This post’s example of socialism comes from an unusual source. In 1769, King Carlos III of Spain sent soldiers and missionaries to colonize Upper California. The word ‘king’ is your first clue that this was a monarchy, right? But elements of the missions’ operation smack of socialist policies, so bear with me. First, however, we have to spend some time setting the stage.
Mixing Church and State
Whatever accusations you want to throw at the Spanish for how they colonized the Americas, Father Junípero Serra was determined to make a difference. Throughout the prior 300 years or so, priests had protested Spain’s treatment of the indigenous people of the New World. Bartolomé de las Casas and Eusebius Kino were two of those voices. By the time of the San Diego expedition (1769), Father Serra was determined to win converts to Christianity by kindness.
(Source document: The Missions and Missionaries of California, volume 2, Zephyrin Engelhardt, 1915, page 88-89. Further references will abbreviate this as Missions.)
It didn’t quite work out that way in practice, mostly because the soldiers didn’t have time for such nonsense. Mixing church and state is dicey business, which is why the U.S. has been so cautious of doing so. But the Spanish had a method in their madness.
- The crown wanted to make the native people into good Spanish citizens. Unifying the language and religion worked for Alexander the Great. It seemed to work for Spain, too.
- The soldiers were good Catholics. Sending them on extended duty without a priest would have been unthinkable.
- The priests were devoted missionaries, but they didn’t want to be killed either. They needed the infrastructure and protection of the army in order to do their work.
Background: The Struggle Between Church and State
I taught a California History course for my local homeschool co-op. I’m in the process of making that information available online, as a book and a video course. We don’t have time or space here to lay out the entire story. For now, permit me to sum up.
Spain controlled Upper California, from San Diego to San Francisco, for 52 years. In that time, they built a series of missions to serve the California natives. They built Presidios for the soldiers and Pueblos for civilians. The struggle between church and state continued for the entire time the missions were in existence.
- The Spanish viceroy told Father Serra to convert souls to Christianity, but he told the military governor to extend the conquest for the king. (Missions, pages 88-89.)
- Most of the military governors had a rocky relationship with the missions. Sometimes that involved rather testy correspondence with the viceroy in Mexico City. History books that rely solely on the military reports paint a far different picture than ones based on the letters of the priests. (Missions, pages 106-108, 281-287.)
- Military governors were convinced the missions had amassed great wealth, and complained that the government was being shortchanged. The priests, who were paid in groceries, had to produce meticulous accounts to disprove the charges. (Missions, pages 462, 577-579.)
- Soldiers and civilians alike tried to hire out work to the Indians who lived at the missions, but at unfair wages and work conditions. The priests intervened on the Indians’ behalf, which didn’t win them friends among the soldiers. (Missions, pages 560-563, 570-571.)
- The missions were accused of mistreating the Indians. The military governor prepared a document for the viceroy answering the charges, and the missions prepared one too. Those accounts also give us a glimpse into how the missions operated. The governor’s report was hostile, but the missions were acquitted of all charges. (Missions, pages 553-584.)
- The Spanish government established price controls and trade restrictions, the opposite of a free market economy. Government control of production led to a struggling economy in California. (Missions, pages 511-515, 590.)
- After Mexico’s war for independence began with Spain (1810), the missions were cut off from supplies and paychecks. The Spanish citizens had to rely on food grown by the missions, paid for by IOU’s drawn on the Spanish government. When Spain lost the war (1821), those IOU’s became worthless. (Missions, page 651.)
- Twelve years after Mexico took charge of Upper California, they disbanded the missions. All the land and livestock the Indians had used to support themselves were taken and sold. Some of the Indians received a share of those lands, but they lost it within a few years and had nothing left.
The Elephant in the Room
I can already hear the protests about why I would include the missions as an example of Christians trying socialism. Let me first acknowledge that. Much has been said in recent years about how the missions were terrible for the Indians. There are several reasons for that conclusion.
1. The major writers of California history, the ones cited by most modern historians, relied on the governors’ reports about the missions. As reported in Missions, pages 553-584, the statements from the missionaries were quite different. Ultimately, the tribunal ruled that the missionaries were not guilty of the charges.
2. Modern anthropologists believe that all mission work is immoral, because it does not leave the native people’s culture unchanged. The Bible’s answer, meanwhile, is that God doesn’t want any human’s life to be unchanged. We all need a Savior, regardless of culture. That was the missions’ goal, whether they succeeded or not.
3. Native tribes add their voices of protest to the anthropologists, for the same reasons. I find their claims of mistreatment the most credible of all the voices, and I grieve for their loss. The combination of church and state in Spanish California did not result in their benefit.
4. Mexico took the missions’ land and livestock in the 1830s. The Indians were forced to become a servant class to Californio landowners or to return to their native tribes in the hills. The end of the missions was not a good thing for the Indians, either.
public domain, Library of Congress.
The Socialism Connection
Regardless of how the mission system ended up, I want to turn the attention of this post to how it was run.
1. From each, to each: The mission structure was more like a commune or a family than any modern economic structure. The second Father President of the missions, Fermín Lasuén, wrote a summary for his superiors in Mexico (in Spanish, of course).
The missions are communities whose funds must be produced by the labor of the members. Now one-third, that is to say, the aged, the children, the sick, and invalids contribute nothing, but only consume. Nevertheless, all are treated as well as possible; nothing is denied them. (Missions, page 555.)
Remember the slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”? Father Lasuén completely described it, seventy-five years before Marx did.
2. Price Controls and Trade Restrictions: The Spanish government did not allow a free, capitalist market to thrive in Upper California. In 1796, the viceroy in Mexico called on two returning missionaries to find out why, in thirty years of Spanish effort, no more progress had been made. At the time, there were only two civilian towns (not missions): San José and Los Angeles. Neither had been able to produce enough to support itself. Fathers Salazar and Señan knew exactly why: the colonists were indifferent about working their land.
There is no storehouse whence to procure what he wants, save the government store, they tell the viceroy. There he must pay the highest price for goods, but is obliged to accept the lowest price for his grain. Frequently he cannot obtain what he needs, and is compelled to take articles for which he has no immediate use, or which only serve to foster luxury. As he cannot sell his produce anywhere else, he is discouraged, and contents himself with raising what is absolutely necessary. Hence, Fr. Señan insists, unless trade with others is encouraged, the country can never prosper, as the missionaries fare just as poorly with the produce from the missions. (Missions, page 514)
The priests didn’t stop there. They made recommendations for how the government could improve things. This was #2 on their list:
The settler must be enabled to enjoy the fruit of his industry, and therefore he should be free to trade his goods with any one at a reasonable price and for what he needs. As it is, Fr. Señan writes, “the purchaser of the products of the land has an advantage which I believe exists nowhere in any other part of the world. The price list imposed by the government, which fixes the price for grain here, is little less than an article of faith: unchangeable.” (Missions, page 515.)
Not that the viceroy made any changes. Not only did they stick to the price lists, but Spanish law “strictly forbade all trade not only with foreign, but also with Spanish-American vessels” except for the regular supply ships they sent. (Missions, page 590.) Things didn’t improve.
3. Socialism in practice: Remember that in socialism, the government owns or controls the means of production and distribution. Clearly, the Spanish government owned the means of distribution, and it controlled the means of production. The missions, working within that system, also controlled all the production in their industries. This attempt at socialism didn’t wear the label of ‘socialist,’ but it had backfired anyway.
(One major criticism of the missions is that the commune system did not prepare the Indians to be landowners or businessmen. When Mexico disbanded the missions, they had no business skills to lift themselves out of poverty.)
Government Failure
The partnership between church and state was difficult throughout Spain’s 50 years in Upper California. It broke down entirely when Mexico took over. And the Indian converts to Christianity suffered for it. What the modern church should learn from this story is not to ask the government to do our job for us!
The Spanish weren’t the only ones in history to mix up the roles of church and state. The desire to make life better for our fellow man has led to a lot of bad government decisions, whether under the guise of socialism or not.
A fellow homeschool mom was chatting with me about this series of blog posts on socialism. She told me how, when she was a missionary kid in Liberia, there was a successful coup to take over the government. The goal was to make life better for the poor people of the country. It led to one of the bloodiest civil wars in Africa. When one oppressed group rose to power, it in turn oppressed other groups.
Late one night, she remembers, government forces shot a large group of rebels near her family’s house. They shoved the bodies into the river. Her parents left the family huddled in the house while they helped bury the dead. Shortly after, her family was forced to flee Liberia. The lives of the poor people they had served were imperiled, not improved, by the political decisions of their leaders.
What if?
The missions were controlled by the state, but thankfully their history is not as bloody as Liberia’s. The missions were run like communes. Unlike modern government systems, however, these priests lived with their Indian converts. The padres regarded their converts as family; which is one reason why priests are called “Father.” Not only that, but they had taken vows of poverty. They weren’t allowed to pile up wealth, whether they earned it or not. And they were paid in groceries, not cash (Missions, page 462).
What would happen if that kind of communal living, or communism, were tried on a national scale, with leaders who were not at all religious? Would those leaders treat their subjects like family? Or would they rule as tyrants? That’s the subject of our next post.
Header Image Credit: Missions, Engelhardt, volume 2, page 320, published 1915, public domain. Colorized 2016 by Carolyn VanGorkom, used by permission.
Links to the entire series can be found online in this index.
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