By Pat Murkland
After a short hiatus, News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center returns this week to share a little more history from Southern California’s Native American homelands. Today we’re talking about the Historic Asistencia in Redlands.
This story points out how history sometimes is like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. When you find, document, and fit more pieces into place, the picture can change.
The Mission
We start with the Roman Catholic Mission de San Gabriel Arcángel, founded in 1771 near present-day Los Angeles. It’s been called the most prolific among the chain of Franciscan coastal missions, baptizing and enslaving a huge Indigenous work force for agriculture, stock-raising, and other labor.
Getting Bigger
The San Gabriel mission gradually began reaching inland, claiming grazing lands that stretched into San Gorgonio Pass. Between 1819-1834, San Gabriel Mission expanded eastward, establishing outposts to manage the mission’s livestock.
One such outpost was in Rancho San Bernardino, which then included a big chunk of San Bernardino Valley and the present-day cities of Fontana, Rialto, Colton, and Redlands, along with the San Bernardino we know today.
What You See
About 8,000 square feet of buildings at 26930 Barton Road in Redlands depict the Mission de San Gabriel Arcángel outpost.
Redlands mission outpost, courtesy of inkknife_2000, via Wikimedia commons
This outpost represents the mission’s last push before the Mexican government took control and secularized missions in the 1830s. The rooms and courtyard give a feeling of traveling back in time to Old California.
What it is
It’s a 1930s visualization of the mission outpost, which originally was about a mile away. The adobe bricks were made in the 1930s on site, using the orginal outpost’s foundation.
What it was claimed to be
The buildings in the 1930s already were embedded in local history books as a restored Asistencia, or “assistant mission” of San Gabriel Mission. An Asistencia was essentially a “mini mission,” with most of the trappings of a mission. A mission took over Indigenous people who then were forced to live — and work — under the supervision of the mission priests.
Wait a Minute …
More than a half-century after this Inland “assistant mission” was built solidly into Inland history books, the late R. Bruce Harley, archivist for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino, set about to investigate. How far did the Mission San Gabriel really expand into traditional Cahuilla and other tribal homelands?
This matters because the history books and 1930s restoration portrayed the outpost as highly significant in its short time before the Roman Catholic missions were throttled in the 1830s by their Mexican takeover.
The 1830 outpost as it appeared in the 1880s sketched by Henry Chapman Ford. From George Beattie’s California Unbuilt Missions. Shared by R. Bruce Harley, Readings in Diocesan Heritage, Volume II, Mission San Gabriel Expands Eastward, 1819-1834. Published by the Diocese of San Bernardino, 1989, p. 49.
Solving the Puzzle
In the late 1980s, Harley began delving into mission records. He pored over Franciscan and unpublished church archives. No source called the outpost an important Asistencia spreading Christianity in the area — until the 1900s. He investigated what earlier historians and Roman Catholic priests had said or written, in letters, books, and more. He cast an especially analytical eye on the writings and correspondence of George Beattie, a well-known historian of the San Bernardino Valley, who had inserted the elevated importance of the Asistencia into his histories.
Harley compared the San Bernardino layout with those of recorded Asistencias. While the Asistencia ground plans showed inner courts used for people, in San Bernardino both an outer corral and an inner court were used for cattle. Further, the chapel in San Bernardino could be entered only from the outside, with no vestry provided; to Harley this meant it was only designed for occasional religious use.
Crushing the Myth
Harley concluded the outpost was nothing more than an outpost for managing cattle, with a chapel handy for those who may occasionally need one.
He shared his findings with the public in the Winter 1989 entire issue of the San Bernardino County Museum Association Quarterly, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4. And he debunks the Asistencia and other “myths” in the second volume of his 1990s book series published by the Diocese of San Bernardino, Readings in Diocesan Heritage, Volume II, Mission San Gabriel Expands Eastward, 1819-1834. See Chapter III, “Did Mission San Gabriel have two Asistencias? The Case of Rancho San Bernardino.” pp 40-79.
Outpost ruins in the 1920s. From George Beattie’s California Unbuilt Missions. Shared by R. Bruce Harley, Readings in Diocesan Heritage, Volume II, Mission San Gabriel Expands Eastward, 1819-1834. Published by the Diocese of San Bernardino, 1989, p. 49.
The Outpost Today
The California state registered historic landmark, the rebuilt outpost, is managed today by the Redlands Conservancy, which also uses the site as a venue for weddings and events. To visit or get more information, look HERE.
The courtyard, photo by JohnWayne Stroud, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Thank you for reading
It’s good to be back. Thanks for supporting the 501c3 nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, led by Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), as we continue our 20th year of saving and sharing Southern California Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts. And as always, thanks from Center leaders Ernest and June Siva and Editor Pat Murkland for reading, liking, subscribing, and sharing News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, your FREE online weekly newsletter. We love to hear from you. PLEASE EMAIL. September 29, 2023.