History of the Santa Barbara Mission
The Santa Barbara Mission was founded on the Feast of St. Barbara, December 4, 1786. It took many years to construct the several adobe buildings on the mission grounds. The first buildings constructed were a residence, a chapel and a kitchen. The tenth California Mission founded by the Spanish Franciscan Friars, it is the only one that has remained under the Franciscan order continuously since its founding. The mission serves the community as a parish church to this day.
Founding
The previous nine missions were the work of Padre Junipero Serra, who died in 1784, two years after completing the Mission of San Buenaventura. He left behind a plan for a further string of missions continuing up the coast of Alta California, which was at that time part of Spanish-ruled Mexico.The Santa Barbara Mission was the first to be founded by Padre Fermin Francisco de Lusuen, who raised a cross on the site where the mission stands and made the first converts from the local Chumash people. These converts were then enlisted to begin the task of building the mission.
Purpose
The California Missions had two purposes. For the government of Spain, seeking to solidify its claim on the land, the missions provided new settlements and new citizens, as the converts were also required to learn Spanish and European skills. For the Franciscan Friars the purpose was to convert the native people to Christianity and thereby, they believed, save their souls from eternal damnation.
When the missionaries arrived this land was occupied by the Chumash Indians who were seafaring hunter-gatherers. They made plank boats that they called tomols, which were capable of crossing to the Channel Islands. They built domed houses with frames woven from willow branches and created intricate baskets and stone bowls and tools.
The missionary friars taught the Chumash about farming, introducing wheat and barley, and convincing them to culitvate corn, beans and peas. Eventually olives, oranges and grapes were planted and domestic animals of all sorts were herded by Spanish settlers, as well as the increasingly settled Chumash.
Four Churches
Over the years three adobe churches were constructed on the site, each one grander than the last. When the third adobe church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1812, the new church built in its place was constructed of stone. The stone church of Mission Santa Barbara, finished in 1820, still stands despite suffering severe earthquake damage in June of 1925. During the 1925 earthquake the church roof collapsed when several beams near the front alter fell. Fortunately no one was hurt, even though the tremor occurred during a mass. Restoration was begun at once and was completed in 1927. The two bell towers were further reinforced against earthquakes in 1953.
Artwork and Artefacts
Although none of the original buildings still stand, most of the artwork in the church remains unchanged. This includes the church alter, made by the Chumash and inlaid with abalone they collected from the waters around the Channel Islands. Additionally, there are statues and oil paintings on religious themes brought from Spain, Peru and Mexico in the late 1700s to decorate the first Mission Santa Barbara.
The Mission also displays hundreds of artifacts from the Mission Era: Chumash tools, pottery and baskets, Chinese silk vestments, gold and silver work, and furniture from both the Friary and the homes of Spanish settlers.
Waterworks & Cemetery
The Chumash built a dam in 1807 to provide much needed water to irrigate the crops they were cultivating, but the dam was just the beginning of what became the most extensive water system in the entire chain of California Missions. An aqueduct was built with tile-lined channels that emptied into a reservoir opposite the Mission, fed the fountain built in 1808 and a clothes washing trough called the lavanderia, below the fountain. You can still see ruins of this amazing water system in Mission Historic Park.
The Santa Barbara Mission Cemetery reveals a lot of history, with the remains of several thousand Chumash people, Spanish settlers and Franciscan Padres. There is also a crypt under the floor of the church where the first Governer and first Bishop of California are buried, along with the Presidio Commandant (the military commander of the settlement of Santa Barbara) and his family.
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