Mission San Francisco Solano facts for kids
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 Location in California
Location in the United States
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| Location | 114 E Spain St Sonoma, California |
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| Coordinates | 38°17′38″N 122°27′21″W / 38.29389°N 122.45583°W |
| Founding date | July 4, 1823 |
| Founding priest(s) | Father José Altimíra |
| Founding Order | 21 |
| Military district | Fourth |
| Native tribe(s) Spanish name(s) |
Coast Miwok, Patwin, Pomo, Suisunes, Wappo |
| Native place name(s) | Huchi |
| Baptisms | 1,563 total |
| Marriages | 359 total |
| Burials | 896 total |
| Neophyte population | 996 in 1832 |
| Governing body | California Department of Parks and Recreation |
| Current use | Museum |
| Reference no. |
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| Website | |
| http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=479 | |
Mission San Francisco Solano was the last Spanish mission in Alta California. It was named for Saint Francis Solanus and was the only mission built in Alta California after Mexico gained independence from Spain. There were two reasons for building Mission San Francisco Solano. The governor of California wanted to have many Mexicans in northern California near the location of the Russian Fort Ross. A young Franciscan friar from Mission San Francisco de Asís wanted to move to a location with a better climate and more people to convert.
While the mission was successful during its eleven years of operation, it was not as successful as older California missions. The mission is now part of the Sonoma State Historic Park and is located in the city of Sonoma, California.
Contents
History
The mission was founded and then managed by priests and friars.
Fr. Altamira
The Mission San Francisco de Asís, where Friar José Altimira was serving, was not succeeding. California Governor Luis Argüello was interested in blocking the Russians at Bodega Bay and Fort Ross from moving further inland. Together, they formed a plan to move Mission San Francisco de Asís and the San Rafael asistencia (a mission for the sick) to a new location north of the bay. They brought their plan to the church authorities and the territory (legislature).
Beginning in 1823, while he was waiting for permission from the church authorities, Friar Altimira brought military escorts to explore land for the new mission site. In August of 1823, he returned with soldiers and neophytes (people who were new to the religion) from Mission San Francisco de Asís. Authorities had decided that old Mission San Francisco de Asís would remain open. San Rafael Asistencia had already been designated as a full mission (Mission San Rafael Arcángel). Therefore, they needed to name a new mission after a different patron saint. Altimira chose San Francisco Solano, a 17th-century Franciscan missionary to South America. His company of soldiers and neophytes began building all the facilities needed in a California mission: Mission San Francisco Solano.
The mission continued to develop until an argument arose about the sharing of the bountiful 1826 harvest. Indians not living at the mission were unhappy with the payment they were given for their work. They burned some of the wooden buildings. Fr. Altimira fled to Mission San Rafael Arcángel with a few faithful neophytes.
Fr. Fortuni
Fr. Buenaventura Fortuni, an older Spanish Franciscan who had been working at Mission San José in California, was assigned to replace Altimira. Fr. Fortuni quickly reestablished order and morale. He began the work of rebuilding the mission. He arranged the main buildings to form a large, square enclosure.
After leading the mission alone for three and a half years, Fr. Fortuni felt he needed to transfer to another mission where he could share the workload. He was fifty-eight years old.
Fr. Gutierrez
Fr. Fortuni was replaced by Fr. José Gutiérrez, a Franciscan friar from South America. Fr. Gutierrez continued to build and increase the farming effort. 1832 was the most successful year of the mission. By this time, the main square had a large convent of 27 rooms for priests, a large adobe church, a wooden storehouse (the original mission chapel), living quarters, and workrooms in which the Indians were taught different crafts that would help them be self-sufficient. In addition to the square, there were orchards, gardens, vineyards, fields of grain, a gristmill, houses for the soldiers and Indian families, a jail, a cemetery, and an infirmary. The mission recorded 127 baptisms, 34 marriages, 70 deaths, and a total of 996 neophytes (coming from 35 area villages). It had many animals and had grown much produce on its farm.
Secularization
In 1833, the Mexican Congress decided to close all of the missions in Alta California with the passage of the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833. Governor Figueroa ordered the property (including the land, cattle, and equipment) to be split among the neophytes over 20 years old.
Closure
Mission San Francisco Solano officially ceased to exist on November 3, 1834, when it was designated a First Class Parish. The Spanish missionaries were to be replaced by parish priests – the first was Fr. Lorenzo Quijas who had earlier been assigned to Sonoma and San Rafael.
Lieutenant (teniente) Mariano Vallejo, Commandant of the Presidio of San Francisco, was named administrator (comisionado) to oversee the closing of the mission under the regulation (reglamento). Vallejo had assigned Guadalupe Antonio Ortega (sometimes called Sergeant Ortega) to the work of secularization. Ortega drove Fr. Quijas away, and many neophytes returned to their home villages or moved to ranchos (including Vallejo's Petaluma Adobe) to work. Some stayed in the Sonoma area as servants.
Decline
The mission buildings quickly fell into disrepair. The town of Sonoma was growing and needed building materials. People came to take roof tiles, wood, and adobe bricks from the mission buildings.
In 1841, Mariano Vallejo ordered a small adobe chapel to be built on the location of the first wooden mission chapel. It became the church of the parish.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln transferred ownership of all the mission churches in California to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1881, the Sonoma church property was sold to a local businessman, and a new parish church was built across town. At one time, the old adobe chapel was used as a warehouse. The Convento may have been used as a winery.
Reconstruction, memorial, and hospital
In 1903, the two remaining mission buildings were purchased by California Historic Landmarks League and became part of the California Park System in 1906. After 1940, the buildings were remodeled to look like the originals and used as exhibits for tourists to learn about the mission's history.
Dedicated in 1999, the Sonoma Mission Indian Memorial honors the more than 800 native people (including over 200 children) who died while living and working at the mission between 1824 and 1839. Their Christian names, as recorded by the priests in the mission's records, are inscribed on this granite memorial.
European diseases such as measles and smallpox, along with the overcrowded and unhealthy living conditions caused the need for a hospital to care for the people living at the mission. The first hospital in California was founded in 1817 to care for the Indians of the Mission San Francisco de Asís. It later became an independent mission, the Mission San Rafael Arcangel, in San Rafael, California.
California Historic Landmark
On June 1, 1932, Mission San Francisco Solano was designated California Historical Landmark #3.
Interesting facts about Mission San Francisco Solano
- Mission San Francisco Solano is the last and northernmost of the twenty-one missions established in Alta California. It was founded in Sonoma, California.
- It was the only California mission established after Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821.
- It was only used as a mission for eleven years.
- The mission had over 10,000 acres of orchards, vineyards, grain fields, and livestock grazing lands.
- The town of Sonoma was the location of the Bear Flag Revolt that eventually separated California from Mexico.
- The mission church faces the plaza that became the center of the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846.
- Tremors from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake heavily damaged the original adobe chapel of the mission. The restoration was finished in 1913.
- In 1927 the California State Parks Commission took responsibility for maintaining the mission and the surrounding property.
- Mission San Francisco Solano is one of only two of California’s Spanish missions operated as a State Park.
See also
In Spanish: Misión San Francisco Solano para niños
- Spanish missions in California
- El Presidio de Sonoma
- USNS Mission Solano (AO-135) – a Mission Buenaventura Class fleet oiler built during World War II
- Sonoma Plaza – the U.S. National Historic Landmark District in front of the mission
- Mission Guadalupe - the final Dominican mission to be founded, June 1834
