Life under the Mission system
The Spanish mission system were set up in the Chumash territory in the late 1700s. Missions such as San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, La Purísima, and Santa Inés were built directly in or near Chumash homelands, disrupting long established village networks and control over land. The goal of the Spanish was to convert the Native peoples to Christianity and change them into modernized agricultural communities under church authority. For the Chumash, this system represented a major shift away from their traditional independent way of life. To the Spanish these missions showed their progress and expansion of their empire, but for the Chumash they became centers of deep cultural loss from forced transformation.
Building the missions themselves required large amounts of labor and much of this work came directly from forced labor of the Chumash people. Missionaries and soldiers pressured local bands to supply workers to help construct adobe buildings. Many Chumash were not given a choice, the Spanish soldiers used violence to forcibly removed Indigenous people from their villages to mission sites. Once there, they were put to work making adobe bricks, cutting timber, carrying stones, and preparing food for the mission population. Even those who originally approached the missions peacefully on their own often found that leaving was difficult once the labor system took hold. The mission economy depended heavily on Native labor which meant the Spanish institutional structure was built on the physical efforts of the Chumash.
Not all natives joined the missions through outright force, some entered voluntarily at first. Drought, declining food supplies, and pressure caused by the presence of Spanish livestock on their traditional hunting and gathering grounds pushed Chumash families toward the missions in search of security. Priests offered food, clothing, and protection, material resources became scarce as Spanish settlement expanded. Some Chumash leaders believed cooperation might reduce conflict or bring stability. In these early stages a portion of the Chumash population saw the mission system as a possible refuge or a temporary ally when adapting to new economic and environmental challenges. However even when people entered willingly the strict rules punishments and abusive daily routines of mission life soon made it clear that their freedom was restricted.
Once inside a mission, the Chumash faced an environment designed to erase their traditional identity and replace it with Spanish Catholic values. Mission priests controlled every part of daily life from labor work, religious practices and even family decisions. Chumash people who attempted to leave without permission were often chased down by soldiers and being returned by force and punished. Men and women were separated into gender segregated dormitories, children were raised away from their parents. Over time as more Chumash became baptized and bound to missions, the Spanish strengthened their control over the population. The combination of cultural pressure, social disruption, and restrictions meant that even those who had voluntarily entered the missions eventually found themselves in conditions that are like forced captivity.