Mission La Purísima Concepción

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Other missions bearing the name La Purísima Concepción include
Mission Puerto de Purísima Concepción near Yuma, Arizona,
Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña in San Antonio, Texas,
Misión La Purísima Concepción de Cadegomó in Baja California Sur, and
Misión La Purísima Concepción de Caborca, in Caborca, Sonora.
Mission La Purísima Concepción
Mission La Purísima Concepción
The ruins of Mission La Purísima Concepción, circa 1900.
Location Santa Barbara County, California
Name as Founded La Misión de La Purísima Concepción de Santísima Virgen María [1]
English Translation The Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Sainted Virgin Mary
Patron The Immaculate Conception of the Sainted Virgin Mary [2]
Nickname(s) "The Linear Mission" [3]
Founding Date December 8, 1787 [4]
Founding Priest(s) Father Fermín Lasuén [5]
Founding Order Eleventh [2]
Headquarters of the Alta California Mission System 1815–1819 [6]
Military District Second [7]
Native Tribe(s)
Spanish Name(s)		 Chumash
Purisimeño
Native Place Name(s) Laxshakupi, 'Amuwu [8]
Baptisms 3,255 [9]
Marriages 1,029 [9]
Burials 2,609 [9]
Secularized 1834 [2]
Returned to the Church 1874 [10]
Governing Body California Department of Parks and Recreation
Current Use Museum
National Historic Landmark #NPS-70000147
Date added to the NRHP 1970
California Historical Landmark #340
Web Site http://www.lapurisimamission.org


Mission La Purísima Concepción, the second mission site to bear the name, was founded on the "Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin" (December 8), 1787. The present site is located east of the City of Lompoc, California between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. The City of Lompoc was so small that the Roman Catholic Church made an exception to the rule that no mission is to be established within seven miles from any city (the original site of La Purísima was only one mile from the tiny town). It was moved four miles east of the town in 1812 after the Santa Barbara Earthquake severely damaged the Mission buildings on December 21st of that year.

Contents

[edit] Precontact

The current prevailing theory postulates that Paleo-Indians entered the Americas from Asia via a land bridge called "Beringia" that connected eastern Siberia with present-day Alaska (when sea levels were significantly lower, due to widespread glaciation) between about 15,000 to 35,000 years ago. The remains of Arlington Springs Man on Santa Rosa Island are among the traces of a very early habitation in California, dated to the last ice age (Wisconsin glaciation) about 13,000 years ago. The first humans are therefore thought to have made their homes among the southern valleys of California's coastal mountain ranges some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago; the earliest of these people are known only from archaeological evidence.[11] The cultural impacts resulting from climactic changes and other natural events during this broad expanse of time were negligible; conversely, European contact was a momentous event, which profoundly affected California's native peoples.[12]

[edit] History

In 1824, there was a major Indian revolt at the Mission. Spain had stopped funding the missions after Mexico won its independence, and there were many soldiers at the Mission who were no longer being paid and took out their frustrations on the local Chumash Indians. A soldier had beat an Indian at Mission Santa Inés and a revolt spread to Mission La Purísima, where the Indians took over the Mission for one month until more soldiers arrived from Monterey; after a three-hour battle, the Indians lost. Many of the Indians left the Mission soon thereafter; those who did not fight and were hiding in the mountains during the revolt came back to the Mission, but there were not enough of them to keep the Mission going as it once had.

Following Mexican secularization in 1843, the grounds were abandoned; in 1934, only nine of the buildings remained. The Civilian Conservation Corps pledged to restore the Mission if enough land could given back to make the Mission into a historical monument. The Church and the Union Oil Company then donated enough land for the restoration. The buildings were all reinforced and reconstructed (including many small structures and the original water system) to such an extent that La Purísima is considered to be the only example in California of a "complete" mission complex. The dedication day for the newly-restored Mission La Purísima Concepción was December 7, 1941, the same day the United States entered World War II.

The grounds are part of a historic park and are well cared for by the State of California Department of Parks. The Mission is no longer used as a parish church; it has a visitors center and a museum on the grounds in the old infirmary buildings.

[edit] Other historic designations

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Leffingwell, p. 79
  2. ^ a b c Krell, p. 202
  3. ^ Ruscin, p. 97
  4. ^ Yenne, p. 104
  5. ^ Ruscin, p. 196
  6. ^ Yenne, p. 186
  7. ^ Forbes, p. 202
  8. ^ Ruscin, p. 195
  9. ^ a b c Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
  10. ^ Krell, p. 202: The property was subsequently sold in 1874 due to its dilapidated state, and acquired by the State of California in 1935.
  11. ^ Paddison, p. 333: The first undisputable archaeological evidence of human presence in California dates back to circa 8,000 BCE.
  12. ^ Jones and Klar 2005, p. 53: "Understanding how and when humans first settled California is intimately linked to the initial colonization of the Americas."

[edit] References

  • Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London. 
  • Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, MD. ISBN 0-759-10872-2. 
  • Krell, Dorothy (ed.) (1979). The California Missions: A Pictorial History. Sunset Publishing Corporation, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-376-05172-8. 
  • Leffingwell, Randy (2005). California Missions and Presidios: The History & Beauty of the Spanish Missions. Voyageur Press, Inc., Stillwater, MN. ISBN 0-89658-492-5. 
  • Paddison, Joshua (ed.) (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-890771-13-9. 
  • Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA. ISBN 0-932653-30-8. 
  • Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8. 

[edit] See also

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[edit] External links


California missions

San Diego de Alcalá (1769) · San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1770) · San Antonio de Padua (1771) · San Gabriel Arcángel (1771) · San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (1772) · San Francisco de Asís (1776) · San Juan Capistrano (1776) · Santa Clara de Asís (1777) · San Buenaventura (1782) · Santa Barbara (1786) · La Purísima Concepción (1787) · Santa Cruz (1791) · Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (1791) · San José (1797) · San Juan Bautista (1797) · San Miguel Arcángel (1797) · San Fernando Rey de España (1797) · San Luis Rey de Francia (1798) · Santa Inés (1804) · San Rafael Arcángel (1817) · San Francisco Solano (1823)

Asistencias
Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles (1784) · San Pedro y San Pablo (1786) · Santa Margarita de Cortona (1787) · San Antonio de Pala (1816) · Santa Ysabel (1818)

Estancias
San Bernardino de Sena (1819) · Santa Ana (1820) · Las Flores (1823)


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