Mission Santa Cruz

In 1769, Spanish captain Gaspar de Portola' explored the northern end of Monterey Bay. He called the new area Santa Cruz, or Holly Cross. He reclaimed Mission Santa Cruz for Spain. In 1791 Father Lasue'n chose Santa Cruz to be Spain's twelfth mission. Other missions helped out Santa Cruz by giving them seeds, grains, livestock, and food. They also sent neophyte workers to Santa Cruz.

Mission Santa Cruz did really well at first, it had fresh water, good soil, and a lot of neophyte workers. A large Ohlone population lived nearby. Some of these Native Americans came to the mission willingly and they decided to stay. Priests at Santa Cruz Mission thought they could recruit more Ohlone. The Ohlone neophytes lived in their own homes close to the church. Mission Santa Cruz bells rang to call the neophyte people for prayers, meals, and work. The system worked for a while until arguments, disease, and natural disasters soon spoiled the Spaniards' plans and hurt the Ohlone.

In, 1797 the Spanish government California decided to find a pueblo near Santa Cruz. Spanish speaking settlers lived in this town and they called themselves Californios, but these settlers and ranchers came with little experience and came with very little amount of materials to make a town or a farm. They thought the priests and neophytes would provide them all the stuff they needed. The missionaries refused all their demands and thought they were ridiculous. The Californios were jealous and frustrated .They stole from the mission whenever they could. The Native Americans at Santa Cruz suffered from many diseases that were brought from the Europeans such as measles and small pox, they had no natural defenses for these diseases. Other missions were effected to. Therefore, thousands of Native Americans died.

In the early 1800s, the population of the Ohlones had decreased. Santa Cruz had the lowest amount of Native Americans. At Santa Cruz, priests searched for other Indians to become neophytes but, this only spread disease and violence among the Native American population. Neophytes were punished for disobeying orders, missing work, missing prayers, and if they didn't speak Spanish or if they ran away. Usually beatings and whipping were common forms of punishment. The Native Americans tried to protest the cruelty. Some destroyed crops and others still made poor goods they didn't care about the beating and the whipping.

In 1818, news of a pirate attack reached Santa Cruz. The pirate Hippolyte de Bouchard had raided settlements in the Monterey Bay area. Father Laue's told the priests at the Santa Cruz mission to take the neophytes and seek safety at Mission Santa Clara; they safely made it to a mission in the North. But Bouchard never attacked Santa Cruz. Instead, the Californios decided to raid it and took everything they could. Then they destroyed everything else. Although the priests and neophytes