California Missions is an online resource to inform about the twenty-one beautiful Spanish missions that line the State of California. From San Diego to Sonoma, each historical mission has a colorful two-hundred-year-old story to tell. Our goal is to educate …
Although the settlement of California did not begin until 1769, forces were at work only the year after the first voyage of Columbus, which ultimately brought Spanish missionaries to the Golden State of today. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI drew …
The history of occupied California dates back to the summer of 1769, but the history of the missions can be traced to 1493, just after the discovery of America. Between the two dates, there is an interval of almost 300 …
Miguel José Serra, a Franciscan missionary to the Indians of California was born November 24, 1713, at Petra on the island of Maiorca (Spain). He was the son of Antonio Nadal Serra and Margarita Rosa Ferrer who married in 1707 …
The first Spanish soldiers and missionaries of Alta California endured many hardships since their arrival in San Diego. The first settlement on Presidio Hill was a mere hospital camp where most of the early colonizers perished from scurvy and other …
The area of North America known as California was named by Hernan Cortez (ca. 1536) after the mythical island paradise described by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo in Las sergas de Esplandian, published in 1508. Upper or Alta California, which included …
Named after a fabled island in “The Deeds of Esplandian” by Montalvo… written in 1500. The romantic epochs of California history parade before us in picturesque array… the conquistador, the cowled monk, the trapper, miner, emigrant and the state builder; …