Missions and California History

Fourth grade and that means California history. My daughter is doing a research report on a California mission. Specifically, Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. Which, by the way, was not originally founded for the same reason as the other missions in the chain of 20 or so missions that were built from San Diego to Monterey.

Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was founded because of its' close proximity to a massive bear population. Apparently several thousand pounds of bear meat will get you through a California winter just fine.

Once established, however, the mission began doing just what the rest of the missions were doing - "converting" the native american population.

I am, on occasion, absolutely dumbfounded by the amount of arrogance displayed throughout history. Take the Spanish, for example, here you have a group of greedy individuals taking over California and forcing Native Americans into slavery, essentially. They called it "education" when what they were actually doing was disrespecting and attempting to completely destroy another culture. Another classic example of, "my beliefs are right - because they are mine."

In a nutshell, of course.

Anytime someone chooses to discount, abuse, or change another person' s belief or way of life simply because they do not appear to coincide with their own - it's wrong, it's ignorant, and it's arrogant.