CORREO


THE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER OF THE CALIFORNIA MISSION STUDIES
August 2003                                                                             Vol. 1, No. 1

Robert Senkewicz,  Editor

Welcome to the first edition of "Correo," the Electronic Newsletter of the California Mission Studies Association."

Since CMSA was founded in the mid-1980s, its newsletter has been the vehicle through which it has attempted to keep its membership abreast of organizational business and of events of interest throughout the state and region. The newsletter has come out once, twice, or three times a year, depending on the number of items for distribution and (even more!) on the ability of the editors to scrape together the time to design and publish it.

The spread of electronic means of communication has enabled us to begin to take another step in the development of the "newsletter." The speed of the internet, along with the rise in the number of CMSA members who have access to it, has encouraged us to divide the traditional newsletter into two separate entities. The informational part of the old newsletter is being shifted to email and the association's website. We have christened this effort "Correo." (The print newsletter, the "Boletín", is being turned into a more focused journal, and it will be sent to all members towards the end of the year.)

We hope to be able to distribute this new electronic newsletter with greater frequency than was the case with the print version. We hope to be able to send it out every couple of months. We hope that one good result of this will be to enable us to announce events of interest to our membership more speedily, so that those who might wish to attend them have sufficient time to plan out their schedules. To that end, we encourage all members who have events relating to the CMSA mission that they wish publicized to send notices to the co-editor at rsenkewicz@scu.edu and we will do our best to get them in the next issue of "Correo.". Please let us know how we might improve this new effort!     


CMSA WEB SITE:

(Depending on your e-mail program, you might be able to access the links mentioned below  just by clicking on them, or you may have to cut and paste the links into your browser's  address slot.)

The CMSA web site, under the excellent direction of Sasha Honig, editor, and Carol Benston, designer, has developed into a first rate resources for the study of many aspects of the mission era. The homepage is at  http://www.ca-missions.org .

One of the highlights of the site is the "Directory for California Missions and Other Hispanic Sites," (Click on the "Mission Directory" link) which has the addresses and phone numbers of each of the Alta California missions. In some cases, a specific contact person to set up a school tour is also named. The page also has contact information for various adobes, asistencias, estancias, presidios, pueblos, and ranchos.  The url for this page is   http://www.ca-missions.org/contact.html

A bibliographic page (click on the "Bibliographies" link) has numerous references to books and articles on the era, as well as a bibliography on "Presidios & Soldiers in the Californias & Northern New Spain," prepared by Michael Hardwick.   Url:   http://www.ca-missions.org/biblio.html

Meanings of Spanish words can be found in two places. Sasha has provided a very useful glossary at the "Illustrated Glossary" link   ( http://www.ca-missions.org/illusgl.html . Also, Jake Ivey has provided an equally useful explanation of more technical mission vocabulary at  http://www.ca-missions.org/ivey.html .


The "Archaeological, Conservation, and Preservation Projects" link provides a wealth of information on a large number of such projects in both Alta and Baja California, as well as articles by Bob Hoover, Gail Woolley, Mike Imwalle, and others.  Url:   http://www.ca-missions.org/arch.html

The "Publications" link provides information about which CMSA publications are still available and about purchasing the Las Californias mission map prepared for the 2002 La Paz conference.  Url:    http://www.ca-missions.org/pubs.html

The "Articles and Book Reviews" link (http://www.ca-missions.org/articles.html) provides full text versions of some articles and reviews which have appeared in past issues of the CMSA newsletter, while the "Newsletter Archive" link offers further articles from our newsletters, going back to the mid-1980s :  http://www.ca-missions.org/archive.html.

Approximately 250 links to other websites are listed on the Annotated Links page (http://www.ca-missions.org/links.html or, if you prefer to more quickly scan the list, the Unannotated Links  ( http://www.ca-missions.org/ualinks.html ).  In addition to the many links on missions, there are categories such as Associations, Museums, and Parks;  Presidios; Pueblos; Ranchos;  Women;  Native Californians;  Genealogy, and Pictorial Resources.  A special category “For and By Young Scholars,” is directed toward fourth grade students and their teachers.  New links are frequently added.

Finally, the "Annual Conference"link  ( http://www.ca-missions.org/conf.html ) offers information about our next conference in San Luis Obispo in February 2004, and the "Norman Neuerburg Award" link ( http://www.ca-missions.org/neuerawards.html ) describes the award we bestow at each conference. Membership information is available by clicking on, of all things, "Membership!" ( http://www.ca-missions.org/membership.html )


Important New Resource Books for Fourth-Grade Teachers


Jack S. Williams and Thomas L. Davis:

--Indians of the California Mission Frontier   
--Padres of the California Missions   
--Craftsmen and Craftswomen of the California Missions   
--Sailors, Merchants, and Muleteers of the California Missions   
--Soldiers and Their Families of the California Mission Frontier   
--Townspeople and Ranchers of the California Mission Frontier   

Powerkids Press, 2004.    64 pp. each, with color illustrations, black and white photos, maps, glossaries, additional resources, and indices.


This is a must-have set of books for any elementary school, public library, or  California home-schooler.   Each of the six book is well-researched, well-written, beautifully illustrated, and meaty in content.  Two of the volumes cover subjects  that one would expect to see in a series entitled “People of the California Missions” —Indians of the California Mission Frontier  and  Padres of the California Missions.  The topics of the other four books fill a large void in childrens literature in California history.  The immense amount of knowledge of the authors is clear, Davis as a historian and Williams as an archaeologist. They have written in such a way that kids will find that they are not being talked down to.  These are not “dumbed-down” books;  students will find plenty to think about.  They will also enjoy the illustrations and learn from them;  they were chosen carefully for their historic authenticity and sometimes communicate truths not easy to put into words.  Some drawings are by Mr. Williams himself, a talented illustrator of his own work.   Teachers will find that each book is an valuable reference work.  Teachers might even find that they can break away from the old way of thinking that building a sugar-cube model of a mission pretty much exhausts what they can do when they get to the mission-era part of the curriculum.  They will be able to assign their students a wide variety of topics with the assurance that good, reliable information is available.  In the process, they also will be able to teach how anyone interested in the past can go about researching it, using documents, archaeological finds, oral history, and pictorial resources.  

The six volumes can be purchased individually or as a set from PowerKids Press,which is a division of Rosen Publishing.  Although the copyright date is 2004, the PowerKids website  www.powerkidspress.com  lists them now, individually at the web price of 18.95 or as a set at 101.70.
(Reviewed by Sasha Honig)



ACADEMY OF AMERICAN FRANCISCAN HISTORY SEMINARS


The Academy of American Franciscan History has announced the topics for its two upcoming fall seminars. They will be held in the classroom of the Franciscan School of Theology, 1712 Euclid Avenue, Berkeley, California 94709-1208 (tel. 510.548.1755; email:  AcadAFH@fst.edu )
 
The first seminar will be held at 10:00 A.M. on Saturday September 27. It will be conducted by Karen Melvin of the University of California, Berkeley. The topic is "Distinguishing Habits: Comparing Mendicant Orders in 17th and 18th Century New Spain."

The second seminar will be be held at 10:00 A.M. on Saturday November 8. It will be conducted by Charles Walker of the University of California, Davis. The topic is "Great Balls of Fire: Premonitions and Panic About the Destruction of Lima, 1755"

For more information about these seminar topics, please go to the CMSA News and Events page  ( http://ca-missions.org/events.html )  and scroll down to the seminars’ dates.

The format of these seminars is, first, a presentation by the scholar conducting the seminar, and then discussion among all the attendees. The Academy’ s web site is at  http://www.aafh.org/  


MISSION DOLORES PARISH FIESTA

The Mission Dolores Parish has announced its 3-day festival, Fiesta 2003 for the weekend of October 10-12.  It will feature music, children’s games, international food, and a raffle.  For more information, phone Victor at 415-861-7673.


EARLY LOS ANGELES

The online magazine "Common Place" devotes its July 2003 issue to "Early Cities of the Americas." The article on Los Angeles is by Doug Monroy, and there are also interesting pieces on eighteen other cities as well, including Havana, Lima, Mexico City, Paramaribo, Potosí, and Santa Fe. The magazine is at  http://www.common-place.org/vol-03/no-04/  


ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO

The Tennessee Hollow Watershed Archaeology Project at the Presidio of San Francisco is excavating the historic site of El Polín Spring, the former residence of the Briones and Miramontes families in the early 19th century.  They are digging Monday through Friday (but not on weekends). They are encouraging visitors to come by and check out the site informally, and structured tours may be arranged as well during the dig’s season, which run through August 15 this year.   This is the first season of a 5-year project.  The project also has a website  ( http://www.stanford.edu/group/presidio ), which provides background info on the history of the site and the dig, lists volunteer opportunities, shares weekly progress updates, and provides an online forum for discussion.


RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Two recently published books may be of interest to our members:

Donald Garate
Juan Bautista de Anza: Basque Explorer in the New World 1693-1740
Hardcover, 384pp, $39.95, ISBN 0874175054
University of Nevada Press (  http://www.nvbooks.nevada.edu/ )

Susan Deeds
Defiance and Deference in Mexico's Colonial North: Indians under Spanish Rule in Nueva Vizcaya
318 pages, $55.00 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback), ISBN: 0292705204
University of Texas Press (  http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/ )

Please send us information about books or journal articles which you think would interest CMSA members.

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