexa [sic],
ni para solicitar medicamento, pues parecía tenía en estos dolores todo su consuelo, efecto de su fortaleza:
Est fortis, qui se in dolore aliquo consolatur [emphasis original]. Palóu, Relación Histórica, 305.
79
philosopher Bonaventure, who promoted the idea that exterior physical mortification was
a means to interior spiritual renewal.
52
For Serra, renewal through voluntary bodily
affliction manifested itself as comfort and strength. Grumbling would have revealed an
incomplete subjection of the body to the spirit, and medicine would have thwarted total
transcendence of the physical self.
Palóu‟s biography is the only reason Serra‟s afflictions are known, since Serra
himself would most likely not have written about his own physical condition. Yet some
missionaries praised their ailments openly. For example, Fr. Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta
of San Juan Bautista Mission informed the governor, “I continue, thank God, with my
ailments, at times very strong and others very bearable.” The friar went on to profess that
what mattered most to him was not his health but his conformity to “do the will of God
here and in heaven.”
53
Arroyo de la Cuesta‟s health continued to worsen. Two months
later, he wrote to the governor again stating that he observed blood in his emeses as well
as feelings of dizziness and increased perspiration. The friar confided that he thought his
symptoms were “omens of [his] near departure to the divine tribunal,” suggesting a belief
on his part that his ailments were indeed providential. Perhaps not wanting to interfere
with God‟s will, the missionary unequivocally told the governor, “I do not ask you for the
surgeon.”
54

52
Dunstan Dobbins, Franciscan Mysticism: A Critical Examination of the Mystical Theology of the
Seraphic Doctor, with Special Reference to the Sources of his Doctrines, Franciscan Studies 6 (New York:
J.F. Wagner, 1927), 63-64.
53
“Sigo, gr.as a Dios, con mis achaques, unas veces mui [sic] fuertes y otras mui [sic] llevaderos…lo q.e
deseo…es conformarme y q.e hago yo la voluntad de Dios aquí y en la Gloria…” Felipe Arroyo de la
Cuesta to Pablo Vicente de Solá, dated January 13, 1820, Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor Collection,
Box 5, item 3:0095.
54
“…p.a mi son presagios de mi próxima salida p.a el tribunal divino… No pido a US el facultativo…”
Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta to Pablo Vicente de Solá, dated March 23, 1820, Huntington Library, Alexander
Taylor Collection, Box 5, item 3:0096.
80
Only a handful of friars, like Serra and Arroyo de la Cuesta, seemed to embrace
their pain. More often than not, missionaries asked directly or indirectly for medical
attention, believing that there were remedies for their illnesses. Some took proactive
measures to assist themselves or request a surgeon‟s visit from the governor.
Missionaries who assisted themselves had access to some medical knowledge which they
brought with them to California. One of these sources was Juan de Esteyneffer‟s
Florilegio Medicinal, an encyclopedic handbook containing information on commonly
known medical conditions, surgical methods, and treatments. Born Johannes Steinhoffer
in Moravia, Esteyneffer served as a Jesuit missionary in northwestern New Spain during
the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, utilizing his training as a nurse and
apothecary at various missions situated in Sinaloa and Sonora. In 1711, the Jesuit
pharmacist began compiling the Florilegio Medicinal with the aim of assisting other
missionaries in medical matters. Esteyneffer included mostly European materia medica
but he also incorporated indigenous herbal remedies, taken from a Native informant of
Chihuahua. First published in 1712, the Florilegio Medicinal proved very popular and
reprints followed in 1719, 1729, 1732, and 1755. Yet the author‟s death in 1716 meant
that the book remained unrevised in its subsequent editions, thus failing to capture later
significant medical findings. Furthermore, the 1767 expulsion of the Jesuits from New
Spain most likely impeded the expansion of medical missionary knowledge in the
Southwest.
The Franciscans took this dated medical understanding with them to Alta
California. For example, in October 1815 Fr. Pedro Muñoz of San Fernando Mission
wrote to the Commander of the Santa Barbara Presidio, José Antonio de la Guerra y
81
Noriega, that “after many remedies that have been carried out and how poorly they
served me, [after] seven days filled with pain, I took the florilegio in my hands and after
viewing various ailments related to the subject, I saw and read in the margin: facial
pustules.” Determined to make himself well, Muñoz followed the treatment outlined in
the medical handbook, a topical application consisting of equal parts honey and strong
vinegar, which the missionary reported alleviated his symptoms but may or may not have
cured him of what he considered to be a “fatal” condition (see Figure 2.2).
55

Supplied with nearly century-old information, Muñoz took proactive measures
against health problems, which is not surprising given what his time in California taught
him. His fear of facial pustules, for example, likely came from an 1806 measles outbreak
among the Native population at San Miguel Mission, where he was stationed before
being sent to San Fernando Mission. In March of that year, Muñoz buried seventeen of
the twenty Salinan Indians who succumbed to the disease. The epidemic quickly spread
northward to San Francisco Mission, where 234 Native adults and children died between
April and June of that same year.
56
This event occurred only one and one-half years after
Muñoz‟s arrival in California and it likely left an impression upon him. While the
pustules that affected him years later may not have been measles, experience taught the
missionary that even a minor health complaint could evolve into something very serious

55
“después de tantos remedios como se me han echo y tan mal q.e me aprobecharon, tome ha 7 días lleno
de dolor [.] el florilegio en las manos y después de ver varias dolencias sobre el asumpto, vi y ley al
margen: Varros de la cara. Me hice cargo y luego puse en práctica el modo curativo q.e citaba y he aquí q.e
luego sentí alivio…El Remedio por lo q.e pueda ocurrir es Miel mezclado con otro tanto de vinagre fuerte
con este solo medio parece q.e quizá y sin quizá me veré bueno de mis fatales granos…” (emphasis
original), Pedro Muñoz to José Antonio de la Guerra y Noriega, dated October 6, 1815, Huntington Library
HM FAC 667 (695), Guerra Family Papers, San Marino, California.
56
For the death records of the Miguelinos who died from measles, see burials SMA 00346-00356, 00358-
00360, 00362-00363, 00367, 00369-00370, and 00372. For those at San Francisco Mission, see burials
SFD 02060-02075, 02077- 02278, and 02280-02295. Huntington Library, Early California Population
Project Database, 2006.
82
and spread at an alarming rate. Muñoz‟s concern for his own health must have been
compounded by the fact that he became quite sick from poisoning on three separate
occasions when a young pupil of the missionaries gave the missionary tainted food that
nearly killed him.
57

Figure 2.2. Page from Juan de Esteyneffer‟s Florilegio Medicinal (1732) showing the
margin “Barros de la cara.” Also included is the treatment for facial pustules that Fr.
Pedro Muñoz followed to treat his condition.

57
Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 162.
83
Nearly three years after diagnosing with and treating himself for facial pustules,
Muñoz left Alta California. In March 1818, the Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá issued a
permit for the missionary to return to Mexico City. Solá praised the friar for his thirteen
years and seven months of zealous service to the missions. But Solá lamented that Muñoz
had to relinquish his duties as a missionary because “he contracted various grave
sicknesses.” The governor added “he retires for his apostolic College of San Fernando
still with [ailments] that hurt him, to see if he can attain the health he needs and
desires.”
58
The following month Muñoz sailed on the ship Aventurero in the company of
another California-based missionary, Fr. Marcelino Marquinez.
Marquinez, too, left the province because he was seriously ill. His story reveals
what happened when an ailing missionary could or would not request assistance for his
illness and his colleagues acted on his behalf. In spring 1817 at Santa Cruz Mission, a
distraught Fr. Jayme Escudé witnessed Marquinez, his colleague, grow increasingly ill. It
is not clear if Marquinez was so ill that he himself could not ask for assistance, but
Escudé took matters into his own hands. In March of that year, Escudé wrote to the
governor asking him to send the surgeon, Manuel Quijano, to the aid of Marquinez.
Quijano stayed on at the mission to tend to the missionary, but Marquinez‟s condition
worsened. One month later, Escudé informed the governor that he could barely write due
to the “tears in [my] eyes and most intense sentiment in my heart, the state in which my
Fr. Marcelino is in with much repetition of attacks, and in one of those, the swelling
could come upon him and then the danger of dying that was once remote will be near… I

58
“…haviendo contrahído [sic] varias enfermedades grabes se retira p.a su apostólico Colegio de S.
Fernando todabía con alg.s q.e adolece, haver si logra la salud q.e necesita y le deseo…” Pablo Vicente de
Solá, dated March 12, 1818, Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Gobierno
Virreinal, Californias, Volumen 62, Expediente 13.
84
am extremely sad and distressed, considering what could happen, to lose such a beloved
companion.”
59
Marquinez became so ill that his fellow friars arrived from nearby
missions to administer his last rites. Yet he recovered somewhat by the end of the month.
Marquinez left the province along with Fr. Pedro Muñoz and both made the journey back
to the College of San Fernando in Mexico City.
During the trip back to the capital, the Aventurero stopped in Tepic, nearly 500
miles northwest from Mexico City. There Marquinez was assessed by a doctor. On July
2, 1818, the physician met with him, noting that the missionary suffered from “symptoms
characteristic of a very large effervescence of blood resulting from the fullness of the
arteries.”
60
The doctor administered various therapies, including blood thinners and two
bloodlettings. Marquinez showed signs of improvement over the course of several weeks.
In following month the doctor gave the missionary clearance to resume his journey to the
capital. By the first week of November, Marquinez arrived safely at the College of San
Fernando. Muñoz, however, did not make it back to the College. He and Marquinez
arrived in Tepic in April, but Muñoz‟s condition continued to deteriorate. Physicians José
María Maldonado and Antonio Linares, who were familiar with Muñoz‟s case, wrote that
the missionary suffered from “obstructions in the viscera of the abdomen accompanied
with all the accidents of debility resulting from the lack of nutrition, for the digestive
organs were fouled as was all [his] internal system, and the many recourses of the

59
“No puedo menos de escribirle con lagrimas en los ojos y intensísimo sentim.to de mi corazón, el estado
en q.e se halla mi P. Marcelino con tanta repitisión de ataq.s q.e le dan, y en uno de ellos puede venirle
alguna inflasión y entonses el peligro q.e haora es remoto de morir, será próximo Estoy sumam.te triste y
congoxado, al considerar q.e puede suceder, pierda tan amado comp.ro…” Jayme Escudé to Pablo Vicente
de Solá, dated April 20, 1817, Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 4, item 2:0702.
60
“sínptomas [sic] característicos de una grandísima efervecencia [sic] de la sangre resultada de la plenitud
de los basos [sic]…” José Buzit, dated August 11, 1818, Archivo General de la Nación de México,
Instituciones Coloniales, Gobierno Virreinal, Californias, Volumen 62, Expediente 13.
85
[healing] arts were not sufficient to conquer the sickness.” Munoz died May 22, 1818 in
Tepic.
61

Reflecting two years later on his near-death experience in Alta California,
Marquinez told his former civil superior that “each day I give more thanks to God for
having removed me from people unholy… each day [I am] more joyful for having been
lifted from the most cruel and harsh exiles in which I completely lost my health.”
Recognizing his own “weak constitution,” the friar took the opportunity to thank the
governor of Alta California for granting him permission to leave the province in addition
to expressing his appreciation for the efforts of surgeon Manuel Quijano, his “guardian
angel.” Marquinez assured the governor that his return to the College was physically
restorative, declaring, “I have not enjoyed such perfect health since my arrival in
America.”
62
Unlike Muñoz, Marquinez lived to tell the story of his convalescence.
Characterizing his time in California as banishment amid errant peoples, the cleric linked
his own illness to place and its inhabitants. His “expulsion” to the far edges of empire,
however, was his choice, one he made when he professed his vows to become a friar at a
missionary college. His tenure at the mission, his physical deterioration, and his
proximity to death amounted to extreme forms of self-denial. More important,

61
“…padeciendo un vicio de obstrucciones en las viceras del Abdomen acompañado de todos los
accidentes de debilidad q.e son conciquientes [sic] a la falta de nutrición p.r hallarse viciados los órganos
Digestibos y todo el sistema viceral, y no siendo suficientes quantos recursos previene el Arte p.a vencer la
enfermedad. Murió el día veinte y dos de Mayo inmediato…” José María Maldonado and Antonio Linares,
dated July 29, 1818, Archivo General de la Nación de México, Instituciones Coloniales, Gobierno
Virreinal, Californias, Volumen 62, Expediente 13.
62
“…cada día doy a D[io]s mas g[racia]s p[o]r haberme sacado de entre gente non santa… cada día más
alegre p.r haverseme levantado el más cruel y du[ro] de los destierros en el q.e perdí completam[en]te la
salud… si no huviera [lo] sido tan caritativo en su venir a tan graves enfermedades como [at]ormentaban a
mi débil Naturaleza mandándome al Cirujano Dn Manuel mi Ángel tutelar. Y no satisfecho Um con
tamaños beneficios…el complem.to a los beneficios con haverme concedido su permiso p[ar]a re[gre]so a
este Colegio en el q.e disfruto una tan caval salud q.e no [h]e disfrutado desde mi ingreso en America…”
(emphasis original). Marcelino Marquinez to Pablo Vicente de Solá, dated June 2, 1819, Huntington
Library, Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 4, item 2:0991.
86
Marquinez‟s writings of his ill health and exile reveal a pattern that is visible other
missionaries‟ correspondence: the experience of leaving one‟s zone of comfort to travel
to the rim of Christendom and minister to multitudes of heathens was tantamount to
voluntary suffering. Such suffering could be seen as a form of sacrificial action: the
intentional surrender of one‟s body and spirit for the good of bringing others to God.
Conclusion
Despite the tendency to paint the Franciscan experience in Alta California in
monochromatic colors, this chapter shows that missionaries were not of one mind,
especially when it came to sickness. Citing the environment as a culprit of their illnesses,
Franciscans experienced a variety of sicknesses and responded in multiple ways to them.
Certain diseases such as hypochondria and hysteria – diagnoses that carried gendered
connotations – proved especially difficult for missionaries, who were instructed to the
leave the province because of their debilitating conditions. Some friars used their
illnesses to demonstrate their piety and commitment to evangelization efforts, which they
felt brought them perilously close to death in the unforgiving environment of Alta
California.
Even as Franciscans fretted over their own illnesses, they remained mindful of the
physical ailments of Native peoples. Demographic decline among the province‟s
indigenous communities was not lost on the Franciscans. Missionaries sometimes
employed radical medical interventions with the hope of spiritually, not physically,
saving Indians. As chapter three demonstrates, Franciscans performed fetal extractions on
the bodies of recently deceased Indian women in order to baptize the fetuses and increase
the number of “saved” Native souls.
87
Chapter Three: Baptismal Cesarean Operations in the Alta California Missions

On October 25, 1801, Friar José Viñals interred the body of Galicana Choja in the
cemetery of San Carlos Mission in Monterey. In the register of that mission‟s burials,
Viñals noted that the twenty-year-old woman was pregnant at the time of her death.
“Immediately upon her death,” he explained, “a cesarean operation was performed.
Despite her extended illness and furious two-day struggle with death…there was some
hope of life in her child [and] an extraction was undertaken where there were evident
signs of life.”
1
If the missionary found “signs of life,” then they proved short-lived:
Galicana Choja‟s infant son was buried on the same day as his mother. At the moment
that Viñals extracted the child from his deceased mother‟s uterus, the cleric baptized the
boy with the Christian name Buenabentura or Bonaventure, in honor of one of the most
influential thinkers in the history of the Franciscan order and whose name ironically
happens to mean, “good fortune.” Rather than have the boy‟s remains laid to rest in the
cemetery with those of his mother, Viñals buried Buenabentura in the mission‟s church, a
space considered more spiritually valuable than the graveyard and usually reserved for
the Alta California missionaries themselves.
2
While the operation did not save the child‟s
life, the Franciscan could nonetheless hope that his actions had ensured the child‟s
eternal life.

1
The text of Galicana Choja‟s burial record is as follows: “hallarse embarazada immediatam.te q.e murio
sele hizo la operacion cesarea. Sin embargo de q.e su dilatada enfermedad y luchar dos dias furiosam.te con
la muerte (en los q.e no provo alim.to) prometian pocas esperanzas de vivir su criatura se consiguio
extraerla donde señales evidentes de vivir” Her death record may be found in the book of burials for San
Carlos (SC) Mission, number 01386. Her age is approximate: according to her baptism (SC 01350), she
was seven to eight years when she entered the mission in July 1788; this puts her age at about 20 to 21
years when she died in October 1801.
Buenabentura‟s death record follows his mother‟s and is catalogued as SC 01387. His baptism
record is SC 02380. Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.
2
Historians have documented the preference (especially among colonial elites) for burial within the church
rather than in the cemetery. See Pamela Voekel, Alone Before God: The Religious Origins of Modernity in
Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), 39-41 and Martina Will de Chaparro, Death and Dying in
New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press), 114.
88
Although the Franciscan called the procedure a “cesarean operation,” these
operations do not qualify as cesarean sections in the modern sense. Rather, they were
fetal extractions performed on deceased pregnant women, known by their contemporary
equivalent, sectio in mortua.
3
Thus, in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century
California, the cesarean operation referred to a postmortem procedure on the mother‟s
body.
While the occurrence of cesarean operations during the mission period of early
California was relatively infrequent, references to the procedure throughout Spain‟s
American colonies were not uncommon. In 1772 the crown issued a circular in which
Antonio Bucareli y Ursúa, Viceroy of New Spain, urged citizens to tend to the spiritual
needs of the yet-unborn. Simultaneously, medical treatises written by and for clerics
began to circulate throughout Spain and its colonies. Beginning with Antonio José
Rodriguez‟s New Aspect on Medical-Moral Theology (1742) and ending with Francisco
Vicente de Sarría‟s Description of the Cesarean Operation (1830), these texts advocated
priestly medical intervention of fetal extractions in the absence of qualified physicians.
Due to the dearth of surgeons in Spain‟s remote colonies, some clerics took it upon
themselves to perform the procedure. In conjunction with the decrees of the crown, these
medical-ecclesiastical writings promoted baptismal cesareans, which rendered the
extracted fetus a Christian during its short earthly sojourn and granted it spiritual life.
The practice of baptismal cesareans reveals the intersection of medicine and
theology in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Scholars have documented
the rise of early modern European and early American obstetrics and scientific obstetrical

3
Katherine Park, Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection (New
York: Zone Books, 2006), 15.
89
knowledge, usually emphasizing the marginalization of female midwives from the
birthing chamber. Similarly, recent work has shown the development of dissection and
anatomical science on female bodies as practices motivated by religious concerns in early
modern Europe.
4
With respect to the Spanish Americas, studies of non-medical
practitioners have added to our understandings of the role of the priestly medic in
colonial society.
5
Other than passing references to their occurrence, however, historians
of medicine or religion have yet to fully explore the role of baptismal cesareans in the
Alta California context.
6

The dual processes of evangelization and the diffusion of obstetrical knowledge in
Spain‟s far northwestern frontier shed light on the practice of baptismal cesareans in the
California missions. Erring on the side of spiritual safety, a select group of Franciscans
employed the procedure to baptize the offspring of undelivered Native women. Since the
Roman Catholic tradition prohibits posthumous baptisms, these missionaries relied on a

4
Studies in the development of obstetrics of eighteenth-century Europe tend to focus on the development
of male midwifery, and the medical policing of midwives. For a study of the production of male obstetrical
knowledge in Early Modern France, see Lianne McTavish, Childbirth and the Display of Authority in Early
Modern France (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); For a discussion of the rise of male birthing management in
the Great Britain, see Adrian Wilson, The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England, 1660-1770
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995); For coverage of the spread of British obstetrics to late
eighteenth-century America, see Jane B. Donegan, Women and Men Midwives: Medicine, Morality, and
Misogyny in Early America (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978). For a discussion of the anatomization of
female bodies in northern Italy during the late medieval period and early Renaissance, see Katherine Park,
Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection (New York: Zone Books,
2006).
5
John Tate Lanning, The Royal Protomedicato: The Regulation of the Medical Professions in the Spanish
Empire (Durham: Duke University Press, 1985); Luz María Hernández Sáenz, Learning to Heal: The
Medical Profession in Colonial Mexico, 1767-1831 (New York: Peter Lang, 1997); Marianne B. Samayoa,
“More than Quacks: Seeking Medical Care in Late Colonial New Spain.” Social History of Medicine 19,
no.1 (April 2006), 1-18.
6
In 1974, Rosemary K. Valle undertook a study of the Alta California cesareans in which she presented her
data taken from the baptism registers of the mission parishes. While the data are outdated, her study is
helpful in that it introduces the practice of postmortem cesareans. See “The Cesarean Operation in Alta
California During the Franciscan Mission Period (1769-1833),” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 48, no.
2 (1974), 265-275. For evidence of cesarean operations in nineteenth-century Puerto Rico, see José G.
Rigau-Perez, “Surgery at the Service of Theology: Postmortem Cesarean Sections in Puerto Rico and Royal
Cedula of 1804,” Hispanic American Historical Review 75, no. 3 (1995), 377-404.
90
spectrum of life and death that allowed for gradations of life. Medical-ecclesiastical
treatises, such as the one written by Alta California missionary Friar Francisco Vicente de
Sarría, offered a range of possibilities that left room for the priest to interpret when and
how the sacrament of baptism should be administered.
The Church and Priest as Healthcare Provider
The role of the Church as a health-care provider can be traced back to the early
years of Christianity in New Spain. Since the early sixteenth century, Spanish hospital
care involved the physical and spiritual treatment of the patient, becoming “an important
tool for the conversion and salvation” of Christians and non-Christians alike.
7
This
tradition followed the Spaniards to the New World, where as early as the 1520s,
Franciscans and Augustinians established hospitals in the area around Michoácan, with
the primary goal of converting and acculturating Native peoples.
8

The dual function of physical and spiritual healing persisted in the circulation of
medical-ecclesiastical tracts, manuals written by clerics for the dispensing of medical
advice, especially among other religious leaders. For example, in 1779 Bishop Victoriano
Lopez Gonzalo issued the Curative Method, devoted specifically to the care and
treatment of smallpox. In it, Gonzalo detailed the stages, signs, and symptoms of the
disease, as well as the techniques used to alleviate patient illness, while reminding his
readers that God helps the patient. Two years later, Fr. Luis Beltran published The
Petition of Health, which after delineating the steps one should take in dressing a wound,
included a prayer that should be recited during the application of the remedy. Insisting
that credit for the effectiveness of the cure should be attributed to God, the cleric

7
Guenter B. Risse, “Medicine in New Spain” in Medicine in the New World: New Spain, New France, and
New England, ed. Ronald Numbers (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 20.
8
Hernández Sáenz, Learning to Heal, 244.
91
denounced those doctors and healers who gained fame by secretly reciting the prayer.
9

These examples point to the important role of the cleric in providing medical advice, but
they also reveal a close relationship between Church and Crown in the delivery of
medical treatments. The Protomedicato – the managerial board that regulated New
Spain‟s medical institution – sanctioned health care publications to ensure that the
writings did not contradict the laws of the Crown or the tenets of the Catholic faith.
10

While the absence of trained medical personnel in New Spain, especially in the far
reaches of the empire, may have had a significant impact on health care practices among
clergy, Church and State cooperated to ensure that medical information would be
compatible with Christian doctrine.
Despite this cooperation and the numerous examples of clerics functioning as
medical providers throughout the Spanish Americas, the status of these priests within the
medical system remained ambiguous. The ambiguity originated from the connection
between tending the sick and the concept of Christian charity, which obligated Christians
to assist those in need. Accordingly, members of the clergy sometimes offered medical
treatment as part of their charitable duties, treatment that was sanctioned by the
authorities.
11
In the case of postmortem cesareans, however, the primary purpose seems
to have been baptism, while health of the infant and mother were secondary concerns.
The baptismal cesarean, which also had the support of the Spanish Crown by the late-
eighteenth century, became also the subject of medical-ecclesiastical tracts that instructed
clerics in the act of fetal extraction.

9
Samayoa, “More than Quacks,” 6-7.
10
Ibid.
11
Hernández Sáenz, Learning to Heal, 243.
92
Influential Literature on Postmortem Cesareans
Two important works influenced the Crown‟s 1772 legislation on the practice of
postmortem cesareans. Friar Antonio José Rodríguez, a Spanish Cistercian monk,
authored one of the earliest tracts, entitled Nuevo Aspecto de Theologia Medico-Moral
and published in 1742. In it, he contended that the embryo was animated from the
moment of conception.
12
For this reason, the monk argued, it was necessary to execute
the cesarean on the body of a dead, undelivered woman so that the living fetus could be
baptized. Rodriguez counseled that the operation had to be undertaken “even if the fetus‟s
signs of life are lacking,” assuring his readers that “all doubt aside, the fetus can live, and
has lived, inside his dead mother, not only for one hour…but for hours and even days.”
13

Rodriguez‟s claim that a fetus can survive for hours or days inside a lifeless body seemed
to achieve the monk‟s ultimate objective: to promote the operation among skeptics, who
would have rightfully questioned such a dubious assertion but who also wanted to abide
by the precepts of the Church‟s teachings on baptism. By emphasizing that the fetus was
trapped inside, Rodriguez gave his readers the impression that failure to perform the
procedure could be tantamount to complicity in the physical and spiritual loss of life.
Three years after the publication of Nuevo Aspecto de Theologia Medico-Moral,
Father Francesco Cangiamila articulated comparable arguments in Embriologia Sacra,

12
I consulted the 1763 and 1764 editions of Rodriguez‟s text. In both, he emphasized the idea that life
begins with conception. Antonio José Rodríguez, Nuevo Aspecto de Theologia Medico-Moral y Ambos
Derechos, O Paradoxas Phisico-Theologico-Legales, Tomo Primero (Madrid: n.p., 1763), 44 and Tomo
Tercero (Madrid: Imprenta Real de la Gaceta, 1764), 365 and 374. Also see José Pardo Tomás and Àlvar
Martinez Vidal, “The Ignorance of Midwives: The Role of Clergymen in Spanish Enlightenment Debates
on Birth Care,” ed. Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham in Medicine and Religion in Enlightenment
Europe (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007), 52.
13
“Debe hacerse la operación Cesarea muerta la madre, aunque falten señales de estar vivo el feto…fuera
de toda duda, que puede vivir, y ha vivido el feto dentro de su madre muerta, no solamente por una
hora…sino por horas, y aun días.” Antonio José Rodríguez, Nuevo Aspecto, Tomo Primero (1763), 145 and
147-148.
93
published originally in Sicily in 1745. This two-volume work counseled clerics in
providing pastoral care to expectant mothers, preventing abortions, baptizing malformed
or miscarried fetuses, and performing fetal extractions for the purposes of baptism. While
Cangiamila demonstrated his knowledge of biology and the processes of conception, at
the crux of his text is the use of medicine to satisfy a spiritual end. According to the
priest, all clerics should possess medical training, for their expertise makes them “medics
of the soul and the body.”
14
Arguing that the parish priest should perform the cesarean in
the absence of other medically-trained persons, Cangiamila bolstered his case by insisting
that it was rare for the practitioner to find no signs of life in the extracted fetus. He listed
21 medical cases in which the cesarean operation had been “successfully” deployed,
resulting in infants living anywhere from a few minutes to five hours.
15
In Cangiamila‟s
tract and other similar writings, the measure of success rested upon the number of eternal
lives secured in the act of baptism, not by the long-term viability of the infant.
In 1772, Franciscan friar Joseph Manuel Rodriguez translated, abridged, and
published Cangiamila‟s text under a different title, The Charity of the Priest for Children
Shut in the Womb of Their Deceased Mothers.
16
Like religious writers before him, the
Franciscan stressed the importance of carrying out the operation in order to baptize the
fetus. Assuring clerics that they could set aside the slightest scruple, he informed his
clerical audience that negligence would result in the loss of souls. After making the

14
“los quales vienen á ser Médicos de las almas y de los cuerpos,” taken from D. Joaquin Castellot‟s
translation of Francesco E. Cangiamila‟s work, Embriologia Sagrada (Madrid: Imprenta de Pedro Marin,
1774), xviii.
15
Cangiamila, Embriologia Sagrada, 108-110.
16
The version cited in this paper is the 1799 third edition. A transcription of this text may be found in “Con
la Sangre de Todo Un Dios: La Caridad del Sacerdote Para Con los Niños Encerrados en el Vientre de Sus
Madres Difuntas…” Relaciones 94, no.24 (2003), 228-248. Although technically a condensed version of
Cangiamila‟s work, La Caridad del Sacerdote reads like a separate text, since it emphasizes select practices
and minimizes others. For the purpose of this essay, it will be treated as an independent treatise.
94
longitudinal incision into the dead mother‟s womb, Rodriguez advised the practitioner of
the baptismal cesarean to break the tangled veins with one‟s hand or some other
instrument to uncover the fetus. “If it appears moribund,” the writer instructed, “baptize it
in the womb, but if observing it with competent vivacity, cut the cord, [and] remove it, to
administer the baptism as soon as possible.” Assuming that the individual performing the
extraction would baptize regardless of the state of the fetus, Rodriguez did not bother to
offer instructions in the event that the procedure yield a dead fetus. Rather than focus on
the mortal, the priest emphasized the eternal through the sacrament of baptism, which
could be administered in utero or out.
Rodriguez‟s work had a direct impact on the Crown‟s decision to support the
practice of postmortem cesareans. Viceroy Antonio Bucareli y Ursúa made an explicit
reference to the text in the 1772 circular, stating that the cesarean operation should be
performed on deceased, undelivered mothers, as per the recommendations outlined in
Rodriguez‟s tract.
17
Although the extent of the circulation of The Charity of the Priest is
unknown, the work was already in its third edition by 1799, the same year that the first
Alta California baptismal cesarean was recorded. Five years later, Spanish king Carlos
IV issued yet another decree advising the Crown‟s subjects that “many spiritual and
secular evils have resulted from not following the instructions for performing the
cesarean operation.”
18
At the request of the monarch, the faculty of the College of
Surgery of San Carlos in Madrid prepared instructions on how to complete the operation,

17
Bucareli y Ursúa, Circular para la pronta práctica de la operación cesárea, in Juan Nepomuceno
Rodríguez de San Miguel, Pandectas Hispano-Megicanas, O Sea Código General: Comprensivo de las
Leyes Generales, Útiles y Vivas de las Siete Partidas, Recopilación Novísima, la de Indias, Autos y
Providencias Conocidas por de Montemayor y Beleña y Cédulas Posteriores Hasta el Año de 1820
(Mexico: Impreso en le Oficina de Mariano Galván Rivera: 1839-1840), N. 2522.
18
Rosemary K. Valle, “The Cesarean Operation in Alta California During the Franciscan Mission Period
(1769-1833),” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 48, no. 2 (1974), 272. The quote is taken from Valle‟s
English translation of the April 13, 1804 cédula.
95
which were appended to the 1804 decree. While surgeons were the preferred
professionals to perform such delicate operations, both circulars encouraged the
execution of postmortem cesareans by non-medical practitioners, specifically priests.
Moreover, by the time the 1804 decree was circulating toward the northern edges of the
Spanish American empire, Estevan Tapis, then-president of the Alta California missions,
also had in his possession the instructions to perform the procedure.
19

Indian Health in California
With the input of the Crown, clergy, and medical workers, the practice of late
eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century obstetrics in Spain underwent a change that
facilitated increased obstetrical intervention by male practitioners and the medical
policing of female midwives.
20
In Alta California, however, the practice of baptismal
cesareans was less about the regulation of midwifery than it was about the grave state of
Native health, compounded with the chronic lack of qualified physicians in the region.
From the 1770s through 1823, approximately 14 surgeons intermittently made their way
into the province.
21
When they did, these men temporarily integrated themselves into the
missions, visiting Native and non-Native inhabitants alike. In his 1805 medical survey of
Alta California, surgeon José Benites documented his findings during one of his brief
tours of the province. In his report to the crown, the surgeon noted the problem of disease
among mission Indians, particularly women. At the informal infirmary established at San
Luis Obispo Mission, Benites saw thirty Native patients, “the greater part being women. I

19
Valle notes that Tapis‟s copy of the instructions was included in the Book of Patentes for Santa Barbara
Mission, probably forwarded to Tapis by the Bishop of Sonora. See Valle, “The Cesarean Operation in Alta
California,” 273.
20
For information, see José Pardo Tomás and Àlvar Martinez Vidal, “The Ignorance of Midwives: The
Role of Clergymen in Spanish Enlightenment Debates on Birth Care,” 49-62.
21
The number of surgeons was derived from information taken from the godparent‟s occupation and
marriage witness‟s occupation fields in the Early California Population Database.
96
found tuberculosis and syphilis in the highest degree.” The references to sexually
transmitted disease and female susceptibility are especially revealing, since the surgeon
pinpointed the causes of disease among the indigenous population as the result of
“impure relations on an excessive scale [and] the great filthiness of their bodies and
villages.” Even if remoteness was a factor in providing Alta California with qualified
medical practitioners, Benites intimated that medical assistance would not alleviate the
situation because Native peoples declined offers of medical treatment. “To such an extent
reaches their barbarism,” wrote the surgeon, “that they prefer to believe others who tell
them that the Father is killing them” than accept Franciscan aid.
22

If the surgeon‟s observations of the health crises among indigenous peoples were
accusatory and judgmental, then the response from the Crown was equally biased. In
answer to Benites‟s report, the royal medical board of New Spain claimed that very little
could be done for Alta California‟s ailing Native population. Placing the blame on
Natives, the medical board concluded that the “carnal promiscuity…and the natural
slovenliness of a people as yet little civilized, and, who, in case of sickness, despise
rational medicines” hindered efforts to provide medical attention to indigenous peoples.
23

With little aid from the Crown and trained medical personnel, Indians, especially
females, bore the physical brunt of the unhealthful conditions at the missions.
24

22
José Benites, “California‟s First Medical Survey: Report of Surgeon-General José Benites” translated by
Sherburne F. Cook, California and Western Medicine 45, no. 4 (1936), 353.
23
José Benites, “California‟s First Medical Survey,” 354.
24
Robert H. Jackson and Edward Castillo posit that the missionaries‟ millenarian fundamentalism
contributed to the Franciscan rejection of medical treatments, since “suffering on earth merely prepared
Indian converts for a better life in heaven, in God‟s grace.” See, Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish
Colonization: The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1995), 42. For more information on the roots of Franciscan millenarianism, see John Leddy
Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World: A Study of the Writings of
Geronimo de Mendieta. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956.
97
Demographic studies have repeatedly shown the high rates of Native mortality
among California‟s missionized Indians, particularly affecting women and children. At
San Carlos Mission alone, the annual crude death rate averaged 79 deaths per thousand
over a 47-year period. In times of epidemics, the same rate exceeded 100, even reaching
216 deaths per thousand in the late 1820s. Infant mortality was exceptionally high.
Thirty-seven percent of infants born at San Carlos died during their first year. In the
Santa Barbara Channel area, the birth-to-death ratio began to decline shortly after the first
missions were established, reaching a low of two deaths per birth by the middle of the
nineteenth century.
25

Certainly Franciscans medically ministered to Natives and to the settlers, but the
extent of their medical ministrations remains unknown. Their knowledge mostly confined
to medical manuals, missionaries did what they could to relieve the physical sufferings of
those around them. Fragmentary evidence shows that certain friars took on more active
roles as medics. Fr. Mariano Payeras, a missionary stationed at La Purísima Concepción
Mission, asked the corporal of the Santa Barbara Presidio, for example, to command a
cowhand to go to a nearby mission and procure some “pomegranate rinds, for they are the
best remedy against syphilis here.”
26
Similarly, Fr. Luis Antonio Martínez, Payeras‟s

25
Steven W. Hackel, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in
Colonial California, 1769-1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 96-118; John R.
Johnson‟s and Phillip Walker‟s study of Native mortality and birth seasonality among the Chumash peoples
of the Santa Barbara Channel area may be found in “For Everything There is a Season: Chumash Indian
Births, Marriages, and Deaths at the Alta California Missions” in Human Biology in the Archives, ed. D.
Ann Herring and Alan C. Swedlund (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 60; For a discussion of high
mortality rates in the Bay Area missions during Spanish rule, see Randall Milliken A Time of Little Choice:
The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769-1810 (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena
Press, 1995), 172-191; and Sherburne F. Cook‟s comparative analysis of native mortality among the
Southern and Northern California missions reveals the higher rate of deaths among the indigenous peoples
of the north. See Cook, Population Trends Among the California Mission Indians (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1940), 1-48.
26
“mande con ella a uno de los Vaqueros paraqué me traiga si es que las hay muchas cascaras de granada,
por ser aquí el remedio que mejor prueva para los gálicos…” Mariano Payeras to José Antonio de la Guerra
98
colleague at San Luis Obispo, regularly asked for medicines for his infirmary at the
mission. In one instance, he asked the same corporal to obtain calomel – mercury
chloride used as a purgative – for his hospital.”
27
That these Franciscans asked for
medicines demonstrates that some missionaries tried to attend to the health problems of
their congregants. But the effectiveness of these treatments may have been thwarted by
the practices that Franciscans instituted throughout the missions, such as locking up the
women of marriageable age in dormitories where close quarters could have facilitated the
transmission of diseases.
Despite their own questionable practices, the Franciscans lamented the
disproportionate loss of life and low fertility among Natives. Their writings clearly
indicate that they were aware of the problem. Reflecting on his years of missionization in
Alta California, Father Mariano Payeras wrote that he and the padres faced “a people
miserable and sick, with rapid depopulation of [villages] which with profound horror fills
the cemeteries…while the gentiles procreate easily and are healthy and robust…as soon
as they commit themselves to a sociable and Christian life, they become extremely
feeble, lose weight, get sick, and die. This plague affects the women particularly,
especially those who have recently become pregnant.”
28
Although Payeras may not have
understood the immunological consequences of mission overcrowding, poor sanitary
conditions, and epidemiological outbreaks, the pervasiveness of chronic infections and

y Noriega, dated April 16, 1818, Huntington Library, HM FAC 667 (769), Guerra Family Papers, San
Marino, California.
27
“Si en ese barco hay Essenc de PPepement [sic] así la llaman ellos a la esencia de Yerba buena, no me
dexéis sin un frasco… y juntam.te Calomel [sic] q.e son también polvos blancos p.a mi Hospital…” Luis
Antonio Martinez to José Antonio de la Guerra y Noriega, dated “Somos 3” [before 1818], Huntington
Library, HM FAC 667 (649), Guerra Family Papers, San Marino, California.
28
Mariano Payeras to the Apostolic College of San Fernando, 2 February 1820 in Writings of Mariano
Payeras, edited and translated by David Cutter (Santa Barbara, CA: Bellerophon, 1995), 225.
99
the ravages of sexually-transmitted diseases nonetheless compromised the health of
female mission Indians of child-bearing age.
29

The Use of Baptismal Cesareans in Alta California
In the face of drastic population decline within Native communities, baptismal
cesareans offered missionaries one way of persisting in their evangelization efforts. Each
baptism represented a victory for the kingdom of heaven as one more soul gained in the
process of missionization. In the words of one historian, “the Franciscans‟ inclusive
conceptualization of the sacrament of baptism created an illusion of steadily growing
Catholic Indian communities in the missions.”
30
For the missionaries confronted with
enormous Native mortality, counting children and infants as “converts,” even moribund
ones, could potentially cast missionization in an optimistic light.
Father José Viñals, the same priest who executed the procedure on Galicana
Choja, performed the first recorded postmortem cesarean at Santa Clara Mission in 1799,
the same year that that mission experienced a drop in the overall number of baptisms and
a rise in burials.
31
In this first case, Viñals named the infant Francisco, who was the child
of Francisca Muchicote and Francisco Quichones. A Native woman of approximately 31
years of age, Francisca Muchicote was eight months pregnant when an illness took her
life.
32
Viñals noted in the infant‟s burial record that the infant was “happily extracted”

29
In their study of the1806 measles epidemic in the Santa Barbara region, Walker and Johnson found that
the disease took a disproportionate toll on women between the ages of 20 and 34 years. See “For
Everything There is a Season”, 61-64. For a discussion of health and environmental factors that contributed
to low fertility and high mortality at San Carlos Mission, see Hackel, Children of Coyote, 113-118.
30
Hackel, Children of Coyote, 128 and 135.
31
The number of baptisms at Santa Clara Mission for 1799 equaled 172, while the number of burials for the
same year tallied 198. See Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.
32
Age is calculated based on the age given at the time of her baptism and year of death; see Huntington
Library, Early California Population Project Database, baptism SCL 03462.
100
from the womb of his deceased mother and lived seven hours as a Christian.
33
Viñals‟s
words echoed those of Cangiamila who measured the success of baptismal cesareans in
terms of living infants, even though they survived for only a short while. Unlike
Cangiamila, however, Viñals‟s emphases on the happy extraction and the Christian death
of the infant Francisco reveal the importance of living an earthly Christian life, however
brief.

Figure 3.1. An image of the Santa Clara Mission burial records for Francisca (2217) and
her son, Francisco (2218). Francisco was the first fetal extraction recorded in Alta
California, performed by Fr. José Viñals. Image from the Early California Population
Project database (Death record SCL 02218).

News of Alta California‟s first fetal extraction spread throughout the viceroyalty.
The Gazeta de Mexico, one of New Spain‟s first news periodicals, published a
celebratory narrative of the account, stating that the mission‟s religious fathers, Joseph

33
Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, death record Santa Clara (SCL)
02218: “felizmente extraido del seno de su ia difunta madre. A las 7 horas de Cristiano lo acabó…”
101
Viader and Joseph Viñals, may have been “ignorant of anatomy, lacking in medical
books and never having seen such an operation, but that was not enough to intimidate
them in their projected endeavor…an effective desire to eternally unite the baby with
God.” The reporter added that the “operation was a happy success, surpassing the hopes
of the priests who had the supreme delight of baptizing the extracted boy.” The article
ends on an instructive note, informing readers that the news should serve as an example
for “similar cases [so that] many infants do not become the victims of indecision or fear,
for through this method they can achieve eternal happiness.”
34
While it is not clear if the
reporter or the missionaries themselves added the advisory at the end of the piece, what is
clear is that the royal directive to baptize in such cases was clearly being promoted
through popular channels. The article also served to remind others that even in the
remotest places of the empire, such as the missions of Alta California, the practice of
baptismal cesareans could be implemented.
From 1779 through 1832, a total of 24 baptismal cesareans were performed on 23
different women.
35
Although the greatest number of procedures occurred during the first
decade of the nineteenth century, the 1820s saw a mild resurgence in the practice.
Demographically, all but two women were Indian, based mostly at the missions of

34
“El ignorar la Anatomía, carecer de libros facultativos y nunca haber presenciado semejante operación,
no fue capaz de arredrarles en su proyectada empresa...del muy eficaz deseo de unir eternamente a Dios
aquella criatura… cuyo éxito feliz sobrepujó las esperanzas de los Padres, que probaron el sumo gozo de
bautizar al extraído niño… Se extiende la noticia para que en casos semejantes no sean víctimas de la
irresolución y el temor muchas criaturas que por este medio pueden adquirir su eterna felicidad” in Gazeta
de Mexico, Tomo IX, no. 42, dated May 29, 1799. For the complete report, see Gazetas de Mexico,
compendio de noticias de Nueva España de los Años de 1798 y 1799…por Don Manuel Antonio Valdés.
Tomo Nono. (Mexico: la Imprenta de Don Mariano de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, [1799], 329-330.
35
In her 1974 study, Rosemary K. Valle found evidence of 14 postmortem cesareans over a 64-year period
in the Alta California baptism registers. The Huntington Library‟s Early California Population Project
(2006), an electronic database containing the sacramental records of the missions from 1770-1850, enables
digital searching and cross-checking of the baptism and burial registers of the twenty-one missions for the
frequency of cesareans. A listing of all the post-mortem cesareans (and their respective baptism and/or
burial numbers) appears in Table 1.
102
northern and central California: only three cases were reported for missions south of
Santa Barbara. The ages of the women ranged from 15 to 41 years. Of these, at least 19
were married at the time of their death. Only 3 cases involved twins, where one or both
twins were extracted (see Table 3.1).
Table 3.1: List of Alta California Cesareans Organized by Date
Name given at
baptism
Date of
Operation
Mission / Register
& Number
Status of fetus Performed by

Francisco 26 Jan 1799

Santa Clara (SCL)
Baptism 03725/
Death 02218
8 mo. fetus; lived 7
hours
Fr. José Viñals
Buenabentura 25 Oct 1801 San Carlos (SC)
Baptism 02380/
Death 01387
Extracted and buried on
the same day
Fr. José Viñals
Ramon Nonato 19 Feb 1802

San Antonio (SAP)
Baptism 02618 /
Death 01425
Lived 1.5 hours; buried
on the same day
Fr. Florencio Ybañez
or Fr. Marcelino
Cipres
36

Ramona Nonat
Cavaller
17 Mar 1802 San Antonio (SAP)
Baptism 02626 /
Death 01460
8 mo. fetus; lived 37
hours
Fr. Florencio Ybañez
or Fr. Marcelino
Cipres
37

Unnamed (male) 23 Apr 1802 San José (SJS)
Death 00184
Died a few minutes
after baptism, and was
buried with mother
Fr. José Antonio de
Uría
Buenaventura 3 Nov 1802

San Carlos (SC)
Baptism 02412 /
Death 01489
Died after baptism;
buried the following
day
Fr. José Viñals
Unnamed (female
child of Rosa)
19 Mar 1803
(buried on
20 Mar
1803)
San Gabriel (SG)
Death 02166
8 mo. fetus; buried with
mother
Fr. Isidoro Barcenilla
38

Unnamed (female
child of Catarina)
26 Aug 1805
(buried on
27 Aug
1805)
San José (SJS)
Death 00623
Lived for a few
minutes; buried with
mother
Fr. José Antonio de
Uría
Unnamed (male
child of Romana)
11 Nov 1805
(buried on
12 Nov
1805)
San Francisco de
Asis (SFD) Death
01961
buried with mother Fr. Ramon Abella
Ramon Nonato 17 Mar 1806

San Miguel (SMA)
Baptism 01301 /
Death 00357
4 mo. fetus; lived 1.5
hours
Juan José Soria or Fr.
Juan Martin
Unnamed (female
twin of Baltasara)
7 Jan 1808 Santa Inés (SI)
Baptism 00413
Unknown: fetus was
provisionally baptized
but no death record
Fr. Luis Gil de
Taboada

36
Fr. Florencio Ybañez cites Fr. Marcelino Cipres as the baptism officiant, but it is not clear if Cipres also
performed the cesarean.
37
Ibid.
38
Fr. Isidoro Barcenilla notes that he was present at the time of the cesarean when he baptized the fetus,
but does not explicitly state that he performed the cesarean.

103
exists
N. Galindo
(male)
22 Mar 1808

San José (SJS)
Baptism 01608
Lived 5 or 6 hours Fr. Narciso Durán
Unnamed (male
child of Claudia
MariaYlonegue)
6 Aug 1811 Santa Barbara (SB)
Death 01981
6 mo. fetus; unclear if
infant outlived mother
Fr. Luis Gil de
Taboada
Ramóna
Nonacida
23 Jul 1819 San Antonio (SAP)
Baptism 03986 /
Death 02921
7 mo. fetus; seemingly
deceased
Fr. Juan Bautista
Sancho
Unnamed (male
child of Carlota)
17 May 1821
(buried on
18 May
1821)
Santa Barbara (SB)
Death 02814
Twin of Pascual
Baylon; fetus was
provisionally baptized
but no death record
exists
Fr. Antonio Ripoll
Beatriz Fages 28 Jul 1821 San Antonio (SAP)
Baptism 04071 /
Death 03024
seemingly deceased Fr. Pedro Cabot
Unnamed (child
of Getrudis)
24 Sep 1822
(buried on
25 Sep 1822)
San Carlos (SC)
Death 02414b
Showed some signs of
life at the time of
baptism; buried with
mother
Fr. Vicente Francisco
de Sarría
Ramona 15 Jan 1825 San Diego (SD)
Baptism 05863 /
Death 03466
Lived ½ hour Apolinaria Lorenzana
or Fr. Vicente P.
Oliva
39

Unnamed (child
of Clara)
21 Dec 1825 San José (SJS)
Death 03473
4 -5 mo. fetus; baptized
provisionally due to
lack of vital signs
Mission Indians
Narciso and Silvestre,
overseen by Fr.
Narciso Durán
Joseph &
Maria (twins)
14 Nov 1826

Santa Cruz (SCZ)
Baptism 02120 /
Death 01669
Lived 15 minutes Fr. Luis Gil [de
Taboada]
14 Nov 1826

Santa Cruz (SCZ)
Baptism 02121 /
Death 01670
Lived 15 minutes Fr. Luis Gil [de
Taboada]
Unnamed (child
of Cristina)
28 Mar 1829 San José (SJS)
Death 04205
Fetus was provisionally
baptized but no death
record exists
Mission Indian
Silvestre
Unnamed (child
of Ladislaa)
29 Jan 1832 San José (SJS)
Death 04660
Fetus was provisionally
baptized but no death
record exists
Fr. Narciso Durán
Unnamed (child
of Manuela
Chaboia)
27 Apr 1832 San Carlos (SC)
Death 02809
Unstated Unstated
In certain cases, the expecting women became ill before they could give birth. For
example, Rita Ssequeunat, a 36-year-old Indian woman from San Miguel Mission,
contracted measles during her third pregnancy. In March 1806 alone, the epidemic
claimed the lives of at least 20 Natives at that mission, including that of Rita Ssequeunat,

39
Apolinaria Lorenzana (nurse) was identified as the baptism officiant, but it is not clear if she also
performed the cesarean.
104
before making its way north to the missions of San Antonio and Santa Clara where it
continued to kill other Natives in its path.
40
Rita Ssequeunat, who was four months
pregnant at the time, endured a physically distressing existence in the last days of her life.
About two weeks before her death, she likely came into contact with someone already
infected with the virus, breathing in his or her cough. The woman soon developed a fever
which would have lasted three or four days. A rash erupted on her face, rapidly spreading
until it eventually reached her feet. Dehydrated and enervated, she struggled to move her
aching joints. Eventually the virus would have settled into her lungs, filling them with
pus. The resulting pneumonia would have caused Rita Ssequeunat‟s breathing to become
short and labored. She would have developed the same cough that infected her about
twelve days earlier. Her lungs engorged with fluid, she struggled to bring precious air
into her oxygen-deprived body. A distinct sound emanated from the weak woman‟s body:
a gurgling, slurping noise produced by air trying to force its way through the pooled fluid
in her airways. Lastly, her pregnancy likely complicated her health status: she may have
experienced vaginal bleeding, indicating spontaneous abortion or miscarriage.
41
If so, the

40
That the 1806 measles epidemic spread northward is evident from the death registers at missions San
Miguel, San Antonio, and Santa Clara. For a listing of deaths from measles at San Miguel Mission in
March 1806, see death records SMA 00346- 00356; 00358-00360; 00362-00363; 00367; 00369-00370; and
00372. Measles was identified as the cause of deaths among 11 Natives at San Antonio Mission in April
1806. See death records SAP 01830-01831; 01833-01835; 01843-01846; 01852; 01857. In the same year,
15 Indians from Santa Clara were said to have died from the disease. See death records SCL 03580-03594.
Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.
41
Details on the transmission, progression, and symptoms of measles (rubeola) were taken from a variety
of sources. See World Health Organization, “Measles,” Fact Sheet 286, 2013.
www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/ (July 1, 2013); Paul A. Offit, “A Look at Each Vaccine:
MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) Vaccine,” Children‟s Hospital of Philadelphia, 2013,
www.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/a-look-at-each-vaccine/mmr-measles-mumps-and-rubella-
vaccine.html (July 1, 2013).
The “distinct sound” of turbulent air passing through infected bronchi is a reference to the “death
rattle.” More information on this phenomenon may be found in Betty R. Ferrell and Nessa Coyle, eds.,
Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing, 3
rd
ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 310-312.
For further information on the effects of measles during pregnancy, see Robert L. Atmar, Janet A.
Englund, and Hunter Hammill, “Complications of Measles during Pregnancy.” Clinical Infectious Diseases
14, no. 1 (1992): 220-224; Makiko Egashira Chiba et al., “Measles Infection in Pregnancy.” Journal of
105
persons attending her during childbirth probably acted quickly to extract the fetus from
her in order to baptize it.
Rita Ssequeunat gave birth twice before she contracted measles, but both of her
children died in infancy. In fact, she was childless when the corporal of the mission,
under the direction of the missionaries, extracted the fetus from her body, naming it
Ramon Nonato. She shared this characteristic with a number of women who also had
postmortem cesareans performed on them: eleven women (48%) experienced the loss of
all or some of their children during their lifetimes. Josefa Crois, an Indian woman from
San Antonio Mission who passed away expecting her seventh child, saw all of her six
children die before they could reach one year of age. Similarly, Otilia Lucia
Chatocmacan, a Native from San Carlos Mission who was also pregnant with her seventh
child when she died, lost five of her six children before they could reach two years.
In contrast, Manuela Chaboya, one of the two non-Indian women who had fetal
extractions performed on them, gave birth five times before she died during her sixth
pregnancy, but all of five children reached adulthood.
42
This was not coincidental.
Between 1774 and 1834, the non-Indian population at most missions steadily rose
through natural increase. The ratio of births to deaths at San Carlos Mission, for example
(from where Otilia Lucia Chatocmacan came), was 2.54. At missions Santa Clara and
Santa Barbara, the ratios reached nearly 3.0.
43
During the 1806 measles epidemic that

Infection 47 (2003): 40-44; and Kimberly B. Fortner, ed., Johns Hopkins Manual of Gynecology and
Obstetrics, 3
rd
ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2007), 144.
42
Biographical sketches on all 23 women who had fetal extractions performed on them may be found in
Appendix G. These biographies include baptism, marriage, and burial records where the above information
on Rita Ssequeunat, Josefa Crois, Otilia Lucia Chatocmacan, and Manuela Chaboya were taken.
43
For statistics of non-Indian birth-death ratios at San Carlos and Santa Clara Missions, see Sherburne F.
Cook and Woodrow Borah, Essays in Population History: Mexico and California: Volume III (Berkeley:
University of California, 1979), 262-266. For information on non-Indian birth-death ratios at Santa Barbara
Mission, see Phillip L. Walker and John R. Johnson, “For Everything There Is a Season: Chumash Indian
106
took the life of Rita Ssequeunat, Fr. Martin de Landaeta at San Francisco Mission
observed that the disease caused “much destruction among the Indians” but “not one
among those of Razón” (non-Indians) became ill. The Franciscan added that the mission
had about 400 sick persons in April; the number rose to 800 infected persons by the end
of the May and over 200 deceased Indians buried in the mission‟s cemetery.
44

In most cases of fetal extractions, the recorders noted the duration of the extracted
fetus‟s life. The longest-living infant delivered via postmortem cesarean was Ramona
Nonat Cavaller, the daughter of missionized Indians from San Antonio de Padua, who
survived 37 hours after being extracted from her deceased mother. Most infants,
however, lived anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Despite these
comparatively short durations of life, what seems clear from these records is that in every
case the extracted fetus was baptized, so from the missionaries‟ perspective, every brief
life was a Christian one.
Franciscans used a variety of phrases to communicate that a baptism was being
performed under irregular circumstances. Most baptisms performed at the missions
conformed to regular standards, and were thus considered “normal”: an adult agreed to
receive baptism after undergoing some religious education, often in the form of rote
memorization of prayers. Most scholars agree that communication barriers, cultural
misunderstandings, and inadequate instruction time resulted in the overall ineffective

Births, Marriages, and Deaths at the Alta California Missions” in Human Biologists in the Archives:
Demography, Health, Nutrition and Genetics in Historical Populations, ed. D. Ann Herring and Alan C.
Swedlund (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 60-61.
44
“El saranpión [sic] ha echo en la Provincia mucho estrago en los Yndios y ninguno el de los de Razón,
actual.te nos hallamos aquí con cerca de 400 enfermos…” Martin de Landaeta to Tomas de la Peña, dated
April 28, 1806 and “resultas del saranpión van ya muertos mas de 200 yndios han llegado a haver 800
e[n]fermos…” Martin de Landaeta to José Viñals, dated May 29, 1806. Bancroft Library, California
Mission Letters, 1806-1823, BANC MSS C-C 201:2-201:3.
107
quality of this religious education.
45
Nonetheless, all individuals over the age of nine
years had to give their consent to be baptized. For those under the age limit, parents or
caregivers gave their permission for the baptism of their children. When a baptism
occurred under unusual circumstances, such as a baptismal cesarean, the officiant
baptized conditionally. Franciscans used the expression “Sub conditione” or “under
condition” to refer to baptisms of a conditional nature.
46

Nonetheless, the conditional quality of the baptismal cesareans reveals some
Franciscan ambiguity toward the infant‟s status. For example, Father Francisco Vicente
de Sarría performed his first baptismal cesarean at San Carlos Mission in September 1822
when 15-year old Getrudis, a mission-born Indian, died before she could deliver her first
child.
47
In her death record, Sarría stated that he conditionally baptized the extracted fetus
and buried it with Getrudis‟s body. The friar did not leave a record of the infant receiving
the sacrament in that mission‟s baptism register, the book (supposedly) containing all of
the baptisms performed there. Instead, Sarría noted the infant‟s baptism and the operation
in the mother‟s burial record.
48
This episode represents the problem of how certain priests
interpreted gradations of life in the extracted fetus.

45
Steven W. Hackel, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in
Colonial California, 1769-1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 134-147; and James
Sandos, Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2004), 95-97.
46
See San Antonio baptism records 03986 and 04071 as examples, in Huntington Library, Early California
Population Project Database, 2006.
47
Although her age not given in her burial record, Getrudis‟s age was calculated from her baptism record;
See San Carlos (SC) baptism record 02633 and SC death record 02414b in Huntington Library, Early
California Population Project Database, 2006. It is also worth noting that Franciscans employed the
expression sub conditione in other instances, too, such as when an adult from another faith tradition sought
baptism in the Ramon Catholic church. More generally, the term applied to those cases where there was
some doubt as to validity of a previous baptism. See James T. Bretzke, Consecrated Phrases: A Latin
Theological Dictionary: Latin Expressions Commonly Found in Theological Writings, 3
rd
ed. (Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2013), 234.
48
Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, death record SC 02414b.
108
Sarría‟s sacramental records and writings reveal his concern with assessing these
gradations of bodily life. Although the fetal extraction performed on the deceased
Getrudis was seemingly his only baptismal cesarean, the Franciscan was involved in five
abortion cases, in which he baptized or recorded the baptism of the remains of aborted or
miscarried fetuses.
49
In particular, his Description of the Cesarean Operation encouraged
missionaries to think of life as a spectrum that allowed for opportunities to confer
baptism upon extracted fetuses.
Sarría’s Description of the Cesarean Operation
When Francisco Vicente de Sarría wrote the Description of the Cesarean
Operation (1830) during his tenure at Soledad Mission, he had been in Alta California
since 1809. From the start of his residency in the province, he assumed an active role in
promoting evangelization of Native peoples and renewing the emphasis of pastoral duties
among his fellow missionaries. As early as 1813, he prepared an essay reminding his
fellow missionaries of the Rule of the Franciscan Order. A few years later, he completed
a subsequent set of articles, focusing on the Franciscan vows of poverty and simplicity,
advocating for increased learning and reading among friars, and cautioning his colleagues
that although good examples of missionary behavior abounded, certain deficiencies
persisted. Even when Mexico‟s independence from Spain threatened the structure and
Franciscan governance of the Alta California missions in the 1820s, Sarría continued
writing to educate the missionaries in how to conduct themselves.
50
In short, Sarría‟s

49
Although Sarría used the terms “abortó” or “abortivo” to describe these five cases, it is not clear if these
were voluntary abortions or involuntary miscarriages. See Huntington Library, Early California Population
Project, 2006, San Carlos (SC) Mission death record 02376, in addition to baptism records SC 03544, SLD
(Soledad Mission) 02026, SLD 02067, SLD 02086, and SLD 02225.
50
Maynard Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769-1848 (San Marino: Huntington
Library Press, 1969), 228-230.
109
obstetrical treatise was also intended to be instructive, providing practical and spiritual
guidance to his clerical associates.
While 12 baptismal cesareans were performed before the time of Sarría‟s arrival,
his work seems to be the only one prepared by an active Franciscan at the Alta California
missions.
51
While Sarría‟s treatise did not have the same reach as the earlier works, it
demonstrated his familiarity with the arguments advanced in the earlier medical-
ecclesiastical essays. In his prefatory letter to the treatise, the friar asserted that he was
unacquainted with “any circular or public paper appertaining to [the Franciscan]
ministry…which treats of or so much makes the slightest mention of the cesarean
operation.”
52
Nonetheless, the missionary followed this assertion with a detailed
presentation of his familiarity of Father Antonio José Rodriguez‟s New Aspect on
Medical-Moral Theology. After quoting the Cistercian at length and citing seventeenth-
century French obstetrician François Mauriceau and Francesco Cangiamila, Sarría
declared that the intent of his Description was to synthesize Antonio José Rodriguez‟s
work for circulation among the California missionaries.
Anticipating possible opposition from his peers, Sarría first tackled what must
have been the primary concern among clerics: the presumed offense to the priest‟s
modesty. Sarría assured his audience that although the compromised chastity of the
clerical practitioner was a grave concern, “the salvation of the soul by Holy Baptism and
perhaps the corporeal life of the child” would render the possibility of “unchaste thoughts

51
Martina Will de Chaparro notes that Friar Isidoro Barcenilla, who was active in Alta California before his
move to New Mexico, also wrote a commentary on the cesarean. In his letter to New Mexican parishes,
Barcencilla urged clerics to ensure that deceased expectant women receive the operation, but he omitted
precise instructions for want of Cangiamila‟s text. See Will de Chaparro, Death and Dying in New Mexico,
132-134.
52
English translation taken from Sherburne Cook. Although the prefatory letter of Sarría‟s treatise is
apparently unavailable, an English translation and transcript is available in Sherburne Cook, “Sarría‟s
Treatise on the Cesarean Operation,” California and Western Medicine 47, no. 2 (August 1937), 107-109.
110
a remote danger.”
53
To maintain priestly chastity, the missionary commanded the dead
body of the undelivered woman to be covered with a sheet from the chest up and the
pubic region below so that only the abdominal area would be exposed.
Because ascertaining death presented a problem, Sarría warned his readers that
they must be absolutely certain of the death of the patient before the incision could be
made. In addition to waiting one to two hours before proceeding with the procedure,
Sarría recommended placing a glass of water over the chest and abdomen or positioning a
cotton thread or feather on the lips or under the nose to check for any movement. These
techniques, however, were deemed insufficient for cases involving trauma or sudden
death. Instead, the missionary suggested inserting pins into the flesh under the toenails to
see if the body responded. Sarría stated that these tests should be performed in the
presence of the deceased‟s family: firstly to ensure that the concerned parties are
convinced of the mother‟s death and secondly to assure that those persons could not later
claim that the operation was performed without first administering the tests.
54
The friar
noted that any charges brought to the secular or ecclesiastical court could not be upheld
against the testimony of those who had witnessed the tests. The same authority, he
claimed, would be extended to doctors in the same situation.
55
Aware of the canonical
prohibition against priests performing surgery, Sarría nonetheless referred to the

53
Vicente Francisco de Sarría, Descripcion de la Operacion Cesarea (1830), Santa Barbara Mission
Archive Library (SBMAL) document 3289 CMD, 4.
54
Sarría was well aware of the fact that the law stipulated that the post-mortem cesarean could only be
performed on a deceased pregnant woman. Therefore the practitioner had to take certain steps to ensure that
the deceased was in fact deceased. Yet determining when an individual died proved difficult, which is
likely the reason why Sarría recommended waiting one to two hours before proceeding with the operation.
For a historical perspective on the problem of determining time of death, see Jessica Snyder Sachs, Corpse:
Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 2001), 19-
25. Establishing time of death remains a conundrum for twenty-first century medical examiners and
forensic pathologists. For a contemporary analysis of the problem and a detailed discussion of the scientific
reasons that complicate establishing an exact time of death, see Jay Dix and Michael Graham, Time of
Death, Decomposition, and Identification: An Atlas (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2000), Chapter One.
55
Sarría, Descripcion de la Operacion Cesarea, 8-10.
111
deceased, expectant woman as the “patient” and equated the role of “doctor” to the cleric
performing the procedure. Furthermore, his suggestion that the missionary insert pins into
the flesh of the dead woman in the presence of her spouse or relatives was a safeguard for
the priest so that his actions could not be contested later in court. Yet it is also indicative
of the difficulty in determining when life ended and death began, a difficulty that could
only be resolved through the use of the severe physical tests.
Conditional baptism developed from the same concern with the instance of death
that caused the dead woman to be pierced with pins. After he pragmatically detailed the
processes of incising the flesh, peeling back the layers that shield the fetus, and viewing
the offspring, the friar stated that if it
shows signs of weakness, baptize it without removal out of danger that it will die
in the process of extraction…but take the precaution of slightly lifting it out of
the water and blood that surround it. If it reveals no movement perceptible to
one‟s sight, one should proceed in applying the fingers to the umbilical cord or to
the chest in the place of the heart, and if a pulse is noticed, baptize absolutely
because it is certainly alive. If after taking these steps, one does not perceive
movement [in the fetus], baptize it conditionally. If it is found to be obviously
dead, displaying signs of rotting or gangrene, or other similar signs, one cannot
give it…baptism. If after turning over the secundines, you find a robust and
healthy fetus, it may be extracted with both hands…and baptize [it] with
lukewarm water.
56

Just as the missionary‟s text suggests the dilemma of verifying the certainty of the
mother‟s death, the above passage also reflects the problem of determining the end of the
fetus‟s life. Sarría‟s criteria for baptism blurred the boundary that separated life from

56
Sarría, Descripcion de la Operacion Cesarea, 14-15; “…indicio de debilidad, y en este caso sele bautisara
sin sacarle afuera, por peligro de q[u]e muere en la accion de estraerla de alli, segun se dijo en otra parte:
pero se tendra la precaucion de lebantarle un poco de entre las aguas y sangre, q[u]e le circundan. Si se
manifestarse sin movim[ien]to persetible [sic] a la vista, se hara la dilijencia de aplicarle los dedos al
ombliguito, o cordon umbilical, o al pecho en el lugar del corazon y si sele advierte pulso sele bautisara
bajo de condicion. Si se aya evidentemente muerto por los indicios de podrido o grangrenado [sic], o cosas
semejantes de ningun modo sele puede dar semejante punto ni el bautismo.” Baptisms performed sub
conditione were reserved for those individuals who were ill at the time that the sacrament was administered
or for those who received an earlier baptism but under questionable circumstances.
112
death. A lack of movement on the part of the fetus taken from a recently deceased woman
would normally suggest death, but Sarría cautioned his readers to err on the side of
spiritual safety and baptize conditionally. The circumstances under which a fetus could
not be baptized were extreme: only evidence of severe bodily decomposition could thwart
baptism. Even then, the friar‟s words betray a sense of disappointment that one could not
confer the sacrament, since the Roman Catholic tradition prohibits posthumous baptisms.
Instead, the friar offered a range of possibilities that left room for the priest to interpret
when and how the sacrament could be administered. Nonetheless, even the conditional
baptism granted entry into Christendom, thereby awarding the promise of heaven to the
children of missionized Indian women.
The reception and effects of Sarría‟s treatise are not known. Sarría died five years
after penning his tract, and only two more baptismal cesareans were performed in the
1830s.
57
Changes in California‟s political climate, the emancipation of mission Indians
under the Mexican law, and the breakup of the church properties contributed to the
deterioration of the mission enterprise in the years after Sarría completed his treatise.
Nonetheless, Sarría and his colleagues played a role in disseminating theologically-based
obstetrics in Alta California. While a total of 24 baptismal cesareans performed mostly in
the first third of the nineteenth century may seem statistically anomalous, a comparative
review of the data reveals that Alta California baptismal cesareans outnumber those
performed in other regions of the Spanish Americas. For example, in his study of early
nineteenth-century Puerto Rico, José G. Rigau-Perez cites only six postmortem cesareans

57
Only one cesarean operation from the 1840s was located, and its language implies that the procedure was
the cause of a non-Native woman‟s death. According to Father José María del Refugio Suares del Real,
Guadalupe Moraga “murio a consecuencia de la operacion que le hisieron en el mal parto que tuvo.” See
Huntington Library, Early California Population Project, 2006, death SJS 06828.
113
in three towns, all performed on white women. Adam Warren found one reference to the
procedure in 1794 in the Tucuman region of present-day Argentina. In her recent
investigations of an Itzá Maya mission in late eighteenth-century colonial Guatemala,
Martha Few located accounts of four postmortem cesareans performed by clerics. Finally,
in New Mexico, where the Crown‟s circular and knowledge about the baptismal cesarean
traveled, no instances of the procedure have been found in church records.
58
In contrast to
these other areas, the number of cases performed in California seems high.
In Spain, however, Paula de Demerson found 52 postmortem cesareans from
multiple provinces reported in two Madrid journals from 1777 to 1806, where familial
opposition to the procedure was documented. For example, evidence from 12 cases
demonstrated that relatives failed to summon the surgeon or the priest promptly after the
expectant woman‟s death. In six of those cases, town officials or local clerics intervened
to overcome family resistance.
59
Aversion to dissection, therefore, may have hindered the
proliferation of the practice, particularly in distant regions of the Spanish empire where
enforcement of the practice was presumably sparse. Among California missionaries,
Valle speculates that the clerics and Indians alike were opposed to the practice. Although
the sacramental records are silent about clerical and Native aversion, we do know this:
out of 3,904 death records for which there is a stated cause of death, 68 women died

58
Future demographic studies and examination of parish records may change these statistics. Rigau-
Perez‟s dataset only reflects a three-year period due to inconsistencies in the records and problems
accessing the parish registers, see “Surgery at the Service of Theology,” 399; Adam Warren, “Pastoral Zeal
and „Treacherous‟ Mothers: Ecclesiastical Debates About the Cesarean Sections, Abortion, and Infanticide
in Andean Peru, 1780-1810,” in Women, Ethnicity, and Medical Authority: Reproductive Health in Latin
America since 1780, ed. Tamera Marko and Adam Warren (San Diego: Center for Iberian and Latin
American Studies, University of California, San Diego, 2004), 20; Personal email correspondence with
author on February 12, 2008; Will de Chaparro, Death and Dying in New Mexico, 129-135.
59
These include cases of both active and passive resistance, where families strongly opposed the operation
or neglected to inform clerics or medics that a pregnant woman had died to avoid having the operation
performed on the body. Paula de Demerson, “La Cesarea Post Mortem En la España de la Ilustracion”
Asclepio 28 (1976), 210, 213-216, and 218-219.
114
during or immediately after childbirth but only 23 cases specifically state that the
deceased mother was given a postmortem cesarean.
60

Conclusion
Early medical-ecclesiastical treatises and attendant royal decrees served as the
basis for obstetrical knowledge in Alta California. What differentiates California from
Spain in the diffusion of this knowledge and its practice was chronic, high Native
mortality that afflicted mission Indian women and their offspring. Given the remoteness
of the colony as well as discriminatory attitudes perpetuated by representatives of New
Spain‟s medical board, medical aid was not forthcoming. Some clerics intervened with
the practice of baptismal cesareans, fetal extractions performed on deceased, expectant
mothers for the primary purpose of infant baptism.
The emphases on the body, gradations of life, and determining death expose a
culture in which the Alta California missionaries linked spirit and body. In his description
of the Franciscan use of corporeal punishment against Native crimes, historian Francis
Guest reminds us that “the spirituality of the padres…was physically demanding.”
61
The
same could be said of the practice of the postmortem cesareans. The tests for ascertaining
death, the incision that the baptismal cesarean necessitated, and the spectrum of life that
gave Franciscans the opportunity to baptize expiring fetuses speak to a theology
preoccupied with the physical.

60
The total number of death records in the database is 71,239, but the adjusted figure reflects the
subtraction of duplicate, skipped, and missing records from the total number for the period between 1770-
1855; The number of women who died during childbirth was determined by search for the phrases parto
and parir (“birth” and “to birth”) in death cause field.
61
Francis Guest, “Cultural Perspectives on California Mission Life” Southern California Quarterly 65, no.
1 (Spring 1983), 57.
115
Chapter Four: The Persistence of Burial Practices in the Alta California Missions

In winter 1807, Father José Viader of Santa Clara Mission noted in that mission‟s book of
burials the following entry:
[I] learned for certain that the heathens and some fugitive Christians buried the body of
Yda, wife of Segundo, who died in childbirth and [her] baptismal number was 4781.
I sign, Fr. José Viader.

Yda, or Sislote in her Native language, entered Santa Clara Mission in her early twenties. She
received baptism there in June 1805, the same year that saw 336 baptisms of Native adults and
children, an unusually high number. Originally from the tribelet of Los Luechas, Yda became
associated with the peoples of the village of Santa Ysabel when in February 1806, she married
Segundo of the latter village. Segundo, also in his early twenties and baptized less than one year
before Yda Sislote, was a widow himself of three months.
1
Although Viader did not state an
approximate date of death, Yda was presumed dead by the winter of the following year.
Viader did, however, note that Yda passed away in childbirth. Although the missionary
did not specify whether her absence was officially granted, the fact that she was expecting and
on leave from the mission suggests that she was planning to birth amongst her husband‟s people,
in accordance with traditional Ohlone custom.
2
Her death, presumably the result of a difficult
birth, would have most likely conformed to Native practice, too, namely the flexing of the body
and interment with or burning of the individual‟s personal possessions.
3
What is striking about

1
Biographical information about this individual was culled from the Early California Population Project database
(ECPP). The following records were taken from Santa Clara (SCL) baptism number 04781; marriage 01268; and
death 03755. Information about the origin and marriage status of Segundo Pojtos may be found in Santa Clara
baptism 04621 and marriages 01101 and 01268.
2
Malcom Margolin, The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area. (Berkeley: Heyday,
1978), 68; Richard Levy, “Costanoan,” in Handbook of North American Indians: California, vol. 8, ed. Robert F.
Heizer (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 488.
3
Native peoples of the San Francisco and Monterey Bays differed in their funerary practices: some tribelets
cremated their dead and bury the ashes, while others reserved cremation for elite individuals and simply interred the
bodies. In both cases, the belongings of the deceased were burned or buried with him/her. See Richard Levy,
116
Yda Sislote‟s death, however, was that her husband‟s non-Christian relatives and a group of
“fugitive Christians” administered it. This latter piece of information suggests that Yda occupied
a fluid social world where non-Christianized and Christianized Natives mingled, despite the
efforts of Franciscan missionaries to separate the two groups. Although the incongruity between
non-Christian and Christian might puzzle the modern observer, the marriage of the two disparate
elements reveals the multifaceted religiosity of Natives, who fashioned and practiced a brand of
Christianity that was deeply infused with indigenous practices. Similarly, this incongruity also
reveals the degree of willingness among Franciscans to acknowledge the persistence of
indigenous religions, especially in regard to funerary customs.
Whether performed inside or outside the mission, Franciscans and other observers
repeatedly documented the persistence of indigenous customs after the introduction of
Christianity to Native peoples. Nonetheless, this recurrent theme often assumes a secondary role
in the historiography of the Alta California missions. Instead scholars tend to focus on whether
the mission system was beneficial or detrimental to mission Indians.
4
According to Quincy D.
Newell, the effect of such debates yields reductive treatments of missionization, resulting in two
schools of scholars who either argue for the protective or oppressive qualities of the missions.
5

“Costanoan,” in Handbook of North American Indians: California, vol. 8, ed. Robert F. Heizer (Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 490.
4
The rich historiography on California missions reinforces the idea that missions had deleterious effects on Indian
cultures, especially in regard to disease and mortality. For a representative sampling of works that explore the
hegemonic quality of the missions, see Robert H. Jackson and Edward Castillo, Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish
Colonization: The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1995 and James A. Sandos, Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Mission. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2004. Alternatively, defenders of the mission system (often Franciscan historians) view the
Christianization project as the shield that guarded Natives from the excessive labor demands of colonists or secular
exploitation. For more on this alternate view, see the works of Zephyrin Engelhardt, The Missions or Missionaries of
California, vol. I-IV. San Francisco: J.H. Barry, 1908-1915 or Francis F. Guest, "An Examination of the Thesis of
S.F. Cook on the Forced Conversion of Indians in the California Missions," Southern California Quarterly, 61
(1979): 1-77.
5
Quincy D. Newell, “„The Indians Generally Love Their Wives and Children:‟ Native American Marriage and
Sexual Practices in Missions San Francisco, Santa Clara, and San José,” Catholic Historical Review 91 no. 1 (2005):
62.
117
Rather than siding with one of these factions, I argue that the interaction of Native and Christian
practices in the missions was far more intricate than either camp acknowledges. Traditional
Native Californian customs and values persisted for generations. If we take into account the
persistence of indigenous practices, reinforced by sustained contact between mission Indians and
non-mission Indians, we can begin to see the missions as centers of intense cultural exchange
between Native Californians and Spanish colonists.
Archaeological evidence offers one way of gauging the persistence of Native customs in
the Alta California missions. Mission cemeteries provide data for studying religious practices
among Europeans and Natives alike. Excavations at Santa Clara, as well as other sites at La
Purísima Concepción and the Santa Barbara Presidio Chapel, shed light on the range of mortuary
behaviors practiced by those who came into the orbit of the missions during the late-eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries.
This chapter explores the question of how missionaries and Natives viewed and treated
the dead in the Alta California missions. Because of its unique archaeological record, this study
will principally explore Santa Clara Mission, which is situated in the territory of the Ohlone (or
Costanoan-speaking) Indians who occupied the area between the Monterey Peninsula and South
San Francisco Bay. Although Santa Clara was founded in 1777, this study will focus on the early
part of the nineteenth century, when the mission‟s Franciscan leadership remained nearly
unchanged for thirty-three years and during which time the evidence of syncretic funerary
practices began to materialize in the mission burial grounds. First, a discussion of Native
mortality at the Alta California missions is necessary to provide the context for understanding
how Natives dealt with death in their new environments.
118
The subject of Native mortality in the Alta California missions has been studied at
length.
6
Notwithstanding regional variations, Robert H. Jackson asserts that California mission
Indian populations were “universally inviable, incapable of growing through natural
reproduction.”
7
While the population of Santa Clara Mission saw its numbers swell in the 1790s,
the growth of the mission was due to massive influx of Natives rather than natural increase.
Twenty-years of sustained Spanish contact changed Native lifeways as increased Spanish
military aggression, ecological destruction, and higher mortality rates pushed Natives out of their
homelands and into missions.
Once in the missions, however, Natives experienced more cultural upheaval as their
populations dwindled from a host of chronic infectious and transmittable diseases.
Gastrointestinal diseases proliferated in the overcrowded and unsanitary mission communities.
Syphilis and tuberculosis became endemic. Intermittent outbreaks of measles and most likely
influenza and typhoid fever swept through mission and non-mission Indian populations alike.
8

By the early nineteenth century, birthrates at Santa Clara fell even more due to the declining
number of baptized Indian women of child-bearing age as well as women‟s physical debilitation
from exposure to infections that caused low fertility. Jackson demonstrates that the crude birth
and death rates averaged 35 and 114 per thousand at Santa Clara, while the mean rate of

6
A growing body of literature posits that Native Californians experienced epidemiological episodes of Old World
diseases during the proto-historic period, which would account for the geographic variances of Native mortality in
the missions. See, for example, William L. Preston, “Portents of Plague from California‟s Protohistoric Period,”
Ethnohistory 49, no. 1 (2002): 69-121. Although the degree of Native mortality is a hotly debated issue, the
demographic scholarship seems to uphold the argument that missions were indeed unhealthful places, especially the
those sites situated in the colder, damper regions of Northern California. For more on the extent of Native mortality
in the missions, see Sherburne F. Cook, “Population Trends Among the California Mission Indians” in Ibero-
Americana 17 (1940), 1-48;
7
Robert H. Jackson, Indian Population Decline: The Mission of Northwestern New Spain, 1687-1840 (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 116.
8
Randall Milliken, A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area,
1769-1812 (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1995), 4. For an extensive discussion of the range and types of diseases
that afflicted Native Costanoans, see Steven Hackel, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-
Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 97-
118.
119
population decline over a generation averaged 95 percent.
9
Indeed, the sacramental registers
demonstrate that despite the high numbers of Natives coming into the missions, early and rapid
death among them balanced and in some years outpaced growth (refer to Table 4.1).
Table 4.1. Number of Baptisms and Deaths at Santa Clara Mission, 1790-1829
Year Number of Native Baptisms Number of Native Deaths and Burials Recorded
1790 323 196
1791 167 109
1792 205 157
1793 191 133
1794 499 133
1795 294 173
1796 124 125
1797 118 187
1798 193 176
1799 156 194
1800 133 157
1801 134 134
1802 224 249
1803 126 143
1804 101 134
1805 336 109
1806 229 227
1807 137 143
1808 138 115
1809 89 101
1810 84 150
1811 192 154
1812 100 123
1813 86 87
1814 47 85
1815 112 112
1816 136 107
1817 108 108
1818 86 104
1819 106 115
1820 132 89
1821 119 89
1822 154 141
1823 117 122
1824 148 94
1825 101 148

9
Robert H. Jackson, Indian Population Decline, 102-104.
120
1826 140 115
1827 149 115
1828 124 189
1829 28 135
Note: The number of baptisms includes Indian adults and children entering the mission as well as
the mission-born Indian population. As for the deaths and burials, the number represents actual
burials at the mission and deaths recorded at the mission. When Franciscans learned that
members of their missions had died outside the mission, they recorded these deaths in the burial
register, despite not having buried these individuals at the mission. All information came from
the Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.

In 1794 and 1796 respectively, Fathers Magín Catalá and José Viader arrived at the
mission. By October 1797, Catalá assumed the headship of Santa Clara and Viader became his
official assistant. Together both missionaries would administer and operate the mission for
thirty-three years, well into the era of secularization.
10
Like other missionaries of Alta California
era, the friars of Santa Clara measured the success of their evangelizing efforts in the numbers of
Native baptisms, despite probable low levels of pre-baptismal instruction among Franciscans and
incomplete understandings of Catholicism among Indians at the time of baptism. Nonetheless,
Franciscans viewed baptism as the sacrament that initiated the convert into the Catholic
community, an irrevocable sign of the individual‟s commitment to Christianity. It also marked
the passage into the categories used to differentiate between those within (“civilized”) and
outside (“uncivilized”) the Spanish colonial society, the act of baptism conferred upon the
individual a new Christian identity and name. Unbeknownst to baptized Indians, the missionaries
also believed that Native consent to baptism also signified consent to be under the religious and
secular tutelage of the Church.
11

10
Maynard Geiger, Franciscan Missionaries in Hispanic California, 1769-1848: A Biographical Dictionary (San
Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press, 1969), 42-46 and 263-265.
11
Steven Hackel, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis, 143; Robert H. Jackson, From Savages to
Subjects: Missions in the History of the American Southwest. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000; and Randall
Milliken, A Time of Little Choice, 69.
121
Cognizant of the fact that the mission‟s Native population was declining, the friars of
Santa Clara and surrounding missions and Spanish military officials planned to bring back those
Natives who had fled the mission and possibly introduce non-Christianized Natives of the
eastern interior of the mission. With the aid of Christianized Native auxiliaries, Spanish
expedition forces mounted a series of aggressive campaigns into the Coast Range Mountains to
retrieve runaway mission Indians and new “recruits” in 1804 between1806. In the meantime at
Santa Clara, a plot among baptized and non-baptized Natives to rebel and kill the missionaries
had been uncovered. With the rebellion thwarted and its leaders taken into custody compounded
with punitive expeditions to return and recruit Indians, Tayssens of the eastern Coast Ranges and
Luechas of the southeast Livermore Valley poured into Santa Clara en masse.
12

Yda Sislote counted herself among the Luechas. Natives such as Yda Sislote who had
little choice but to enter the missions did find ways to retain indigenous customs in the face of
what may have been forced conversion. Indigenous practices did not escape the notice of the new
mission leadership at Santa Clara. Unsurprisingly, Franciscan missionaries harbored critical and
disapproving opinions of Native cultural practices. Their goal of replacing indigenous customs
with Spanish ones was thwarted repeatedly, as Natives continued to practice their religious
traditions even in their Christianized state. At the behest of the Secretary of the Department of
Overseas Colonies in Cadiz, California missionaries answered a set of questions concerning the
lifeways and customs of Native Californians. Perhaps out of concern for their precarious
standing with the politically embattled Crown, Franciscans throughout California missions
reported responses fraught with contradictions, self-congratulatory statements concerning their
missionary successes, and disparaging ethnographic observations. Cultural chauvinism aside,

12
Laurence Shoup and Randall Milliken, Inigo of Rancho Posolmi: The Life and Times of a Mission Indian
(Oakland: Ballena Press, 1999), 74-80.
122
these missionary reports contain valuable information about Native peoples, particularly their
funerary customs.
On behalf of Santa Clara Mission, Fathers Magín Catalá and José Viader, two Spanish
friars who up to that point had lived and worked among the Ohlone for seventeen years,
responded to the questionnaire in November 1814. Unlike some of their fellow missionaries, the
friars gave brief answers to the thirty-six-question inquiry. For example, in response to the
question of whether or not Indians retained the customs of the early ancestors, Catalá and Viader
briefly responded that the Indians “have no knowledge of their remote ancestors nor of the land
from which they came.” In answer to the question Native ceremonial burial practices, the two
simply stated that “in the time of mourning and at funerals the Indians have no other ceremony
than to weep or yell until they tire. Sometimes they bury the deceased‟[s] clothes and trinkets
with him.”
13

Other friars from missions in Ohlone territory provided more in-depth responses. Fathers
Narciso Durán and Buenaventura Fortuny from nearby San José Mission reiterated and
elaborated upon the abovementioned question with this response:
To express their sorrow at burials they have no other ceremony than to cry much with
shouts and wailings. They also enclose with the departed all his clothes and trinkets, etc.
thinking erroneously that he will have need of them. For they relish some ideas of
immortality of some part of a person though a ridiculous one. As soon as one dies and
sometimes when one is still alive (there are cases) they bury or cremate them…
14

Contrary to Catalá and Viader‟s assertion that Natives had no knowledge of their ancestors, these
responses suggest that Natives retained and observed the practices that preserved the ancestral

13
Catalá and Viader translated and quoted by Maynard Geiger in As the Padres Saw Them: California Indian Life
and Customs as reported by the Franciscans Missionaries, 1813-1815 (Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Mission
Archive Library, 1976), 99.
14
Narciso Durán and Buenaventura Fortuny also translated and quoted by Maynard Geiger in As the Padres Saw
Them, 99.
123
links of their past. Moreover, Ohlones persisted in their cultural practices, even after thirty-seven
years after the establishment of Santa Clara Mission.
Yet the persistence of indigenous practice should not be construed as the outright
rejection of Christianity. While Natives like Yda Sislote found ways to momentarily take leave
of Santa Clara, and perhaps even preferred to die away from the mission, most Indians were
buried at the mission‟s cemetery. Undoubtedly, some Natives wholly rejected missionization, as
is evidenced by fugitivism or acts of resistance toward Spanish clerics. In his study of San Carlos
Mission in the Monterey Bay area, Steven Hackel suggests that Natives experienced a range of
responses to Christianity, from hostile rejection to whole or partial acceptance.
15
While scholars
disagree on the extent to which colonized Natives embraced Christianity, syncretic compromise
and the persistence of indigenous values are evident in the archaeological record of mission
cemeteries.
16
Thus partial acceptance of Christianity among Santa Clara Mission Indians can be
interpreted as a unique religious system, as Indians found ways to incorporate Christian and
indigenous elements into their cosmology.
Although limited in number, excavations such as the ones at Missions La Purísima
Concepción and Santa Clara shed light on mortuary behaviors. Common patterns at mission
cemeteries reveal that bodies were shrouded and faced east, as people believed that Christ would
come from that direction.
17
Yet evidence from the mission cemeteries reveals that bodies were

15
Steven Hackel, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis, 128.
16
Historical and anthropological literature views the clash of Native and Iberian religious systems from two
different perspectives. The first considers the compromises of New Spain‟s Indian cultures as an effort to reach a
common ground with their colonizers, which simultaneously benefited the acculturation efforts of imperial Spain.
The second group emphasizes minimal acculturation among Native Americans, suggesting that Indians worshiped
their deities under the guise of Spanish forms in order to maintain some semblance of cultural continuity. The
adherents of the latter group, therefore, view religious syncretism as a form of passive resistance rather than
accommodation. For more, see Richard E. Greenleaf, “The Persistence of Native Values: the Inquisition and the
Indians of Colonial Mexico,” The Americas 50, no. 3 (1994): 351-376.
17
Martina Will de Chaparro found evidence of this practice in the Franciscan-operated areas of colonial New
Mexico. For more see, Will de Chaparro, Death and Dying in New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New
124
arranged in various orientations. For example, in the Chumash culture area, the excavation of the
cemetery at La Purísima Concepción demonstrates that the bodies were buried in numerous
orientations, probably facing the mission church or el Camino Real. Furthermore, those burials
lacked of grave goods, with one exception probably dated sometime after the secularization of
the Alta California missions.
18

Recent excavations of two burial grounds at Santa Clara suggest that a different situation
existed there.
19
In the Native cemetery of the first mission, the excavation of eleven bodies, from
approximately six thousand interred, revealed over 1,900 shell and 484 glass beads (see Figure
1). The mission‟s last cemetery, used from 1825-1851, also shows extensive evidence of the use
of burial goods in the form of shells, and the newly introduced customs of coffin burials.
20
While
the glass beads appear to be from Bohemia and Venice, all shell beads had been crafted by
Native peoples, with the majority of them coming from the Central Coast or Chumash culture
area.
21

Mexico Press, 2007), 122. Also, excavations of seventeenth-century Spanish-Indian mission sites in Florida reveal
similar patterns, where the head of the deceased was situated to the east but facing west. For more, see Brent
Richards Weisman, Excavations on the Franciscan Frontier: Archaeology at the Fig Springs Mission (Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 1992), 69-75 and 175-180.
18
Richard V. Humphrey, “The La Purísima Mission Cemetery” in University of California Los Angeles
Archaeological Survey Annual Report 7 (1965): 190.
19
As a result of earthquake damage and periodic flooding, Santa Clara Mission moved at least three times between
1777 through 1837, resulting in five church sites and more than one cemetery. While at least two mission cemeteries
existed, it is plausible that other burial grounds were used. Archaeological excavations during the 1980s and 1990s
reveal that “old” cemetery was situated immediately north of the third mission church. With the construction of the
fifth mission church (1822-1825), located on the present-day campus of Santa Clara University, it is assumed that
the old cemetery remained in use even as the mission churches were re-sited. Skowronek and Wizorek maintain that
positive evidence for this cannot be known until there are controlled excavations. See Russell K. Skowronek and
Julie C. Wizorek, “Archaeology at Santa Clara de Asís: The Slow Rediscovery of a Moveable Mission,” Pacific
Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 33, no. 3 (1997): 75.
20
Russell K. Skowronek, “Sifting the Evidence: Perceptions of Life at the Ohlone (Costanoan) Missions of Alta
California,” Ethnohistory 45, no.4 (1998): 686.
21
Mark G. Hylkema, Archaeological Investigations at the Third Location of Mission Santa Clara de Asís: The
Murguia Mission, 1781-1818 (Oakland, Ca: California Department of Transportation, District 4) 73-79.
125

Figure 4.1: Illustrations of pendants and shell beads found in the excavations of the Santa Clara
cemetery. Group A shows four-sided or five-sided pendants, group B is a tube bead made from
clam shell; clam disk beads form group C; and group D shows Olivella beads. Adapted from
Skowronek Russell K. and Julie C. Wizorek, “Archaeology at Santa Clara de Asís: The Slow
Rediscovery of a Moveable Mission,” Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 33, no. 3
(1997): 84.

The presence of shell beads is significant because shells served as both a medium of trade
and indicator of social status. California Indians peoples, as well as their neighbors in the
Southwest, valued Olivella beads. Made from the shells of sea snails, Olivella underwent a
lengthy process in order to be useable. The manufacturer first treated the shell with heat, which
126
gave it either a uniform whitish color or a gray-black color, depending upon the duration of
heating time. Softened from the heat, the shell was then ready to be cut into fragments. The
producer then tapped the shell with a hard object or inserted a wedge down the center of the
Olivella, forcing it to fracture or he would have used a sharp object to cut it. The third step
involved grinding the shell to the point that the edges would become smooth. Once it became
smooth to the touch, the final step required that the shell be perforated with a hole drilled into it
or through it using a sharp, thin object.
22
This allowed the shell to be placed through string for
wear or trade. This time-intensive process conferred value to the worked shell. Therefore it
would make sense that goods of value, such as shell beads, would accompany the deceased on
his journey to the afterlife.
What is striking about the excavation is the time frame in which these beads were dated.
Analysis of the mostly Olivella beads in the frontal zone of the cemetery reveals that the grave
goods date from the early mission period, approximately 1770 to 1800. Similarly, the glass bead
assemblage was probably deposited between 1781 and 1800.
23
The early dating of these
materials lends credence to the idea that the early Franciscan leadership of Santa Clara Mission
made concessions to the Natives who wished to retain their indigenous practices. Furthermore,
the Indians of the early mission period were overwhelming young people as opposed to adults,
which would also suggest that Indians were able to develop ties to the Franciscans without
having to surrender their cultural autonomy.
24

22
The steps taken to prepare the Olivella shell may be found in Leslie L. Hartzell, “Archaeological Evidence for
Stages of Manufacture of Olivella Shell Beads in California.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology,
13 no. 1 (1991): 36-37.
23
Mark G. Hylkema, Archaeological Investigations at the Third Location of Mission Santa Clara de Asís, 77 and 85.
24
Randall Milliken, A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area,
1769-1812 (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1995), 113.
127
The preponderance of shell beads in the small excavation area would suggest that Native
peoples valued the shell over the manufactured European glass beads. Indeed, Franciscans used
beads as a means to attract Natives to the missions. Yet for Europeans the value of beads as a
vehicle of mission recruitment ended there. Alternatively Natives regarded beads as a sign of
material wealth. According to Rebecca Allen, two economic systems dominated the missions:
one introduced and controlled by Franciscans and the other a Native system of value maintained
by the mission Indians.
25
While the two value systems may have been operating conterminously,
it would be wrong to dismiss the two as incompatible systems. Fathers Magín Catalá and José
Viader knew that Natives buried the dead with their “trinkets,” even years after the Franciscan
presence among the Ohlone. While the friars may have viewed this practice as constitutive of
“erroneous” beliefs, they nonetheless were aware of it and allowed it to perpetuate in the
confines of mission cemeteries.
Additionally, we should not dismiss the idea that these missionaries turned a blind eye
toward the continuation of indigenous practices. Ambiguous language used in the burial records
of the Santa Clara sacramental registers suggests that perhaps the missionaries themselves did
not bury the deceased, but rather merely officiated over the Christian rite of burial. For example,
from the beginning of the mission through 1802, missionaries prefaced the burials of Natives
with the phrase “se dio sepultura” which loosely translates as “burial was given to…” After this
period, the missionaries such as Catalá and Viader prefaced their burials with the more precise
language of “dí sepultura” or “I buried.”
26
Thus, it is likely that prior to the time that Catalá and
Viader began to tighten their reigns over the mission‟s affairs, Natives bore the responsibility of

25
Rebecca Allen, Native Americans at Mission Santa Cruz, 1791-1834: Interpreting the Archaeological Record
(Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles Institute of Archaeology, 1998), 95.
26
A review of the Santa Clara death records from the Early California Population Project database reveals that there
are 64 incidents of priests recording “se dio sepultura” before 1803. The practice fades and does not re-appear again
until 8 Mar 1834, where there are 18 additional instances through 1847.
128
burying their dead and adding beads at the mission gravesites, presumably after a Franciscan
performed the Christian rite.
On the face of it, control of Santa Clara Mission‟s activities, such as more aggressive
recruitment of Natives, had been a facet of Catalá and Viader‟s early leadership there. Other than
the spike in baptisms in 1805, the numbers of “recruits” and new baptisms did not approach the
numbers they had during the first few decades of the mission‟s existence. Through the 1810s, the
rates of baptisms dropped as deaths kept apace or exceeded baptisms (see Table 1 for the years in
question).
By the later 1820s, however, changes in the mission administration compounded with
international incidents triggered yet another wave of syncretic practices in the burial grounds of
Santa Clara. When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, the Spanish-born Catalá
and Viader were called upon to take the oath of allegiance to the Republic of Mexico. Both men
refused to comply. They and other missionaries who also refused would have been expelled
except that there were not enough Mexican-born priests to take their positions.
27
Nonetheless,
both missionaries persisted in the construction of a new mission complex, despite still low
numbers of Native baptisms (refer to the number of baptisms for the 1820s in Table 1). By 1825,
the new church and cemetery grounds were in use.
Archaeological excavations from Santa Clara Mission‟s last cemetery turned up over
2,000 beads. Unlike the earlier period, glass beads feature more prominently in the latter burials,
totaling 2,347 and strewn in a much smaller area than the first cemetery.
28
The evidence suggests
that as Spain‟s tenuous grasp on its colonies slipped away in the 1820s and the era of California

27
Russell Skowronek, Situating Mission Santa Clara de Asis, 1776-1851, Documentary and Material Evidence of
Life on the Alta California Frontier: A Timeline (Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2006), 239.
28
Russell K. Skowronek and Julie C. Wizorek, “Archaeology at Santa Clara de Asís: The Slow Rediscovery of a
Moveable Mission,” Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 33, no. 3 (1997): 81.
129
mission secularization began, mortuary practices at that mission seemingly underwent change.
Although it is possible that beads from the middle period of Catalá and Viader‟s reign may be
located in future excavations, grave goods dated from approximately 1820s through the 1840s
suggests that the combined practice of indigenous religious customs with European,
Christianized ones accelerated as Spanish missionization drew to a close. Additionally, Natives‟
incorporation of the glass beads should also be considered an indication of Indian peoples‟
adaptability to European goods into their lives. It is possible that early and minimal use of glass
beads in the first mission cemetery yielded to more and greater inclusion of European goods in
later years. Indeed, multiple excavations of Natives‟ living and working quarters at Missions San
Antonio and Santa Cruz reveal similar evidence of Natives using Spanish-introduced goods in
their daily lives and rituals.
29

This occurred at other burial grounds during the mission period. Despite the presence of
missions in California, Natives throughout the province found ways to bury their own without
the interference of the missionaries. Father south in the Chumash culture area, Indians used a
cemetery in Humaliwo, present-day Malibu, from about 1775 to 1805, in spite of the existence of
several nearby missions, such as San Fernando and San Buenaventura. Even though Humaliwo
housed a cemetery for a short time, shell and glass beads abounded at the site. Excavations of the
region retrieved approximately 15,000 glass beads there, along with other items related to horses
and ranches, such as silver ornaments, saddle bells, and spurs. These objects may have signified
the kind of work that these Indians performed at the missions during their lifetimes, such as cow
hands. The Native burial officiants placed weapons in the graves of a few individuals, including

29
For more on the excavations of Mission Santa Cruz, see Rebecca Allen, Native Americans at Mission Santa Cruz,
1791-1834: Interpreting the Archaeological Record (Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles Institute of
Archaeology, 1998) and for Mission San Antonio, see Robert L. Hoover and Julia G. Costello, Excavations at
Mission San Antonio, 1976-1978 (Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles,
1985).
130
a Spanish sword and a pistol altered with asphaltum so that it could function as a container. Even
household goods like metal knives and cups turned up in the Humaliwo cemetery. More
interestingly, one individual had been laid to rest with a medal of St. Francis de Sales, the
seventeenth-century Bishop of Geneva and the patron saint of both writers and the deaf.
30
These
burial goods show the degree to which indigenous peoples incorporated European and Catholic
elements into their lives.
In comparison with the mostly Native cemeteries, the evidence from within mission
churches and presidio chapels paint another picture of mortuary rituals. While mission Indians
were not barred wholesale from burial within the walls or under the floorboards of the church, to
be buried in such prime locales was nonetheless deemed a privilege bestowed upon those
considered “worthy,” like the missionaries themselves. An examination of Santa Clara‟s burial
records indicates that 41 Natives were buried within the walls of that mission‟s church before
1829, while only two non-Indians were buried in there.
31
This is in striking contrast to the
numbers of Natives buried in the walls at nearby San Francisco Mission, which numbered at
least 350 before 1823. Comparatively, 106 Natives were buried in San Carlos Mission Church
through 1834.
32
Although the criteria that missionaries used to determine who received a church
burial as opposed to a cemetery burial are unknown, these disparate figures speak to the variety
of burial practices that the Franciscans themselves employed.
Franciscans also employed other burial practices that incorporated the use of religious
garments. The missionaries themselves occasionally buried deceased Indians in the Franciscan

30
A summary of the excavation findings may be found in John G. Douglass and Patrick B. Stanton, “Living During
a Difficult Time: A Comparison of Ethnohistoric, Bioarchaeological, Archaeological Data During the Mission
Period, Southern California.” Society for California Archaeology Proceedings 24 (2010): 3.
31
See Appendix H (“Church Burials at Santa Clara Mission”) for the raw data and description of how I arrived at
this number.
32
I arrived at these figures by searching the burial locations of San Francisco and San Carlos Missions in
Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.
131
habit. Religious studies scholar Quincy D. Newell found evidence of three examples of such
burials at San Francisco Mission and five at San Buenaventura Mission.
33
Franciscans likely saw
this as an honor, a visible sign of one‟s faithfulness to Catholicism and a commitment to live as
St. Francis had. But the shrouding of Indian bodies in the garments of the religious allowed
Franciscans to convey a specific message to the living: lead an exemplary, pious life on earth and
receive a heavenly reward. Such a practice, however, also further demonstrates how often
European and Indian burial practices intersected. The influence that missionaries and Indians had
on each other and the resulting mixture of cultural practices made it possible for Indians to bury
their own with the medal of St. Francis de Sales and the missionaries to inter Indians in the
Franciscan habit.
While descriptive archaeological information for those buried within the walls of Santa
Clara Mission Church is lacking, it is possible to extrapolate from other archaeological
investigations of churches and presidio chapels how non-Indian elites were buried. Interred
clothed and coffined, these individuals were laid to rest without shell beads but with a variety of
other items. For example, the handful of exhumed bodies of gente de Razón (a popular
designation for non-Indians) at the Santa Barbara Presidio Chapel shows that these persons had
been buried with rosary beads. In one case of a burial of a young woman, a soldier‟s blade rested
upon her, not unlike the burial of the Indian with a soldier‟s sword. Osteological analysis of the
remains of the Santa Barbara Presidio Chapel burials, however, suggests that these individuals
were mixed heritage, containing the characteristics indicative of Native American, African

33
Quincy D. Newell, Constructing Lives at Mission San Francisco: Native Californians and Hispanic Colonists
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009), 158.
132
American and European descent. Such intermixture highlights the fluid character of social
stratification and religious complexity in New Spain‟s northern frontier.
34

Given the high rate of death in the missions, space in the campo santo must have been at
a premium. Indeed, soil samples from the later Santa Clara cemetery site reveal the common
European practice of adding lime to the soil to facilitate decomposition. Unlike the earlier
cemetery at that mission, evidence of coffin use is also present, as the redwood of the caskets
would have also had a similar effect in aiding decomposition. It is also possible that the high
death rates would have led to alternative mortuary practices, either performed or acknowledged
by the Franciscans. In fact, one Euro-American observer visiting Santa Barbara Mission in the
1840s reported that the resident priest gave him a tour of the grounds; as he entered the cemetery,
he viewed in one corner the “charnel house, crowded with a ghastly array of skulls and bones.”
35

This would suggest that even in the late mission period, well after secularization and into the
Mexican period, treating the remains of the dead did not always conform to the tradition of
Christian inhumation practices.
Just as notions of caste or racial “purity” are mythic, notions of “pure” Christianity are
equally artificial. By the time Christianity was brought to the New World, it was itself syncretic.
Rather than being a static, monolithic entity, Christianity had millennia to integrate practices
from around the world and to uniquely express itself in local situations.
36
Indeed, for all the
Franciscans‟ complaints of Natives‟ tenuous grasp of Christian principles and hankerings for
their indigenous religions, Spaniards also practiced a brand of Christianity that was informed by

34
Julia G. Costello and Phillip L. Walker, “Burials from the Santa Barbara Presidio Chapel,” Historical
Archaeology 21, no.1 (1987): 4-7.
35
Alfred Robinson, Life in California: During a residence of several years in that territory, compromising a
description of the country and missionary establishments, etc. (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846), 45.
36
For a thoughtful discussion of the syncretic nature of Christianity, see Elizabeth Graham, “Mission Archaeology.”
Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 29-30.
133
“superstition.” In the 1814 questionnaire, Catalá and Viader noted that Natives “in their pagan
state… held and still hold a most ridiculous idea concerning the immortality of the soul.”
37
Yet
Catalá himself subscribed to superstitious ideas, albeit couched in “Christian” terms. According
to folklore, Catalá regularly roamed the streets of the Pueblo of San José, exorcising and
eliminating “legions of devils” that had descended upon the town. In another instance, the friar
purported that he could sense and name the ghost of the deceased who haunted his parishioner‟s
house.
38
Thus, despite the efforts of Franciscans to demonstrate indigenous religions as abhorrent
or contrary to Christianity, Franciscans themselves practiced a form of Christianity that was
informed by centuries of syncretic and “superstitious” practices.
Catalá died at Santa Clara Mission in 1830, the same year that saw only 32 baptisms and
68 burials of Natives.
39
Viader left California three year later, as he saw the administration of
Santa Clara change hands to Mexican, secular priests. The archaeological evidence for the last
cemetery of Santa Clara, however, reveal the presence of grave goods well in to the 1840s and
early 1850s, after which point the cemetery grounds were moved again. Thus, the remains and
their attendant grave goods bring to light how pre-contact Native practices blended with Roman
Catholic rituals. While Natives continued to assent to burial at the mission, funerary practices
retained their indigenous elements, such as the inclusion of shell beads, suggesting the formation
of a brand of Christianity that was deeply influenced by two, disparate traditions.

37
Catalá and Viader translated and quoted by Maynard Geiger in As the Padres Saw Them: California Indian Life
and Customs as reported by the Franciscans Missionaries, 1813-1815 (Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Mission
Archive Library, 1976), 145.
38
Zephyrin Engelhardt, The Holy Man of Santa Clara or Life, Virtue, and Miracles of Fr. Magín Catalá (San
Francisco, CA: James H. Barry, 1909), 150-156.
39
Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.
134

Epilogue
The Franciscans held onto the missions well after Mexico won its independence from
Spain in 1821, but they faced new challenges from ensuing political and social reorganizations.
These changes produced new laws and officials. By the late 1820s, Mexican authorities ushered
in reforms to commence the privatization of mission properties. A transfer of power from the
ecclesiastics to secular governors and large ranching families took place in the 1830s and 1840s.
Known as secularization, the long and fraught process saw the replacement of missionaries by
parish priests, something that Franciscans had long avoided. Civil administrators controlled and
appropriated property that had belonged to the missions. Settlers, soldiers, and even some
Indians managed to procure some of the remaining properties. Most notably, Indians secured
their emancipation from the missions. No longer expected to live at the missions or required to
answer to priests, Indians finally won the right to come and go as they pleased or decide whether
or not they wanted to participate in the life of the church. By the late 1820s, Natives submitted
formal petitions requesting disaffiliation from their respective missions, which were approved.
Mission Indians like Vicente Juan and Gaspar of La Soledad received permission to leave the
mission in 1827. So too did Jacobo Niacopal and spouse, Christina Samanar, of San Diego ask
for and receive permission to disaffiliate with the mission
1

Yet these changes did nothing to allay the scourge of disease. New waves of epidemics
continued to decimate those Indians who remained affiliated with the missions. For example, at
San Carlos Mission from May through August 1844, 89 persons succumbed to measles, 56 of
them Indian children and adults. At La Purísima Concepción during the summer and fall of the
same year, 54 Native adults and children died from measles, probably the same epidemic that

1
Approval of Natives’ petitions and copies of the petitions may be found in Huntington Library, Alexander Taylor
Collection, Box 7, items 4:0152, 4:0304
135

traveled southward from San Carlos. Fifteen of them died at the mission, their bodies buried in
the church cemetery.
2
The others died outside of the mission. Perhaps they, like so many before
them, opted to live their final days in their home villages.
The aged Franciscans who remained in the missions also continued to endure health
problems or died from their ailments. In 1834, Fr. Narciso Duran complained to then-Governor
José Figueroa that he was “in very short supply of useful religious and in a little while I will not
know of or have someone who can lend [us] a hand. Father Juan Moreno, I believe, will die in a
short while. The others you know well: among the old, lame, and crippled there are few who are
useful.”
3
Duran’s complaint regarding the lack of able-bodied missionaries was actually a
perennial one. For years, the missionaries or their superiors at the College of San Fernando tried
to recruit more religious to the far-flung province but with limited success. Many missionaries
who opted to stay in the region despite ongoing health issues lived out their remaining days in
California. For example, in September 1840, Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta – the missionary who 20
years earlier thanked God for his pains and rejected the assistance of a doctor – died at Santa Inés
Mission after serving in the province for 32 years. His death record tells of long struggle with
illness. Father José Joaquín Ximeno, Arroyo de la Cuesta’s burial officiant, noted that the
missionary “worked little on account of his painful illness which impeded his ability to walk
about or stand for a long period of time.” And, as if harkening back to the missionary’s statement

2
These numbers come from analyses of the San Carlos and La Purísima Concepción burial records. See SC burial
record numbers 03155Y- 03156Y; 03158Y; 03161Y-03166Y; 03169Y; 03171Y-03188Y; 03191Y-03192Y;
03194Y-03195Y; 03199Y; 03201Y-03205Y; 03207Y-03208Y; 03210Y-03220Y; 03222Y-03229Y; 03231Y-
03237Y; 03239Y; 03241Y-03246Y; 03248Y-03250Y; 03252Y-03254Y; 03256Y; 03258Y-03263Y; and 03265Y-
03267Y. Also see LPC burial record numbers 02909 and 02909a through 02964. The records for both missions are
in Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.
3
“Yo ya soy escaseando mucho de Religiosos útiles y dentro poco tiempo no sabré o no tendré de quien echar
mano. El P. Juan Moreno creo que se muere dentro poco tiempo. Los demás ya US nos conoce: entre viejos, cojos y
tullidos poco hay de escojer de útil…” Narciso Duran to José Figueroa, dated July 22, 1834, Huntington Library,
Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 8, item 4:0469.
136

that what mattered most to him was not his health but his conformity to do God’s will, Ximeno
added that Arroyo de la Cuesta “died very much in conformance with the will of God.”
4

Throughout the 1840s, as the last of the Spanish missionaries who had come from the
College of San Fernando to evangelize in California started to pass away, the remnants of their
medical traditions came to light. In 1842, José María del Refugio Suárez del Real, a Mexican
priest who arrived in San Carlos to take over the administration of the former mission, conducted
an inventory of the items contained in the church, chapel, sacristy as well as the house of the
former missionary. Among the books he located were three volumes of Antonio José
Rodriguez’s Nuevo Aspecto and one volume of a medical handbook entitled Medicina
Domestica.
5
It is likely that these belonged to or may have been shared by two generations of
missionaries at San Carlos: Friar José Viñals, who performed a postmortem cesarean on Galicana
Choja at that mission in 1801, and Vicente Francisco de Sarría, who also performed the same
operation on a young Indian woman in 1822 and wrote a treatise on the practice.
And at Santa Clara, Native men, women, and children continued to participate in the ex-
mission’s funerary rites. In 1840, 74 Natives received the sacrament of burial in the cemetery.
Among them was Ygnacio, described by the priest as “emancipated” from the mission. Although
Ygnacio was free to choose his burial location, he clearly chose the mission because he had
received communion, penance, and extreme unction at the time of his death. Like Ygnacio,

4
“en esta ultima Misión [de Santa Inés] trabajó poco por su enfermedad penosa que le impedía el andar y aun
pararse por largo rato… murió mui conforme en la voluntad de Dios,” José Joaquín Ximeno, dated September 22,
1840 in Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta’s burial record, SI 01400 in Huntington Library, Early California Population
Project Database, 2006.
5
José María del Refugio Suarez del Real, “Inventario Gral de las existencias que hay en la Yglecia Sacristía Capilla
Bautisterio y Casa del P. Mtro de la Micion de S. Carlos de Monterey,” dated June 22, 1842, Huntington Library,
Alexander Taylor Collection, Box 8, ítems 4:0596-4:0598.
137

hundreds of Natives – 576 of them total– chose to be buried at the former mission between the
start of 1840 and the end of 1849. A handful of them were buried in the church itself.
6

These stories from the former missions of Alta California underscore the principal themes
of this dissertation: Indians and Franciscans’ struggles with sickness; Franciscans’ difficulties
with recruiting and retaining able-bodies religious in the area; Franciscans’ use of postmortem
cesareans; and Indians’ choices to accept or reject Christian funerary practices. As this study
demonstrates, California Indians and Franciscans had their own ideas about medical and funerary
practices. At various missions throughout the province, both groups often found themselves
functioning as “medics of the soul and the body,” tending to the physical and spiritual needs of
their respective constituents.
As explored in the history of the Chumash and the Santa Barbara area missions, Native
peoples attempted to restore the health of the sick by retaining and exercising their traditional
customs, even when massive population decline threatened tradition. The Chumash viewed their
medical practices through the lens of religion, which frustrated Franciscan efforts to convert
Natives to Christianity. Instead, the Chumash elected if and when they entered the missions.
Environmental changes may have had a greater influence on whether or not the Chumash joined
the missions than the efforts of the missionaries themselves.
Franciscans, in turn, used sickness in a myriad of ways that proved beneficial to them.
Sickness served as a legitimate excuse to leave the province, which was seen as an unhealthful
place. Yet for those sick missionaries who remained in the province, illness could be used to
illustrate the degree to which life at the edge of empire had taken its toll. Complaints of ailments

6
I arrived at these figures by searching the Early California Population Project: I isolated the Santa Clara Mission
burials for the year 1840 and removed those burials for non-Indian persons (“Razon”) from the record retrieved. I
did the same for all burials in the 1840s. Ygnacio’s burial record states that he was “emancipado de esta [mision]”;
See SCL burial 07513; and for those buried in the church see SCL burial records 07780, 07801-07802, 07804,
07813, 07937, 07946, and 08052 in Huntington Library, Early California Population Project Database, 2006.
138

could demonstrate one’s faithfulness to the cause of evangelization, even to the point of death.
Diagnosed as sufferers of hypochondria and hysteria, sick missionaries impeded the Crown’s
efforts to transform this neglected outpost into a thriving colony.
Yet Franciscans noticed more than just their own sicknesses: they expressed a concern
over the number of sick Indians among them. Although they did not understand the science
behind disease transmission, Franciscans recognized that sickness took the lives of the very
people they were attempting to “save.” The missionaries responded to Native demographic
decline by employing their medical knowledge to perform baptismal cesareans on the bodies of
mostly deceased Indian women who died before they could birth. This allowed the Franciscans
to baptize more Indians then they would have without the performing the procedure, their way of
spiritually saving Natives when they could not physically save them.
While Franciscan and indigenous medical traditions were often at odds with each other,
burial practices demonstrate the degree of influence that both friars and Native peoples had on
each other. Natives made certain choices about how to bury their dead. These choices included
how to situate the body in the grave; what goods would be interred with the body; and where a
body would be laid to rest. Natives made these choices drawing on both Christian and traditional
practices, even those that the Franciscans tacitly approved of. As the investigation of burial
practices demonstrates, missionaries and Indians created funerary spaces of cultural and religious
hybridity.

139

Appendix A
Santa Barbara Mission Burials in 1801

Methodological Approach: The following data come from the Early California Population
Project database. I isolated Santa Barbara Mission burials for the year 1801. A total of 144
records were retrieved for this year.
In counting the number of people buried in one year, I included those who were buried at
the mission and those outside of the mission. Among the latter group, relatives of the deceased or
fellow villagers customarily performed the burial (which is noted in the “Officiant” field). A few
records do not have burial dates, but because the record appears chronologically in 1801 these
were included as part of the overall tally.
Note that the text in yellow signifies that the individual was buried in some place other
than the mission. The text highlighted in green signifies those who definitely died of illness.
Mission Number
Burial
Date
Burial Place
Spanish
Name
Native
Name
Origin
Age
at
Death
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Death
Place
Death
Cause
Officiant
SB 00665 14 Jan
1801
Cementerio Josef de
Leonisa
Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00666 14 Jan
1801
Cementerio Estevan
Maria
Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00667 16 Jan
1801
Cementerio Conrado
Jose
Pichait Aquitsumu,
Rancheria
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00668 17 Jan
1801
Cementerio Jorge Jose Geló,
rancheria de
a a Gelo,
rancheria
de
Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00669 18 Jan
1801
Cementerio Junipero
Josef
Miquigui,
Rancheria
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00670 21 Jan
1801
Cementerio Juana
Nepomucena
Misopsno,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00671 22 Jan
1801
Cementerio Zenon Jose Misopsno,
Rancheria
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00672 22 Jan
1801
Cementerio Gil Josef Huayppihahuata Miquigui,
Rancheria
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00673 23 Jan
1801
Cementerio Maria de los
Dolores
Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00674 24 Jan
1801
Cementerio Leonardo
Jose
Estucu,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00675 26 Jan
1801
Cementerio Lucrecia Sniguaj,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00676 30 Jan
1801
Cementerio Maria Juana Snajalayegua,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00677 31 Jan
1801
Cementerio Eulalia
Maria
Snajalayegua,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00678 31 Jan
1801
Cementerio Sinforiano
de Jesus
Mision 11 a mu Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00679 1 Feb
1801
Cementerio Sebastian
Josef
Miquigui,
rancheria de
a a Miquigui,
dicha
rancheria
enfermedad Cortés,
Juan
SB 00680 1 Feb
1801
Cementerio Odon Lihuinunauit Tequeps,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00681 1 Feb
1801
Cementerio Chrisanto Masejupmes Aquitsumu,
rancheria
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00682 1 Feb
1801
Cementerio N. Mision 0 d p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00683 3 Feb
1801
Cementerio Maria Benita Mision p Cortés,
Juan
140

SB 00684 [Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
Andres Jaguinunatset Miquigui,
rancheria de
a a [Miquigui
], misma
rancheria
[Unstated]
SB 00685 3 Feb
1801
Cementerio Jose Manuel Alulumagele Siujtu,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00686 [Salaguaj],
misma
rancheria
Delfina Mision a a Salaguaj,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00687 3 Feb
1801
Geliec,
rancheria de
Fortunato Squecuna Snajalayegua,
rancheria de
a a Buenavent
ura
Ulunauit...
y otros
varios
neofitos
SB 00688 9 Feb
1801
Cementerio Maria
Monica
Mision p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00689 10 Feb
1801
Cementerio Pastor
Antonio
Huililic,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00690 13 Feb
1801
Cementerio Brigida
Maria
Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00691 15 Feb
1801
Cementerio Felicitas
Maria
Mision a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00692 15 Feb
1801
Cementerio Oliva Maria Geliec,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00693 [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
Maria
Antonia
[Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
a a Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
Juan Pablo
y otros
Christianos
y gentiles
SB 00694 17 Feb
1801
Cementerio Ruperto Geló,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00695 [Eljmána],
misma
rancheria
Mauricio
Juan
Mision 12 a mu Eljmána,
rancheria
de
sus
proprios
padres y
otros
Neofitos
SB 00696 20 Feb
1801
Cementerio Regina
Maria
Mision 12 a mu Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00697 20 Feb
1801
Cementerio Ramona
Maria
Sisuchy,
rancheria de
a a [Sisuchy],
dicha
rancheria
Cortés,
Juan
SB 00698 21 Feb
1801
Cementerio Paladia
Maria
Alcajch,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00699 22 Feb
1801
Cementerio Ygnacio Mahuyaliti Miquigui,
rancheria
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00700 26 Feb
1801
Cementerio Caietano
Joseph
Misopsno,
Rancheria
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00701 27 Feb
1801
Cementerio Ramon Alisapiyol Geliec,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00702 1 Mar
1801
Cementerio Julita Tequeps,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00703 3 Mar
1801
Cementerio Nicasio Yalachuit Coloc,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00704 3 Mar
1801
Cementerio Maria
Felicitas
Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00705 3 Mar
1801
Cementerio Maria de las
Nieves
Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00706 [Saspili],
dicha
rancheria
Ysabel
Maria
[Saspili] a a Saspili,
rancheria
de
Renato y
otros varios
neofitos
SB 00707 [Eljman],
misma
rancheria
Ynocencio
Joseph
Huahuichet Tequeps,
rancheria de
a a Eljman,
rancheria
de
Victorio...F
rancisco de
Paula
141

Tememinas
u y otros
SB 00708 4 Mar
1801
Cementerio Pomposa Casil,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00709 5 Mar
1801
Cementerio Gaudencia Geliec,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00710 6 Mar
1801
Cementerio Januaria Siujtu,
rancheria de
a a enfermedad Cortés,
Juan
SB 00711 7 Mar
1801
Cementerio Eduardo
Jose
Yanachu Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Saspili,
rancheria
de
Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00712 9 Mar
1801
Cementerio Delfina Coloc,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00713 Miquigui,
rancheria
dicha de
Nazario Miquigui,
rancheria de
a a Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
Juan
Capistrano.
..Toribio y
otros
Neofitos
SB 00714 13 Mar
1801
Cementerio Vicenta
Maria
Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00715 12 Mar
1801
Casil,
rancheria de
Celia [Casil] a a gentiles
SB 00716 16 Mar
1801
Cementerio Festo Alipianatset Matsnojotso,
rancheria de
a a Alcajch,
rancheria
de
Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00717 17 Mar
1801
Cementerio Bonifacia Miasap,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00718 19 Mar
1801
Cementerio Maria del
Carmen
Salaguaj,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00719 22 Mar
1801
Cementerio Pascual Silcucauit Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00720 29 Mar
1801
Cementerio Januaria
Maria
Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00721 30 Mar
1801
Salaguaj,
rancheria de
Baltasara [Salaguaj],
expresada
rancheria
p gentiles y
algunos
Neofitos
SB 00722 31 Mar
1801
Cementerio Catalina Siujtu,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00723 31 Mar
1801
Cementerio Liberata Coloc,
rancheria de
p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00724 1 Apr
1801
Cementerio Calixto Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00725 1 Apr
1801
Cementerio Joseph Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00726 Sniguaj,
misma
rancheria
Donato [Sniguaj] p Sniguaj,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00727 8 Apr
1801
Cementerio Juan Diego Sapuyanaluit Tequeps,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00728 8 Apr
1801
Cementerio Castor Culpujahuit Geliec,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00729 9 Apr
1801
Cementerio Salvador Salaguaj,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00730 10 Apr
1801
Cementerio Justa Maria Mision p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00731 10 Apr
1801
Cementerio Baltasar Guapiasu Siguaja,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00732 11 Apr
1801
Cementerio Fulgencio Yupuutset Siujtu,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00733 11 Apr
1801
Cementerio Julian Josef Geliec,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
142

SB 00734 13 Apr
1801
Saspili,
rancheria de
Raymundo Siguihayt [Saspili] a a Theodosio/
Beato
SB 00735 13 Apr
1801
[Coloc o el
Paderon],
misma
rancheria
Tiburcio Aniguili [Coloc] a a Coloc o el
Paderon,
rancheria
de
varios
Neofitos y
gentiles
SB 00736 14 Apr
1801
Cementerio Telesforo Sjamahuyaut Sjalihuilimu,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00737 15 Apr
1801
Cementerio Ramona Siguaya,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00738 15 Apr
1801
Cementerio Dionisio Patsuuquit Misopsno,
rancheria
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00739 16 Apr
1801
Cementerio Sergio [Unstated],
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00740 16 Apr
1801
Cementerio Maria
Carlota
Salaguaj,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00741 22 Apr
1801
Siujtu,
rancheria de
Jose de Jesus Suapiajat [Siujtu],
dicha
rancheria
a a Meliton...Y
gnacio
Tsnan...y
otros varios
Neofitos
SB 00742 23 Apr
1801
Cementerio Juana Maria Uchapa,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00743 27 Apr
1801
Cementerio Celia Maria Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00744 28 Apr
1801
Sniguaj,
Cementerio
de la
rancheria de
Rufina [Sniguaj] a a Pablo/Bern
abe/Euquer
io/German
SB 00745 28 Apr
1801
Sisuchi,
rancheria de
Severa
Maria
[Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
a a Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
enfermedad [Unstated]
SB 00746 [Aquitsumu],
misma
rancheria
Fortunata [Aquitsumu] 90 a a Aquitsum
u,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00747 [Unstated] Vital Tajulujaut [Unstated] 70 a a Huisapa,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00748 7 May
1801
Cementerio Ezequiel
Jose
Tequeps,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00749 11 May
1801
Cementerio Pio Joseph [Unstated],
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00750 6 May
1801
[Sniguaj],
dicha
rancheria
Francisco Pachajat [Sniguaj] a a Sniguaj,
rancheria
de
Simon y
Maria
Lugarda
SB 00751 [Tequeps],
dicha
rancheria
Manuel
Dolores
[Tequeps] p Tequeps [Unstated]
SB 00752 [Uchapa],
misma
rancheria
Josefa Maria [Uchapa] a a Uchapa,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00753 [Uchapa],
misma
rancheria
Maria
Francisca
[Uchapa] a a Uchapa,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00754 [Huililic],
dicha
rancheria
Maria Juana [Huililic] a a Huililic,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00755 [Stucu],
misma
rancheria
Jose Ameyaut Mision a a Stucu,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00756 2 Jun Cementerio Maria Mision p Tapis,
143

1801 Melchora Estevan
SB 00757 2 Jun
1801
Cementerio Maria del
Pilar
Stucu,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00758 3 Jun
1801
Cementerio Esperanza [Unstated] p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00759 17 Jun
1801
Cementerio Maria
Lugarda
Mision a a Siguaya,
rancheria
de
enfermedad Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00760 18 Jun
1801
Cementerio Julia Mision p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00761 [Stucu],
misma
rancheria
Benedicta [Stucu] a a Stucu,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00762 24 Jun
1801
Cementerio Agaton
Joseph
Miquigui,
rancheria
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00763 28 Jun
1801
Cementerio Vital Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00764 28 Jun
1801
Cementerio Lucia Maria Cuiamu,
rancheria de
p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00765 Sisuchy,
rancheria de
Francisco Casil,
rancheria de
p Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00766 [Gelo], dicha
rancheria
Rufina [Gelo] a a Gelo,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00767 Salaguaj,
rancheria de
Guillermo Gualayutset Mascchaala
en las Yslas,
rancheria de
a a Salaguaj,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00768 29 Jul
1801
Cementerio Bernardo Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00769 1 Aug
1801
Cementerio Silvestre
Josef
Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00770 6 Aug
1801
Cementerio Eulalia Tequeps,
rancheria de
p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00773 10 Aug
1801
Cementerio Benita Maria Salahuaj a a Cortés,
Juan
SB 00774 13 Aug
1801
Cementerio Maria
Serafina
Stucu,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00775 [Aquitsumu],
misma
rancheria
Estevan Tolohuit [Aquitsumu] a a Aquitsum
u,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00776 [Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
Luis Aminaitset [Miquigui],
dicha
rancheria
a a Miquigui,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00777 Sniguaj,
expresada
rancheria
Flora [Sniguaj],
dicha
rancheria
a a Sniguaj,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00778 [Casil],
misma
rancheria
Maria de
Jesus
[Casil] a a Casil,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00779 7 Sep
1801
Cementerio Lorenzo Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00780 7 Sep
1801
Cementerio Luisa Maria Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00781 [Stucu],
misma
rancheria
Fortunata
Rafaela
[Stucu],
sobredicha
rancheria
a a Stucu,
rancheria
de
gentiles
SB 00782 17 Sep
1801
Cementerio Nicolasa
Maria
Siujtu,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00783 [Saspili], Prima Mision a a Saspili, Christianos
144

misma
rancheria
rancheria
de
y gentiles
SB 00784 2 Oct
1801
Cementerio Juana
Nepomucena
Saspili,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00785 2 Oct
1801
Cementerio Geronimo Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00786 Liam en las
Yslas,
rancheria de
Jose Antonio Atesquemait [Liam en las
Yslas], dicha
rancheria
a a Liam en
las Yslas,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00787 20 Oct
1801
Cementerio Pablo Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00788 25 Oct
1801
Cementerio Juana Maria Siujtu,
rancheria de
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00789 25 Oct
1801
Cementerio Sofia Maria Miquigui,
rancheria
a a Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00790 Cuyamo,
rancheria de
Crescencia Tequeps,
rancheria de
a a Eugenio...y
otros varios
SB 00791 12 Nov
1801
Cementerio Martina Siujtu,
rancheria de
p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00792 17 Nov
1801
Cementerio Jose Mision p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00793 18 Nov
1801
Cementerio Jacinto Mision p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00794 25 Nov
1801
Cementerio Angela Mision p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00795 por el
mes de
Marzo
del
presente
año
[Mar
1801]
[Cementerio] Bernardino
Jose
Hichanauit Alcajch,
rancheria de
a a [Unstated]
SB 00796 [Cementerio] Sinforosa
Maria
Siujtu,
rancheria de
a a [Unstated]
SB 00797 27 Nov
1801
Cementerio Hilarion Sisamayol Sniguaj,
rancheria de
a a Geliec,
rancheria
de
enfermedad Cortés,
Juan
SB 00798 5 Dec
1801
Cementerio Silvestre Mision p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00799 13 Dec
1801
Cementerio Estefana Misopsno,
rancheria de
a a Siujtu,
rancheria
de
Cortés,
Juan
SB 00800 [Saspily],
misma
rancheria
Gertrudis
Maria
[Saspily] a a Saspily,
rancheria
de
enferma [Unstated]
SB 00801 15 Dec
1801
Cementerio Rufo Jose Mision p Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00802 [Saspili],
misma
rancheria
Eusebio
Joseph
Nayaya [Unstated] a a Saspili,
rancheria
de
Benbenuto.
..Elias...y
otros varios
SB 00803 22 Dec
1801
Cementerio Maria Juana Saspili,
rancheria de
p Cortés,
Juan
SB 00804 Sisuchy,
misma
rancheria
Pedro Suapiasu [Unstated] a a Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00805 Aquitsumu,
rancheria de
Maria Josefa [Aquitsumu] a a Aquitsum
u,
rancheria
de
enferma [Unstated]
SB 00806 23 Dec Cementerio Atanasio Atchahuahua Siujtu, a a Tapis,
145

1801 rancheria de Estevan
SB 00807 24 Dec
1801
Cementerio Maria
Demetria
Mision 0 d ni Cortés,
Juan
SB 00808 [Calahuasa],
misma
rancheria
Pedro Martir Mululaut [Calahuasa] a a Calahuasa
,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00809 30 Dec
1801
Cementerio Luis Chojuololoccho Calahuasa,
rancheria de
a a Tequeps,
rancheria
de
Tapis,
Estevan
SB 00810 [Saspili] Maria Josefa Mision 95 a a Saspili,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00811 [Saspili] Guillerma
Maria
Mision 105 a a Saspili,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
SB 00812 [Siujtu] Ana
Joaquina
Mision 84 a a Siujtu,
rancheria
de
[Unstated]
146

Appendix B
All Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for Individuals from the Village of Shishuch’i’

Methodological Approach: The record set for Santa Barbara Mission is quite complete compared
to other missions in that there are no major gaps of missing records or unusual inconsistencies in
the quality of the records. Furthermore, the entire population was indigenous (the sacramental
records for non-Indian persons were recorded in a separate register for the Santa Barbara
Presidio).
In searching for persons from Shishuch’i’, I isolated by mission and then searched for
variant spellings of the village name. I located a total of 145 Shishuch’i’ villagers baptized
between 1787 and May 1804.

Note: A brief explanation of the fields is necessary to understand the data. The following
information is paraphrased in the Early California Population Project User Guide, available
online at http://www.huntington.org/Information/ECPPuserguide.htm

Mission: The “SB” abbreviation in the “Mission” field indicates that all of the following records
were recorded at Santa Barbara Mission.

Number: This number designates the baptism record number that the Franciscan assigned when
the baptism was recorded in the register. The additional zeroes that appear before the number are
simply place holders.

Place: This field describes the location where the baptism occurred. In most cases, the
Franciscans performed the baptisms in the mission’s church. Occasionally, however,
missionaries or other persons baptized an individual outside of the mission.

Baptism Date: The date (actual or approximate) that baptism was performed

Baptismal Type Phrase: The language used by the recorder to describe a baptism that occurred
under exceptional circumstances, such as at the point of death or in danger of death. Phrases may
include in articulo mortis, in periculo mortis, privadamente, and en peligro de muerte.

Gender: The sex of the individual is denoted as either “M” (male) or “F” (female)

AGE: This field refers to the exact or estimated age of the individual at the time of baptism and
is usually a numerical value.

AGE UNIT: This field works in conjunction with the previous one (AGE) to indicate the age unit
of the individual at baptism. The following values include “d” for dias (days); “m” for meses
(months) “s” for semanas (weeks); and “a” for años (years)

AGE LEVEL: The information in this field also works in tandem with the two previous fields
(AGE and AGE UNIT). Missionaries classified individuals into several main categories:
adultos, viejos, mozos, muchachos, niños, parvulos and recien nacidos. The following values
include:
147

“a” for adulto/a; “mu” for muchacho/a; “mo” for mozo/a; “vi” for viejo/a; “ni” for niño/a; “p”
for parvulo/a; and “rn” recien nacido/a

Spanish Name: The Spanish name assigned to the individual by the officiating missionary at the
time of baptism

Native Name: This field contains the name of the individual as s/he was known among familiars,
before baptism.

Origin: The home village (or tribal affiliation) of the baptized individual, according to the
missionary, at the time of baptism.

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 00178 Yglesia
de esta
mission
1 Dec
1787
+ F 15 a a Maria
Rafaela
Sunipecut Sisuchi,
rancheria
llamada
SB 00203 Yglesia 9 Feb
1788
+ M 20 a a Pedro
Nolasco
Puxnalat Sisutxi,
rancheria
de
SB 00370 Yglesia 11 Apr
1789
+ F 17 a a Maria
Esperanza
Teneque Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 00546 Yglesia 26 Mar
1791
+ F 25 a a Casilda Mechene Sisuche,
rancheria
SB 00584 Yglesia 7 Aug
1791
+ F 20 a a Benedicta
Maria
Liusat Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 00843 Iglesia 28 Apr
1795
+ M 7 á
8
a mu Camilo Jose Culuhuyatset Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01136 Iglesia 11 Sep
1797
+ M 20 a a Isidoro Cumayaut Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01137 Iglesia 11 Sep
1797
+ M 18 a a Juan Pablo Ahuilait [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 01209 Iglesia 18 Nov
1797
+ M 28 a a Urbano Jose Gualamauiti Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01210 Iglesia 18 Nov
1797
+ M 12 a mu Teodosio
Jose
Alnajait [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 01248 Yglesia 6 May
1798
+ M 5 a mu Juan Benito Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01251 Iglesia 24 May
1798
+ F 38 a a Ramona
Maria
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01255 Iglesia 5 Jun
1798
+ F 22 a a Sebastiana
Maria
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01256 Iglesia 5 Jun
1798
+ F 22 a a Saturnina
Maria
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01257 Iglesia 5 Jun
1798
+ F 20 a a Severa Maria [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 01263 Iglesia 6 Jun
1798
+ M 20 a a Estanislao Chasninunauit Sisuchi,
rancheria
148

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
de
SB 01269 Iglesia 28 Jun
1798
+ M 17 a a Silverio Jose Pahinunat Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 01305 Yglesia 12 Jan
1799
+ F 30 a a Balthasara
Maria
Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 01330 Iglesia 2 Apr
1799
+ M 0 d ni Francisco de
Paula
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01453 Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
28 Apr
1800
- in casu necesitatis M 80 a a Luquesio Huamayauit [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 01454 Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
13 May
1800
- in casu necesitatis M 80 a a Nereo Tamechcat [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 01474 Yglesia 7 Jul
1800
+ M 38 a a Felipe
Benicio
Ahinat Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01476 Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
9 Jul
1800
- in articulo mortis F 17 a a Ana Maria [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 01514 Yglesia 16 Sep
1800
+ F 19 a a Maria
Antonia
Alisaculmoguo Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01525 Casil,
rancheria
de
31 Oct
1800
- in articulo mortis F 7 a p Salvadora [Sisuchi]
SB 01548 Yglesia 21 Jan
1801
+ M 20 a a Jose Maria Suasnaatset Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01549 Yglesia 21 Jan
1801
+ M 24 a a Ysidro Suasnapatset Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01564 Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
17 Feb
1801
- in articulo mortis M 55 a a Hilario Nimamayta [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 01576 Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
7 Mar
1801
- privadamente...estaba
imposibilitada para
venir a la Mision
F 70 a a Thomasa
Maria
[Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 01579 Yglesia 14 Mar
1801
+ M 18 a a Nestor Matinaguayt Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01752 [Sisuchi],
la parte
oriental
de la
misma
rancheria
30 Jun
1801
- imposibilitado por lo
enfermo de sus pies
para venir a la Mision
M 62 a a Casimiro Alulupe [Sisuchi]
SB 01755 [Sisuchi],
la parte
oriental
de la
misma
rancheria
30 Jun
1801
- por ancianos o
enfermos
estan...imposibilitados
de venir a la Mision
F 72 a a Saturnina [Sisuchi]
SB 01757 [Sisuchi],
la parte
oriental
de la
misma
rancheria
30 Jun
1801
- por ancianos o
enfermos
estan...imposibilitados
de venir a la Mision
F 69 a a Sinforosa [Sisuchi]
SB 01765 Yglesia 4 Jul
1801
+ M 6 a mu Juan Josef Sijnayt Sisuchi,
rancheria
149

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
de
SB 01766 Yglesia 4 Jul
1801
+ M 4.5 a p Eladio Sujjaya Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01767 Yglesia 4 Jul
1801
+ F 6.5 a p Nicanora Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01768 Yglesia 4 Jul
1801
+ F 1.5 a mu Maria del
Amparo
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01769 Yglesia 4 Jul
1801
+ F 2.5 a mu Peregrina
Maria
[Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 01774 Yglesia 5 Jul
1801
+ F 4 a p Francisca
Maria
Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01777 Yglesia 11 Jul
1801
+ M 14 a a Rosendo Siliguoquit Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01778 Yglesia 11 Jul
1801
+ M 12 a mu Lesmes Yumulaut Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01779 Yglesia 11 Jul
1801
+ M 10 a mu Tirso Snijait Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01780 Yglesia 11 Jul
1801
+ M 9 a mu Eladio Siguaguoxoit Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01782 Yglesia 11 Jul
1801
+ F 60 a a Micaela Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01812 Yglesia 11 Oct
1801
+ F 4 a mu Benedicta Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01832 Yglesia 9 Dec
1801
+ M 9 a mu Juan Maria Maticuyamuguit Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01833 Yglesia 14 Dec
1801
+ F 40 a a Casta Maria Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01850 Yglesia 12 Jan
1802
+ F 28 a a Maria
Manuela
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01871 Yglesia 12 Feb
1802
+ F 24 a a Pascasia Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 01896 Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
10 May
1802
- enfermo M 70 a a Cosme [Alilnunát] [Sisuchy]
SB 01897 Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
10 May
1802
- por vieja esta
imposibilitada de
venir a la Mision
F 69 a a Damiana
Maria
[Sisuchy]
SB 01917 Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
31 May
1802
- imposibilitada para
venir a la Mision
F 68 a a Fernanda
Maria
[Sisuchy],
todas las
tres
naturales
de dicha
rancheria
SB 01918 Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
31 May
1802
- privadamente F 67 a a Petronila
Maria
[Sisuchy],
todas las
tres
150

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
naturales
de dicha
rancheria
SB 01919 Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
31 May
1802
- gravemente enferma F 40 a a Rafaela
Maria
[Sisuchy],
todas las
tres
naturales
de dicha
rancheria
SB 01923 Yglesia 26 Jun
1802
+ F 26 a a Maria Flora Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01931 Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
A
mediados
del mes
de Julio
del año
de 1802
- in articulo mortis F 1 m ni Maria
Guadalupe
[Sisuchi]
SB 01935 Yglesia 30 Jul
1802
+ M 45 a a Gervasio Sualatset Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01942 Yglesia 4 Sep
1802
+ M 22 a a Alonso Guascucahuayol Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01964 Yglesia 16 Oct
1802
+ F 10 a mu Brigida Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 01978 Yglesia 21 Nov
1802
+ M 6 a p Peregrino
Maria
Guaguilit Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02025 Yglesia 11 Mar
1803
+ F 20 a a Ygnacia
Maria
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02067 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ M 5 a p Thomas
Antonio
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02100 Yglesia 26 Apr
1803
+ F 13 a a Michaela
Maria
Quemada
alias
Sisuchy,
rancheria
de la
SB 02140 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ M 24 a a Francisco
Jose
Sisuchi
SB 02148 Yglesia 9 May
1803
+ M 23 a a Jose
Francisco
Silihuilutchet Sisuchi
SB 02152 Yglesia 9 May
1803
+ F 20 a a Maria del
Pilar
Sisuchi
SB 02174 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 29 a a Placida
Maria
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02194 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 38 a a Vicente Nimaitset Sisuchi
SB 02202 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 12 a a Antonino Silimunajait Sisuchi
SB 02228 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 34 a a Bruno Quinayajaut Sisuchi
SB 02315 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 24 a a Mariano Huaticaychu Sisuchi
SB 02510 Yglesia 1 Jun
1803
+ M 13 a a Ynocencio Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
151

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 02512 Yglesia 4 Jun
1803
+ F 52 a a Beatriz Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02516 Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
5 Jun
1803
- in articulo mortis F 55 a a Lucia [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02517 Yglesia 5 Jun
1803
+ F 8 m p Sebastiana Sisuchi
alias la
Quemada,
rancheria
de
SB 02518 Yglesia 5 Jun
1803
+ F 3 a p Saturnina Sisuchi
alias la
Quemada,
rancheria
de
SB 02519 Yglesia 5 Jun
1803
+ F 8 a p Jacinta Sisuchi
alias la
Quemada,
rancheria
de
SB 02520 Yglesia 5 Jun
1803
+ F 1 a p Francisca Sisuchi
alias la
Quemada,
rancheria
de
SB 02521 Yglesia 5 Jun
1803
+ F 7 a p Paulina Sisuchi
alias la
Quemada,
rancheria
de
SB 02562 Yglesia 14 Jun
1803
+ M 38 a a Lazaro Munahuit Sisuchi
SB 02563 Yglesia 14 Jun
1803
+ M 58 a a Luciano Tsipùlu Sisuchi
SB 02570 Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
14 Jun
1803
- gravemente enfermo
por haberle mordido
una vibora
M 6 a mu Laureano [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02576 Yglesia 15 Jun
1803
+ F 34 a a Lucia Sisuchi
SB 02578 Yglesia 15 Jun
1803
+ F 26 a a Thomasa Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 02653 Yglesia 24 Jul
1803
+ M 5 a p Berardo
Joseph
Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02654 Yglesia 24 Jul
1803
+ M 5 a p Francisco
Joseph
Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 02655 Yglesia 24 Jul
1803
+ M 1 m p Joseph
Francisco
[Sisuchy,
rancheria
de]
SB 02656 Yglesia 24 Jul
1803
+ F 6 a p Martiniana
Maria
Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 02657 Yglesia 24 Jul
1803
+ F 4 a p Susana Maria Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 02658 Yglesia 24 Jul
1803
+ F 1.5 a p Luisa Maria Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
152

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 02659 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 59 a a Ambrosio Sniguluyasu Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 02660 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 24 a a Agustin Matiamahuilue [Sisuchi,
rancheria]
SB 02661 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 46 a a Andres
Corsino
Guilahuich [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 02662 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 50 a a Antonino Yahuimohuit [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 02663 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 37 a a Roman Yamahuit [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02664 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 58 a a Apolonio Amascululuyat Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 02665 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 39 a a Benito Jaguhay [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 02666 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 57 a a Bernardino Yayahuit [Sisuchi],
propria
rancheria
SB 02667 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 49 a a Bruno Joseph Yaguguiset [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02668 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 44 a a Buenaventura Snicu [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 02669 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 39 a a Carlos
Antonio
Sulguayamit [Sisuchi],
referida
rancheria
SB 02672 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 39 a a Cesareo Julucumaisset Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 02673 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 30 a a Crisogono Alulucucassiet Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 02674 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 34 a a Clemente
Joseph
Suluguiyamit Sisuchi,
rancheria
referida
SB 02675 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ M 53 a a Cosme
Joseph
Sagululunaut [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 02678 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 24 a a Arsenia Sisuchy
SB 02679 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 47 a a Antonia de
Padua
Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 02680 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 18 a a Josefa
Antonia
[Sisuchy],
misma
rancheria
SB 02681 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 34 a a Apolinaria [Sisuchy],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02682 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 49 a a Maria
Barbara
[Sisuchy],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02683 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 39 a a Basilia Maria [Sisuchy],
misma
rancheria
SB 02684 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 49 a a Blandina [Sisuchy],
misma
rancheria
153

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 02685 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 36 a a Calixta Maria Sisuchy
SB 02686 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 42 a a Canuta Maria [Sisuchy],
misma
rancheria
SB 02687 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 36 a a Cathalina [Sisuchy],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02688 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 34 a a Cecilia [Sisuchy],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02689 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 50 a a Clara
Antonia
[Sisuchy],
misma
rancheria
SB 02690 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 40 a a Christina
Antonia
[Sisuchy],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02691 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 28 a a Clara Maria [Sisuchy],
misma
rancheria
SB 02692 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 30 a a Claudia
Maria
Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 02693 Yglesia 27 Jul
1803
+ F 39 a a Dionisia
Maria
[Sisuchy],
misma
rancheria
SB 02698 Yglesia 28 Jul
1803
+ M 59 a a Blas Antonio Yuamaita Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 02699 Yglesia 28 Jul
1803
+ M 43 a a Crisanto
Antonio
Sulnayaut [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 02701 Yglesia 28 Jul
1803
+ M 21 a a Damaso Guaguluit Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 02703 Yglesia 28 Jul
1803
+ M 54 a a Eduardo Jupuyunasset Sisuchi,
rancheria
SB 02704 Yglesia 28 Jul
1803
+ M 14 a a Dositeo Yamomoit [Sisuchi],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02705 Yglesia 28 Jul
1803
+ M 11 a a Pedro
Apostol
Gelnuyausset [Sisuchi],
misma
rancheria
SB 02706 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 18 a a Maria Rosa Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02707 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 22 a a Agustina Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02708 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 18 a a Escolastica Sisuchi
SB 02709 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 18 a a Eulalia Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02710 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 43 a a Eufrasia Sisuchi
SB 02711 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 50 a a Fabiana
Maria
Sisuchi
SB 02712 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 41 a a Feliciana Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02714 Yglesia 29 Jul + F 50 a a Maria Sisuchi,
154

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1803 Fabiana rancheria
de
SB 02715 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 50 a a Francisca
Antonia
Sisuchi
SB 02716 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 44 a a Margarita
Antonia
Sisuchi
SB 02717 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 49 a a Bibiana Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02718 Yglesia 29 Jul
1803
+ F 48 a a Marta Sisuchi
SB 02733 Yglesia 20 Aug
1803
+ F 45 a a Angela
Mericia
Taliyehue Sisuchi,
rancheria
de
SB 02741 Yglesia 9 Sep
1803
+ F 26 a a Angela de
Fulgino
Sisuchy,
rancheria
de
SB 02758 Yglesia 8 Oct
1803
+ M 18 a a Bernardo Maticucachu Sisuchi
SB 02826 Yglesia 29 Dec
1803
+ F 60 a a Regina Sisuchi
SB 02996 Yglesia 26 May
1804
+ F 3 a ni Maria
Antonia
Sisuchi
SB 02998 Yglesia 28 May
1804
+ F 24 a a Maria
Ygnacia
Sisuchi

155

Appendix C
Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for the Year 1803

Methodological Approach: In searching for persons baptized in the year 1803 at Santa Barbara
Mission, I isolated by mission and year. This retrieved a total of 834 baptisms for that year. This
number includes the mission-born, that is, infants born to parents who were already affiliated
with the mission. These infants are noted as being from the “Mission” in the “Derived Origin”
field. In order to determine the number of new Indian recruits from outside of the mission, I
filtered out those from the “Mission” (or “Misión”) in both the Origin and Derived Origin fields.
This resulted in 778 adults and children (about 93.28%) who were not originally from Santa
Barbara Mission.

Note: A description of the abbreviations found in the Early California Population Project
database appears in Appendix B. The only newly added category found here is “Derived Origin,”
which is the inferred origin of the individual receiving the sacrament. In cases where the derived
origin was unknown, I used the “Origin” field to determine the individual’s home village or
tribal affiliation.

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 01998 2 Jan 1803 F 40 a a Maria Rita [Gelo], misma rancheria
SB 01999 2 Jan 1803 M 59 a a Ysidoro Telemoguiauta [Calahuasa], dicha
rancheria

SB 02000 12 Jan 1803 F 1 d p Ynes Maria [Unstated] Mission
SB 02001 16 Jan 1803 M 12 d p Rafael [Miquigui], dicha
rancheria

SB 02002 19 Jan 1803 M rn Canuto Mision Mission
SB 02003 22 Jan 1803 F 20 a a Margarita de
Cortona
Cajatsa, rancheria de
SB 02004 22 Jan 1803 F 24 a a Maria Ursula Liama, rancheria de
SB 02005 25 Jan 1803 F 1 d ni Martina Mision Mission
SB 02006 27 Jan 1803 M 24 a a Juan
Chrysostomo
Sagicayaut [Saspili], dicha
rancheria

SB 02007 30 Jan 1803 F 15 d ni Esperanza Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02008 30 Jan 1803 F 2 a p Nicolasa Maria Siujtu, rancheria de
SB 02009 30 Jan 1803 M 60 a a Ygnacio Maria Matinunayaguit [Saspili]
SB 02010 9 Feb 1803 M 1 d p Eulogio Joseph [Unstated] Mission
SB 02011 9 Feb 1803 M 55 a a Apolonio Muluy [Saspili], dicha
rancheria

SB 02012 14 Feb 1803 F 0 d ni Maria Loreta
Apolonia
Mision Mission
SB 02013 14 Feb 1803 F 22 a a Antonia Maria [Siujtu], dicha rancheria
SB 02014 19 Feb 1803 M 60 a a Rogelio Cunayta Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02015 20 Feb 1803 F 1 d ni Maria Leonor Mision Mission
SB 02016 1 Mar 1803 M 18 a a Gorgonio Suluguatmohiti Maschala en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02017 1 Mar 1803 M 45 a a Vicente Chicuyayeleuit Casil, rancheria de
SB 02018 6 Mar 1803 F 3 a p Micaela Sniguaj, rancheria de
SB 02019 6 Mar 1803 F 2 m p Gabriela Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02020 6 Mar 1803 F 1 m p Rafaela Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02021 11 Mar 1803 F 0 d ni Francisca Mision Mission
SB 02022 10 Mar 1803 M 5 a p Gaspar Maria [Gelo]
156

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02023 11 Mar 1803 M 20 a a Eulogio Joseph Pajinquichet Sasguajel, rancheria de
SB 02024 11 Mar 1803 M 18 a a Gil Esliocaitchet Cajatsa en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02025 11 Mar 1803 F 20 a a Ygnacia Maria Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02026 17 Mar 1803 F 0 d p Juana Saspili, rancheria de Mission
SB 02027 28 Mar 1803 M 21 a a Gaspar Joseph Selepiguoyol Gelo, rancheria e Ysla
de

SB 02028 4 Apr 1803 M 58 a a Magin Yuyuit Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02029 4 Apr 1803 M 30 a a Ananias Cupanunait [Gelo], dicha rancheria
SB 02030 4 Apr 1803 F 55 a a Benvenuta [Gelo], misma rancheria
SB 02031 4 Apr 1803 F 24 a a Fabiana Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02032 6 Apr 1803 M 0 d ni Pedro [Unstated] Mission
SB 02033 6 Apr 1803 M 60 a a Meliton Liguacucaiset [Gelo]
SB 02034 9 Apr 1803 F 1 d ni Gertrudis Mision Mission
SB 02035 12 Apr 1803 M 3 a p Sergio Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02036 12 Apr 1803 F 1 a p Maria Rafaela Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02037 12 Apr 1803 F 2 a p Maria Ynes Cajatsa en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02038 12 Apr 1803 F 1.5 a p Valeriana Maria Cajatsa en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02039 14 Apr 1803 M 1 m ni Francisco
Solano
Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02040 16 Apr 1803 F 7 a ni Maria Josefa Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02041 17 Apr 1803 M 2 d p Francisco
Antonio
Mision Mission
SB 02042 17 Apr 1803 F 5 a mu Maria Ygnacia Siujtu, rancheria de
SB 02043 18 Apr 1803 M 7 a mu Pancrasio Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02044 18 Apr 1803 M 4 a mu Lamberto [Saspili], dicha
rancheria

SB 02045 18 Apr 1803 M 4 a mu Christoval [Saspili], misma
rancheria

SB 02046 18 Apr 1803 F 6 a mu Maria
Guadalupe
[Saspili], dicha
rancheria

SB 02047 18 Apr 1803 F 4 a mu Seculina [Saspili], misma
rancheria

SB 02048 19 Apr 1803 F 1 d ni Maria
Candelaria
Mision Mission
SB 02049 22 Apr 1803 F 6 a p Maria Juana Siujtu, rancheria de
SB 02050 22 Apr 1803 F 1 d p Juana Maria [Unstated] Mission
SB 02051 23 Apr 1803 M 30 a a Joseph Maria Saguauita Maschala en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02052 23 Apr 1803 M 18 a a Ygnacio Josef Majelepiyol Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02053 23 Apr 1803 F 19 a a Maria de la Paz Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02054 23 Apr 1803 F 7 a mu Atanasia Maria Alcajch, rancheria de
SB 02055 23 Apr 1803 F 4 a mu Lorenza Maria Miquigui
SB 02056 23 Apr 1803 M 4 a p Luis Maria Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02057 23 Apr 1803 M 3 a p Liberato Josef Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02058 23 Apr 1803 F 5 a p Lucrecia Maria Mescaltitan, misma
rancheria de

SB 02059 23 Apr 1803 F 5 a p Bernarda Maria Alcahjc, rancheria de
SB 02060 24 Apr 1803 M 7 a mu Juan de Dios Matiyahuyaut Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02061 24 Apr 1803 M 5 a mu Alejo Chunamait Gelo
SB 02062 24 Apr 1803 F 1 a mu Juana Maria de
la Luz
Gelo
157

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02063 24 Apr 1803 F 6 m mu Donata Gelo
SB 02064 24 Apr 1803 F 7 a mu Prisca Gelo
SB 02065 24 Apr 1803 F 1 a mu Paulina Gelo
SB 02066 24 Apr 1803 F 4 a mu Maria Ygnacia Casil, rancheria de
SB 02067 25 Apr 1803 M 5 a p Thomas
Antonio
Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02068 25 Apr 1803 M 7 a p Juan Andres Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02069 25 Apr 1803 M 2 a p Benito Antonio Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02070 25 Apr 1803 M 8 a p Andres Joseph Casil, rancheria de
SB 02071 25 Apr 1803 M 2 a p Henrrique Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02072 25 Apr 1803 F 6 a p Manuela
Antonia
Casil, rancheria de
SB 02073 25 Apr 1803 F 7 a p Maria Antonia Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02074 25 Apr 1803 F 3 a p Rafaela Maria Casil, rancheria de
SB 02075 25 Apr 1803 F 6 a p Juana Vicenta Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02076 25 Apr 1803 F 8 a p Josefa Lorenza Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02077 25 Apr 1803 F 2 a p Josefa Maria [Miquigui, rancheria de]
SB 02078 25 Apr 1803 F 7 a p Justa Josefa Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02079 25 Apr 1803 F 6 a p Maria
Alexandra
Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02080 25 Apr 1803 F 5 a p Maria Bruna Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02081 25 Apr 1803 F 4 a p Maria Martina Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02082 25 Apr 1803 F 5 a p Maria Bernarda Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02083 25 Apr 1803 F 5 a p Antonia Josefa Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02084 25 Apr 1803 F 1.5 a p Christeta Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02085 25 Apr 1803 F 5 m p Maria Joaquina Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02086 25 Apr 1803 F 3 m p Valeria Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02087 26 Apr 1803 M 26 a a Casimiro Liguijuyaut Siujtu, rancheria de
SB 02088 26 Apr 1803 M 23 a a Antonio
Francisco
Matiyalaut Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02089 26 Apr 1803 M 20 a a Calixto Siljomohuit Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02090 26 Apr 1803 M 18 a a Francisco
Antonio
Ataguiaut Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02091 26 Apr 1803 M 17 a a Marcos Suluguayipiguol Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02092 26 Apr 1803 M 15 a a Juan Gualberto Suguyu Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02093 26 Apr 1803 M 13 a a Josef
Bernardino
Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02094 26 Apr 1803 F 20 a a Albina Josefa Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02095 26 Apr 1803 F 18 a a Maria Clara Alcajch, rancheria de
SB 02096 26 Apr 1803 F 18 a a Maria de Jesus Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02097 26 Apr 1803 F 22 a a Sebastiana Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02098 26 Apr 1803 F 17 a a Maria Daria Huisapa, rancheria de
SB 02099 26 Apr 1803 F 16 a a Agapita Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02100 26 Apr 1803 F 13 a a Michaela Maria Quemada alias Sisuchy,
rancheria de la

SB 02101 26 Apr 1803 F 4 m ni Felipa de Neri Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02102 27 Apr 1803 M 55 a a Jacome Gelinapasiet [Huisapa], dicha
rancheria

SB 02103 27 Apr 1803 F 7 m ni Jacoba [Huisapa], dicha
rancheria

SB 02104 28 Apr 1803 M 60 a a Vicente Antonio Alahuisoyoal [Unstated]
SB 02105 29 Apr 1803 M 1 d p Caietano Mision Mission
SB 02106 29 Apr 1803 M 40 a a Adriano Joseph Guilajmohuit Tequeps, rancheria de
158

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02107 29 Apr 1803 M 28 a a Celso Joseph Yaquimanaitchet Ysleño
SB 02108 29 Apr 1803 M 18 a a Pedro Antonio Gilmuaut Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02109 29 Apr 1803 M 9 a a Atilano Matilalpuiat Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02110 29 Apr 1803 F 50 a a Natalia Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02111 29 Apr 1803 F 48 a a Maria del Pilar Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02112 29 Apr 1803 F 50 a a Basilia Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02113 29 Apr 1803 F 46 a a Maria Andrea Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02114 29 Apr 1803 F 46 a a Hilaria Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02115 29 Apr 1803 F 36 a a Basilia Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02116 29 Apr 1803 F 44 a a Maria Michaela Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02117 29 Apr 1803 F 30 a a Casilda Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02118 29 Apr 1803 F 20 a a Francisca
Antonia
Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02119 26 Apr 1803 F 22 a a Fabiana Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02120 29 Apr 1803 F 1 a p Sebastiana
Maria
Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02121 29 Apr 1803 F 1.5 a p Serafina Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02122 2 May 1803 F 45 a a Maria Atanasia [Salaguaj alias el
Montecito], dicha
rancheria

SB 02123 4 May 1803 F 55 a a Monica [Siujtu], dicha rancheria
SB 02124 5 May 1803 F 40 a a Maria Monica [Unstated]
SB 02125 4 May 1803 M 4 m p Pio [Unstated]
SB 02125a 7 May 1803 M 24 a a Alejo Maria Pamachmahuit Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02126 7 May 1803 M 20 a a Jose Manuel Aquiyamehuit [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02127 7 May 1803 M 18 a a Alejandro Maria Miticucaitset [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02128 7 May 1803 M 14 a mu Pedro Pablo Chajayameuit Saspili
SB 02129 7 May 1803 M 13 a mu Juan Jose Silinunaitset Casil
SB 02130 7 May 1803 M 12 a a Juan Maria Chihuinachu Casil
SB 02131 7 May 1803 F 22 a a Antonina Maria Miquigui
SB 02132 7 May 1803 F 20 a a Perseverancia [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02133 7 May 1803 F 38 a a Apolonia Maria [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02134 7 May 1803 F 28 a a Atanasia Maria [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02135 7 May 1803 F 55 a a Agueda Maria [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02136 7 May 1803 F 58 a a Aurelia [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02137 7 May 1803 F 60 a a Ana [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02138 7 May 1803 F 14 a a Agustina Maria [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02139 7 May 1803 F 12 a a Juana Maria [Miquigui], misma
rancheria

SB 02140 7 May 1803 M 24 a a Francisco Jose Sisuchi
SB 02141 7 May 1803 F 24 a a Maria Theresa Miquigui
SB 02142 8 May 1803 F 8.5 a p Clemencia
Maria
Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02143 8 May 1803 F 6 a p Felicissima Casil, rancheria de
SB 02144 8 May 1803 F 6 a p Caridad Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
159

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02145 8 May 1803 F 5 a p Esperanza
Maria
Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02146 8 May 1803 F 8 a p Chrispina Maria [Miquigui], dicha
rancheria

SB 02147 8 May 1803 M 44 a a Antonio Joseph Sisajaya [Unstated]
SB 02148 9 May 1803 M 23 a a Jose Francisco Silihuilutchet Sisuchi
SB 02149 9 May 1803 M 18 a a Jose Ygnacio Manijiauta Miquigui
SB 02150 9 May 1803 M 20 a a Rafael Mujianatset Miquigui
SB 02151 9 May 1803 F 22 a a Maria
Guadalupe
Cuyamu
SB 02152 9 May 1803 F 20 a a Maria del Pilar Sisuchi
SB 02153 9 May 1803 F 0 d p Antonina Maria [Unstated] Mission
SB 02153a 10 May 1803 F 24 a a Nazaria Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02154 10 May 1803 F 20 a a Nicolasa Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02155 10 May 1803 F 29 a a Narcisa Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02156 10 May 1803 F 24 a a Nemesia Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02157 10 May 1803 F 24 a a Nicasia Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02157a 10 May 1803 F 25 a a Oliva Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02158 10 May 1803 F 27 a a Octavia Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02159 10 May 1803 F 33 a a Pascuala Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02160 10 May 1803 F 29 a a Paula Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02161 10 May 1803 F 33 a a Patricia Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02162 10 May 1803 F 27 a a Maria Antonia Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02163 10 May 1803 F 33 a a Policarpa Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02164 10 May 1803 F 28 a a Ana Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02165 10 May 1803 F 12 a a Maria de Jesus Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02166 10 May 1803 F 35 a a Pia Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02167 10 May 1803 F 17 a a Ynes Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02168 10 May 1803 F 26 a a Paladia Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02169 10 May 1803 F 25 a a Prima Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02170 10 May 1803 F 15 a a Pelagia Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02171 10 May 1803 F 25 a a Prisca Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02172 10 May 1803 F 23 a a Paciencia Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02173 10 May 1803 F 30 a a Paula Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02174 10 May 1803 F 29 a a Placida Maria Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02175 10 May 1803 F 34 a a Paulina Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02176 10 May 1803 F 34 a a Protasia [Miquigui], dicha
rancheria

SB 02177 10 May 1803 F 36 a a Maria Soledad Miquigui
SB 02178 10 May 1803 F 12 a a Maria del
Rosario
[Miquigui]
SB 02179 10 May 1803 F 18 a a Maria
Guadalupe
Casil, rancheria de
SB 02180 10 May 1803 F 34 a a Gertrudis Casil, rancheria de
SB 02181 10 May 1803 F 14 a a Quiteria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02182 10 May 1803 F 38 a a Margarita Geliec
SB 02183 10 May 1803 F 20 a a Maria Josefa Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02184 10 May 1803 F 25 a a Maria Luisa Casil, rancheria de
SB 02185 10 May 1803 F 20 a a Agustina Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02186 10 May 1803 M 36 a a Antonio Fermin Suluyaymeuit Chicholop alias el Cojo
SB 02187 10 May 1803 M 26 a a Alvaro Jayamechaut Miquigui
SB 02188 10 May 1803 M 24 a a Francisco Maria Sayehueya Miquigui
160

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02189 10 May 1803 M 26 a a Anacleto Julpnahuit Miquigui
SB 02190 10 May 1803 M 28 a a Adriano Asunatset Miquigui
SB 02191 10 May 1803 M 19 a a Arsenio Sulumaninatset Miquigui
SB 02192 10 May 1803 M 32 a a Antonio Chalihuachnahuit Miquigui
SB 02193 10 May 1803 M 28 a a Juan Maria Huiyanalihuit Casil
SB 02194 10 May 1803 M 38 a a Vicente Nimaitset Sisuchi
SB 02195 10 May 1803 M 44 a a Amador Muluyuaut Miquigui
SB 02196 10 May 1803 M 36 a a Aniceto Sulumauquiet Miquigui
SB 02197 10 May 1803 M 11 a a Jose Francisco [Unstated]
SB 02198 10 May 1803 M 22 a a Anastasio Aluluapuatset Miquigui
SB 02199 10 May 1803 M 15 a a Antonio Maria Tchómo Miquigui
SB 02200 10 May 1803 M 15 a a Andres Avelino Suljuemeait Miquigui
SB 02201 10 May 1803 M 20 a a Antonio Jose Chalicumachuit Miquigui
SB 02202 10 May 1803 M 12 a a Antonino Silimunajait Sisuchi
SB 02203 10 May 1803 M 28 a a Amadeo Huiluluyahuit Miquigui
SB 02204 10 May 1803 M 14 a a Andres Chunait Miquigui
SB 02205 10 May 1803 M 13 a a Ambrosio Tumu Miquigui
SB 02206 10 May 1803 M 14 a a Aquilino Suanunait Miquigui
SB 02207 10 May 1803 M 12 a a Ananias Huichuait Miquigui
SB 02208 10 May 1803 M 11 a a Aureliano Chasnipetatset Miquigui
SB 02209 10 May 1803 M 12 a a Apolonio Tuliyahuit Miquigui
SB 02210 10 May 1803 M 55 a a Beato Temiacucat Cuyamu, rancheria de
SB 02211 10 May 1803 M 44 a a Jose Maria Chuyuyu Cuyamu
SB 02212 10 May 1803 M 50 a a Bonifacio Suapnunatset Cuyamu
SB 02213 10 May 1803 M 13 a a Benito Silnehueyat Miquigui
SB 02214 10 May 1803 M 33 a a Bernardo Suapcucaitset Cuyamu
SB 02215 10 May 1803 M 36 a a Agustin Geleyehuenat Tequeps
SB 02216 10 May 1803 M 38 a a Baldomero Huihuiaychu Miquigui
SB 02217 10 May 1803 M 11 a a Baltasar Suacumuyat Miquigui
SB 02218 10 May 1803 M 23 a a Bernardino Jahuinatset Miquigui
SB 02219 10 May 1803 M 12 a a Braulio Pugimehuit Miquigui
SB 02220 10 May 1803 M 20 a a Claudio Silimatinunatset Casil
SB 02221 10 May 1803 M 18 a a Basilio Maticucahuit Miquigui
SB 02222 10 May 1803 M 46 a a Gordiano Huluyacqui Coloc, rancheria de
SB 02223 11 May 1803 M 45 a a Bernabe Pilaljaut Calahuasa
SB 02224 11 May 1803 M 45 a a Benigno Temiajucala Miquigui
SB 02225 11 May 1803 M 45 a a Benvenuto Alalicucatset Miquigui
SB 02226 11 May 1803 M 38 a a Basilio Amayayquihuit Miquigui
SB 02227 11 May 1803 M 44 a a Buenaventura Matuluyaut Miquigui
SB 02228 11 May 1803 M 34 a a Bruno Quinayajaut Sisuchi
SB 02229 11 May 1803 M 22 a a Blas Calucuit Miquigui
SB 02230 11 May 1803 M 34 a a Berardo Puyayanatset Cuyamu
SB 02231 11 May 1803 M 34 a a Cornelio Uljuahuit [Unstated]
SB 02232 11 May 1803 M 18 a a Calisto Amuluyahuit Miquihui
SB 02233 11 May 1803 M 36 a a Casimiro Sappiehuenat Miquihui
SB 02234 11 May 1803 M 20 a a Celedonio Sappuyatset Liam en las Yslas
SB 02235 11 May 1803 M 38 a a Cayo Pamslihuinachu Miquigui
SB 02236 11 May 1803 M 23 a a Carlos Salinunahuit Cuyamu
SB 02237 11 May 1803 F 29 a a Maria Ruperta Casil, rancheria de
SB 02238 11 May 1803 F 40 a a Ramona Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02239 11 May 1803 F 30 a a Rosa Maria Miquigui
161

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02240 11 May 1803 F 24 a a Regina Maria Miquigui
SB 02241 11 May 1803 F 44 a a Rufina Maria Miquigui
SB 02242 11 May 1803 F 40 a a Ramona Miquigui
SB 02243 11 May 1803 F 19 a a Maria Rita Miquigui
SB 02244 11 May 1803 F 28 a a Rosalia Casil
SB 02245 11 May 1803 F 33 a a Remigia Miquigui
SB 02246 11 May 1803 F 32 a a Rosa de Santa
Maria
Casil, rancheria de
SB 02247 11 May 1803 F 18 a a Rafaela Maria Calahuasa
SB 02248 11 May 1803 F 21 a a Maria
Sebastiana
Miquigui
SB 02249 11 May 1803 F 28 a a Serafina Maria Miquigui
SB 02250 11 May 1803 F 27 a a Sabina Josefa Miquigui
SB 02251 11 May 1803 F 14 a a Severina Maria Miquigui
SB 02252 11 May 1803 M 23 a a Christoval Jayanunat Miquigui
SB 02253 11 May 1803 M 16 a a Cirilo Talahuit Cuyamu
SB 02254 11 May 1803 M 28 a a Casiano Huiccahuit Miquigui
SB 02255 11 May 1803 M 28 a a Cipriano Manujait Miquigui
SB 02256 11 May 1803 M 32 a a Cecilio Chinuyait Miquigui
SB 02257 11 May 1803 M 40 a a Cleto Hueleyemehuit Miquigui
SB 02258 11 May 1803 M 34 a a Pedro Nolasco Huelemeyachu Geliec
SB 02259 11 May 1803 M 19 a a Venceslao Chahuhuit Miquigui
SB 02260 12 May 1803 F 34 a a Vicenta Maria Miquigui
SB 02261 12 May 1803 F 33 a a Urbana Ysleña
SB 02262 12 May 1803 F 40 a a Victoria Miquigui
SB 02263 12 May 1803 F 42 a a Venancia Maria Miquigui
SB 02264 12 May 1803 F 40 a a Valeria Maria Miquigui
SB 02265 12 May 1803 F 40 a a Ursula Maria Miquigui
SB 02266 12 May 1803 F 44 a a Valeriana Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02267 12 May 1803 F 29 a a Zeferina Quemada
SB 02268 12 May 1803 F 43 a a Nicolasa Josefa Miquigui
SB 02269 12 May 1803 F 36 a a Narcisa Miquigui
SB 02270 12 May 1803 F 38 a a Ninfa Maria Miquigui
SB 02271 12 May 1803 F 40 a a Maria Segunda Miquigui
SB 02272 12 May 1803 F 50 a a Oliva Casil
SB 02273 12 May 1803 F 48 a a Pascuala Cuiamu
SB 02274 12 May 1803 F 48 a a Paula Miquigui
SB 02275 12 May 1803 F 52 a a Policarpa Casil
SB 02276 12 May 1803 F 37 a a Maria Josefa Casil
SB 02277 12 May 1803 F 33 a a Placida Maria Miquigui
SB 02278 12 May 1803 F 56 a a Pia Maria Miquigui
SB 02279 12 May 1803 F 36 a a Paladia Miquigui
SB 02280 12 May 1803 F 58 a a Prima Cuiamu
SB 02281 12 May 1803 F 9 a a Pacifica Maria Cuiamu
SB 02282 12 May 1803 F 58 a a Petronila Miquigui
SB 02283 12 May 1803 F 40 a a Perfecta Miquigui
SB 02284 12 May 1803 F 30 a a Potamia Maria Miquigui
SB 02285 12 May 1803 F 30 a a Paulina Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02286 12 May 1803 F 48 a a Prisca Miquigui
SB 02287 12 May 1803 F 40 a a Prudencia Miquigui
SB 02288 12 May 1803 M 60 a a Cosme Amuhuilait Miquigui
162

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02289 12 May 1803 M 56 a a Diego Minajait Misopsno
SB 02290 12 May 1803 M 60 a a Daniel Huyatsahuit Miquigui
SB 02291 12 May 1803 M 60 a a Dionisio Tspihui Miquigui
SB 02292 12 May 1803 M 60 a a Domingo Mayaychu Miquigui
SB 02293 12 May 1803 M 46 a a Dimas Huitsét Tucan en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02294 12 May 1803 M 58 a a Donato Tacuhinát Miquigui
SB 02295 12 May 1803 M 48 a a Dalmacio Achumanijait Miquigui
SB 02296 12 May 1803 M 48 a a Damian Suljuanehueyol Tequeps
SB 02297 12 May 1803 M 38 a a Desiderio Yayahuiyat Lacayamu en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02298 12 May 1803 M 40 a a Damaso Huinayalihuit Miquigui
SB 02299 12 May 1803 M 55 a a Elzeario Tacqueleyehuit Miquigui
SB 02300 12 May 1803 M 54 a a Enrique Jucanatset Lacayamu en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02301 12 May 1803 M 48 a a Eusebio Cuilanatset Miquigui
SB 02302 12 May 1803 M 50 a a Eduardo Hulaut Miquigui
SB 02303 12 May 1803 M 54 a a Ezequiel Yayahuit Miquigui
SB 02304 12 May 1803 M 13 a a Eustaquio Pahuaitset Miquigui
SB 02305 12 May 1803 M 12 a a Elizeo Telehuautset Miquigui
SB 02306 12 May 1803 M 50 a a Clemente Chiljachuit Casil
SB 02307 12 May 1803 M 30 a a Canuto Sunalpuyat Miquigui
SB 02308 12 May 1803 M 38 a a Eligio Gelelahuit Chicholop, rancheria de
SB 02309 12 May 1803 M 50 a a Crispino Januaut Casil
SB 02310 12 May 1803 M 44 a a Camilo Majsunu Chahua en las Yslas
SB 02311 12 May 1803 M 40 a a Celso Chichanunachu Miquigui
SB 02312 12 May 1803 M 54 a a Cesario Saplihuinahuit Saspili
SB 02313 12 May 1803 M 36 a a Castor Heyeyenatset Miquigui
SB 02314 12 May 1803 M 20 a a Conrado Asenemehuinatset Miquigui
SB 02315 12 May 1803 M 24 a a Mariano Huaticaychu Sisuchi
SB 02316 12 May 1803 M 54 a a Cayetano Chnimamquiti Miquigui
SB 02317 12 May 1803 M 60 a a Euquerio Chniayta Miquigui
SB 02318 13 May 1803 F 8.5 a p Maria Pascuala Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02319 12 May 1803 M 30 a a Geronimo Silalauta [Siguaya]
SB 02320 14 May 1803 M 4 a p Lucio Aquitsumu, rancheria de
SB 02321 14 May 1803 M 4 a p Victorio Eljman, rancheria de
SB 02322 18 May 1803 F 26 a a Antonia Maria Alcajch, rancheria de
SB 02323 18 May 1803 F 29 a a Mariana de
Jesus
Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02324 18 May 1803 F 20 a a Agueda Maria Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02325 18 May 1803 F 37 a a Agustina Maria Gelo
SB 02326 18 May 1803 F 32 a a Maria Ysabel Gelo
SB 02327 18 May 1803 F 21 a a Anastasia Maria Gelo
SB 02328 18 May 1803 F 18 a a Alexandra
Maria
Gelo
SB 02329 18 May 1803 F 34 a a Athanasia Maria Gelo
SB 02330 18 May 1803 F 11 a a Aurelia Gelo
SB 02331 18 May 1803 F 31 a a Angela Maria Alcajch
SB 02332 18 May 1803 F 40 a a Apolinaria Alcajch
SB 02333 18 May 1803 F 36 a a Ana Maria Gelo
SB 02334 18 May 1803 F 37 a a Antonina de
Jesus
Alcajch
163

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02335 18 May 1803 F 31 a a Ana Jacinta Gelo
SB 02336 18 May 1803 F 44 a a Andrea Maria Gelo
SB 02337 18 May 1803 F 41 a a Ambrosia Ysleña
SB 02338 18 May 1803 F 14 a a Ana Josefa Alcajch
SB 02339 18 May 1803 F 48 a a Apolonia Gelo
SB 02339a 18 May 1803 M 60 a a Estevan Huimalit Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02340 18 May 1803 M 36 a a Fermin Chihimahuit Gelo
SB 02341 18 May 1803 M 46 a a Efren Chiucma Gelo
SB 02342 18 May 1803 M 46 a a Elias Tuanait Gelo
SB 02343 18 May 1803 M 36 a a Marcelo
Antonio
Culuyamset Gelo
SB 02344 18 May 1803 M 20 a a Alonso Chihunaut Gelo
SB 02345 18 May 1803 M 16 a a Floro Mamiet Gelo
SB 02346 18 May 1803 M 20 a a Bartholome Suluappiueyat Gelo
SB 02347 18 May 1803 M 24 a a Higinio Lihuilulaut Gelo
SB 02348 18 May 1803 M 50 a a Felipe Tem'a Gelo
SB 02349 18 May 1803 M 14 a a Formerio Suljuyaut Gelo
SB 02350 18 May 1803 M 24 a a Fulgencio Cunapatset Gelo
SB 02351 19 May 1803 M 20 a a Sotero Agihihuit Gelo
SB 02352 19 May 1803 M 14 a a Feliciano Mulquitset Gelo
SB 02353 19 May 1803 M 20 a a Fidel Chahuluyayet Gelo
SB 02354 19 May 1803 M 18 a a Florentino Maliauquit Gelo
SB 02355 19 May 1803 M 48 a a Facundo Anayait Gelo
SB 02356 19 May 1803 M 26 a a Francisco Pedro Mulaychu Gelo
SB 02357 19 May 1803 M 16 a a Francisco de
Paula
Cutayuit Gelo
SB 02358 19 May 1803 M 38 a a Francisco Maria Tsiju Gelo
SB 02359 19 May 1803 M 48 a a Faustino Huinuitset Gelo
SB 02360 19 May 1803 M 48 a a Francisco Regis Tahulait Gelo
SB 02361 19 May 1803 M 24 a a Guillermo Gelemehuiyol Gelo
SB 02362 19 May 1803 M 30 a a Guido Chuluscahuiyait Miquigui
SB 02363 19 May 1803 M 50 a a Hilario Chimùp Chniguaj
SB 02364 19 May 1803 M 46 a a Hilarion Anahinahuit Cuyamu
SB 02365 19 May 1803 F 26 a a Barbara Maria Gelo
SB 02366 19 May 1803 F 29 a a Basilia Antonia Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02367 19 May 1803 F 33 a a Brigida Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02368 19 May 1803 F 29 a a Beatriz Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02369 19 May 1803 F 34 a a Bernarda Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02370 19 May 1803 F 37 a a Bonifacia Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02371 19 May 1803 F 24 a a Basilia Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02372 19 May 1803 F 24 a a Bruna Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02373 19 May 1803 F 44 a a Bona Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02374 19 May 1803 F 42 a a Bibiana Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02375 19 May 1803 F 44 a a Bernardina Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

164

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02376 19 May 1803 F 43 a a Benita Josefa Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02377 19 May 1803 F 10 a a Balthasara Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02378 19 May 1803 F 22 a a Canuta Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02379 19 May 1803 F 22 a a Mauricia Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02380 19 May 1803 F 25 a a Chrisanta Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02381 19 May 1803 F 24 a a Celia Maria Gelo o viven en dicha
rancheria, rancheria de

SB 02382 19 May 1803 F 19 a a Maria Ciriaca Aquitsumu, rancheria de
SB 02383 20 May 1803 M 48 a a Estanislao Lihuihuiachu Alcajch, rancheria de
SB 02384 20 May 1803 M 50 a a Francisco Quitsemelaut Alcajch
SB 02385 20 May 1803 M 36 a a Antonio Hucahuit Geliec
SB 02386 20 May 1803 M 38 a a Fernando Ajchilòyo Cajatsa en las Yslas
SB 02387 20 May 1803 M 55 a a Feliz Huimeùt Alcajch, rancheria de
SB 02388 20 May 1803 M 55 a a Francisco Jose Quelpehuinatset Alcajch
SB 02389 20 May 1803 M 55 a a German Tunaut Geliec
SB 02390 20 May 1803 M 36 a a Graciano Talquiaut Geliec
SB 02391 20 May 1803 M 15 a a Gines Culuyehueyol Geliec
SB 02392 20 May 1803 M 64 a a Gervasio Payanatset Geliec
SB 02393 20 May 1803 M 18 a a Gabriel Cahuyatset Geliec
SB 02394 20 May 1803 M 40 a a Gil Chihà Cajatsa en las Yslas
SB 02395 20 May 1803 M 46 a a Hermenegildo Hualayehuatset Geliec
SB 02396 20 May 1803 M 13 a a Honorato Juliaut Geliec
SB 02396a 20 May 1803 M 28 a a Hemeterio Mululuyuit Snajalayegua
SB 02397 20 May 1803 F 24 a a Casimira Maria Alcajch
SB 02398 20 May 1803 F 40 a a Calista Maria [Unstated]
SB 02399 20 May 1803 F 41 a a Concordia
Maria
Yslas
SB 02400 20 May 1803 F 30 a a Columba Maria Yslas
SB 02401 20 May 1803 F 50 a a Coleta Maria Geliec
SB 02402 20 May 1803 F 40 a a Clara Maria [Unstated]
SB 02403 20 May 1803 F 39 a a Candida Maria [Unstated]
SB 02404 20 May 1803 F 28 a a Cathalina Maria Alcajch
SB 02405 20 May 1803 F 50 a a Cayetana Maria Alcajch
SB 02406 20 May 1803 F 37 a a Cecilia Maria [Unstated]
SB 02407 20 May 1803 F 29 a a Casilda Maria Yslas
SB 02408 20 May 1803 F 10 a a Clemencia
Maria
[Unstated]
SB 02409 21 May 1803 M 55 a a Gervasio Yumuyunahuit Miquigui, dicha
rancheria

SB 02414 24 May 1803 M 46 a a Felipe Antonio Ajuyaut Siujtu, rancheria de
SB 02415 24 May 1803 M 54 a a Fernando Maria Asunaut Saspili
SB 02416 24 May 1803 M 52 a a Faustino Pomuiaguisu Saspili
SB 02417 24 May 1803 M 36 a a Fabian Antonio Niaysu Saspili
SB 02418 24 May 1803 M 38 a a Fermin Josef Quitamaut Saspili
SB 02419 24 May 1803 M 28 a a Santes Suasnait Saspili
SB 02420 24 May 1803 M 19 a a Fausto Josef Mululahuit Saspili
SB 02421 24 May 1803 M 16 a a Fortunato
Antonio
Muliutu Saspili
165

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02422 24 May 1803 M 17 a a Feliciano Josef Sujiyet Saspili
SB 02423 24 May 1803 F 38 a a Lucia Saspili
SB 02424 24 May 1803 F 42 a a Francisca Maria Saspili
SB 02425 24 May 1803 F 40 a a Feliciana Maria Saspili
SB 02426 24 May 1803 F 39 a a Fabiana Antonia Saspili
SB 02427 24 May 1803 F 22 a a Juana Saspili
SB 02428 24 May 1803 F 46 a a Felipa Josefa Saspili
SB 02429 24 May 1803 F 10 a a Josefa [Saspili]
SB 02430 24 May 1803 F 24 a a Gabriela Maria Saspili
SB 02431 24 May 1803 F 40 a a Maria Gabina Miquigui
SB 02432 24 May 1803 F 42 a a Geronima Maria Saspili
SB 02433 24 May 1803 F 40 a a Gertrudis Maria Saspili
SB 02434 23 May 1803 M 15 a a Mariano Matuayta [Tequeps]
SB 02435 23 May 1803 F 5 d p Maria [Unstated]
SB 02436 24 May 1803 F 55 a a Maria [Miquigui llamada San
Pedro y San Pablo],
misma rancheria

SB 02437 24 May 1803 F 44 a a Petra [Miquigui llamada San
Pedro y San Pablo],
misma rancheria

SB 02438 24 May 1803 F 36 a a Paula [Miquigui llamada San
Pedro y San Pablo],
misma rancheria

SB 02439 24 May 1803 F 60 a a Juana [Saspili], dicha
rancheria

SB 02440 25 May 1803 F 1 d p Francisca
Urbana
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02441 26 May 1803 M 30 a a Juan Gaspar Tememehuit Coloc, rancheria de
SB 02442 26 May 1803 M 30 a a Honorio Jose Guastiaut Snajalayegua
SB 02443 26 May 1803 M 18 a a Pedro Nolasco Maticatset Snajalayegua
SB 02444 26 May 1803 M 19 a a Enrique Antonio Sipiajaut Salaguaj
SB 02445 26 May 1803 M 45 a a Hilario Jose Siculait Salaguaj
SB 02446 26 May 1803 M 32 a a Patricio Huiyanamehuit Snajalayegua
SB 02447 26 May 1803 M 26 a a Santiago Jose Julujmait Salaguaj
SB 02448 26 May 1803 M 45 a a Hugolino Jose Simugu Salaguaj
SB 02449 26 May 1803 M 40 a a Honorato
Antonio
Yaquiaut [Unstated]
SB 02450 26 May 1803 M 47 a a Hipolito Jose Sihuacucayahuit Siujtu
SB 02451 26 May 1803 M 28 a a Genaro Juluyunatset Calahuasa
SB 02452 26 May 1803 M 44 a a Jose de
Cupertino
Temeyehuenat [Uchapa], dicha
rancheria

SB 02453 26 May 1803 F 40 a a Maria Thomasa Salahuaj, rancheria de
SB 02454 26 May 1803 F 32 a a Maria Urbana [Unstated]
SB 02455 26 May 1803 F 27 a a Juana Salahuaj, rancheria de
SB 02456 26 May 1803 F 30 a a Juana Josefa Coloc, rancheria de
SB 02457 26 May 1803 F 36 a a Maria Antonia [Unstated]
SB 02458 26 May 1803 F 39 a a Joaquina Maria Salahuaj
SB 02459 26 May 1803 F 16 a a Juliana Maria Huisapa
SB 02460 26 May 1803 F 40 a a Jacinta Maria Salahuaj
SB 02461 26 May 1803 F 38 a a Maria Justa Succu, rancheria de
SB 02462 26 May 1803 F 52 a a Julia Maria Salahuaj, rancheria de
SB 02463 26 May 1803 F 51 a a Justina Maria Salahuaj
SB 02464 28 May 1803 M 0 d ni Francisco Maria Mision Mission
166

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02465 28 May 1803 M 0 d ni Jose Mision Mission
SB 02466 28 May 1803 F 0 d ni Martiniana Mision Mission
SB 02467 31 May 1803 F 28 a a Maria Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02468 31 May 1803 F 28 a a Antonia Saspili
SB 02469 31 May 1803 F 34 a a Ambrosia Saspili
SB 02470 31 May 1803 F 11 a a Benita Saspili
SB 02471 31 May 1803 F 9 a a Bernardina Saspili
SB 02472 31 May 1803 F 40 a a Maria Ygnacia Saspili
SB 02473 31 May 1803 F 34 a a Ana Maria Saspili
SB 02474 31 May 1803 F 40 a a Agueda Saspili
SB 02475 31 May 1803 F 30 a a Agustina Saspili
SB 02476 31 May 1803 F 34 a a Antonina Saspili
SB 02477 31 May 1803 F 40 a a Anastasia Saspili
SB 02478 31 May 1803 F 28 a a Ana Bona Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02479 31 May 1803 F 42 a a Ana Benita Miquigui
SB 02480 31 May 1803 F 32 a a Maria Antonia Saspili
SB 02481 31 May 1803 F 44 a a Ana Jacinta Usapa
SB 02482 31 May 1803 F 40 a a Agustina Tucamu en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02483 31 May 1803 F 12 a a Maria Tucamu en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02484 31 May 1803 F 52 a a Apolinaria Saspili
SB 02485 31 May 1803 F 44 a a Andrea Saspili
SB 02486 31 May 1803 F 40 a a Beata Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02487 31 May 1803 F 46 a a Bruna Saspili
SB 02488 31 May 1803 F 36 a a Bernarda Saspili
SB 02489 31 May 1803 F 22 a a Barbara Saspili
SB 02490 31 May 1803 F 14 a a Benedicta Miquigui
SB 02491 31 May 1803 M 38 a a Mariano Matihuluit Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02492 31 May 1803 M 28 a a Juan Liccuyahuit Saspili
SB 02493 31 May 1803 M 34 a a Agustin Sataliaut [Saspili], misma
rancheria

SB 02494 31 May 1803 M 40 a a Blas Cumiait Saspili
SB 02495 31 May 1803 M 50 a a Julio Hichunulaut Saspili
SB 02496 31 May 1803 M 40 a a Jacobo Hualanayét Saspili
SB 02497 31 May 1803 M 54 a a Juan Pablo Macquiat Uchapa
SB 02498 31 May 1803 M 40 a a Salvador Mululait Saspili
SB 02499 31 May 1803 M 30 a a Jose Francisco Macsiahuitsé Chniguaj
SB 02500 31 May 1803 M 55 a a Jose Ygnacio Tamé alias Cohuch Cchiucchiuc en las
Yslas

SB 02501 31 May 1803 M 1 d p Venancio
Joseph
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02502 1 Jun 1803 M 40 a a Matheo Jaluyaut Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02503 1 Jun 1803 M 48 a a Jose Antonio Hinuyayaut Tsnojotso
SB 02504 1 Jun 1803 M 48 a a Juan Bautista Lihuinatsét Saspili
SB 02505 1 Jun 1803 M 44 a a Christoval Yanunahuit Saspili
SB 02506 1 Jun 1803 M 44 a a Juan Ygnacio Gilimehuyachu Saspili
SB 02507 1 Jun 1803 M 44 a a Chrisanto Quiachaut Saspili
SB 02508 1 Jun 1803 M 14 a a Jose Vicente Lihuimsét Miquigui
SB 02509 1 Jun 1803 M 15 a a Lucas Salpiajaut Saspili
SB 02510 1 Jun 1803 M 13 a a Ynocencio Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02511 4 Jun 1803 F 30 a a Maria de Jesus Alcajch, rancheria de
167

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02512 4 Jun 1803 F 52 a a Beatriz Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02513 4 Jun 1803 F 51 a a Basilia Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02514 4 Jun 1803 F 1 m p Andrea Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02515 4 Jun 1803 F 1 d p Pacifica Maria [Unstated] Mission
SB 02516 5 Jun 1803 F 55 a a Lucia [Sisuchi], dicha
rancheria

SB 02517 5 Jun 1803 F 8 m p Sebastiana Sisuchi alias la
Quemada, rancheria de

SB 02518 5 Jun 1803 F 3 a p Saturnina Sisuchi alias la
Quemada, rancheria de

SB 02519 5 Jun 1803 F 8 a p Jacinta Sisuchi alias la
Quemada, rancheria de

SB 02520 5 Jun 1803 F 1 a p Francisca Sisuchi alias la
Quemada, rancheria de

SB 02521 5 Jun 1803 F 7 a p Paulina Sisuchi alias la
Quemada, rancheria de

SB 02522 6 Jun 1803 F 60 a a Norberta Maria Gelo
SB 02523 7 Jun 1803 M 55 a a Carlos Patsajahuáit Michopsno
SB 02524 7 Jun 1803 M 48 a a Salvador Techmáit ó Tesmáit [Michopsno], dicha
rancheria

SB 02525 7 Jun 1803 M 46 a a Camilo Temialacuit [Michopsno], misma
rancheria

SB 02526 7 Jun 1803 M 44 a a Cayetano Maria Cunihuinatset [Michopsno], dicha
rancheria

SB 02527 7 Jun 1803 M 44 a a Celedonio Tequelemehuitset
alias Meuhé
[Michopsno], dicha
rancheria

SB 02528 7 Jun 1803 M 46 a a Clemente Sicsahuilutset [Michopsno], dicha
rancheria

SB 02529 7 Jun 1803 M 44 a a Cosme Josef Tamamehuit Chalaguaj
SB 02530 7 Jun 1803 M 30 a a Cipriano
Antonio
Quihuichaut Michopsno
SB 02531 7 Jun 1803 M 36 a a Cayo Antonio Chasnicomait ó
Sasnicomait
Saspili
SB 02532 7 Jun 1803 F 39 a a Maria Carlota Misopsno, rancheria de
SB 02533 7 Jun 1803 F 38 a a Casilda Antonia Misopsno, rancheria de
SB 02534 7 Jun 1803 F 30 a a Calista Maria Misopsno, rancheria de
SB 02535 7 Jun 1803 F 40 a a Camila Maria Salahuaj, rancheria de
SB 02536 7 Jun 1803 F 38 a a Cirila Maria Misopsno, rancheria de
SB 02537 7 Jun 1803 F 17 a a Casimira
Antonia
Misopsno, rancheria de
SB 02538 7 Jun 1803 F 16 a a Casilda Josefa Misopsno
SB 02539 7 Jun 1803 F 41 a a Cathalina Maria Coloc, rancheria de
SB 02540 7 Jun 1803 F 48 a a Cecilia Maria Misopsno, rancheria de
SB 02541 7 Jun 1803 F 50 a a Cipriana Josefa Misopsno, rancheria de
SB 02542 7 Jun 1803 F 33 a a Dominga Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02543 7 Jun 1803 F 54 a a Donata Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02544 7 Jun 1803 F 55 a a Dorothea Maria Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02545 7 Jun 1803 F 56 a a Dionisia Miquigui
SB 02546 7 Jun 1803 F 37 a a Damiana Josefa Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02547 7 Jun 1803 F 61 a a Delfina Maria Miquigui
SB 02548 7 Jun 1803 F 60 a a Domitila Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02549 7 Jun 1803 F 58 a a Eusebia Miquigui
SB 02550 7 Jun 1803 F 57 a a Escolastica Miquigui
SB 02551 7 Jun 1803 F 58 a a Maria Dominga Miquigui
168

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02552 7 Jun 1803 F 49 a a Maria Donata Miquigui
SB 02553 10 Jun 1803 M 7 a mu Simeon Lihuiaccuit Uchapa, rancheria de
SB 02554 10 Jun 1803 M 4 a p Serafin Gilpuyat [Uchapa], misma
rancheria

SB 02555 10 Jun 1803 F 3 a mu Remigia [Uchapa], misma
rancheria

SB 02556 10 Jun 1803 F 1 a p Salvadora [Uchapa], misma
rancheria

SB 02557 14 Jun 1803 M 10 a mu Pancrasio Gelimeminaut Casil, rancheria de
SB 02558 14 Jun 1803 M 30 a a Juan Maria Napuyaut Siujtu
SB 02559 14 Jun 1803 M 34 a a Narciso Simehuit Siujtu
SB 02560 14 Jun 1803 M 58 a a Nasario Culuyauit Siujtu
SB 02561 14 Jun 1803 M 38 a a Casimiro Sagicahuayol Salaguaj
SB 02562 14 Jun 1803 M 38 a a Lazaro Munahuit Sisuchi
SB 02563 14 Jun 1803 M 58 a a Luciano Tsipùlu Sisuchi
SB 02564 14 Jun 1803 M 11 a a Raymundo Silippihuinát Siujtu
SB 02565 14 Jun 1803 M 38 a a Lamberto Jahununahuit Chicholop alias el Cojo
SB 02566 14 Jun 1803 M 12 a a Jacinto Puyahuit Salaguaj
SB 02567 14 Jun 1803 M 45 a a Placido Chicchanunachu Siujtu
SB 02568 14 Jun 1803 M 54 a a Pasqual Chop'hi Siujtu
SB 02569 14 Jun 1803 M 54 a a Pastor Quitsemehuit Siujtu
SB 02570 14 Jun 1803 M 6 a mu Laureano [Sisuchi], dicha
rancheria

SB 02571 15 Jun 1803 F 30 a a Juana Alcajch
SB 02572 15 Jun 1803 F 30 a a Nicolasa Siujtu
SB 02573 15 Jun 1803 F 56 a a Olegaria Siujtu
SB 02574 15 Jun 1803 F 34 a a Maria Andrea Salaguaj
SB 02575 15 Jun 1803 F 34 a a Lorenza Casil
SB 02576 15 Jun 1803 F 34 a a Lucia Sisuchi
SB 02577 15 Jun 1803 F 44 a a Luisa Casil
SB 02578 15 Jun 1803 F 26 a a Thomasa Sisuchy, rancheria de
SB 02579 15 Jun 1803 F 44 a a Ygnacia Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02580 15 Jun 1803 F 48 a a Ysabel Siujtu
SB 02581 15 Jun 1803 F 34 a a Maria Siujtu
SB 02582 15 Jun 1803 F 52 a a Prisca Siujtu
SB 02583 15 Jun 1803 F 56 a a Paula Siujtu
SB 02584 15 Jun 1803 F 46 a a Paulina Siujtu
SB 02585 15 Jun 1803 F 55 a a Petra Siujtu
SB 02586 15 Jun 1803 F 54 a a Maria Juana Siujtu
SB 02587 15 Jun 1803 F 50 a a Policarpa Siujtu
SB 02588 15 Jun 1803 F 60 a a Pelagia Siujtu
SB 02589 15 Jun 1803 F 48 a a Prima Siujtu
SB 02590 15 Jun 1803 F 14 a a Petronila Misopsno
SB 02591 15 Jun 1803 F 20 a a Maria del
Rosario
Siujtu
SB 02592 16 Jun 1803 M 20 a a Francisco Chulutchu Siujtu
SB 02593 17 Jun 1803 F 66 a a Petra [San Miguel llamada
Saspili], dicha rancheria

SB 02594 19 Jun 1803 F 2 m ni Maria Rita Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02595 18 Jun 1803 F 10 a a Maria Josefa Snajalayegua, rancheria
de

SB 02596 19 Jun 1803 F 2 a p Marceliana Gelo, rancheria de
169

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02597 21 Jun 1803 M 38 a a Luis Ahuinunatset Chucu, rancheria de
SB 02598 21 Jun 1803 F 34 a a Martina Snajalayegua, rancheria
de

SB 02599 21 Jun 1803 F 24 a a Melchora Chuccu, rancheria de
SB 02600 22 Jun 1803 M 60 a a Pedro Suúa Siguosiiu, rancheria de
SB 02601 22 Jun 1803 F 61 a a Petra Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02602 22 Jun 1803 F 60 a a Paula [Miquigui], dicha
rancheria

SB 02603 22 Jun 1803 F 62 a a Andrea Miquigui
SB 02604 22 Jun 1803 F 61 a a Juana Miquigui
SB 02605 22 Jun 1803 F 60 a a Felipa Miquigui
SB 02606 22 Jun 1803 F 0 d p Juana Baptista [Unstated] Mission
SB 02607 23 Jun 1803 M 48 a a Francisco
Xabier
Sasnimanquiti Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02608 23 Jun 1803 M 56 a a Gonzalo Pasuyaguit Siguecon, rancheria de
SB 02609 23 Jun 1803 M 57 a a Gregorio Liquiquiatset Saspili
SB 02610 23 Jun 1803 M 52 a a Gabino Sicuanunat Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02611 23 Jun 1803 F 40 a a Genoveva Maria Saspili
SB 02612 23 Jun 1803 F 54 a a Hilaria Maria Saspili
SB 02613 23 Jun 1803 F 42 a a Helena Saspili
SB 02614 23 Jun 1803 F 28 a a Humiliana Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02615 23 Jun 1803 F 49 a a Juana Maria Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02616 23 Jun 1803 F 52 a a Juana Antonia Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02617 23 Jun 1803 F 28 a a Juana de la Cruz Gelo
SB 02618 23 Jun 1803 F 60 a a Joaquina Gelo
SB 02619 23 Jun 1803 F 61 a a Jacinta Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02620 23 Jun 1803 F 46 a a Justa Antonia Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02621 23 Jun 1803 F 52 a a Julia Maria Misopsno, rancheria de
SB 02622 23 Jun 1803 M rn Juan Bautista Mision Mission
SB 02623 1 Jul 1803 M 58 a a Pedro Jacuhinat Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02624 1 Jul 1803 M 56 a a Pablo Puyatset Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02625 1 Jul 1803 M 20 a a Geronimo
Joseph
Sisacucaimehuit Coloc, rancheria de
SB 02626 1 Jul 1803 M 15 a a Patricio Snapuyautset Maschala en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02627 1 Jul 1803 M 17 a a Rafael Juquimanatset Siguaya, rancheria de
SB 02628 1 Jul 1803 M 13 a a Pelagio Jayuyaitset Maschala en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02629 1 Jul 1803 F 60 a a Rita Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02630 1 Jul 1803 F 60 a a Justina Miasapa, rancheria de
SB 02631 2 Jul 1803 F 3 d ni Maria
Visitacion
Mision Mission
SB 02632 5 Jul 1803 F 5 a ni Maria
Buenaventura
Huichapa
SB 02633 10 Jul 1803 M rn Estevan Mision Mission
SB 02634 14 Jul 1803 M 1 d p Buenaventura
Antonio
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02635 16 Jul 1803 M 27 a a Raymundo Yaiamehuit Stucu, rancheria de
SB 02636 16 Jul 1803 M 17 a a Felix de
Cantalicio
Chulamait Ychemèn en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02637 16 Jul 1803 M 25 a a Manuel Antonio Sulumatcuyat Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02638 16 Jul 1803 M 56 a a Homobono
Joseph
Chicguepiat Miquigui, rancheria de
170

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02639 16 Jul 1803 M 12 a a Osmundo Maria Cuyamu, rancheria de
SB 02640 16 Jul 1803 M 9 a a Remigio Chuasyelaut [Unstated]
SB 02641 16 Jul 1803 M 10 a a Manuel Majulunahuait Casil, rancheria de
SB 02642 16 Jul 1803 M 12 a a Alexo Antonio Hucayugulaut Casil, rancheria de
SB 02643 16 Jul 1803 M 17 a a Lorenzo
Justiniano
Manunuyaut Siguecon, rancheria de
SB 02644 16 Jul 1803 F 22 a a Felipa Antonia Saspilil, rancheria de
SB 02645 16 Jul 1803 F 28 a a Maria Aniceta Cuyamu, rancheria de
SB 02646 16 Jul 1803 F 45 a a Maria Trinidad Cuyamu, rancheria de
SB 02647 16 Jul 1803 F 48 a a Francisca de
Asis
Geliec, rancheria de
SB 02648 16 Jul 1803 F 22 a a Maria Theresa Mugu, rancheria de
SB 02649 16 Jul 1803 F 32 a a Ynes de Asis Gelo, rancheria de
SB 02650 12 Jul 1803 F 60 a a Dominga [Unstated]
SB 02651 21 Jul 1803 M 19 a a Luciano Josef Sasnicucachet Huililiqui, rancheria de
SB 02652 21 Jul 1803 M 20 a a Francisco
Xabier Antonio
Sapiyehuyol Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02653 24 Jul 1803 M 5 a p Berardo Joseph Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02654 24 Jul 1803 M 5 a p Francisco
Joseph
Sisuchy, rancheria de
SB 02655 24 Jul 1803 M 1 m p Joseph
Francisco
[Sisuchy, rancheria de]
SB 02656 24 Jul 1803 F 6 a p Martiniana
Maria
Sisuchy, rancheria de
SB 02657 24 Jul 1803 F 4 a p Susana Maria Sisuchy, rancheria de
SB 02658 24 Jul 1803 F 1.5 a p Luisa Maria Sisuchy, rancheria de
SB 02659 27 Jul 1803 M 59 a a Ambrosio Sniguluyasu Sisuchi, rancheria
SB 02660 27 Jul 1803 M 24 a a Agustin Matiamahuilue [Sisuchi, rancheria]
SB 02661 27 Jul 1803 M 46 a a Andres Corsino Guilahuich [Sisuchi], misma
rancheria

SB 02662 27 Jul 1803 M 50 a a Antonino Yahuimohuit [Sisuchi], misma
rancheria

SB 02663 27 Jul 1803 M 37 a a Roman Yamahuit [Sisuchi], dicha
rancheria

SB 02664 27 Jul 1803 M 58 a a Apolonio Amascululuyat Sisuchi, rancheria
SB 02665 27 Jul 1803 M 39 a a Benito Jaguhay [Sisuchi], misma
rancheria

SB 02666 27 Jul 1803 M 57 a a Bernardino Yayahuit [Sisuchi], propria
rancheria

SB 02667 27 Jul 1803 M 49 a a Bruno Joseph Yaguguiset [Sisuchi], dicha
rancheria

SB 02668 27 Jul 1803 M 44 a a Buenaventura Snicu [Sisuchi], misma
rancheria

SB 02669 27 Jul 1803 M 39 a a Carlos Antonio Sulguayamit [Sisuchi], referida
rancheria

SB 02670 27 Jul 1803 M 38 a a Cayetano Maria Sminè Anajue, rancheria
SB 02671 27 Jul 1803 M 58 a a Cayo Jose Saayiyol Castait, rancheria
SB 02672 27 Jul 1803 M 39 a a Cesareo Julucumaisset Sisuchi, rancheria
SB 02673 27 Jul 1803 M 30 a a Crisogono Alulucucassiet Sisuchi, rancheria
SB 02674 27 Jul 1803 M 34 a a Clemente
Joseph
Suluguiyamit Sisuchi, rancheria
referida

SB 02675 27 Jul 1803 M 53 a a Cosme Joseph Sagululunaut [Sisuchi], misma
rancheria

SB 02676 27 Jul 1803 M 22 a a Tomas Gelinapaigui Calahuasa, rancheria
SB 02677 27 Jul 1803 F 19 a a Ana Maria Onomjio, rancheria de
171

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02678 27 Jul 1803 F 24 a a Arsenia Sisuchy
SB 02679 27 Jul 1803 F 47 a a Antonia de
Padua
Sisuchy, rancheria de
SB 02680 27 Jul 1803 F 18 a a Josefa Antonia [Sisuchy], misma
rancheria

SB 02681 27 Jul 1803 F 34 a a Apolinaria [Sisuchy], dicha
rancheria

SB 02682 27 Jul 1803 F 49 a a Maria Barbara [Sisuchy], dicha
rancheria

SB 02683 27 Jul 1803 F 39 a a Basilia Maria [Sisuchy], misma
rancheria

SB 02684 27 Jul 1803 F 49 a a Blandina [Sisuchy], misma
rancheria

SB 02685 27 Jul 1803 F 36 a a Calixta Maria Sisuchy
SB 02686 27 Jul 1803 F 42 a a Canuta Maria [Sisuchy], misma
rancheria

SB 02687 27 Jul 1803 F 36 a a Cathalina [Sisuchy], dicha
rancheria

SB 02688 27 Jul 1803 F 34 a a Cecilia [Sisuchy], dicha
rancheria

SB 02689 27 Jul 1803 F 50 a a Clara Antonia [Sisuchy], misma
rancheria

SB 02690 27 Jul 1803 F 40 a a Christina
Antonia
[Sisuchy], dicha
rancheria

SB 02691 27 Jul 1803 F 28 a a Clara Maria [Sisuchy], misma
rancheria

SB 02692 27 Jul 1803 F 30 a a Claudia Maria Sisuchy, rancheria de
SB 02693 27 Jul 1803 F 39 a a Dionisia Maria [Sisuchy], misma
rancheria

SB 02694 27 Jul 1803 F 22 a a Maria
Magdalena
Calahuasa, rancheria de
SB 02695 27 Jul 1803 F 60 a a Juana de la Cruz [Unstated]
SB 02696 27 Jul 1803 F 4 a p Benita Calahuasa, rancheria de
SB 02697 27 Jul 1803 F 4.5 a p Maria Josepha [Tequeps]
SB 02698 28 Jul 1803 M 59 a a Blas Antonio Yuamaita Sisuchi, rancheria
SB 02699 28 Jul 1803 M 43 a a Crisanto
Antonio
Sulnayaut [Sisuchi], misma
rancheria

SB 02700 28 Jul 1803 M 20 a a Cirilo Snapalulaut Calahuasa
SB 02701 28 Jul 1803 M 21 a a Damaso Guaguluit Sisuchi, rancheria
SB 02702 28 Jul 1803 M 16 a a Domingo de
Silos
Alisagulaut Jonjonata, rancheria
SB 02703 28 Jul 1803 M 54 a a Eduardo Jupuyunasset Sisuchi, rancheria
SB 02704 28 Jul 1803 M 14 a a Dositeo Yamomoit [Sisuchi], dicha
rancheria

SB 02705 28 Jul 1803 M 11 a a Pedro Apostol Gelnuyausset [Sisuchi], misma
rancheria

SB 02706 29 Jul 1803 F 18 a a Maria Rosa Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02707 29 Jul 1803 F 22 a a Agustina Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02708 29 Jul 1803 F 18 a a Escolastica Sisuchi
SB 02709 29 Jul 1803 F 18 a a Eulalia Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02710 29 Jul 1803 F 43 a a Eufrasia Sisuchi
SB 02711 29 Jul 1803 F 50 a a Fabiana Maria Sisuchi
SB 02712 29 Jul 1803 F 41 a a Feliciana Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02713 29 Jul 1803 F 39 a a Rosa Maria Calahuashá, rancheria
de

172

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02714 29 Jul 1803 F 50 a a Maria Fabiana Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02715 29 Jul 1803 F 50 a a Francisca
Antonia
Sisuchi
SB 02716 29 Jul 1803 F 44 a a Margarita
Antonia
Sisuchi
SB 02717 29 Jul 1803 F 49 a a Bibiana Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02718 29 Jul 1803 F 48 a a Marta Sisuchi
SB 02719 30 Jul 1803 F 0 d p Catalina Maria [Unstated] Mission
SB 02720 31 Jul 1803 F 5 a ni Casta Calavasá, rancheria
SB 02721 31 Jul 1803 F 4 a p Fee Calavasá
SB 02722 31 Jul 1803 F 1 a p Esperanza Calavasá
SB 02723 31 Jul 1803 F 4 a p Caridad Calavasá, rancheria
SB 02724 6 Aug 1803 M 8 m p Vicente ab
Aquila
Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02725 6 Aug 1803 F 4 a p Ynes de Asis Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02726 10 Aug 1803 F 2 d p Juana Lorenza [Unstated] Mission
SB 02727 12 Aug 1803 M 40 a a Sebastian
Aparicio
Guepijaut Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02728 12 Aug 1803 M 18 a a Vicente de
Aquila
Quiamát Casil, rancheria de
SB 02729 12 Aug 1803 M 15 a a Andres
Hibernon
Suayaut Tequepsh
SB 02730 14 Aug 1803 F 1 d ni Maria de la
Asumpcion
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02731 20 Aug 1803 M 30 a a Buenaventura
de Potencia
Lihuilihuit Tequepsh, rancheria de
SB 02732 20 Aug 1803 M 23 a a Nicolas Factor Guastinapachét Calahuashá
SB 02733 20 Aug 1803 F 45 a a Angela Mericia Taliyehue Sisuchi, rancheria de
SB 02734 20 Aug 1803 F 20 a a Ysabel Buena Casil, rancheria de
SB 02735 21 Aug 1803 M 1 m ni Joaquin Joseph Mision Mission
SB 02736 28 Aug 1803 F 1 m ni Rosa de Viterbo Mision
SB 02737 26 Aug 1803 M 20 a a Juan Jose de la
Cruz
Tehuahizé Tequepsh, rancheria de
SB 02738 4 Sep 1803 M 1 d p Joseph
Cupertino
Mision Mission
SB 02739 9 Sep 1803 M 29 a a Juan de Parma Sulclayti Aguamon, rancheria de
SB 02740 9 Sep 1803 F 60 a a Rosa de Viterbo Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02741 9 Sep 1803 F 26 a a Angela de
Fulgino
Sisuchy, rancheria de
SB 02742 10 Sep 1803 M 1.5 a p Cipriano Joseph Miquigui, rancheria de
SB 02743 11 Sep 1803 M 0 d ni Lorenzo
Justiniano
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02744 12 Sep 1803 M 55 a a Andres Antonio Chatiachu [Saccaya], dicha
rancheria

SB 02745 los dias primeros
del mes de
Septiembre [Sep
1803]
F 60 a a Maria de Jesus [Unstated]
SB 02746 16 Sep 1803 F 34 a a Juana de Prado Casil, rancheria de
SB 02747 16 Sep 1803 F 16 a a Helena Maria Cajatsa en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02748 17 Sep 1803 F 30 a a Maria Dolores Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02749 18 Sep 1803 F 2 a p Julia Francisca Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02750 21 Sep 1803 F 1 d p Maria Gabriela [Unstated] Mission
SB 02751 26 Sep 1803 F 6 a mu Lucia Gelo, rancheria de
173

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02752 28 Sep 1803 F 0 d ni Bernardina [Unstated] Mission
SB 02753 28 Sep 1803 F 0 d ni Bernardina
Maria
Mision Mission
SB 02754 2 Oct 1803 M 6 a p Domingo Cajatsa en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02756 2 Oct 1803 F 8.5 a mu Maria de los
Angeles
Cajatsa en las Yslas,
rancheria de

SB 02757 7 Oct 1803 M 2 d ni Bruno Mision Mission
SB 02758 8 Oct 1803 M 18 a a Bernardo Maticucachu Sisuchi
SB 02759 8 Oct 1803 F 24 a a Venancia Maria Uchapa, rancheria de
SB 02760 8 Oct 1803 F 28 a a Urbana Maria Geliéc, rancheria de
SB 02761 8 Oct 1803 F 24 a a Maria Ygnacia Sajpilil
SB 02762 8 Oct 1803 M 1 d ni Dionisio
Antonio
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02763 11 Oct 1803 F 1 d ni Andrea
Francisca
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02764 16 Oct 1803 F 10 d ni Placida Antonia [Unstated] Mission
SB 02765 12 Oct 1803 F 3 d ni Maria Rosalia Mision Mission
SB 02766 20 Oct 1803 M 60 a a Ascisclo Huilalatset [Sniguaj], dicha
rancheria

SB 02767 23 Oct 1803 F 6 d ni Maria Hilaria [Unstated]
SB 02768 25 Oct 1803 F 1 d ni Ynes Antonia Siujtu, rancheria de Mission
SB 02769 29 Oct 1803 F 60 a a Clara Maria [San Pedro y San Pablo
alias Miquigui], dicha
rancheria

SB 02770 29 Oct 1803 F 69 a a Ynes Maria [San Pedro y San Pablo
alias Miquigui], dicha
rancheria

SB 02771 29 Oct 1803 F 60 a a Cathalina Maria [San Pedro y San Pablo
alias Miquigui], dicha
rancheria

SB 02772 30 Oct 1803 F 15 d ni Eulalia Mision Mission
SB 02773 31 Oct 1803 F 5 d ni Sandalia San Miguel alias Saspili,
rancheria de
Mission
SB 02774 3 Nov 1803 M 1 d ni Carlos Antonio Mision Mission
SB 02775 6 Nov 1803 M 6 m ni Jose Ygnacio Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02776 6 Nov 1803 F 1 a ni Remigia Maria [Huililic], sobredicha
rancheria

SB 02777 9 Nov 1803 M 20 a a Joseph Maria Aji Calahuasa, rancheria de
SB 02778 9 Nov 1803 M 11 a a Andres Avelino Gualanunauta Casil, rancheria de
SB 02779 12 Nov 1803 F 1 d p Maria
Concordia
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02780 20 Nov 1803 M 1 m ni Feliz Mision Mission
SB 02781 23 Nov 1803 M 24 a a Jose Miguel Atsiaaut Chuccu alias el Rincon,
rancheria de

SB 02782 23 Nov 1803 M 24 a a Pantaleon Chuaait [Chuccu alias el
Rincon], misma
rancheria

SB 02783 23 Nov 1803 F 0 d ni Clemencia
Maria
Mision Mission
SB 02784 27 Nov 1803 M 10 d ni Aquilino
Antonio
San Pedro y San Pablo
alias Miquigui,
rancheria de
Mission
SB 02785 17 Nov 1803 M menos
de un
año
m ni Juan Jose [Unstated]
174

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02786 3 Dec 1803 M 1 d p Pedro
Chrisologo
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02787 5 Dec 1803 M 4 a mu Jacome de la
Marca
Nitiyaut Saccaya, rancheria de
SB 02788 5 Dec 1803 M 1 d ni Serafin de
Asculo
[Unstated]
SB 02789 5 Dec 1803 F 3 a p Tomasa de
Florencia
Guashtiyenahuan Saccaya, rancheria de
SB 02790 15 Dec 1803 M 8 a mu Pelagio Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02791 15 Dec 1803 M 0 d ni Pastor Mision Mission
SB 02792 15 Dec 1803 M 40 a a Ysidro Joseph Sipiachet Snihuaj, rancheria de
SB 02793 15 Dec 1803 M 16 a a Rosendo Siguinunat Sajcaya, rancheria de
SB 02794 15 Dec 1803 M 16 a a Rufino Antonio Pamasniguluit Aquitsumu, rancheria de
SB 02795 15 Dec 1803 M 15 a a Salvador de
Horta
Matalihuit Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02796 15 Dec 1803 F 36 a a Thomasa Maria Saspili, rancheria de
SB 02797 15 Dec 1803 F 17 a a Barbara Antonia Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02798 15 Dec 1803 F 22 a a Fermina Maria Aquitsumu, rancheria de
SB 02799 17 Dec 1803 M 48 a a Gonzalo Joseph Sulcuyayahuit Sajcaya, rancheria de
SB 02800 17 Dec 1803 M 21 a a Patricio Joseph Samohuit Sajcaia, rancheria de
SB 02801 17 Dec 1803 M 21 a a Juan Ygnacio Culuyuyunaatset Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02802 17 Dec 1803 M 18 a a Roque Majululaitchet Aquitsumu, rancheria de
SB 02803 17 Dec 1803 F 22 a a Paladia Maria Sajcaya, rancheria de
SB 02804 17 Dec 1803 F 21 a a Francisca de
Paula
Stucu, rancheria de
SB 02805 17 Dec 1803 F 24 a a Ana Joaquina Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02806 17 Dec 1803 F 1 d p Maria Donata [Unstated] Mission
SB 02807 19 Dec 1803 M rn Jose Mision Mission
SB 02808 19 Dec 1803 F 50 a a Maria Rosa [Snajalayegua], dicha
rancheria

SB 02809 20 Dec 1803 M 1 d ni Thomas
Antonio
[Unstated] Mission
SB 02810 23 Dec 1803 F 0 d ni Nicolasa Maria Mision Mission
SB 02811 28 Dec 1803 M 30 a a Pedro Matipuyaut Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02812 28 Dec 1803 M 20 a a Pablo Hualanahuit [Tequeps], misma
rancheria

SB 02813 28 Dec 1803 M 33 a a Timotheo Hulahuitset [Tequeps], misma
rancheria

SB 02814 28 Dec 1803 M 48 a a Tadeo Sumsuyatset Tequeps
SB 02815 28 Dec 1803 M 40 a a Ruperto Sicmemeyá Tequeps
SB 02816 28 Dec 1803 M 46 a a Romualdo Ahumihuachu Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02817 28 Dec 1803 M 12 a a Ricardo Gelemeyaut Huililic, rancheria de
SB 02818 28 Dec 1803 M 0 d p Juan Apostol [Unstated] Mission
SB 02819 29 Dec 1803 F 26 a a Paula Tequeps, rancheria de
SB 02820 29 Dec 1803 F 20 a a Teresa Sotonocmu
SB 02821 29 Dec 1803 F 38 a a Tecla Calahuasa
SB 02822 29 Dec 1803 F 46 a a Remigia Tequeps
SB 02823 29 Dec 1803 F 15 a a Rafaela Tequeps
SB 02824 29 Dec 1803 F 34 a a Rosalia Huililic
SB 02825 29 Dec 1803 F 44 a a Ramona Huililic
SB 02826 29 Dec 1803 F 60 a a Regina Sisuchi
SB 02827 29 Dec 1803 F 13 a a Paladia Stucu
SB 02828 29 Dec 1803 F 26 a a Simona Siguecón
175

Mission Number Baptism Date Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name
Native
Name
Origin
Derived
Origin
SB 02829 29 Dec 1803 F 26 a a Alfonsa Sotonócmu
SB 02835 primeros dias del
mes de Dic.re de
1803 [Dec 1803]
F 3 m ni Maria de la
Soledad
[Casil], dicha rancheria
SB 02842 primeros dias del
mes de Nov.re de
1803 [Nov 1803]
F 6 m ni Maria del
Rosario
[Unstated]

176

Appendix D
All 1803 Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for Individuals from the Village of S ’a x pil il

Methodological Approach: In searching for persons from S ’a x pil il, I isolated by mission, year,
and origin, including variant spellings of the village name. I located a total of 93 persons from
S ’a x pil i l baptized in the year 1803. Two of these (Juana of SB 02026 and 02773) were infants
whose parents came from the mission, leaving 91 persons from the village of S ’a x pil il .

Note: A description of all the fields shown below may be found in Appendix B.

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 02006 Saspili,
rancheria de
27 Jan
1803
- in articulo
mortis
M 24 a a Juan
Chrysostomo
Sagicayaut [Saspili],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02009 Saspili,
rancheria de
30 Jan
1803
- gravemente
enfermo
M 60 a a Ygnacio
Maria
Matinunayaguit [Saspili]
SB 02011 Saspili,
rancheria de
9 Feb
1803
- in articulo
mortis
M 55 a a Apolonio Muluy [Saspili],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02026 Saspili,
rancheria de
17 Mar
1803
- en extrema
necesidad
F 0 d p Juana Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02031 Yglesia 4 Apr
1803
+ F 24 a a Fabiana Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02040 Yglesia 16 Apr
1803
+ F 7 a ni Maria Josefa Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02043 Yglesia 18 Apr
1803
+ M 7 a mu Pancrasio Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02044 Yglesia 18 Apr
1803
+ M 4 a mu Lamberto [Saspili],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02045 Yglesia 18 Apr
1803
+ M 4 a mu Christoval [Saspili],
misma
rancheria
SB 02046 Yglesia 18 Apr
1803
+ F 6 a mu Maria
Guadalupe
[Saspili],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02047 Yglesia 18 Apr
1803
+ F 4 a mu Seculina [Saspili],
misma
rancheria
SB 02052 Yglesia 23 Apr
1803
+ M 18 a a Ygnacio
Josef
Majelepiyol Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02056 Yglesia 23 Apr
1803
+ M 4 a p Luis Maria Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02057 Yglesia 23 Apr
1803
+ M 3 a p Liberato
Josef
Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02088 Yglesia 26 Apr
1803
+ M 23 a a Antonio
Francisco
Matiyalaut Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02090 Yglesia 26 Apr
1803
+ M 18 a a Francisco
Antonio
Ataguiaut Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02091 Yglesia 26 Apr
1803
+ M 17 a a Marcos Suluguayipiguol Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02094 Yglesia 26 Apr
1803
+ F 20 a a Albina Josefa Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02096 Yglesia 26 Apr
1803
+ F 18 a a Maria de
Jesus
Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02101 Yglesia 26 Apr + F 4 m ni Felipa de Saspili,
177

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1803 Neri rancheria de
SB 02110 Yglesia 29 Apr
1803
+ F 50 a a Natalia Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02111 Yglesia 29 Apr
1803
+ F 48 a a Maria del
Pilar
Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02112 Yglesia 29 Apr
1803
+ F 50 a a Basilia Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02116 Yglesia 29 Apr
1803
+ F 44 a a Maria
Michaela
Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02128 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ M 14 a mu Pedro Pablo Chajayameuit Saspili
SB 02312 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 54 a a Cesario Saplihuinahuit Saspili
SB 02318 Yglesia 13 May
1803
+ F 8.5 a p Maria
Pascuala
Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02415 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ M 54 a a Fernando
Maria
Asunaut Saspili
SB 02416 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ M 52 a a Faustino Pomuiaguisu Saspili
SB 02417 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ M 36 a a Fabian
Antonio
Niaysu Saspili
SB 02418 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ M 38 a a Fermin Josef Quitamaut Saspili
SB 02419 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ M 28 a a Santes Suasnait Saspili
SB 02420 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ M 19 a a Fausto Josef Mululahuit Saspili
SB 02421 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ M 16 a a Fortunato
Antonio
Muliutu Saspili
SB 02422 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ M 17 a a Feliciano
Josef
Sujiyet Saspili
SB 02423 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 38 a a Lucia Saspili
SB 02424 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 42 a a Francisca
Maria
Saspili
SB 02425 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Feliciana
Maria
Saspili
SB 02426 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 39 a a Fabiana
Antonia
Saspili
SB 02427 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 22 a a Juana Saspili
SB 02428 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 46 a a Felipa Josefa Saspili
SB 02429 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 10 a a Josefa [Saspili]
SB 02430 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 24 a a Gabriela
Maria
Saspili
SB 02432 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 42 a a Geronima
Maria
Saspili
SB 02433 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Gertrudis
Maria
Saspili
SB 02439 Saspili,
rancheria de
24 May
1803
- in articulo
mortis
F 60 a a Juana [Saspili],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02468 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 28 a a Antonia Saspili
SB 02469 Yglesia 31 May + F 34 a a Ambrosia Saspili
178

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1803
SB 02470 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 11 a a Benita Saspili
SB 02471 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 9 a a Bernardina Saspili
SB 02472 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Maria
Ygnacia
Saspili
SB 02473 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 34 a a Ana Maria Saspili
SB 02474 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Agueda Saspili
SB 02475 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 30 a a Agustina Saspili
SB 02476 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 34 a a Antonina Saspili
SB 02477 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Anastasia Saspili
SB 02478 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 28 a a Ana Bona Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02480 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 32 a a Maria
Antonia
Saspili
SB 02484 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 52 a a Apolinaria Saspili
SB 02485 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 44 a a Andrea Saspili
SB 02486 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Beata Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02487 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 46 a a Bruna Saspili
SB 02488 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 36 a a Bernarda Saspili
SB 02489 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 22 a a Barbara Saspili
SB 02491 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ M 38 a a Mariano Matihuluit Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02492 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ M 28 a a Juan Liccuyahuit Saspili
SB 02493 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ M 34 a a Agustin Sataliaut [Saspili],
misma
rancheria
SB 02494 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ M 40 a a Blas Cumiait Saspili
SB 02495 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ M 50 a a Julio Hichunulaut Saspili
SB 02496 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ M 40 a a Jacobo Hualanayét Saspili
SB 02498 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ M 40 a a Salvador Mululait Saspili
SB 02502 Yglesia 1 Jun
1803
+ M 40 a a Matheo Jaluyaut Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02504 Yglesia 1 Jun
1803
+ M 48 a a Juan Bautista Lihuinatsét Saspili
SB 02505 Yglesia 1 Jun
1803
+ M 44 a a Christoval Yanunahuit Saspili
SB 02506 Yglesia 1 Jun
1803
+ M 44 a a Juan Ygnacio Gilimehuyachu Saspili
SB 02507 Yglesia 1 Jun + M 44 a a Chrisanto Quiachaut Saspili
179

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1803
SB 02509 Yglesia 1 Jun
1803
+ M 15 a a Lucas Salpiajaut Saspili
SB 02531 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ M 36 a a Cayo Antonio Chasnicomait ó
Sasnicomait
Saspili
SB 02579 Yglesia 15 Jun
1803
+ F 44 a a Ygnacia Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02593 San Miguel
llamada
Saspili,
rancheria de
17 Jun
1803
- in casu
necessitatis
F 66 a a Petra [San Miguel
llamada
Saspili], dicha
rancheria
SB 02607 Yglesia 23 Jun
1803
+ M 48 a a Francisco
Xabier
Sasnimanquiti Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02609 Yglesia 23 Jun
1803
+ M 57 a a Gregorio Liquiquiatset Saspili
SB 02610 Yglesia 23 Jun
1803
+ M 52 a a Gabino Sicuanunat Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02611 Yglesia 23 Jun
1803
+ F 40 a a Genoveva
Maria
Saspili
SB 02612 Yglesia 23 Jun
1803
+ F 54 a a Hilaria Maria Saspili
SB 02613 Yglesia 23 Jun
1803
+ F 42 a a Helena Saspili
SB 02620 Yglesia 23 Jun
1803
+ F 46 a a Justa Antonia Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02629 Yglesia 1 Jul
1803
+ F 60 a a Rita Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02644 Yglesia 16 Jul
1803
+ F 22 a a Felipa
Antonia
Saspilil,
rancheria de
SB 02749 Yglesia 18 Sep
1803
+ F 2 a p Julia
Francisca
Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02761 Yglesia 8 Oct
1803
+ F 24 a a Maria
Ygnacia
Sajpilil
SB 02773 Yglesia 31 Oct
1803
+ F 5 d ni Sandalia San Miguel
alias Saspili,
rancheria de
SB 02796 Yglesia 15 Dec
1803
+ F 36 a a Thomasa
Maria
Saspili,
rancheria de

180

Appendix E
All 1803 Santa Barbara Mission Baptisms for Individuals from the Village of Mikiw

Methodological Approach: In searching for persons from Mikiw, I isolated by mission, year, and
origin, including variant spellings of the village name. This retrieved a total of 200 persons from
Mikiw baptized in the year 1803. Only one infant (Aquilino Antonio of baptism SB 02784) had
parents who were already affiliated with the mission. The remaining 199 persons came from
outside of the mission. By far, the largest influx of Mikiw villagers (145 persons) to arrive at the
mission occurred in the month of May.

Note: A description of all the fields shown below may be found in Appendix B.

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 02001 Miquigui,
rancheria
de
16 Jan
1803
- enfermo M 12 d p Rafael [Miquigui],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02019 Yglesia 6 Mar
1803
+ F 2 m p Gabriela Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02020 Yglesia 6 Mar
1803
+ F 1 m p Rafaela Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02035 Yglesia 12 Apr
1803
+ M 3 a p Sergio Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02039 Yglesia 14 Apr
1803
+ M 1 m ni Francisco
Solano
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02055 Yglesia 23 Apr
1803
+ F 4 a mu Lorenza
Maria
Miquigui
SB 02068 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ M 7 a p Juan Andres Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02069 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ M 2 a p Benito
Antonio
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02071 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ M 2 a p Henrrique Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02073 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 7 a p Maria
Antonia
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02075 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 6 a p Juana Vicenta Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02076 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 8 a p Josefa
Lorenza
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02077 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 2 a p Josefa Maria [Miquigui,
rancheria de]
SB 02078 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 7 a p Justa Josefa Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02079 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 6 a p Maria
Alexandra
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02080 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 5 a p Maria Bruna Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02081 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 4 a p Maria
Martina
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02082 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 5 a p Maria
Bernarda
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02083 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 5 a p Antonia
Josefa
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02084 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 1.5 a p Christeta Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02085 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 5 m p Maria
Joaquina
Miquigui,
rancheria de
181

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 02086 Yglesia 25 Apr
1803
+ F 3 m p Valeria Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02097 Yglesia 26 Apr
1803
+ F 22 a a Sebastiana Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02099 Yglesia 26 Apr
1803
+ F 16 a a Agapita
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02120 Yglesia 29 Apr
1803
+ F 1 a p Sebastiana
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02121 Yglesia 29 Apr
1803
+ F 1.5 a p Serafina
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02125a Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ M 24 a a Alejo Maria Pamachmahuit Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02126 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ M 20 a a Jose Manuel Aquiyamehuit [Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02127 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ M 18 a a Alejandro
Maria
Miticucaitset [Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02131 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 22 a a Antonina
Maria
Miquigui
SB 02132 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 20 a a Perseverancia [Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02133 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 38 a a Apolonia
Maria
[Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02134 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 28 a a Atanasia
Maria
[Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02135 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 55 a a Agueda
Maria
[Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02136 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 58 a a Aurelia [Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02137 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 60 a a Ana [Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02138 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 14 a a Agustina
Maria
[Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02139 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 12 a a Juana Maria [Miquigui],
misma
rancheria
SB 02141 Yglesia 7 May
1803
+ F 24 a a Maria
Theresa
Miquigui
SB 02142 Yglesia 8 May
1803
+ F 8.5 a p Clemencia
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02144 Yglesia 8 May
1803
+ F 6 a p Caridad
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02145 Yglesia 8 May
1803
+ F 5 a p Esperanza
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02146 Yglesia 8 May
1803
+ F 8 a p Chrispina
Maria
[Miquigui],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02149 Yglesia 9 May
1803
+ M 18 a a Jose Ygnacio Manijiauta Miquigui
SB 02150 Yglesia 9 May
1803
+ M 20 a a Rafael Mujianatset Miquigui
182

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 02153a Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 24 a a Nazaria
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02154 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 20 a a Nicolasa
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02155 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 29 a a Narcisa
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02156 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 24 a a Nemesia
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02157 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 24 a a Nicasia Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02157a Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 25 a a Oliva Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02158 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 27 a a Octavia
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02159 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 33 a a Pascuala Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02160 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 29 a a Paula Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02161 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 33 a a Patricia
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02162 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 27 a a Maria
Antonia
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02163 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 33 a a Policarpa Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02164 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 28 a a Ana Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02165 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 12 a a Maria de
Jesus
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02166 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 35 a a Pia Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02167 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 17 a a Ynes Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02168 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 26 a a Paladia Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02169 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 25 a a Prima Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02170 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 15 a a Pelagia Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02171 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 25 a a Prisca Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02172 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 23 a a Paciencia
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02173 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 30 a a Paula Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02175 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 34 a a Paulina Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02176 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 34 a a Protasia [Miquigui],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02177 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 36 a a Maria
Soledad
Miquigui
SB 02178 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 12 a a Maria del
Rosario
[Miquigui]
SB 02181 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 14 a a Quiteria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02183 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ F 20 a a Maria Josefa Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02185 Yglesia 10 May + F 20 a a Agustina Miquigui,
183

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1803 Maria rancheria de
SB 02187 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 26 a a Alvaro Jayamechaut Miquigui
SB 02188 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 24 a a Francisco
Maria
Sayehueya Miquigui
SB 02189 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 26 a a Anacleto Julpnahuit Miquigui
SB 02190 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 28 a a Adriano Asunatset Miquigui
SB 02191 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 19 a a Arsenio Sulumaninatset Miquigui
SB 02192 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 32 a a Antonio Chalihuachnahuit Miquigui
SB 02195 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 44 a a Amador Muluyuaut Miquigui
SB 02196 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 36 a a Aniceto Sulumauquiet Miquigui
SB 02198 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 22 a a Anastasio Aluluapuatset Miquigui
SB 02199 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 15 a a Antonio
Maria
Tchómo Miquigui
SB 02200 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 15 a a Andres
Avelino
Suljuemeait Miquigui
SB 02201 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 20 a a Antonio Jose Chalicumachuit Miquigui
SB 02203 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 28 a a Amadeo Huiluluyahuit Miquigui
SB 02204 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 14 a a Andres Chunait Miquigui
SB 02205 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 13 a a Ambrosio Tumu Miquigui
SB 02206 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 14 a a Aquilino Suanunait Miquigui
SB 02207 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 12 a a Ananias Huichuait Miquigui
SB 02208 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 11 a a Aureliano Chasnipetatset Miquigui
SB 02209 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 12 a a Apolonio Tuliyahuit Miquigui
SB 02213 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 13 a a Benito Silnehueyat Miquigui
SB 02216 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 38 a a Baldomero Huihuiaychu Miquigui
SB 02217 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 11 a a Baltasar Suacumuyat Miquigui
SB 02218 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 23 a a Bernardino Jahuinatset Miquigui
SB 02219 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 12 a a Braulio Pugimehuit Miquigui
SB 02221 Yglesia 10 May
1803
+ M 18 a a Basilio Maticucahuit Miquigui
SB 02224 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 45 a a Benigno Temiajucala Miquigui
SB 02225 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 45 a a Benvenuto Alalicucatset Miquigui
SB 02226 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 38 a a Basilio Amayayquihuit Miquigui
SB 02227 Yglesia 11 May + M 44 a a Buenaventura Matuluyaut Miquigui
184

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1803
SB 02229 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 22 a a Blas Calucuit Miquigui
SB 02232 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 18 a a Calisto Amuluyahuit Miquihui
SB 02233 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 36 a a Casimiro Sappiehuenat Miquihui
SB 02235 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 38 a a Cayo Pamslihuinachu Miquigui
SB 02238 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Ramona
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02239 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 30 a a Rosa Maria Miquigui
SB 02240 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 24 a a Regina Maria Miquigui
SB 02241 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 44 a a Rufina Maria Miquigui
SB 02242 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Ramona Miquigui
SB 02243 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 19 a a Maria Rita Miquigui
SB 02245 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 33 a a Remigia Miquigui
SB 02248 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 21 a a Maria
Sebastiana
Miquigui
SB 02249 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 28 a a Serafina
Maria
Miquigui
SB 02250 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 27 a a Sabina Josefa Miquigui
SB 02251 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ F 14 a a Severina
Maria
Miquigui
SB 02252 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 23 a a Christoval Jayanunat Miquigui
SB 02254 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 28 a a Casiano Huiccahuit Miquigui
SB 02255 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 28 a a Cipriano Manujait Miquigui
SB 02256 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 32 a a Cecilio Chinuyait Miquigui
SB 02257 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 40 a a Cleto Hueleyemehuit Miquigui
SB 02259 Yglesia 11 May
1803
+ M 19 a a Venceslao Chahuhuit Miquigui
SB 02260 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 34 a a Vicenta
Maria
Miquigui
SB 02262 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Victoria Miquigui
SB 02263 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 42 a a Venancia
Maria
Miquigui
SB 02264 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Valeria Maria Miquigui
SB 02265 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Ursula Maria Miquigui
SB 02266 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 44 a a Valeriana
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02268 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 43 a a Nicolasa
Josefa
Miquigui
SB 02269 Yglesia 12 May + F 36 a a Narcisa Miquigui
185

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1803
SB 02270 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 38 a a Ninfa Maria Miquigui
SB 02271 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Maria
Segunda
Miquigui
SB 02274 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 48 a a Paula Miquigui
SB 02277 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 33 a a Placida Maria Miquigui
SB 02278 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 56 a a Pia Maria Miquigui
SB 02279 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 36 a a Paladia Miquigui
SB 02282 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 58 a a Petronila Miquigui
SB 02283 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Perfecta Miquigui
SB 02284 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 30 a a Potamia
Maria
Miquigui
SB 02285 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 30 a a Paulina Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02286 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 48 a a Prisca Miquigui
SB 02287 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Prudencia Miquigui
SB 02288 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 60 a a Cosme Amuhuilait Miquigui
SB 02290 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 60 a a Daniel Huyatsahuit Miquigui
SB 02291 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 60 a a Dionisio Tspihui Miquigui
SB 02292 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 60 a a Domingo Mayaychu Miquigui
SB 02294 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 58 a a Donato Tacuhinát Miquigui
SB 02295 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 48 a a Dalmacio Achumanijait Miquigui
SB 02298 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 40 a a Damaso Huinayalihuit Miquigui
SB 02299 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 55 a a Elzeario Tacqueleyehuit Miquigui
SB 02301 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 48 a a Eusebio Cuilanatset Miquigui
SB 02302 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 50 a a Eduardo Hulaut Miquigui
SB 02303 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 54 a a Ezequiel Yayahuit Miquigui
SB 02304 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 13 a a Eustaquio Pahuaitset Miquigui
SB 02305 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 12 a a Elizeo Telehuautset Miquigui
SB 02307 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 30 a a Canuto Sunalpuyat Miquigui
SB 02311 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 40 a a Celso Chichanunachu Miquigui
SB 02313 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 36 a a Castor Heyeyenatset Miquigui
SB 02314 Yglesia 12 May + M 20 a a Conrado Asenemehuinatset Miquigui
186

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1803
SB 02316 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 54 a a Cayetano Chnimamquiti Miquigui
SB 02317 Yglesia 12 May
1803
+ M 60 a a Euquerio Chniayta Miquigui
SB 02362 Yglesia 19 May
1803
+ M 30 a a Guido Chuluscahuiyait Miquigui
SB 02409 Miquigui,
rancheria
de
21 May
1803
- in articulo
mortis
M 55 a a Gervasio Yumuyunahuit Miquigui,
dicha
rancheria
SB 02431 Yglesia 24 May
1803
+ F 40 a a Maria Gabina Miquigui
SB 02436 Miquigui
llamada
San
Pedro y
San
Pablo,
rancheria
de
24 May
1803
- gravemente
enfermas
F 55 a a Maria [Miquigui
llamada San
Pedro y San
Pablo],
misma
rancheria
SB 02437 Miquigui
llamada
San
Pedro y
San
Pablo,
rancheria
de
24 May
1803
- gravemente
enfermas
F 44 a a Petra [Miquigui
llamada San
Pedro y San
Pablo],
misma
rancheria
SB 02438 Miquigui
llamada
San
Pedro y
San
Pablo,
rancheria
de
24 May
1803
- gravemente
enfermas
F 36 a a Paula [Miquigui
llamada San
Pedro y San
Pablo],
misma
rancheria
SB 02479 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 42 a a Ana Benita Miquigui
SB 02490 Yglesia 31 May
1803
+ F 14 a a Benedicta Miquigui
SB 02508 Yglesia 1 Jun
1803
+ M 14 a a Jose Vicente Lihuimsét Miquigui
SB 02513 Yglesia 4 Jun
1803
+ F 51 a a Basilia Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02514 Yglesia 4 Jun
1803
+ F 1 m p Andrea Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02542 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 33 a a Dominga
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02543 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 54 a a Donata Maria Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02544 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 55 a a Dorothea
Maria
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02545 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 56 a a Dionisia Miquigui
SB 02546 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 37 a a Damiana
Josefa
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02547 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 61 a a Delfina Maria Miquigui
SB 02548 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 60 a a Domitila Miquigui,
rancheria de
187

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SB 02549 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 58 a a Eusebia Miquigui
SB 02550 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 57 a a Escolastica Miquigui
SB 02551 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 58 a a Maria
Dominga
Miquigui
SB 02552 Yglesia 7 Jun
1803
+ F 49 a a Maria Donata Miquigui
SB 02601 Miquigui
alias San
Pedro y
San
Pablo,
rancheria
de
22 Jun
1803
- por su vejez y
achaques estan
imposibilitadas
de venir a la
Mision
F 61 a a Petra Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02602 Miquigui
alias San
Pedro y
San
Pablo,
rancheria
de
22 Jun
1803
- por su vejez y
achaques estan
imposibilitadas
de venir a la
Mision
F 60 a a Paula [Miquigui],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02603 Miquigui
alias San
Pedro y
San
Pablo,
rancheria
de
22 Jun
1803
- por su vejez y
achaques estan
imposibilitadas
de venir a la
Mision
F 62 a a Andrea Miquigui
SB 02604 Miquigui
alias San
Pedro y
San
Pablo,
rancheria
de
22 Jun
1803
- por su vejez y
achaques estan
imposibilitadas
de venir a la
Mision
F 61 a a Juana Miquigui
SB 02605 Miquigui
alias San
Pedro y
San
Pablo,
rancheria
de
22 Jun
1803
- por su vejez y
achaques estan
imposibilitadas
de venir a la
Mision
F 60 a a Felipa Miquigui
SB 02623 Yglesia 1 Jul
1803
+ M 58 a a Pedro Jacuhinat Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02624 Yglesia 1 Jul
1803
+ M 56 a a Pablo Puyatset Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02638 Yglesia 16 Jul
1803
+ M 56 a a Homobono
Joseph
Chicguepiat Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02727 Yglesia 12 Aug
1803
+ M 40 a a Sebastian
Aparicio
Guepijaut Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02740 Yglesia 9 Sep
1803
+ F 60 a a Rosa de
Viterbo
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02742 Yglesia 10 Sep
1803
+ M 1.5 a p Cipriano
Joseph
Miquigui,
rancheria de
SB 02769 San
Pedro y
San
Pablo
alias
Miquigui,
rancheria
29 Oct
1803
- imposibilitadas
para venir a la
Mision por por
vejas y
achacosas
F 60 a a Clara Maria [San Pedro y
San Pablo
alias
Miquigui],
dicha
rancheria
188

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
de
SB 02770 San
Pedro y
San
Pablo
alias
Miquigui,
rancheria
de
29 Oct
1803
- imposibilitadas
para venir a la
Mision por por
vejas y
achacosas
F 69 a a Ynes Maria [San Pedro y
San Pablo
alias
Miquigui],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02771 San
Pedro y
San
Pablo
alias
Miquigui,
rancheria
de
29 Oct
1803
- imposibilitadas
para venir a la
Mision por por
vejas y
achacosas
F 60 a a Cathalina
Maria
[San Pedro y
San Pablo
alias
Miquigui],
dicha
rancheria
SB 02784 Yglesia 27 Nov
1803
+ M 10 d ni Aquilino
Antonio
San Pedro y
San Pablo
alias
Miquigui,
rancheria de

189

Appendix F
Numbers of baptisms of Native recruits (adults and children) for La Purísima Concepción, San
Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, and Santa Inés Missions in the years 1815 and 1816

Methodological Approach: The following data come from the Early California Population
Project database. I isolated the baptisms for missions La Purísima Concepción, San
Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, and Santa Inés by year for 1815 and 1816, omitting those persons
who were non-Indian and Indians born at the missions. I also included the raw data for the
highest number of baptisms per year for each of the four missions. The raw data show that the
majority of Indians came from the villages of the Channel Islands. Please also refer to Appendix
B for descriptions of all the fields shown below.
The spelling of the villages was Hispanicized, but mostly phonetically so that Niaqla was
spelled “Niacla” by the Franciscans. Other island villages that appear in the below records
include: Ch’oloshush (Cholossue/ Cholossus/ Cholosos), Helewashkuy (Eleuaxcuyu/ Eleuaxcú),
L ’ak ay amu (Lacayamu), Liyam (Liam), L u’ upsh (Luupsh), Mashchal (Maschal), Nanawani
(Nanahuani), Nawani (Nahuami), N il al’uy (Nilaluy/ Nilaluhut), Nimkilkil (Nimqelqe/
Nimquelquel), Qshiwqshiw (Siucsiu/Xiucxiui), Shawa (Chahua), Silimihi (Silimi), Swaxil
(Yshguagél), Tuqan (Toan), and Xaxas (Cajas/Cajats). Refer to the map of the Chumash villages
of the Northern Channel Islands in Chapter One.

La Purisima Concepcion Mission
Year Number of adult and youth recruits
1815 90
1816 37

La Purisima Concepcion Mission: 90 recruits for the year 1815
Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native
Name
Origin
LPC 02738 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 50 a a Lorenzo Sulcuminatset Itseemen,
rancheria de
LPC 02739 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 45 a a Jorge Cuuiat Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02740 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 40 a a Gavino Chajululumiatset Etseui[t]eu,
rancheria de
LPC 02741 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 25 a a Alejandro Ta[u]ini Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02742 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 35 a a Baltasar Ualamiat Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02743 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 40 a a Cirillo Nimulaymeuit Niacla
LPC 02744 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 25 a a Pedro Antonio Quimajay Itseemen,
rancheria de
LPC 02745 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 25 a a Silvestre Tojojaitset Nimquelquel,
natural de
LPC 02746 Yglesia 1 Feb
1815
+ M 22 a a Emigdio Tamialaitset Itseemen,
rancheria de
LPC 02764 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 9 a mu Jayme Alicuay [Toan, rancheria
de]
LPC 02765 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 7 a mu Hermenegildo Uajaichet Toan, rancheria
de
LPC 02766 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 3 a mu Basilio Uataliuset Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
190

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native
Name
Origin
LPC 02767 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 2 a mu Henrique Uixiyautset Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02768 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 9 a mu Santiago Uixulauset Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02769 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 7 a mu Fructuoso Yunaxuit Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02770 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 4 a mu Alonso Uijalaichet Toan, rancheria
de
LPC 02771 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 4 a mu Julian Uilelmehuit Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02772 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 2 a mu Cecilio Exnujalanaichet [Nimquelquel,
rancheria de]
LPC 02773 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 6 a mu Odon Amuniauchet [Nimquelquel,
rancheria de]
LPC 02774 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 6 a mu Nicolas Semaliauchet [Nimquelquel,
rancheria de]
LPC 02775 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 3 a mu Bernardo Nujaliauchet [Nimquelquel,
rancheria de]
LPC 02776 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 7 a mu Pedro Atiulaxuit Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02777 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 5 a mu Pablo Sunayaichet Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02778 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 6 a mu Mathias Tuiyulaichet Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02779 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 3 a mu Andres Uatajalaychet Nia : cla,
rancheria de
LPC 02780 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 1 m p Flor Cholossue
LPC 02781 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 2 a p Rosa Toan, rancheria
de
LPC 02782 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 1 a p Maria Dolores Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02783 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 1 a p Luisa
Gonzaga
[Unstated]
LPC 02784 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 1 a p Mamerta Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02785 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 2 a p Fulgencia Xiuexiui,
rancheria de
LPC 02786 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 25 a a Domingo Aliemijaichet Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02787 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 14 a a Francisco Uejiaichet Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02788 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 26 a a Vicente Ferrer Juliamquichet Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02789 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 12 a a Felipe Yajaichet Nahuami,
rancheria de
LPC 02790 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 22 a a Mariano Mucatlihuit Toan, rancheria
de
LPC 02791 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 30 a a Luis Tsau Xiucxiui,
rancheria de
LPC 02792 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 30 a a Marcos Lihuihuan Niacla, rancheria
de
LPC 02793 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 32 a a Matheo Xanunaimehuit Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02794 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 55 a a Valeriano Puxa Nilaluy, rancheria
de
LPC 02795 Iglesia 5 Aug + M 60 a a Homobono Coymui Silimi, rancheria
191

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native
Name
Origin
1815 de
LPC 02796 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 60 a a Deogracias Tomahuit Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02797 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ M 25 a a Crespin Yulalant Xiucxiui,
rancheria de
LPC 02798 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 40 a a Maria
Concepcion
Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02799 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 35 a a Rafaela Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02800 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 30 a a Salomea Echeemeu,
rancheria de
LPC 02801 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 25 a a Dominga Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02802 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 24 a a Bernardina Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02803 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 24 a a Catharina Xiucxiui,
rancheria de
LPC 02804 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 24 a a Calista [Xiucxiui],
misma rancheria
LPC 02805 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 18 a a Simona Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02806 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 15 a a Barbara Toan, rancheria
de
LPC 02807 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 12 a a Ursula Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02808 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 35 a a Leocadia Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02809 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 40 a a Maria Loreta Toan, rancheria
de
LPC 02810 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 30 a a Maria
Esperanza
Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02811 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 45 a a Maria de Jesus Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02812 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 45 a a Maria Soledad Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02813 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 26 a a Eulalia Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02814 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 20 a a Maria
Guadalupe
[Nimquelquel],
misma rancheria
LPC 02815 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 14 a a Engracia Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02816 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 26 a a Antonia Cholossus,
rancheria de
LPC 02817 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 22 a a Magdalena Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02818 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 22 a a Mariana [Silimi], misma
rancheria
LPC 02819 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 28 a a Ynes [Silimi], misma
rancheria
LPC 02820 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 32 a a Rosalia Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02821 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 60 a a Zeferina Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02822 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 55 a a Epifania [Silimi], misma
rancheria
LPC 02823 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 55 a a Celia Xincxiui,
rancheria de
192

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native
Name
Origin
LPC 02824 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 30 a a Victoria [Xincxiui],
misma rancheria
LPC 02825 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 30 a a Nicasia Cholossus,
rancheria de
LPC 02826 Iglesia 5 Aug
1815
+ F 14 a a Clotilde [Cholossus],
misma rancheria
LPC 02827 [Unstated] [1815] - in periculo
mortis
M 45 a a Juan
Nepomuceno
Comayaxuit Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02828 [Unstated] [1815] - in periculo
mortis
F 45 a a Martina Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02829 [Unstated] [1815] - in periculo
mortis
F 38 a a Bibiana Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02830 [Unstated] [1815] - in periculo
mortis
F 60 a a Bernarda Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02831 [Unstated] [1815] - in periculo
mortis
F 60 a a Felipa Toan, rancheria
de
LPC 02832 [Unstated] [1815] - in periculo
mortis
F 50 a a Athanasia Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02833 [Unstated] [1815] - in periculo
mortis
F 55 a a Marta Silimi, rancheria
de
LPC 02834 Yglesia 29 Jul
1815
+ M 40 a a Santos Chacu Nilaluy en las
Yslas
LPC 02835 [Unstated] [1815] - en peligro de
muerte
F 55 a a Bernardina Cholossus,
rancheria de
LPC 02836 [Unstated] 12 Aug
1815
+ F 60 a a Liberata Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02840 Yglesia 2 Oct
1815
+ M 40 a a Eloy Pagiamaitset Nimquelquel,
rancheria de
LPC 02841 Yglesia 1 Dec
1815
+ F 4 a p Gertrudis [Nilatuy,
rancheria de]
LPC 02842 Yglesia 1 Dec
1815
+ F 2 a p Teresa [Nilatuy,
rancheria de]
LPC 02843 Yglesia 1 Dec
1815
+ F 4 a p Sebastiana [Niacla, rancheria
de]
LPC 02844 Yglesia 1 Dec
1815
+ F 45 a a Lucia Nilaluy, natural
de
LPC 02845 Yglesia 1 Dec
1815
+ F 20 a a Cecilia Nilaliuy,
rancheria de
LPC 02846 Yglesia 1 Dec
1815
+ F 18 a a Clemencia Nilaliuy,
rancheria de
LPC 02847 Yglesia 28 Dec
1815
+ M 35 a a Juan Maria Caxo Coouxup,
rancheria de

San Buenaventura Mission
Year Number of adult and youth recruits
1815 52
1816 175

San Buenaventura Mission: 175 recruits for the year 1816

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SBV 03161Y Yglesia 13 Apr
1816
+ M como 15 a a Antonio
Pascual
Lipuhiahichét Liam
193

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SBV 03162Y Yglesia 13 Apr
1816
+ F como 17 a a Pascuala de
Jesus
Sulmatienahuan Liám
SBV 03163Y Yglesia 13 Apr
1816
+ F como 15 a a Maria Hilaria Salicalmenahuan Luupsh
SBV 03165Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ M como 26 a a Basilio Nayuyquichét Liám
SBV 03166Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ M como 63 a a Lazaro Cucumahichét Liám
SBV 03167Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 22 a a Petra Antonia Saputiqueyéc Yshguagél
SBV 03168Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 23 a a Felicisima Alguayenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03169Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 11 a a Geronima
Emiliana
Majulumenahuan Liám
SBV 03170Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 10 a a Benvenuta
Josefa
Sugilimenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03171Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 11 a a Juana Maria Sapqueyéc Cashtéc
SBV 03172Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 30 a a Ysabela de
Jesus
Aliliehue Liam
SBV 03173Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 54 a a Cornelia Chuashmenahuan Liam
SBV 03174Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 50 a a Maria
Yldefonsa
Aliguayenahuan Liam
SBV 03175Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 56 a a Mamiliana Sactamehue Liam
SBV 03176Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 25 a a Francisca de
Paula
Liam
SBV 03177Y Yglesia 19 Apr
1816
+ F como 22 a a Germana
Josefa
Sulmenahuan Liam
SBV 03178Y Yglesia 20 Apr
1816
+ M como 6 a p José
Apolinario
Guechiahuit Liám
SBV 03179Y Yglesia 20 Apr
1816
+ M como 4 a p Gil de Jesus Suayauzét Liám
SBV 03180Y Yglesia 20 Apr
1816
+ M como 5 a p Francisco de
Sales
Silihuiáuzet Liám
SBV 03181Y Yglesia 20 Apr
1816
+ F como 5 a p Juana
Alfonsa
Alichacumenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03182Y Yglesia 20 Apr
1816
+ M como 6 a p Anselmo
Antonio
Manijalahichét Liam
SBV 03183Y Yglesia 20 Apr
1816
+ M como 6 a p Adeodato Guicachunahichet Liam
SBV 03184Y Yglesia 20 Apr
1816
+ M como 4 a p Liborio
Maria
Guanuyquichét Liam
SBV 03185Y Yglesia 20 Apr
1816
+ M como 4 a p Olegario
Maria
Achelenahichét Liam
SBV 03186Y Mision, en
la
rancheria
de esta
10 May
1816
- privadamente
en peligro de
muerte
F como 60 a a Antonina de
Florencia
Supilimenahuan Chahuá
SBV 03189Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ M como 56 a a Gamaliel
Maria
Guilanahichét Liám
SBV 03190Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ M como 44 a a Domingo
Francisco
Matinunachét Lacayamu
SBV 03191Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ M como 74 a a Abdón Maria Gilipnunachét Yshguagél
SBV 03192Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ M como 32 a a Felix de
Cantalicio
Achihuinahichét Luupsh
194

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SBV 03193Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ M como 30 a a Pascual
Baylón
Quitzenahichét Liám
SBV 03194Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ M como 12 a a José Serafin Guapuyguichét Liám
SBV 03195Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ F como 68 a a Juana Felipa Alisulmehue Liam
SBV 03196Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ F como 38 a a Blandina de
Jesus
Suapienahuan Liam
SBV 03197Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ F como 65 a a Nominanda Chahuayenahuan Yshguagel
SBV 03198Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ F como 28 a a Marcelina de
Jesus
Silitmenahuan Liam
SBV 03199Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ F como 24 a a Florentina de
Jesus
Saptihuamehue Chahua
SBV 03200Y Yglesia 18 May
1816
+ F como 26 a a Maria
Manuela
Sualamelelene Chihuicehihui
SBV 03201Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ F como 36 a a Maria de los
Santos
Sulmatiehue Liám
SBV 03202Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ F 58 a a Fausta de
Jesus
Alichatapmehue Lacayamú
SBV 03203Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ F como 63 a a Maxima
Maria
Alsigilalmehue Ninalúy
SBV 03204Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ F como 48 a a Pacifica
Maria
Suayenahuan Cholochus
SBV 03205Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ F como 58 a a Antonia
Lorenza
Sagiyenahuan Liám
SBV 03206Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ F como 60 a a Maria Sofia Suatimehue Liám
SBV 03207Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ F como 55 a a Laureana Sicualmenahuan Nanahuani
SBV 03208Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ M como 38 a a Bernardino
de Sena
Puniashcat Liam
SBV 03209Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ M como 56 a a Antelmo José Accumcumachét Liam
SBV 03210Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ M como 60 a a Adaucto Ahuiachét Liam
SBV 03211Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ M como 63 a a Yrineo Maria Saputinunachét Liam
SBV 03212Y Yglesia 20 May
1816
+ M como 60 a a Miguel
Francisco
Chicyahuiachét Liam
SBV 03216Y Mision, en
la
rancheria
de esta
14 Jun
1816
- privadamente
en peligro de
muerte
F como 3 a p Maria del
Sacramento
Alichatelmenahuan Luupsh
SBV 03222Y Yglesia 3 Jul
1816
+ M como 4 a p Laureano
Antonio
Yayluauchét Luupsh
SBV 03223Y Yglesia 3 Jul
1816
+ M como 3 a p Pablo Maria Temejahichét Yshguagél
SBV 03224Y Yglesia 3 Jul
1816
+ M como 1
año y
medio
a p Juan Gabriel Guisamuyauchét Yshguagél
SBV 03225Y Yglesia 3 Jul
1816
+ F como 1 a p Lorenza de
Jesus
Alcuayehue Luupsh
SBV 03226Y Yglesia 3 Jul
1816
+ F como 2 a p Petra Josefa Sulalmehúe Yshguagel
SBV 03229Y Yshguagél,
Rancheria
de
17 Jul
1816
- peligro de
muerte
M como 80 a a José Gabriel Payminachét Ysguagél
195

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SBV 03230Y Yshguagél,
Rancheria
de
17 Jul
1816
- peligro de
muerte
M como 60 a a Antonio de
Jesus
Chulunapachuit Ysguagél
SBV 03233Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ M como 4 a p Pio Antonio Sulunapahichét Yshguagél
SBV 03234Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ M como 3 a p Laureano Guatamiauchét Yshguagél
SBV 03235Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ M como 2 a p Zenón Maria Guayahuit Cajás
SBV 03236Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ M como 2 a p Domingo de
Guzman
Tapulumuhichét Yshguagél
SBV 03237Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ F como 4 a p Ana de Jesus Cagiyenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03238Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ M como 3 á
4
a p Santiago
Antonio
Chanahuiachet Chihuicchihui
SBV 03239Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ M como 4 a p Pantaleon de
Jesus
[...hua]Yunayachét Yshguagel
SBV 03240Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ M como 5 a p Camilo de
Lelis (Camilo
de Jesus)
Nujalquichét Cajás
SBV 03241Y Yglesia 26 Jul
1816
+ M como 5 a p Miguel de los
Santos
Matulahichét Yshguagel
SBV 03243Y Yglesia 2 Aug
1816
+ M como 3 a p Estevan de
Jesus
Guicayachét Yshguagél
SBV 03244Y Yglesia 2 Aug
1816
+ M como 2 a p Domingo de
Guzmán
Guichalahichét Yshguagél
SBV 03245Y Yglesia 2 Aug
1816
+ F como 4 a p Maria de los
Angeles
Aljultimenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03246Y Yglesia 2 Aug
1816
+ F como 1 a p Celedonia de
Jesus
Sulcúpenahuam Liam
SBV 03247Y Yglesia 9 Aug
1816
+ M como 5 a p Pastor José Sululujahichét Yshguagél,
Rancheria de
SBV 03248Y Yglesia 9 Aug
1816
+ M como 4 a p Justo Maria Guichiajahuichét Yshguagel
SBV 03249Y Yglesia 9 Aug
1816
+ M como 3 a p Lorenzo José Pilulahuchét Yshguagél
SBV 03250Y Yglesia 9 Aug
1816
+ M como 2 a p Roman de
Jesus
Huyajamichét Yshguagel
SBV 03251Y Yglesia 9 Aug
1816
+ F como 2 a p Magina de
Jesus
Gilipienahuan Yshguagel
SBV 03253Y Yglesia 13 Aug
1816
+ M como 3 a p Hipolito
Maria
Ninunahichét Lacayamu
SBV 03254Y Yglesia 13 Aug
1816
+ M como 1 a p Casiano de
Jesus
Quinanapuyachét Yshguagél
SBV 03262Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ M como 56 a a Andres Maria Guijachuit Luupsh
SBV 03263Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ M como 48 a a Lucas Maria Pashjayuhit Yshguagél
SBV 03264Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ M como 50 a a Ysidro de
Jesus
Sapnunachét Yshguagél
SBV 03265Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ M como 30 a a Francisco de
Sales
Nanahuani
SBV 03266Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ M como 27 a a Juan Cancio Tucupiahichét Yshguagél
SBV 03267Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ M como 20 a a Evaristo
Maria
Chanamahichét Yshguagél,
Rancheria de
SBV 03268Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ M como 70 a a Hylarion Mujanachét Luupsh
196

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SBV 03269Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ M como 50 a a Honorato
José
Temináy Liám
SBV 03270Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ F como 34 a a Maria Petra Supilipehue Luupsh
SBV 03271Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ F como 50 a a Ysabel de
Portugal
Aljultimenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03272Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ F como 48 a a Fulgencia de
Jesus
Gilienahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03273Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ F como 19 a a Aldegunda Sultaquipehue Yshguagel
SBV 03274Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ F como 25 a a Heduvigis de
Jesus
Chajchipiehue Yshguagél
SBV 03275Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ F como 15 a a Geronima de
Jesus
Sutacaliehue Nanahuani
SBV 03276Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ F como 60 a a Cirila Maria Matimenahuan Luupsh
SBV 03277Y Yglesia 21 Oct
1816
+ F como 44 a a Petra de
Alcantara
Sitapienahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03278Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 20 a a José Fausto Licuhiahinahuit Yshguagél
SBV 03279Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 18 a a Nicomedes Achunyamamahichét Yshguagél
SBV 03280Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 17 a a Saturio Sicayahuchét Luupsh
SBV 03281Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 13 a a Atenodoro Sahuihuiachét Yshguagél
SBV 03282Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 12 a a Bonfilio Sutajyuhichét Luupsh,
Rancheria de
SBV 03283Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 11 a a Cereál Huchahuiachét Yshguagél
SBV 03284Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 11 a a Epitacio Sulyupuhiahichét Yshguagél,
Rancheria de
SBV 03285Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 9 a a Demetrio
José
Matilachét Yshguagél
SBV 03286Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ M como 9 a a Espiridión Chayanachét Yshguagél,
Rancheria de
SBV 03287Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ F como 32 a a Maria
Pastora
Alicsacume'nahuam Yshguagél
SBV 03288Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ F como 34 a a Eutropia Macsucupienahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03289Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ F como 40 a a Maria Flora Alilguamehue Yshguagel
SBV 03290Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ F como 18 a a Maria de
Monserrate
Sutulmenahuan Liám
SBV 03291Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ F como 16 a a Maria de la
Consolacion
Sujutalielelene Yshguagél
SBV 03292Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ F como 13 a a Maria de
Aranzazu
Alagimenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03293Y Yglesia 22 Oct
1816
+ F como 12 a a Maria de
Atocha
Guinqueyéc Liám
SBV 03298Y Mision, en
la
rancheria
de esta
3 Nov
1816
- privadamente,
en peligro de
muerte
F como 22 a a Maria
Carlota
Alilienahuan Liám
SBV 03304Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 38 a a Narciso de
Jesus
Ateyachét Yshguagél
SBV 03305Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 60 a a Fidenciano Malaliachét Yshguagél
197

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SBV 03306Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 48 a a Clodoaldo Jayle Yshguagél
SBV 03307Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 36 a a Mariano Luis Guiyunáy Lacayamu
SBV 03308Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 46 a a Vicente de
Jesus
Guiyayahichét Chahuá
SBV 03309Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 21 a a Carlos
Francisco
Aguiquiyayquichét Yshguagél
SBV 03310Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 25 a a Juan Jorge Tehuahuit Yshguagél,
Rancheria de
SBV 03311Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 25 a a Miguel de
Jesus
Ahuachiál Choynoqui,
Rancheria de
SBV 03312Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ M como 21 a a Juan
Buenaventura
Guehuqui Choynoqui
SBV 03313Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 33 a a Maria
Augusta
Jultamenahuan Yshguagel
SBV 03314Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 50 a a Lucidia
Maria
Súlmenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03315Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 38 a a Maria
Honoria
Cha[l]ienahuan Nanahuani
SBV 03316Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 35 a a Sebastiana
Josefa
Sapcalmenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03317Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 18 a a Dominga de
Sylos
Alultayenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03318Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 27 a a Maria Jorja Sapuamehue Yshguagél
SBV 03319Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 25 a a Octavia de
Jesus
Alilnayehue Yshguagél
SBV 03320Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 70 a a Felipa
Benicia
Alulupiehue Yshguagél
SBV 03321Y Yglesia 22 Dec
1816
+ F como 60
[appears
to read:
"sesenta8,,
años"]
a a Eleuteria Alaputiehue Lacayamú
SBV 03322Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 17 a a Joviniana Alapienahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03323Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 34 a a Priscila Custaliehue Luupsh
SBV 03324Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 48 a a Optata de
Jesus
Nihuatalmenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03325Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 30 a a Eunomia Lilmenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03326Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 28 a a Micaela
Francisca
Ulumenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03327Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 30 a a Jacinta de
Jesus
Gilihayehue Yshguagél
SBV 03328Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 37 a a Juana
Nicolasa
Supilitmenahuan Liám,
Rancheria de
SBV 03329Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 68 a a Albana Silguatapiehue Lacayamu
SBV 03330Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ F como 40 a a Lucia de
Jesus
Suluatmenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03331Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ M como 28 a a Fabio Cumanachet Yshguagél
SBV 03332Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ M como 44 a a Urbano Yuhunáy Luupsh
SBV 03333Y Yglesia 23 Dec + M como 52 a a Columbano Camuana[c]hét Yshguagél
198

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1816
SBV 03334Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ M como 45 a a Numeriano Mahuahinachét Yshguagél
SBV 03335Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ M como 30 a a Miguel Maria Eshnulijahichét Cajás
SBV 03336Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ M como 27 a a Pedro Jacinto Yahuiamehuit Yshguagél
SBV 03337Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ M como 34 a a Liberato Guechiát Lacayamu
SBV 03338Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ M como 23 a a Emerico
Maria
Apuyayquichét Yshguagél
SBV 03339Y Yglesia 23 Dec
1816
+ M como 22 a a Odón Maria
[Odon Maria]
Guilah[ú]nachét Yshguagél
SBV 03340Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 28 a a Maria
Prospera
Sagiehue Yshguagél
SBV 03341Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 18 a a Josefa Jacinta Alichatalmenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03342Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 11 a a Josefa
Gertrudis
Gilielelene Yshguagél
SBV 03343Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 23 a a Juana Petra Alguayenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03344Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 45 a a Febronia Taculaliehue Chihuicchihui
en la Ysla de
Guimá,
Rancheria de
SBV 03345Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 56 a a Guillerma Matimenahuan Liám
SBV 03346Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 60 a a Mansueta Casilmenahuan Yshguagél,
Rancheria de
SBV 03347Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 45 a a Leonarda Sicsalienahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03348Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ F como 60 a a Alexa Algilimenahuan Yshguagel,
Rancheria de
SBV 03349Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ M como 15 a a Landelino Julnápahichét Yshguagel
SBV 03350Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ M como 12 a a Sostenes Mituhichét Yshguagél
SBV 03351Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ M como 10 a a Odilón de
Jesus
Yachunachét Yshguagél
SBV 03352Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ M como 50 a a Cleto José Jaminahichét Liám
SBV 03353Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ M como 19 a a Juan Carlos Chamahuit Yshguagél
SBV 03354Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ M como 23 a a José Mariano Ajahichét Yshguagél
SBV 03355Y Yglesia 24 Dec
1816
+ M como 60 a a Valero Maria Amaymeut Cajas
SBV 03356Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ M como 66 a a Juan
Evangelista
Nicucá Lacayamu
SBV 03357Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ M como 38 a a Francisco
Tadeo
Tequecchaut Lacayamu
SBV 03358Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ M como 52 a a José de los
Ynocentes
Junjunchét Cajás
SBV 03359Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ M como 40 a a Silvestre José Nihuayaymehuit Nilalúy en la
Ysla de
Guimá,
Rancheria de
SBV 03360Y Yglesia 28 Dec + M como 70 a a Emigdio Quidseeyaut Liám,
199

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1816 Maria Rancheria de
SBV 03361Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ M como 38 a a Leandro
Maria
Juyanahuit Luupsh,
Rancheria de
SBV 03362Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ M como 65 a a Agripino Lihuicamit Liám,
Rancheria de
SBV 03363Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ F como 40 a a Josefa
Estefana
Sicsapenahuan Yshguagél
SBV 03364Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ F como 48 a a Maria de los
Ynocentes
Nihuatalmenahuan Yshguagel
SBV 03365Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ F como 36 a a Juana
Tomasa
Macsúpienahuan Chahuá
SBV 03366Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ F como 36 a a Florentina Alalimehué Nanahuani
SBV 03367Y Yglesia 28 Dec
1816
+ F como 80 a a Juana de la
Cruz
Aliguamehue Yshguagél

Santa Barbara Mission
Year Number of adult and youth recruits
1815 63
1816 92

Santa Barbara Mission: 92 recruits for the year 1816

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name Native Name Origin
SB 03840 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ M 49 a a German Gelinapaxuit Sasuaquel en
las Yslas
SB 03841 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ M 15 a a Gaudencio Huimemiatset Cajats
SB 03842 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 55 a a Gervasia Cajats
SB 03843 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 26 a a Daria Maschal
SB 03844 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 29 a a Carlota Cajats
SB 03845 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 14 a a Ponciana Cajats
SB 03846 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 18 a a Norberta Chiuchiu
SB 03847 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 60 a a Demetria Chiuchiu
SB 03848 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 50 a a Daniela Eleuaxcuyu
SB 03849 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 13 a a Desideria [Unstated]
SB 03850 Yglesia 7 Feb
1816
+ F 10 a a Cunegunda Eleuaxcuyu
SB 03861 rancheria
de esta
Mision
16 Mar
1816
- in articulo
mortis
F 80 a a Petra Niacla
SB 03862 la milpa de
San Jose
22 Mar
1816
- en articulo
de la muerte
M a a Benvenuto Xipiaxu Siuicon
SB 03868 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ M 7 a mu Atanacio Tuxaiuit Eleuaxcú,
rancheria de
200

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name Native Name Origin
SB 03869 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ M 2 a p Anacleto Palilaitset [Eleuaxcú],
misma
rancheria
SB 03870 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ M 4 a p Obdulio Axuniauinitset Lacayamú
SB 03871 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ M 2 a p Odon Niuaxeiquiset [Lacayamú]
SB 03872 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ M 2.5 a p Senen Alicuatsaitset Cholosos,
rancheria de
SB 03873 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ M 1 a p Galo [Unstated]
SB 03874 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ M 7.5 a p Nemesio Apiucaitset Eleuax
SB 03875 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ M 3 a p Ulpiano Camouayatset Lacayamú
SB 03876 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ F 4.5 a p Savina [Cholosos,
rancheria de]
SB 03877 Yglesia 21 Jun
1816
+ F 3.5 a p Marciana Liam,
rancheria
SB 03879 rancheria
de esta
Mision
7 Jul
1816
- en caso de
necesidad
F 2 a p Fermina Maschal
SB 03881 Yglesia 9 Jul
1816
+ M 2 a ni Pascasio Teculuiauitset Cajats
SB 03882 Yglesia 9 Jul
1816
+ M 2 a ni Gaspar Paliquitset Eleuaxcú,
rancheria de
SB 03883 Yglesia 9 Jul
1816
+ M 4 a p Baltazar Sulupiautset Maschal
SB 03884 Yglesia 9 Jul
1816
+ M 3 a p Hermenegildo Snapaiquitset Cholosos
SB 03885 Yglesia 9 Jul
1816
+ F 5 a ni Simplicia Eleuaxcú
SB 03886 Yglesia 9 Jul
1816
+ F 4 a p Fausta Cajats
SB 03887 Yglesia 9 Jul
1816
+ F 4.5 a p Fabiana Cajats
SB 03890 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ M 1 a p Antero Xauiutset Sasuagel
SB 03891 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ M 3.5 a p Nicanor Xaxauiat Eleuaxcú
SB 03892 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ M 3 a p Fulgencio Xanajaliquitset Lacayamú
SB 03893 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ M 6.5 a p Tirso Ruijaitset Sasuagel
SB 03894 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ F 5 a p Casta Cholosos
SB 03895 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ F 2 a p Luciana Lacayamú
SB 03896 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ F 4.5 a p Rosa de Jesus Chiuchiu
SB 03897 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ F 1.5 a p Rosalia [Chiuchiu]
SB 03898 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ F 1 a p Alexandra Cholosos
SB 03899 Yglesia 16 Aug
1816
+ F 5 a p Escolastica Eleuaxcu
SB 03900 Yglesia 16 Aug + F 2 a p Catalina [Unstated]
201

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name Native Name Origin
1816
SB 03902 rancheria
de esta
Mision
2 Sep
1816
- in casu
necesitatis
M 60 a a Mario Amaicucauit Lacaiamú
SB 03912 rancheria
de esta
Mision
29 Oct
1816
- in casu
necesitatis
F 60 a a Silveria Chiuchiu
SB 03914 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 60 a a Apolinar Ualanunatset Eleuaxcu
SB 03915 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 25 a a Simplicio Tulalatset Lacayamu
SB 03916 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 29 a a Casto Xapnapaitset Chiuchiu
SB 03917 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 22 a a Sabas Cuipuiatset Liam
SB 03918 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 50 a a Hermogenes Uayayatset Eleuaxcu
SB 03919 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 40 a a Demetrio Sniuilaitset Maschal
SB 03920 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 45 a a Urbano Jose Uanunuit Cajats
SB 03921 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 35 a a Antero Anunaitset Lacayamú
SB 03922 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 45 a a Gonzalo Camimos Chiuchiu
SB 03923 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 29 a a Ysidoro Sutajaitset Cajats
SB 03924 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 35 a a Luciano Pamaxuiatset Lacayamú
SB 03925 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 55 a a Gumesindo Ayatset [Unstated]
SB 03926 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 50 a a Lesmes Yamiitset [Unstated]
SB 03927 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 50 a a Leopoldo Quiqmai Sasuagel
SB 03928 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 16 a a Fausto Luipunaitset Eleuaxcu
SB 03929 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 40 a a Beatriz Eleuaxcu
SB 03930 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 24 a a Serapia [Unstated]
SB 03931 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 26 a a Celedonia Cholosos
SB 03932 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 26 a a Sergia Cajats
SB 03933 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 50 a a Hilaria Eleuaxcu
SB 03934 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 47 a a Damiana Cholosos
SB 03935 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 40 a a Ulpiana Cajats
SB 03936 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 30 a a Aquilina Lacayamú
SB 03937 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 40 a a Gavina Chiuchiu
SB 03938 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 18 a a Revocata Sasuagel
202

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Baptismal
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish Name Native Name Origin
SB 03939 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 30 a a Jovita Eleuaxcú
SB 03940 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 30 a a Pascasia Cholosos
SB 03941 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 45 a a Dominga Lacayamú
SB 03942 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 40 a a Leona Sasuagel
SB 03943 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 40 a a Justina Cajats
SB 03944 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 12 a a Sotera Eleuaxcú
SB 03945 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 36 a a Apolinaria Cajats
SB 03946 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 10 a a Faustina [Unstated]
SB 03947 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 35 a a Margarita Maschal
SB 03948 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 30 a a Marcelina Cholosos
SB 03949 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 44 a a Leoncia Lacayamú
SB 03950 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 9 a
10
a a Cristeta [Lacayamú]
SB 03951 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 58 a a Zimforosa Cholosos
SB 03952 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 60 a a Olalla Maschal
SB 03953 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 65 a a Donata Sasuagel
SB 03954 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 14 a a Demetria [Sasuagel]
SB 03955 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 24 a a Braulia [Unstated]
SB 03956 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 58 a a Eugenia Lacayamu
SB 03957 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 60 a a Rosa de
Viterbo
[Lacayamu]
SB 03958 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 58 a a Clara de Jesus Cajats
SB 03959 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 40 a a Maria Paulina Maschal
SB 03960 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 59 a a Telma Cholosos
SB 03961 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 57 a a Margarita de
San Jose
Lacaiamú

Santa Inés Mission
Year Number of adult and youth recruits
1815 77
1816 167

Santa Inés Mission: 167 recruits for the year 1815

203

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SI 00812 Yglesia 29 Jan 1816 + M 62 a a Agustin Agiatset Cholisu, rancheria
e ysla
SI 00813 Yglesia 29 Jan 1816 + F 60 a a Agustina Gemascuy,
rancheria e ysleña
SI 00814 Yglesia 29 Jan 1816 + M 50 a a Pastor Nitzajait Lacaya, rancheria
e ysleño
SI 00815 Yglesia 29 Jan 1816 + M 54 a a Justo Guimassut Siucssu, rancheria
e ysleño
SI 00816 Yglesia 29 Jan 1816 + F 64 a a Agueda Cholisus,
rancheria e ysleña
SI 00817 Yglesia 29 Jan 1816 + F 44 a a Lucia Cheumen,
rancheria, ysleña
SI 00817a las Yslas [1816] - in articulo
mortis
F a Getrudis [unstated]
SI 00817b las Yslas [1816] - in articulo
mortis
F a Barbara [unstated]
SI 00817c las Yslas [1816] - in articulo
mortis
F a Nicolasa [unstated]
SI 00829 Yglesia 2 Jul 1816 + F 6 a
7
a ni Luisa
Gonzaga
Geluancayu en las
yslas, rancheria
SI 00830 Yglesia 2 Jul 1816 + F 3 a ni Maria
Tomasa
Nimquel,
rancheria en las
yslas
SI 00831 Yglesia 2 Jul 1816 + F 2 a ni Francisca
Xaviera
Siucsiu, rancheria
SI 00834 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 2 a p Fruto Ulujaytset Creunsen,
rancheria en las
yslas
SI 00835 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 2 a p Liberata Creunsen,
rancheria en las
yslas
SI 00836 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 28 a a Silverio Manayait Cheumen,
rancheria
SI 00837 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 28 a a Silveria Siucsiu, rancheria,
de la ysla
SI 00838 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 46 a a Aquilino Quinamaitset Teleascuij,
rancheria, de las
yslas
SI 00839 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 30 a a Aquilina Teleascuy,
rancheria, de las
yslas
SI 00840 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 20 a a Victoriano Coossi Nilaluiu, Ysla y
de la rancheria
SI 00841 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 18 a a Victoriana Siucsiu, Ysla y de
la rancheria de
SI 00842 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 34 a a Venancio Tumijaitset [unstated]
SI 00843 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 28 a a Venancia Siucsiu, rancheria,
de la ysla
SI 00844 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 24 a a Celestino Alijaitset Nimqelqe,
rancheria, de al
ysla
SI 00845 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 22 a a Celestina Nilahuij,
rancheria de al
ysla
SI 00846 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 56 a a Justa Suicsiu, rancheria,
de la ysla
SI 00847 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 48 a a Peregrino Chiuainatset Suicsiu, rancheria
SI 00848 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 20 a a Genadio Aligioliatset Suicsiu, rancheria,
204

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
de la ysla
SI 00849 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 25 a a Pudente Quinanapaitset Jelcuascuy, la
Ysla y de la
rancheria de
SI 00850 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 18 a a Donato Miatset Suicsui, rancheria,
de la ysla
SI 00851 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + M 34 a a Ubaldo Talaitset Suicsui, rancheria,
de la ysla
SI 00852 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 20 a a Carlota Nilaluy, rancheria
de la ysla
SI 00853 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 15 a a Susana Cilimi, rancheria
de la ysla
SI 00854 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 42 a a Marciana Teluascuy,
rancheria de la
ysla
SI 00855 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 30 a a Paladia Cheuma,
rancheria de la
ysla
SI 00856 Yglesia 20 Jul 1816 + F 34 a a Paulina Nimqelqel,
rancheria de la
ysla
SI 00858 Yglesia 9 Aug 1816 + M 2.5 a p Justo Syusyu en las
Yslas, rancheria
de
SI 00859 Yglesia 9 Aug 1816 + F 2.5 a p Pastora [Syusyu,
rancheria de]
SI 00860 Yglesia 9 Aug 1816 + F 8 m p Justa [Syusyu,
rancheria de]
SI 00861 Yglesia 9 Aug 1816 + F 2 a p Romana [Nilaluhut]
SI 00864 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ M 33 a a Felicissimo Luismeuit ysleño
SI 00865 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 26 a a Felicissima Ysleña
SI 00866 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ M 36 a a Sixto Ssumati ysleño
SI 00867 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 26 a a Sixta Ysleña
SI 00868 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ M 16 a a Julian Liussunachet Ysleño
SI 00869 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ M 14 a a Oton Assaujaichet Ysleño
SI 00870 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ M 15 a a Abdon Ensele Ysleño
SI 00871 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ M 10 a a Francisco
Xavier
Esnjay Ysleño
SI 00872 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ M 10 a a Roque Ssanalay Ysleño
SI 00873 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ M 13 a a Salvador Gononassuit Ysleño
SI 00874 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 46 a a Peregrina Ysleña
SI 00875 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 25 a a Genadia Ysleña
SI 00876 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 27 a a Pudenciana Ysleña
SI 00877 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 26 a a Donata Ysleña
205

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SI 00878 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 45 a a Uvalda Ysleña
SI 00880 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 30 a a Agapita Ysleña
SI 00881 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 30 a a Marta Ysleña
SI 00882 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 50 a a Helena Ysleña
SI 00883 Yglesia 24 Aug
1816
+ F 46 a a Saturnina Ysleña
SI 00885 Yglesia 2 Sep 1816 + M 6 m p Antonino [unstated]
SI 00886 Yglesia 2 Sep 1816 + F 4 a p Petra [unstated]
SI 00887 Yglesia 2 Sep 1816 + F 2 a p Juana [unstated]
SI 00888 Yglesia 2 Sep 1816 + F 3 a p Clara [unstated]
SI 00889 Yglesia 2 Sep 1816 + F 2 a p Tecla [unstated]
SI 00891 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 50 a a Apolonio Ssetey Ssiuessico,
rancheria en la
ysla
SI 00892 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 36 a a Apolonia Ssiuessico,
rancheria en la
ysla
SI 00893 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 36 a a Gualverto Sumimiachet ysleños
SI 00894 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 25 a a Gualverta ysleños
SI 00895 Yglesia de
esta Mision
26 Sep 1816 + M 56 a a Anacleto Pajayligiut ysleño
SI 00896 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 50 a a Anacleta ysleña
SI 00897 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 64 a a Silas Seley ysleño
SI 00898 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 60 a a Sila ysleña
SI 00899 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 40 a a Serapion Esjaluil ysleño
SI 00900 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 26 a a Serapi[o]na ysleña
SI 00901 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 36 a a Turiano Cuymait ysleño
SI 00902 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 28 a a Turiana ysleña
SI 00903 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 56 a a Focas Jupiajuien ysleño
SI 00904 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 40 a a Catulino Cuynameuit ysleño
SI 00905 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 50 a a Catulina ysleña
SI 00906 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 46 a a Sisenando Geliguliuchet ysleño
SI 00907 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 42 a a Sisenanda ysleña
SI 00908 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + M 50 a a Veturio Jayalu ysleño
SI 00909 Yglesia 26 Sep 1816 + F 50 a a Veturia ysleña
SI 00910 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + F 30 a a Generosa ysleña
SI 00911 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + F 4 a p Coleta Siucssiu
SI 00912 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + F 1 a p Saturnina [unstated]
SI 00913 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + M 1 a p Gonzalo Ysleños
SI 00914 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + M 2 a p Daniel Ysleños
SI 00915 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + M 3 a p Getulio Ysleños
SI 00916 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + M 1 a p Crescente Ysleños
SI 00917 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + M 3 a p Juliano [unstated]
SI 00918 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + F 5 a p Nemesia [unstated]
SI 00919 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + F 2 a p Primitiva [unstated]
SI 00920 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + M 4 a p Justino [unstated]
SI 00921 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + F 6 a p Eugenia [unstated]
SI 00922 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + F 5 a p Emiliana [unstated]
206

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SI 00925 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 45 a a Martin Geele Ssiucsiu,
rancheria de las
yslas
SI 00926 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 34 a a Martina Ssiucsiu,
rancheria de las
Yslas
SI 00927 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 56 a a Nilo Peumeuit [unstated]
SI 00928 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 50 a a Nila ysleña
SI 00929 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 37 a a Aurelio Napaymeuit ysleño
SI 00930 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 30 a a Aurelia ysleña
SI 00931 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 33 a a Publio Ememiat ysleño
SI 00932 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 34 a a Publia ysleña
SI 00933 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 60 a a Paterno Aliliameuit ysleño
SI 00934 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 50 a a Paterna ysleña
SI 00935 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 29 a a Levino Ugissait ysleño
SI 00936 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 29 a a Levina ysleña
SI 00937 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 50 a a Basilio Teyey ysleño
SI 00938 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 40 a a Basilia ysleña
SI 00939 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 45 a a Rufo Janayatisset ysleño
SI 00940 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 45 a a Rufa ysleña
SI 00941 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 62 a a Cuniberto Nigicaitset ysleño
SI 00942 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 60 a a Cuniberta ysleña
SI 00943 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 50 a a Emiliano Culayassuyt ysleño
SI 00944 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 50 a a Emiliana ysleña
SI 00945 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 34 a a Braulio Taraviassuit ysleño
SI 00946 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 26 a a Braulia ysleña
SI 00947 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 45 a a Valentin Coayiaytset ysleño
SI 00948 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 36 a a Valentina ysleña
SI 00949 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 60 a a Victor Yssayemeuit ysleño
SI 00950 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 60 a a Victoria ysleña
SI 00951 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 40 a a Mitrio Ayuyunatiset ysleño
SI 00952 Yglesia 12 Nov + F 38 a a Mitria ysleña
207

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
1816
SI 00953 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 24 a a Germano Pasasgit ysleño
SI 00954 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 22 a a Germana ysleña
SI 00955 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ M 70 a a Firmiliano Emucat ysleño
SI 00956 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 70 a a Firmiliana ysleña
SI 00957 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 70 a a Arcadia ysleña
SI 00958 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 48 a a Pascasia ysleña
SI 00959 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 80 a a Eutiquiana ysleña
SI 00960 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 66 a a Paulina ysleña
SI 00961 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 68 a a Eugenia ysleña
SI 00962 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 48 a a Quinciana ysleña
SI 00963 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 64 a a Clementina ysleña
SI 00964 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 96 a a Veneranda ysleña
SI 00965 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 40 a a Filomena ysleña
SI 00966 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 60 a a Ygnacia ysleña
SI 00967 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 60 a a Laurencia ysleña
SI 00968 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 60 a a Dionisia ysleña
SI 00969 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 50 a a Guria ysleña
SI 00970 Yglesia 12 Nov
1816
+ F 60 a a Samona ysleña
SI 00970a [Unstated] [1816] - F a Barbara [Unstated]
SI 00971 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + M 2 a p Josefato Jaymetaitset [Unstated]
SI 00972 Yglesia 13 Oct 1816 + M 4 a p Pio [Unstated]
SI 00973 Rancheria de
esta Mision
23 Nov
1816
- in articulo
mortis
F 70 a a Clemencia Ysleños
SI 00978 Yglesia 9 Dec 1816 + M 4 a p Ambrosio Yuva [unstated]
SI 00982 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + M 40 a a Herculano Vitayal ysleño
SI 00983 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 43 a a Herculana ysleña
SI 00984 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + M 48 a a Sabiniano Vyyascat ysleño
SI 00985 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 46 a a Sabiniana ysleña
SI 00986 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + M 70 a a Pablo Qepgep ysleño
SI 00987 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + M 80 a a Maximo Zeteuyyol ysleño
SI 00988 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + M 70 a a Bardomiano Coassassuit ysleño
SI 00989 Iglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 66 a a Bardomiana ysleña
SI 00990 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 70 a a Tata ysleña
SI 00991 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 80 a a Lupa ysleña
SI 00992 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 80 a a Anacaria ysleña
SI 00993 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 77 a a Solemnia ysleña
208

Mission Number Place
Baptism
Date
Type
Baptismal
Type
Phrase
Gender Age
Age
Unit
Age
Level
Spanish
Name
Native Name Origin
SI 00994 Yglesia de
esta
31 Dec 1816 + F 70 a a Principia ysleña
SI 00995 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 56 a a Vigilia ysleña
SI 00996 Yglesia 31 Dec 1816 + F 13 a a Pomposa ysleña
SI 00996a las yslas [1816] - M 70 a a Nicolas Numai [unstated]
SI 00996b las yslas [1816] - F 80 a a Maria
Guadalupe
[unstated]
SI 00996c las yslas [1816] - F 80 a a Vicenta [Unstated]
SI 00996d las yslas [1816] - F 80 a a Barbara [Unstated]
SI 00996e las yslas [1816] - F 80 a a Tomasa [Unstated]
SI 00996f las yslas [1816] - F a Terencia [Unstated]

209

Appendix G
Biographical sketches of the families whose mothers had fetal extractions performed on them
(Organized by the names of the mothers)
Francisca Muchicote
The mother of Francisco (baptism SCL 03725), Francisca Muchicote entered the Santa
Clara Mission in 1797 when she was approximately 30 years of age (see baptism SCL 03462).
She had been married to Francisco Quichones before they accepted baptism and had their
marriage solemnized in the church upon their baptisms. Prior to accepting baptism, Francisca
Muchicote had interaction with the mission: her newborn daughter Apolinaria Francisca was sick
and in danger of dying; she was baptized by Fr. Thomas de la Peña on 23 Jul 1793; Apolinaria
Francisca survived and had her supli ceremonias on 25 Aug 1793 (see baptism SCL 02360).
Francisca Muchicote was about 31-years old when she died during her second pregnancy.
Galicana Choja
The mother of Buenabentura, Galicana Choja was baptized as a child of 7 or 8 years at
San Carlos Mission (baptism SC 01350), the daughter of “gentil Silasag” (later baptized as
Mariano of SC 01601; he was baptized in periculo mortis and died shortly thereafter). Galicana
Choja would have been around 20 or 21 years of age when she died trying to birth Buenabentura,
her second child (her first child, Fernando, was born in April 1800, and seemingly outlived his
mother. See San Carlos baptism record 02306).
Galicana Choja married Efren Jose Aichas. Efren Jose Aichas was baptized as a four-
year-old child (see SC 00958) to “divorced” parents; Efren’s father, Mariano José Acjaca, was
baptized in periculo mortis and survived; Mariano Jose Acjaca, Buenabentura’s paternal
grandfather, was “capitan de Escelen” (see baptism SC 01925); Mariano Jose Acjaca being
210

“divorced” makes more sense in light of his status as capitan: he had children by at least two
other women when he had solemnized his marriage to Maria Pastora Tahuelas shortly after his
and her baptisms (see SC baptisms 00958; 01137; 01956; 01967; 02352; and 02438 for a listing
of Mariano José Acjaca’s children who were baptized at San Carlos).
Efren Jose Aichas and Galicana Choja seemed active at the mission. Efren Jose Aichas
was a godparent for several children (see Godparent record for SC baptisms 01939, 02135,
02267, 02268, and 02389). Efren Jose Aichas served as a godfather to Romano (see godparent
information in baptism SC 02267), the child of the capitan of Zanjones, whose name was Chaulis
(Chaulis was later baptized as Marcos in SC 02581).
Facunda
Ramon Nonato’s mother Facunda was a mission-born Indian from San Antonio Mission
(see baptism SAP 01030). Her father, Dimas Maria Apecg (AKA Cifre), was baptized in peligro
de muerte on 24 Feb 1776 (see baptism SAP 00368). He survived and later had his supli
ceremonias (n.d.). Dimas Maria Cifre was active in the community: he served as a witness to 34
marriages (see SAP witnesses; marriage records 00062; 00077; 00080; 00081; 00082; 00083;
00085; 00093; 00094; 00096; 00097; 00099; 00107; 00109; 00110; 00111; 00120; 00130;
00131; 00146; 00149; 00150; 00152; 00153; 00154; 00172; 00190; 00191; 00230; 00232;
00233; 00234; 00247; and 00251).
Ramon Nonato’s father was a mission-born Native named Magin Maria (baptized SAP
00621). Ramon Nonato was the only child Magin had with Facunda, who was 18 years when she
died.
Lamberta
211

Ramona Nonat Cavaller’s parents were Lamberta (baptism SAP 01146) and Espiridion
Cavaller (SAP 01275). Lamberta was a mission-born Indian from San Antonio Mission, the child
of Sarapion Maria B[illa]vicencio (baptism SAP 00967) and Gliseria (baptism SAP 00980). Her
parents did not seem particularly active at the mission. When Lamberta died, she was 17 years of
age.
Lamberta married Espiridion, who entered San Antonio Mission as a 6-year-old child, the
son of “gentil Ziuicico” (baptism SAP 01265) and non-Christian mother (she accepted baptism
later and received the name Gertrudis Maria – see baptism SAP 01399). I think Proto Ziuicico,
Ramona Nonat Cavaller’s paternal grandfather, might have been a capitan or important figure in
his village because he had children with various women: Gertrudis Maria of SAP 01399; Calista
of SAP 01252, to whom he renewed his marriage; and one, or possibly two, non-Christian
women, as noted in baptisms SAP 01460 and SAP 01971).
Tomasa Chemete
Tomasa Chemete entered San Jose Mission as a 16-year-old in 1800 (see baptism SJS
00231). She had been married at the time that she accepted baptism. She and her husband
Thomas Tunque (baptism SJS 00226) had their marriage solemnized in the church (see marriage
SJS 00052). Thomas Tunque died a few months after his baptism in April 1800 when he was
mulled by a bear (see burial SJS 00059). The couple did not appear to have had children
together. Tomasa Chemete remarried to Yndalecio Copsen of baptism SJS 00313 (see marriage
SJS 00074). The unnamed male child was Tomasa’s firstborn. Tomasa Chemete was about 18
years old when she died.
Otilia Lucia Chatocmacan
212

Buenaventura was the seventh and last child of Otilia Lucia Chatocmacan (baptism SC
00514) and her husband, Facundo Huaclanchis (baptism SC 00872). Their first five children died
in their infancy or childhood (their sixth child lived to adulthood). Otilia Lucia was baptized as a
three-year-old, the child of Hilario Joseph Holojaue (baptism SC 00473) and Benedicta Maria
Jappáyon (baptism SC 00465), at San Carlos Mission. Both Otilia and Facundo were active at
the mission. Otilia served as a godparent on three separate occasions (see godparents in baptisms
SC 01541, SC 01690, and SC 02258). She died when she was about 28 years of age.
Facundo served as a marriage witness on various occasions while he was married to
Otilia and after he remarried (see marriages SC 00562, 00566, 00567, 00713, 00714, and 00738).
He also became an Indian official (alcalde) a few years after Otilia’s death and also served as a
godparent (see godparents in baptisms SC 02691, 02694, and 02695).
Rosa de Santa Maria
Rosa de Santa Maria was probably brought to San Gabriel Mission at the age of five
years (see baptism SG 00701). She married Conrado Joseph with whom she had four children
prior to her death. All children died in their infancy (see the death dates of the children in
baptism records, SG 02390, 02764, 03055, and 03188). Her fifth and last child was extracted
from her upon her death. We know little about the parents of Rosa and Conrado Joseph other
than only Rosa’s mother accepted baptism (see Thomasa Juana’s baptism, SG 00935).
Rosa had been active in the mission prior to her death. She served as a godmother to four
children and one adult (see godparents information in baptisms SG 01935, 02178, 02217, 02272,
and 02289). She was one of the few Indians who received communion upon her death at
approximately 27 years old.
213

Conrado assumed a more active role at the mission after Rosa’s death and during his
marriage to his second wife. He served as a godparent for 62 others through April 1808. He was
identified as an “enfermero” (nurse) in two godparent records (see godparents in baptisms SG
04100 and 04111). When he died in April 1809, he also received communion upon his death
(death SG 02886).
Catarina Toylem
Catarina Toylem was about 30 years old when she accepted baptism at the San Jose
Mission (see baptism SJS 00989). She had at least three children who entered the mission prior
to her baptism (see baptism SJS 00568, 00634, and 00842) but only the first outlived her. When
she died at approximately 32-years old, she was pregnant with her fourth child. At the time she
had been married to Bernardino. It was her and her husband’s second marriage (see marriage SJS
00391). It is not clear if Bernardino Cumulan was a captain of his village, but evidence suggests
that he may have been. For example, one of his sons, Matheo Molola, was one of the first to be
baptized at the chapel of San Jose Mission (see baptism SJS 00014).
Romana Murmustole
Romana Murmustole was baptized at San Francisco Mission on 30 Dec 1794 when she
was about 30 years old (see baptism SFD 01659). This means that she would have been older,
about 41-years-old, when she died and pregnant with her third child. She had been married to
Romano Tolesia (see baptism SJS 01634) and the couple had their marriage solemnized by the
church on the same day they were both baptized (see marriage SFD 00439). The couple had two
children who had been baptized at the mission (see SFD 01597 and 02003), but the first child
died during childhood. It does not appear that Romana Murmustole and Romano Tolesia were
particularly active at the mission.
214

Rita Ssequeunat
Ramon Nonato was born in San Miguel Mission to Rita Ssequeunat and her husband,
Juan Damasceno Joyuztho. Rita Ssequeunat was 33-years-old when she was baptized one month
after her husband (baptism SMA 00966). Juan Damasceno Joyuztho was 30-years-old when he
was baptized on 24 Sep 1803 (see baptism SMA 00944). The couple had been in a relationship
prior to accepting baptism at the mission. Three of their children, including Ramon Nonato, had
been baptized at the mission (see baptisms SMA 01074, 01195, and 01301). Their first two
children died in infancy. Rita contracted measles when she was pregnant with her third child,
which could have caused her death (see Rita’s death record, SMA 00355). She would have been
around 36-years-old at the time of her death. Neither she nor her husband appeared to have
taken an active role at the mission.
Under the direction of the missionaries at San Miguel, the corporal Juan Jose Soria
performed the cesarean on Rita Ssequeunat. Ramon Nonato’s baptism record reads as follows,
One the 17th of March of 1806 (with the disposition y care of the Reverend Father
Ministers) the corporal Juan Jose Soria extracted a child of about four months conceived
whom he bautized and named

Ramon Nonat, the child of the deceased Rita y Juan
Damasceno of baptism number 944. The child lived about one and one-half hours…
[certified by] Fr. Juan Martin.
1

Quiteria
The unnamed female child (twin of Baltasara and mentioned in baptism SI 00413) was
the daughter of Quiteria (baptism SB 01989) and her husband, Buenaventura de Jesus
Hicucamehuit (baptism SB 01451). Quiteria and her husband were both from Santa Barbara
Mission. Quiteria entered the mission when she was approximately 20 years old. She was around

1
El día 17 de Marzo de 1806 (por la disposición y cuidado de los Rs Ps Ministros) el Cabo Juan Jose Soria estrajó a
una criatura como de 4 meses concibida a la que le puso
bautizo
Ramon Nonat hijo de la difunta Rita y Juan
Damasceno de la Par.a 944. Vivió el dho como ora y media y para que consta lo firmo. Fr. Juan Martin.” The
recorder inserted “bautizo” above the text “le puso.” See San Miguel Mission Baptism Register, entry number 1301.
Huntington Library, California Mission Records Collection, MSS Film 528: 7, Reel III.
215

25.5 years of age when she died during giving birth for the first time. The surviving twin
Baltasara survived 11 days (see baptism SI 00413). Furthermore, Quiteria appeared to be active
in the mission community, serving as a godparent for six adults at Santa Ynez Mission (SI
00176, 00178, 00179, 00180, 00181, and 00182).
Teodora Salazar
Teodora Salazar’s extracted male fetus was the first non-Indian cesarean recorded. She
was born and baptized at San Gabriel Mission as Maria Theodora (baptism SG 01642), the
daughter of Joseph Pedro Loreto Salazar and Maria Gregoria Espinosa. Teodora Salazar married
Leandro Galindo (baptism SFD 00412) beforing turning 19 years of age. Teodora Salazar was
19.5 years old when she died during her first pregnancy. According to her burial record (SJS
00990), she had contracted a sickness (“enfermedad”). Her son was baptized on 22 Mar 1808
(See baptism SJS 01608) and buried immediately after his mother (see death record SJS 00991).
Claudia MariaYlonegue
Claudia MariaYlonegue entered Santa Barbara Mission in 1791 when she was about 18
years of age (see baptism SB 00527). Five of her children had been baptized at the mission
between 1791 and 1800 (see baptisms SB 00571, 00716, 01044, 01270, and 01411), but only one
outlived her: her first four children all died in infancy.
She had been married twice: once to Dionicio Joseph and later to Cayo Francisco (see
marriages SB 00137 and 00200). She was approximately 38-years-old when she was expecting
for the sixth and final time in 1811. It is not clear what accounts for the 11.5-year gap in between
pregnancies.
Finally, there are no indications that the couple was particularly active at the mission.
Cayo Francisco served as a marriage witness once (see witnesses in marriage SB 00396).
216

Josefa Crois
Ramóna Nonacida Pastor was the daughter of Josefa Crois (baptism SAP 01937) and
Josafát Maria Pastór (baptism SAP 01013). The couple had seven children together, including
Ramona Nonacida, all baptized at San Antonio mission between 1809 and 1819 (see baptism
SAP 03481, 03574, 03629, 03797, 03871, 03917, and 03986). All of their children died before
they reached one year of age.
Born at the mission, Josefa Crois was the daughter of Gil Maria Croys (baptism SAP
00672) and Cayetana Maria (baptism SAP 00673). Her marriage to Josafát Maria Pastór was her
second; her first marriage was childless. She was 26 years old when she gave died giving birth to
her seventh and final child, Ramona Nonacida.
The son of Apuleyo Maria and Cordula Maria, Josafat Pastor was a child of about seven
years when he entered the mission. His marriage to Josefa Crois was also his second marriage
(he remarried a third time after Josefa Crois’s death). He served as a godparent (see baptism SAP
03593) and marriage witness (see witnesses in marriage SAP 00998).
Carlota
Carlota arrived at Santa Barbara Mission a single woman of approximately 29 years of
age in February 1816 (see baptism SB 03844). She would have been about 34 years old when she
attempted to birth the twins, her first and only birth (Note that he first twin, Pascual Baylon,
survived but the second did not). The father, Lazaro Munahuit, would have been 56 years old.
Lazaro Munahuit entered the mission in 1803 when he was 38-years-old. His marriage to
Carlota was his third. He had had children with his previous wives and at least two children
outlived him (for all of his children’s baptism records, see baptisms SB 01978, 02517, 02518,
03076, 03450, and 04212).
217

Casimira Cruz
Beatriz Fages was the child of Eustaquio Fages (baptism SAP 00813) and the 23-year-old
Casimira Cruz (baptism SAP 02291). Casimira Cruz was a mission-born Indian from San
Antonio Mission, the daughter of Bonifacio Cruz (baptism SAP 00545) and Eufemia (baptism
SAP 00472). Casimira birthed twice before Beatriz but both of her children died in childhood
(see baptisms SAP 03861 and 04006). Casimira’s marriage to Eustaquio Fages was her second.
Eustaquio was also mission-born, the child of Clemente Fages (baptism SC 00023) and
Anna Maria Brondo (baptism SAP 00035). His marriage to Casimira was also his second. It is
not apparent that Eustaquio (or Casimira) was particularly active at the mission: he served as a
godparent once (see baptism SAP 03883).
Getrudis
Gertrudis was a mission-born Native born at San Carlos Mission in February 1807 (see
baptism SC 02633), the child of Pastor Eusom (baptism SC 00704) and Maria Josefa Bernardina
Socosta (baptism SC 00351). Working as one of the mission’s gardeners, Pastor was active at the
mission: he served as a godparent nine times (see godparents in baptisms SC 02277, 02714,
02821, 02854a, 02964, 03091, 03203, 03439, and 03657). Getrudis’s mother, Maria Josefa
Bernardina, was also active, serving as a godparent on three occasions (see godparents in
baptisms SC 01473, 01685, and 03203).
Getrudis was 15-years-old when she attempted to birth her first child. One and one-half
years before she died, she married Pedro Regalado (see marriage SC 00887). Pedro Regalado
was also mission-born (see baptism SC 02115), the son of Jose Francisco Guilscha (baptism SC
00036) and Maria de los Santos Tamalcám (baptism SC 00233). Pedro Regalado and Getrudis
218

had started to take an active role in the mission, too. Both served as godparents (see godparents
in baptisms SC 03231 and 03256).
Maria de Jesus Acupit
Ramona was the child of Maria de Jesus Acupit, who had been baptized at San Diego
Mission the day before Ramona (see baptism SD 05864). Little is known about the mother other
than she was married to non-Christianized Indian named Malleti and three of other children had
been baptized at the mission about two weeks prior to her death (see baptisms SD 05856, 05857,
and 05858).
Clara Hoppocomen
Clara Hoppocomen entered San Jose Mission when she was about 13-years-old (see
baptism SJS 01654). She had three children with her first husband: all three children died before
they could reach two years of age (see baptisms SJS 02658, 03916, and 04217). When she died,
she was approximately 29 years of age and pregnant with the first child from her second
marriage. Her death record reads as follows:
On the 21st of the same day [21 Dec 1825] I interred Clara, baptism number 1554
[1654]. She received the holy sacraments of Penance y Extreme Unction. This
women was four to five months pregnant and after the cesarean operation was
performed, executed by the neophytes Narciso and Silvestre under my direction,
and a child extracted I quickly baptized the child sub conditione because I did not
observe any signs of life or movement. – Fr. Narciso Duran
2

Clara Hoppocomen served as a godparent five times at San Jose, suggesting that she was
active (see godparents in baptisms SJS 01928, 03996, 03997, 04073, and 04433). Her first
husband, Cayetano, also appeared to take an active role in San Jose. He was a marriage witness

2
“En 21 del mismo [21 Dec 1825] enterre a Clara de la p.a de Baut.s 1554 [1654] Recibidos los SS SS.tos de Peñ.a
y Extra.Uncion. Esta muger estaba preñada de 4 a 5 meses y dispues que se le hiciese la operacion cesarea, la qual
executaron por mi direccion los Neof.s Narciso y Silvestre y extraida la criatura con toda prontitud la bautize sub
conditione porque no le pudo observar señal de vida ni movimiento. – Fr. Narciso Duran.” San Jose Mission Burial
Register, entry number 3473. Huntington Library, California Mission Records Collection, MSS Film 528: 5, Reel
IV.
219

on three occasions (see witnesses in marriages SJS 01061, 01066, and 01215). He also served as
a godparent (see godparent in baptism SJS 02663); in the godparent record he was noted as being
a carpenter.
Telesforo had been married twice before his marriage to Clara Hoppocomen. Telesforo
had one child with his first wife, Telesfora, but the child died when he was three years old. It
does not appear that he took an active role at the mission.
Melitona Pileuta
Twins Joseph and Maria (baptisms SCZ 02120 and 02121) were the children of Melitona
Pileuta (baptism SCZ 01443) and her husband, Ysac Pilec (baptism SCZ 01221). Melitona
Pileuta entered Santa Cruz Mission in 1810 at the age of approximately 26 years. When she died,
she was in her second marriage. Five of her children had been baptized at the mission before she
died: three of these preceded her in death. In her death record (SCZ 01668), the recorder noted
that Melitona was 41 years of age.
Melitona Pileuta was Ysac Pilec’s third wife but he did not appear to have children with
his other two wives. It does not appear that Ysac Pilec was particularly active at the mission.
Cristina
Cristina entered San Jose Mission as an adult in 1810 (her age at the time was not
recorded. See baptism SJS 01743). Four years later she married Palemon, with whom she had
three children. All of her children died in childhood (see baptisms SJS 03607, 04455, and
04896). There are no indications that the couple took an active role in the mission.
Ladislaa Eiumitspi
There is little information on Ladislaa. According to her San Jose Mission death record in
the Early California Population Project (burial SJS 04660), she was from San Francisco Solano
220

Mission. There was only one woman named Ladislaa at the said mission, originally named
Eiumitspi and baptized at age four years in March 1826 (see baptism SFS 00187). If this is the
same individual, then at some point Ladislaa Eiumitspi transferred to San Jose Mission. There
she died trying to give birth (see death record SJS 04660) when in January 1832. This would
have put her age at death at 10-years old, which seems unlikely. It is possible that the recorder of
her death record incorrectly identified her baptismal mission or the recorder of her baptism
mistook her age. I did not locate a marriage record for this individual.
Manuela Chaboya
Maria Manuela Evarista Chaboya was the second non-Indian women to have a fetal
extraction since the founding of the missions. Born at San Francisco Mission, she was the
daughter of Marcos Chaboya and Theresa Vernal (see baptism SFD 01387). When she died, she
was 37.5 years of age.
Manuela Chaboya had been married to Antonio Higuera and together the couple had five
children. Chaboya died giving birth to their sixth child (see death record SC 02809). It appears
that their first five children survived beyond childhood.
221

Appendix H
Church Burials at Santa Clara Mission

Methodological approach: The following data come from the Early California Population Project
database. I isolated Santa Clara Mission burials by burial place (searching for “Yglesia” or
“Iglesia”) for up to the year 1828. A total of 144 records were retrieved for this year. A total of
41 church burials were located. Only two of those burials were for non-Indians (see the entries
highlighted in yellow).

Mission Number
Burial
Date
Burial
Place
Spanish
Name
Native
Name
Surname Origin
Age At
Death
Age
Unit
Age
Level
SCL 00001 22 Jun
1777
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Maria Luisa San Francisco,
rancheria de
ni
SCL 00003 23 Oct
1777
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Athanasio
Maria
San Francisco,
rancheria de
p
SCL 00026 25 Jan
1778
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Joseph
Antonio
Garcia [Unstated] a a
SCL 00028 4 Feb
1779
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Lucas
Antonio
San Francisco,
rancheria de
Nuestro Santo
Padre
p
SCL 00029 2 Jul
1779
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Joachin
Maria
Mission 11 a mu
SCL 00030 26 Oct
1779
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Maria de la
Luz
[Valencia] [Unstated] 3 a ni
SCL 00324 12 Apr
1786
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Michaela
Francisca
San Francisco
Solano, rancheria de
a a
SCL 00508 22 Aug
1788
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Santiago Santa Yssabel a a
SCL 00509 24 Aug
1788
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Joseph
Gonzalo
San Carlos 1.5 a p
SCL 01066 29 Jul
1792
Yglesia Pascasia San Carlos p
SCL 01067 2 Aug
1792
Iglesia Maria
Antonia
San Carlos a a
SCL 01118 16 Oct
1792
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Tecla San Carlos 11 a ni
SCL 01253 27 Oct
1793
Iglesia Casimiro San Carlos p
SCL 01254 28 Oct
1793
Iglesia Raymundo San Francisco
Solano
a a
SCL 01255 31 Oct
1793
Iglesia Luis Maria San Carlos p
SCL 01256 2 Nov Iglesia Celestino Santa Agueda p
222

Mission Number
Burial
Date
Burial
Place
Spanish
Name
Native
Name
Surname Origin
Age At
Death
Age
Unit
Age
Level
1793
SCL 01257 10 Nov
1793
Iglesia Benita San Bernardino a a
SCL 01258 11 Nov
1793
Iglesia Francisco
Josef
Santa Agueda p
SCL 01273 18 Dec
1793
Yglesia Alodia San Carlos p
SCL 01288 16 Jan
1794
Yglesia Felicidad San Carlos a a
SCL 01331 22 May
1794
Yglesia Venancio Santa Agueda a a
SCL 01424 31 Jan
1795
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Amancio San Carlos 3 a p
SCL 01881 26 Mar
1797
Yglesia Maria Beata Santa Agueda a a
SCL 01882 26 Mar
1797
Yglesia Adjuta San Bernardino 10 a p
SCL 01883 27 Mar
1797
Yglesia Juvenca San Bernardino a a
SCL 01900 11 May
1797
Yglessia Gregorio San Josef a a
SCL 01993 15 Oct
1797
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Ramon San Carlos a a
SCL 02751 18 May
1802
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Adriano Mision 3 m p
SCL 02752 18 May
1802
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Humiliana San Carlos a a
SCL 03564 3 Nov
1806
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Ciriaco San Antonio 11 a a
SCL 03565 3 Nov
1806
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Celedonia San Bernardino a a
SCL 03566 3 Nov
1806
Yglesia de
esta
Mission
Justiniana San Antonio a a
SCL 03946 15 Jul
1809
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Rudesindo San Bernardino a a
SCL 03947 15 Jul
1809
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Pinita Tayssenes, los a a
SCL 04055 9 Jun
1810
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Cornelio Mision 2 a p
SCL 04056 9 Jun
1810
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Dominga San Carlos 16 a a
SCL 04057 9 Jun
1810
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Leon Mision 1 m p
SCL 04197 24 Mar Yglesia de Vicenta San Antonio a a
223

Mission Number
Burial
Date
Burial
Place
Spanish
Name
Native
Name
Surname Origin
Age At
Death
Age
Unit
Age
Level
1811 esta Mision
SCL 04198 24 Mar
1811
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Magloria San Bernardino a a
SCL 04199 24 Mar
1811
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Magina San Antonio a a
SCL 06332 2 May
1828
Yglesia de
esta Mision
Maria
Dolores
Mision 1 a p

224

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Asset Metadata

Creator Reid, Anne Marie (author)

Core Title Medics of the soul and the body: sickness and death in Alta California, 1769-1850

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publication Date 11/27/2013

Defense Date 11/27/2013

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag burial practices,California,Franciscans,medical history,Missionaries,Native Americans,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Deverell, William F. (committee chair), Mancall, Peter C. (committee member), Martinez, Maria Elena (committee member)

Creator Email areid@huntington.org,areid@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-352800

Unique identifier UC11288089

Identifier etd-ReidAnneMa-2195.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-352800 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ReidAnneMa-2195.pdf

Dmrecord 352800

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Reid, Anne Marie

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA