The California Missions -- Buried History Script for a Documentary

"Buried History"

The True Story of the California Missions

Written by

Michael L. Rose

Copyright © 2004, Michael L. Rose

All Rights Reserved

Michael Rose

12531 Indianapolis Street,

Los Angeles, CA 90066

This script was made possible in part by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

The findings, conclusions, and opinions presented herein do not necessarily represent the views of either the California Council for the Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities

1.	Sunrise on a foggy morning The faint outlines of the restored La Purisima Mission are seen The corner of a building A grinding stone on the ground	MUSIC:
2.	The heavy oak beams The belfry – the bell rings DISSOLVE:	MUSIC CONT.:
3.	INT.: California elementary school: A hand puts a sugar cube belfry in place on a mission model Using sugar cubes as building blocks, a group of students are busily building replicas of the California Missions	School Teacher: The California Missions were built by the Spanish settlers who came here about 200-hundred years ago.
4.	A child works on his Mission diorama -- he's building a clay priest	To settle the land, they set up forts and missions near the harbors of San Diego and Monterey.  The missions were run by priests who taught the Indians the Spanish way of life.
5.	Children continue building their mission models One student builds a mission with toothpick crosses	Narrator: For years, California schoolchildren first learned about the missions when they built sugar cube models.
6.	The students present their completed projects at an assembly	But many believe the lessons taught about the missions were a sugarcoated version of history.
7.	A completed diorama	A history that romanticized the past and glorified the Catholic Church while glossing over the real story of what happened to the native people at the missions.
8.	The Carmel mission today Serra's coffin -- his face is carved on the outside	It’s a subject that created a storm of controversy when it became enmeshed in the so-far, unsuccessful efforts to Canonize the missions' founder, Father Junipero Serra.
9.	Serra drawing	The Serra sainthood battle stirred a storm of proponents and opponents who defended and denounced the long dead priest.
10.	Archival photo:  Mission Indians Courtyard of La Purisima Mission Montage of mission images	Each side had a different answer to the question -- what happened to the Indians at the missions?  A subject that has never been addressed by television.
11.	Library of Mission Archives An old leather bound book is taken off of the shelf and opened on a mission style table	Since the history of the missions was initially written by priests and later by Europeans and their descendants -- who could be classified as defenders of the faith, or just romantics, it took some digging for the Serra foes to marshal their arguments.
12.	An archeologist, Florence Shipek works at a site in San Diego	Archeologists, anthropologists and historians worked together to see what could be gleaned from sources other than the official histories.
13.	A bone is being removed from its resting place San Diego Union photos of a previous dig	Some of what they found was shocking.  Some touching.  Some of it funny and all of it disturbing to those who wished to keep the truth buried in the past.
14.	The beach at San Diego Near the landing point of the Portola expedition	The general thrust of the historical account is agreed on.  Serra arrived in San Diego in July of 1769 as part of an expedition of soldiers and priests.
15.	Drawing of Serra holding his first mass on the beach at San Diego	He hung a bell in a tree and promptly built a large cross.  Then celebrated the first Catholic mass in Alta California.  A string of 21 missions would grow from this spot.
16.	A Mission today	But what happened at those missions during the next fifty years is still hotly debated.
17.	The California coastline -- an unmolested part of the coast it is the same as when Serra planted his cross	The land and people Serra encountered were quite different from what he'd known as a child in Majorca.
18.	A group of Chumash Indians paddle a canoe out to the Channel Islands	It was a world populated by numerous tribes who lived a timeless existence.
19.	The canoe pulls into the harbor at Santa Cruz Island	One tribe or people, the Chumash, lived between what is now Malibu and San Luis Obispo.  This thriving group traded with other tribes and among related villages.   Including one that called the nearby Channel Islands home.
20.	As the paddlers bring the canoe up on the beach, villagers come down to greet them They exchange food and help unload the canoe	Even the Spanish priests, who took a dim view of many of the tribes they met, considered the Chumash a vigorous and industrious people.  The Spanish didn't approve of the Indians' skimpy attire but it seemed perfectly suited to this tribe.
21.	The trading party streams into the busy village	The Chumash lived in small domed, reed and wood huts arranged in ever widening circles.  These well-ordered villages were the hub of daily life.
22.	Women carrying capped woven baskets, shaped like Grecian urns	The villagers created finely woven baskets that were made water-tight by applying asphaltum to the insides.
23.	A woman takes small heated rocks out of a fire and rolls them in the bottom of a basket.  The rocks melt the tar and coat the inside of a basket	Asphaltum, is a gooey, petroleum based tar that seeped up along the beaches.  Years later, major oil companies would exploit the vast oil deposits that they found under the Indians' former homes.
24.	A man uses some asphaltum to fix his canoe	The Chumash also used the tar to seal their canoes, attach arrowheads to shafts and to affix decorative beads to different things.
25.	Next door to the woman preparing the ashpaltum, another woman grooms her daughter's hair She takes a piece of pine bark out of a fire and trims her fidgeting daughter's bangs	The Chumash were well-groomed.  Mothers used pieces of pine bark to give the family a haircut.  Girls liked bangs, short side locks and long straight hair worn over their shoulders.  The men preferred more of a bowl cut or just long hair.
26.	Men and women with yellow paint stripes	Both men and women liked a little color on their skin.  Some even had tattoos.
27.	A woman pounds soap and hands off some to a man who prepares to enter a sweat lodge	Staying clean was important to the Chumash.  They made soap and the men used sweat lodges or temescales.
28.	Inside the sweat lodge -- men sit around the fire -- they sing and begin to sweat	Every day, men would climb down into the sweat lodge, and sing while the heat from the fire opened up their pores.
29.	The men pore out of the temescales and run into the ocean They splash each other and swim	When they were done they'd quickly run to the nearest stream or into the ocean.  They were refreshed physically and mentally.
30.	A group of men huddle around a pile of shell bead money (small purple Olivella shells) The beads are on strings that can be wrapped around the wrist once They bead strings for bear skins, dried fish, baskets of grain and chunks of black obsidian	Trading with other tribes or clans kept the villages supplied with food and goods they couldn't produce themselves.  The island villages had lots of fish and shells.  The mainlanders had meats, hides and different grains.
31.	A man picks up an obsidian knife	Some had special stones like obsidian that could be used to make arrowheads, knives or scrapers.
32.	A villager shapes a soapstone/steatite bowl	Steatite came from a neighboring Island, Catalina and was used to make bowls and figurines.
33.	They continue to work on the bowl	It was a vast trading network that made the Chumash very prosperous and kept a host of specialist busy producing goods.
34.	A woman makes baskets	People who made baskets, leather goods, fishing nets, utensils, tools, canoes and other necessities were organized into guilds that set prices and regulated the trades.
35.	A man prepares the shells by drilling a little hole in the center of small rounded pieces he has already shaped and then stringing them	Buying goods was done either through direct barter or with a form of currency -- shell beads.  The beads were also made by specialists whose Channel Islands workshops had been the Chumash mints for more than a thousand years before the Spanish landed.
36.	A group of young boys run past the traders.  They head for an open field	While everyone was fairly industrious, there was plenty of time for play.  Especially during village fairs or trading fiestas.
37.	On the field, one of the boys slaps a hardwood ball with a curved, hockey like stick and runs ahead to smack it again.  He's chased by a group of other young males who are equally intent at getting a shot at the ball With a wallop, he passes the ball	Young Man: Pass it, come on, pass it over here. Another young man: Here it comes, take it.  Go.  Hit it.
38.	They teams race down the 400 yard field.  One team wears yellow striped markings on their faces and chests and the other team wears red.	Young Men: Go, go, go.
39.	The red stripes have the ball and the yellow team is in hot pursuit as the red ball handler lines up a shot at the goal.
40.	He takes a shot and it goes into the goal -- a hole in the ground.  The reds scream with delight and the yellow team kicks the dirt.	Red Team: Yeah!!!
41.	Back in the village, a group of woman and young girls are busily grinding acorns with a metate and pestle.	Narrator: Whether one lived on the mainland or on the islands, acorns were a staple of the Chumash diet.  They were ground and prepared in a number of ways.  Making acorn meal was a constant task.
42.	The group of sweaty young men swagger back into the village.  Fresh from their games they are full of themselves.
43.	One of the young women, stands and hoists a large tray of ground acorns.   She starts to turn just as the boys pass by.  As she turns one the boys bumps her tray spilling all of the acorns onto the ground.	Young Boy: I uh, uh, didn't see you . . . Young Girl: Are you blind?  Don't answer, just give me a hand.
44.	They get down on their hands and knees and start to scoop the acorns up and put them back in the tray	Narrator: Trading parties gave young people from different villages a chance to meet.  Romance would sometimes follow.
45.	The young man is carrying the tray of acorns for the girl.  He's clearly smitten.  She'll see if he measures up	When it did, it helped to cement the ties between villages.  These bonds between villages had developed over thousands of years.
46.	The couple walk past her father -- he doesn't look too impressed	If romance turned to real love and the couple wanted to marry, a young man would try and secure the permission of the girl's father.
47.	Later, the young man returns with a few gifts and makes his pitch The father listens and nods his approval The boy is thrilled	If the father thought the boy's prospects were good then the young man would give his new family whatever gifts he could afford.  Maybe an otter skin or something adorned with beadwork.
48.	The young couple walk hand-in-hand through a bustling village center -- a great deal of commotion is being stirred up by preparations for a dance celebration	Trading fairs or fiestas were a time to arrange marriages and other celebrations.
49.	A dance begins and the musicians play their flutes and drums	Dancers acted out the sacred stories of the Chumash while musicians played the familiar songs.
50.	The new couple hold hands and watch the dancers They sit between the two families	A young couple would go to live with the boy's family.  But they would always stay in touch with her family.
51.	The next day a canoe is loaded The young girl and the boy climb in and push off into their future	Once among her new villagers, the young girl would help with her family's daily tasks.  It was an ordered existence that had helped their society thrive.
52.	A Spanish galleon is seen in the distance	But this was destined to end when the Spanish decided to build the missions.
53.	Break One
54.		ACT TWO: The Missions Are Built
55.	A group of Spanish soldiers are assembled on the beach. They are demonstrating to the Indians how their muskets work. First they shoot a dog.  The Indians react to the explosion and the death of the dog.
56.	The Spaniards re-load the musket but only put in a charge not a mini-ball/bullet
57.	They motion for an Indian to take the rifle and a reluctant one does.
58.	They somehow explain that they want him to shoot at one of the soldiers.  He tries to hand the gun back but the other soldiers raise their muskets and point them at his head.  He's trapped.
59.	A soldier helps him shoulder the gun, aim and fire at another soldier who stands twenty paces away in front of a tree.
60.	The gun explodes. The soldier fakes being hit.  The Indians gasp.  And then the soldier rights himself and strides over to the startled shooter, grabbing the gun.
61.	The Indians shriek, they are clearly in the presence of Gods.
62.		Narrator: The Spanish employed many tricks throughout their colonies to mollify the natives and lure them into servitude.
63.	Adobe bricks are made by Indians while a Spanish soldier watches them	In California, they were in a hurry to counter the threat of English explorers and Russian settlers.  The Spanish wanted to quickly establish a chain of forts and missions from San Diego to San Francisco.
64.	The Indians work in the fields	Native labor was needed for building, to plant crops, tend cattle and do all the work that would supply the forts or presidios.  Anything left over was sent back to Mexico City.  Part of the excess was tribute or tax.
65.	A priest conducts a service with a nice golden chalice	Some was used to buy goods like chalices for the missions.  All of the wealth that was created was through the work of unpaid, labor.
66.	A young Indian woman brings a sick child to the mission	The Spanish used different methods to enlist the help they needed. During periods of extreme weather the missions offered a refuge and food.  Some probably brought sick children to the priests.  Some exchanged their labor for western goods.
67.	Working the fields	Hundreds of years of colonial rule had taught the Spanish how to conquer people through an artful combination of coercion, cultural seduction and force.  Step by step the indigenous society was broken and replaced by a culture of servitude.
68.	The woman and her child are lead into an early mission.  A very simple set of structures	It started slowly. The early missions were minimal affairs.  A few simple structures and maybe an open-air altar.  The need to secure the territory called for a society to be created.
69.	A group of mounted Spanish soldiers rides off from the mission	To make this happen the military began a campaign to capture the Chumash and others and force them to live and work at the missions.
70.	A felled tree shows its rings	Some anthropologists contend that it was really a matter of climate change.
71.		They say that lack of rainfall and a change in ocean temperatures between 1780 and 1804 caused a draught and a falloff of food from the ocean.  This prompted the Indians to turn to the missions for salvation.
72.		Others aren't convinced it's that simple.  Even if a decline in food sources did occur.
73.		They feel that the Spanish presence weakened the tribal structure to a point where they could no longer resist.
74.	Sick people in a Chumash village The young boy nurses his wife	Marauding soldiers introduced European diseases like syphilis into the villages and people were dying.  As people died the survivors tried to maintain village life.  But there weren't enough people to carry on all of the tasks.
75.	The young man tries to cook and feed his infant son	Trade would be difficult.  Hunting, fishing, collecting seeds and cooking all of the daily tasks that sustain life were at risk.
76.	The soldiers ride into a Chumash village The soldiers set fire to the camp -- one of the huts that burns is where the young girl lies in her sick bed The young man tries to go to her but is knocked down by a mounted soldier	When the soldiers came they often met ineffective, weakened resistance.  Villages were burned and looted and rape was used as an instrument of terror and control.  While the priests may not have approved of this, they didn’t try to stop it.
77.	The Indians are rousted and forced to march to the missions The young man carries his child	It was the beginning of the end for the traditional cultures.
78.	A group of new arrivals is processed -- Our young man's child is taken from him as he's pushed into the men's barracks	Once at the missions the captives were pressed into service.  Their traditional garments were exchanged for woolen tunics and serapes for the men.  The women received a blanket, a white cotton blouse and a woolen skirt.
79.	An Alcalde is dressed like a Spaniard	Those that the Spanish convinced to help them enforce their rules were given clothes that Spaniards or laborers that the Spanish had brought with them from Mexico would wear.  Some even received colorful scarves.
80.	The Alcalde crosses himself and kisses the cross he wears around his neck	Along with their new clothes they were given new routines and new beliefs.
81.	The next morning the Indians are dragged out of bed and into the courtyard They are given small bowls and marched past another Indian who doles out a small ladle of atole	Daily life was much different at the missions.  Just after sunrise, the Indians assembled to receive a small bowl of atole, acorn gruel, and were then herded into mass.
82.	The Indians stand in the back of the church	They weren't allowed to sit.  They had to stand in the back or kneel on bare tiles while listening to the Holy Mass performed in Latin.
83.	The Indians form up in the courtyard and are given their assignments	After Mass, they were sent out to do their day's work.   Some call it a prison like system where all of your activities are monitored.  It was a total institution where fear and intimidation was combined with constant surveillance to keep control.  A cadre of informants were afforded special privileges and helped to undermine the trust of the captives.
84.	The young man and his son work with others making adobe bricks	Young and old worked alongside each other.  Adobe bricks were needed to build the mission, the churches and the presidios.
85.	They form the bricks and the boys carry them to builders	Like the pyramid builders in ancient Egypt, children were made to carry heavy loads of adobe bricks.
86.	An archaeologist shows uncovers a grave.  The child's bones are deformed from forced labor	Their curved skeletons show the affect this had on their tiny bones.
87.	Other Indians work in the fields.  Mounted soldiers keep an eye on them	Others tended fields.  Dug irrigation ditches and harvested the crops.
88.	Cattle are herded	As they were trained to tend the ever growing cattle herds and sheep, some became cowboys or Vaqueros.  These cowboys watched as the cattle fouled the water, ate the grazing land of the deer and chased off the game animals these people had relied on for centuries.  Everything was changing all around them.
89.	The noon meal is prepared. A leather tarp is strung across the back of a wagon and a load of Pozole is dumped on it.	By noon they'd earned another meal.  Usually, a mix of boiled wheat, hominy and meat scraps were thrown together for their mid day meal.
90.	The wagon comes up to Indians working on the adobe	Once again they lined up and were doled out a meager portion.  After the meal it was back to work.
91.	The Indians stand in mass	By sunset it was supper time.  More atole and then another mass.
92.	The barracks	The unmarried men, women and children were herded into separate barracks.  The woman's barracks were kept locked at night.
93.	Inside the woman's barracks	The woman's barracks were dark, damp and airless cells that smelled of human waste.  Very young women were confined day and night.
94.	A padre places a padlock on the door of a dormitory	The padres feared that the women were promiscuous.  The dormitories were to protect their virtue.
95.	Later, another padre comes to the door of the dormitory with a key	But to some these dormitories were merely convenient housing for their "sex slaves."
96.	A priest carries a lantern and enters the dormitory.  He wakes up an old woman who starts to sing.  The other women and girls start to sing.	(Interviews with anthropologists and historians will tell us about documented cases of rape and abuse.)
97.	The priest goes down the rows of cots, pulling off the blankets and inspecting the singing girls.
98.	He stops.  Puts down his lantern and climbs onto a girl's cot.  The others keep singing.	Narrator: The soldiers regularly took advantage of the young women often sharing them with the priests.
99.	Outside the dormitory, a line of soldiers wait for the padre to be finished.	Soldier: He always takes so long.  Another soldier: But we have the rest of the night.
100.	A mass grave is dug. A wagon holds a pile of bodies One more body returns to the earth	Narrator: Rape and just mere contact with the Europeans spread diseases.  The unhealthy living conditions, hard work, poor diet and infected blankets created conditions that made the Indians even more susceptible to diseases they'd never before encountered like measles, smallpox and syphilis.
101.	A scouting party of soldiers takes off from the mission	As more and more captives died the padres and the soldiers struggled to find replacements.
102.	The soldiers arrive at a village and start to round up the people	By 1810, the padres at some missions were desperate.  Their converts were dying and the Spanish government was losing control of Mexico.  All supplies from Mexico stopped.  No ships would come again. They would have to rely on forced labor for everything.
103.	The captives are brought to the missions in shackles	These new recruits were more prone to resist and to attempt escapes.
104.	An Indian is lead to a post.  His wrists are tied together with a leather strap.  A chain is slipped through the strap and he's suspended from the top of the post.  His arms stretched out, he balances on his toes. A soldier tears the Indian's shirt off and then a whip is heard	This couldn't be allowed.  They were hunted down and brought back.  Once back, they were punished.  Public flogging was common.  It’s said that the soldiers tried not to kill the offenders because they were needed in the fields. In fact, there was a colonial law limiting the number of lashes to 25.  But tempers flared, rules were broken and people were beaten to death.
105.	A set of heavy wooden shoes like giant cigar boxes and shackles is forced on the Indian The shoes are locked on his feet A chain is looped through the shoes, attached to a belt on his waist from which two manacles for his arms grow.	The Spaniards devised means to keep the rebellious from fleeing.
106.	The shackled Indian works in the fields A soldier tempts him with a bucket of water and a cup. The Indian struggles to walk toward the water but he can't walk fast enough. The soldier rides away	Soldier: Heh, swift one here's some water. Indian: Please, stop. Soldier: You're not so fast now.
107.	Others observe this cruel torture	Narrator: The Spanish hoped they'd dissuade others from fleeing.  But resistance grew.
108.	A group of Indians sneak up on the priests' quarters The grab one priest and take him out A sharp knife appears, he screams	One priest was kidnapped and gelded. Several were poisoned.  And around Santa Barbara a large scale revolt erupted.  The first spark was ignited at mission Santa Ines, just north of Santa Barbara.
109.	Indians arrives at La Purisima Mission	It began when one Indian tried to visit his relative in the presidio stockade.  The imprisoned man had been captured after escaping from Santa Ines.
110.	His relative arrives at the courtyard of the stockade He sees a guard -- The relative is carrying food	Relative: Please, I have come to see my cousin who is being held here. Guard: Go away.  Go back to work. Relative: But I have brought him some food.
111.	He hands the guard the food The guard unwraps a bandanna covered bowl of acorn porridge, atole He tastes it and pours it on the ground -- then throws the bowl at the visitor	Guard: This is awful, I wouldn't give this to a dog.
112.	The visitor angrily picks up his bowl and tosses it at the soldier Corporal Cota comes out They grab the visitor and drag him away	Guard: You little bastard. Relative: I want to see my cousin. Guard: You'll see him in his cell.
113.	The night sky, a twin-tailed comet is seen A group of elder Chumash men sit in a circle and chant	Narrator: A twin-tailed comet had recently streaked across the sky and the Chumash community believed it was a signal that a great change was about to occur.  Anticipation was high.
114.	The prisoners are brought into the courtyard at Mission Santa Ines.  It's time for a flogging It is especially brutal	To the Spanish soldiers, flogging the visitor was routine.  But to the Chumash Indians who were assembled to watch the public punishment, it was the sign for which they'd been waiting.  It sparked a riot.
115.	The Indians attack They untie the beaten man and head for the	They charged at the surprised soldiers and took their weapons.  They started to burn the buildings and loot the storerooms.
116.	More soldiers arrive and a gun battle ensues	As more soldiers arrived a pitched battle ensued.  The Indians took up a fortified position in the back of the mission and held the soldiers at bay.
117.	A young Indian man slips out the back of the mission	That night, a young Indian man was sent to tell the other Indians at neighboring La Purisima mission that it was time to revolt.
118.	The Indians storm out of the dormitories and head for the armory A shot is fired at an Indian. He falls.	The response was immediate.  The Indians surprised the sleeping Spaniards and seized the mission.  An all night battle was underway.
119.	An Indian scout awakes an Alcalde, (Indian overseer)	Once again, a scout was sent out.  This time to the Santa Barbara Mission.  He sneaked in and alerted Andres, the Alcalde, or Indian leader.
120.	They lift the locks on the dormitory.  Overpower the guards and start helping the women and children pack for their escape They break into the carriage houses and load several wagons with supplies The women are quietly sent out	Andres and others helped the women and children escape.  The revolt was underway.
121.	Andres visits Fr. Ripoll	After the women and children were safely away.  Andres went to see a young priest he felt he could trust, Father Ripoll.  He wanted Ripoll to deliver a list of demands to the commandante of the area, Captain de la Guerra.
122.	The scout is on the road again	At the same time, Andres sent the scout south to Ventura to alert the Indians there.
123.	The scout is captured	Unfortunately, the scout was captured and the Indians at Ventura never heard the news.
124.	De La Guerra hears Fr. Ripoll's tell him what the Indian's want	De La Guerra, the aristocratic commandante of the presidio at Santa Barbara, listened to Fr. Ripoll and told him not to worry.  "The Indians will soon tire of this silly exercise," he said.
125.	De La Guerra -- opens up box containing gold coins	The commandante wasn't worried about the normally docile Indians.  He was worried about making his frontier assignment pay off.
126.	The village of Santa Barbara around the growing presidio	He knew, with the imminent collapse of Spanish control of Mexico and the California territories, that this would be his last post.  As a royalist, there would be no career ladder back to Mexico City and eventually home to Spain.   He was stuck here.
127.	A ship is loaded at the docks	A practical man, he and his uncle turned the Santa Barbara outpost into a goldmine.  The hides and tallow from the mission's cattle, the grains, olive oil and other products were loaded onto his uncle's ships and sent to Mexico where they were traded for goods and currency.
128.	A padre receives silk from a trader	On the return trip the traders brought back the supplies for the missionaries and the growing town of settlers.  All the things they couldn't make themselves.  It was a lucrative trade.
129.	De la Guerra's treasure room	Years later, it was said that de la Guerra kept a secret treasure room in an attic.  One traveler reported being taken up there.  There was no stairway and they had to climb a ladder that was removed when not in use.
130.	The overflowing baskets of gold	Once inside, he saw two old fashioned Spanish chairs and about a dozen large, bushel sized baskets all stuffed with gold.  De la Guerra explained to the astonished visitor that he was able to supply the soldiers and others with what they wanted.
131.	A pirate unloads at Refugio cove Money is exchanged	It was rumored that de la Guerra even traded with the Russians.  The fear of a Russian invasion was one reason Spain had built the missions.  Trade was strictly forbidden but it's clear that it happened.  Some think the missions produced over half a million dollars in goods a year.  The spoils were shared with the governor and others but it was a lucrative situation that was destined to grow.
132.	Indians at work in the tallow works It's hot sweaty labor Large vats of fat are poured into containers	The key to making this all work was the slave labor of the Indians.  De la Guerra couldn't afford to let them go but he didn't really believe they had the courage to even try.
133.	The Indians raid the armory and are ready to meet the Spanish A line of soldiers await the orders to rush the Indian stronghold	The soldiers who now confronted the hostile uprising saw how committed the Indians were and couldn't believe that De La Guerra wanted them to fall back.  But Ripoll convinced them to return to their barracks.
134.	As the soldiers start to leave, one Indian comes out and demands that they leave their weapons He's quickly backed up by others	Indian: Cowards, leave your weapons.
135.	Something triggers a response -- and suddenly two soldiers are attacked by machete wielding Indians	Narrator: Emboldened by their apparent victory, the Indians demanded that the soldiers give up their arms.  It's possible two soldiers chose to resist and they were attacked with machetes.
136.	De La Guerra fumes and orders an attack	The wounds were not life threatening but De La Guerra was now angry.  He ordered an assault on the Indians.
137.	The soldiers attack and fight	During the several hours of the fight  two Indians died and three were wounded.  One would die later.  Four soldiers were also wounded.  It appeared to be a stand off and De La Guerre ordered a halt to give his troops a meal.
138.	The Indians break into the storerooms and prepare to flee	The troops fell back, ate and rested.  But the Indians used the time to break into the warehouses and load up provisions for an escape.
139.	They head for the hills	Within a short time they started to stream out of the mission and toward the mountains.
140.	Andres hands Ripoll the keys to the Sacristy	Andres stayed behind to turn over the keys to the Sacristy to Father Ripoll.  It's said that he assured the padre that nothing's been taken.  Not even the wine.
141.	Andres and Ripoll They embrace	Andres: We took everything we could from the storerooms because that was ours but we left everything in the church, that is Gods.
142.	The soldiers return and find the mission abandoned The search for stragglers They find some and haul them off	Narrator: According to Father Ripoll's account, the soldiers returned to the mission later in the afternoon, after their siesta.  The Indians were all gone except a small group composed of “one half wit and three old ones” who they locked up.  They were kept in the presidio's stockade for months.
143.	The search continues They find another man and shoot him	In the Indian quarters they found a man who had returned for some flour.  He pleaded with them not to take him to the presidio.  The guards said, "Well then we will kill you here," and they did.
144.	A search party sets out It encounters groups of stragglers.  They are promptly killed	Over the next few days the soldiers tracked and killed fleeing Indians.
145.	Three Indians are spotted.  They run and hide.  One climbs a tree and shouts for mercy. All four are shot	An Indian in a tree: I have done nothing, please don't shoot me. Soldier: Shoot them all.
146.	De La Guerra signs a letter to the governor He hands it to a messenger	Narrator: De La Guerra didn't have enough soldiers to go after the Indians.  He wrote the governor for help.
147.	Soldiers torch Santa Ines	Meanwhile, the soldiers had torched the mission at Santa Ines and forced the Indians out.  Several were killed but some escaped and joined those who'd fled from Santa Barbara.
148.	Hold out at La Purisima	The situation was different at La Purisima.  The Indians were entrenched.  The governor sent over 1-hundred well armed soldiers to take it back.
149.	Early morning attack	At 8:00 AM on March 16, twenty-six days after the revolt began, the fresh troops surrounded the mission and launched the counterattack.  Charges from a four-pound cannon and non-stop musket fire pounded the walls of the mission.
150.	Indian marksmen take aim	Surrounded there was no escape.  The Indians fired their sixteen stolen muskets in response.
151.	The Indians try to fire a ceremonial cannon, it explodes	They tried to use a one-pound ceremonial cannon.   It exploded.  Several Indians died.  It appeared to be hopeless.
152.	A white flag goes up	By 10:30 it was all over.  Sixteen Indians had died and many more were wounded.  The remainder of the 400 Indians surrender.
153.	The Soldiers search the Indians	They were interrogated by de la Guerra and it was decreed that seven of the ringleaders would be executed.
154.	The seven stand against a wall waiting for the firing squad to dispatch them	Nine days after their defeat, the seven men, aged 20 to 37, faced a firing squad.  The rest of the Indians were forced to watch as the soldiers' bullets tore into their former leaders.  The harsh sentences handed out was a reflection of the fear of a general revolt in the colony.  The governor called one an “insurgent.”  Not a thief, or a runaway or an outlaw – he was an insurgent – a direct threat to Spanish authority.
155.	The governor signs a decree	The governor turned his attention to the Indians from Santa Barbara.
156.	The governor hands it to de la Guerra	Governor Arguello: Either the soldiers will have to go to work or the Indians will have to be brought back.
157.	A mounted force of fresh troops	Narrator Approximately, eighty well-armed, mounted soldiers were sent out to find and bring back the Indians.
158.	The soldiers encounter three Indians.  Two are riding on one horse	They soldiers came upon a small group of Indians and immediately demanded that they surrender.
159.	Frightened they flee.  One falls off the back.  He's captured, tied up and forced to walk behind the soldiers' horses.	The Indians fled.  But one fell off a horse he shared.  He was immediately captured, tied up and forced to march behind the soldiers.
160.	A huge dust storm surrounds the soldiers The soldiers turn toward the coast The Indian prisoner is killed	Soon a monumental dust storm forced the soldiers to abandon their search.  They headed for Santa Barbara.  But the Indian slowed them down.  The leader of the expedition ordered him executed by lance.
161.             1		Lieutenant Fabregant: Come hurry we must ride to Santa Barbara. Soldier: What about the prisoner?  He'll slow us down. Captain: Kill him.
162.	Over one-hundred mounted soldiers are assembled and ready to ride off	Narrator: Governor Arguello and de la Guerra ordered a second expedition to search and bring back the fugitives.  This time, the priest was ordered to join the soldiers.
163.	The Governor tells de la Guerra to send out a new force This time Fr. Ripoll is with them	Governor: Padre we hope you can convince these wayward souls to return. Ripoll: If I don't? De la Guerra: I think you know. Ripoll: But if they return they will be pardoned? Governor: You have my word.
164.	The troops ride off	Narrator: The heavily armed troops split into two forces, each with a cannon.  And headed out to the Tulares where the Indians had set up camp.
165.	An Indian scout sees the soldiers and quickly rides to warn his people	Word quickly spread to the Indians -- the soldiers were on their way.
166.	The soldiers have flanked the Indians' camp Father Ripoll walks toward the Indians	It must have been clear to the Indians that they could not win a battle with the soldiers.  Father Ripoll went to meet and talk with the leaders.
167.	A line of Indians is led away by the soldiers	After three days of negotiations most of the Indians surrendered and agreed to return to the mission.
168.	From a hilltop, Andres and a small band watch the others march back to the mission	Andres and a few others decided to strike out on their own.  They chose the uncertainties of freedom over their fate at the mission.
169.	A village in the foothills of the Sierras	Little is known about the rest of their lives, but years later, a group of explorers searching for a way through the Sierras, encountered a settlement of Spanish speaking Indians that claimed to be refugees from the Santa Barbara mission.    These Indians showed the explorers the pass they sought.
170.	Life at the Missions	Back at the missions things continued to deteriorate.  As Mexico won its freedom from Spain there was more pressure to produce goods at the missions.
171.	A woman is interrogated A priest lifts up her dress to see if she has given birth She grabs her dress and puts it back down She's slapped and taken away by soldiers	Many of the women resisted bringing new children into this world.  Abortion and even infanticide was common.  Many had become pregnant because of rapes committed by soldiers.  They weren't going to bear those children.  The padres were determined to find those who had aborted or strangled their babies and stop others before they did the same.
172.	The woman, her head is shaved and then she is flogged	As the population continued to fall the punishment for those who refused to bear children was maintained.  But it did no good.  Still more Indians died than were born.  Malnutrition, disease, abortion, infanticide, depression and punishment combined to send the Indian population plummeting.
173.	Break Two
174.		Part Three
175.	The Mission at Santa Barbara is abandoned	By 1833, the anticlerical Mexican government had decreed that the missions were no longer the property of the church.  The Indians were free and they were to receive one-half of the mission's land, buildings and livestock.  But it didn't work out that way.
176.	De la Guerra stands over map	The goods were to be distributed by state appointed administrators.  This never seemed to happen.  The laws were either interpreted to allow the land to be held by others or were just ignored.  There was no legal recourse.
177.	A decree is read to the assembled Indians They cheer	There had been several earlier experiments with emancipation.  In 1826, the Indians in San Diego, Santa Barbara and Monterey were set free.
178.	The padres try to convince an Indian to work, they hand him a shovel, he refuses to take it and walks away	They could now refuse to work, couldn't be whipped and could settle where they wanted.
179.	The man walks out of the gates of the mission	The padres complained about the refusal to work on mission projects and longed for the time when they held sway.
180.	A few older Indians work at a crumbling mission	Some still chose to live at the missions.  Many of these were old, christianized Indians who had nowhere to go.
181.	The man we've just seen walk away is now sitting atop a horse.  He's dressed like a Vaquero and  rides among a herd of cattle He rounds up a stray	Those that left found work as vaqueros, farmworkers, craftsmen, servants and cooks.  These were the skills they'd learned at the missions.  Most had lost their connection to a traditional way of life and there was no going back.  They had to work for the new owners of the vast ranchos or starve.
182.	An Indian settler builds a house near an old mission	Most of the land went to non-Indians but some did receive land grants or even old mission buildings.  Usually, the small plots they were allotted were not enough to sustain a family.  They weren't allowed to sell or combine their land so many just moved away.
183.	De la Guerra rides along his huge estate	Those that controlled the process ended up with most of the former mission holdings.  One man who turned secularization to his advantage, was Don Jose Antonio de la Guerra.  The same man who'd rounded up the Indians after the revolt was now rewarded by the new government with much of the vast land holdings that should have gone to the Indians.
184.	He continues to ride	At one time, de la Guerra owned over half-a-million acres of land.  An empire that stretched from the southern edge of San Luis Obispo to the top of Los Angeles County.  He had other holdings near Marin County and Sacramento.
185.	He encounters his son, who is in a splendid carriage	It was said that his family could ride in their state carriage, with six outriders on either side of the vehicle, in livery blue and silver, and travel between Monterey and Los Angels without ever leaving their ranch.
186.	A vineyard	The de la Guerra clan produced fine wines and raised tremendous herds of cattle.
187.	A cattle herd	Their cattle holdings were so vast that they didn't mind if a traveler killed a cow for food.  All they asked was that the hide be left behind --tied to a stake.
188.	A huge herd of cattle	By 1850, de la Guerra was making over $100-thousand dollars a year from his cattle.
189.	The cattle pass through a huge valley	De la Guerra was quite possibly the largest landowner in California.  While the family couldn't keep all of the land, their descendants controlled Santa Barbara's politics, its courts, its newspaper and social life well into the 1960's.
190.	A Chumash village high in the mountains	A number of the former mission Indians opted to strike out for lands on the edge of Mexican civilization where they attempted to build new lives.
191.	A band of mounted Chumash cattle raiders	Here they farmed, hunted, raised horses and started families.  Although this was legitimate work, some did support themselves by raiding the cattle of the Mexican ranchos.
192.	The Chumash raiders meet a contingent of Mexican soldiers The raiders are shot	The raiding enraged the cattle owners and they launched a counter offensive.
193.	The Mexicans arrive at an Indian village They burn the town and kill the people	They swept into Indian towns and slaughtered everyone they saw, including women and small children.
194.	A soldier picks up a frightened girl and puts her on his horse	Sometimes children were spared so they could be sold to the ranchers as slaves.
195.	An abandoned burned out Indian town	The punishing retaliations, the ongoing devastation of European diseases and the general hardships they encountered continued to decimate the Indian population.  During the Mexican period another 60 per cent of California's Indians died.
196.	A growing frontier town, signs on storefronts are in both English and Spanish	But the Spanish and Mexican chapter of California history was destined to pass.  And the Indians would have new settlers to deal with.
197.	An army of US Federal troops and Mexican soldiers fight at the Alamo	In the 1840's, the friction between an ever-increasing number of settlers from the United States and the Mexican powers of the Southwest led to the Mexican War.
198.	The signing of the treaty	In 1848, it was over and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded California, New Mexico and Arizona to the United States for $15-million dollars.
199.	A stream of "49'ers" comes into a northern California mining camp	Then the discovery of gold lured thousands of prospectors out West.
200.	A group of well armed prospectors surprise an Indian settlement	These prospectors were hungry for riches and wanted the wealth they thought was just below the surface of the land.  If a family of Indians happened to be living where they wanted to dig, it wasn't uncommon for the Indians to be murdered.
201.	The settlers force the Indians off of their land	As wards of the Untied States government the Indians weren't able to defend themselves in court.  The American settlers killed and intimidated the Indians until they got the land they wanted.  Once again, there was no recourse.
202.	A contingent of US soldiers goes out to punish Indians	Any retaliation was met with a swift and brutal response.
203.	An Indian slave auction	To make matters worse, the California legislature passed a law that made it possible for any white person to declare an Indian a vagrant, have them imprisoned and then sold at auction as a slave laborer.  Legalized kidnappings and indenture of Indian children for up to 25 years was also common.
204.	The auction continues	The Sacramento Union in August of 1865, three years after the Emancipation Proclamation had freed the slaves in the South, decried the practice in California.
205.	A man reads the Sacramento Union as the auction continues in the background	"They are held here as slaves were held in the South; those owning them use them as they please, beat them with clubs and shoot them down like dogs, and no one to say 'Why do you do so?'"
206.	A white man shoots an Indian who is running away to avoid being whipped	The story continued, "James Shores, an Indian slaveholder here, shot one the other day, because he would not stand and be whipped, inflicting a severe wound . . . I have my doubts of finding a jury that will convict a man for killing an Indian up here."
207.	A child is sold	Narrator: Many Indian parents were pressured to sell their children to whites who only had to house and feed the child.
208.	The auction continues	It was reported in the Humboldt Times of May 5, 1855 that an Indian child could bring from $50-dollars to $250-dollars at a sale.
209.	A mixed group of Mexican and Indians	The harsh laws and dangerous prejudicial conditions caused many Indian families to attempt to blend in to the Hispanic population.  They went underground.  Remarkably, some were able to retain a little knowledge of their customs, language and past.  But many lost all connections to their cultures.
210.		There were clear advantages to living underground.  Children were not kidnapped or sent away to Indian schools.  Women began to marry Hispanic men who offered security.  Men who had jobs and money.  The cultures continued to fray.  By the 1870's a number of white people began to question the injustices.
211.	Helen Hunt Jackson takes a stage coach trip West	One woman, Helen Hunt Jackson, was determined to right the wrongs she'd heard about.  A noted poet, writer of children's stories, novels and essays, Jackson was moved by the plight of the Indians.  She moved from Amherst to Southern California to see what she could do.
212.	She tours the abandoned missions and talks to Indians	She wrangled an appointment from the Interior Department to "visit the Mission Indians in California, and ascertain the location and condition of various bands."
213.	She meets with many more people	With the aid of a dashing young entrepreneur, Abbott Kinney, the man who would later turn a deserted strip of beach front property into a cross between Venice Italy and Coney Island, Jackson documented the condition of the remaining Mission Indians.
214.	A Senator thumbs a copy of her report as the Senate prepares to vote	By 1883, she'd completed a fifty-six page report that called for massive government relief efforts.  A bill embodying her recommendations passed in the House but was defeated in the Senate.
215.	Jackson at work writing Ramona	Jackson took the defeat hard but she vowed to keep fighting with the one weapon she had left, her writing.  Holed up in the Berkeley Hotel in New York City, she set to work on a novel that she hoped would have the impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin.  A book written by her friend, Harriet Beecher Stowe.
216.	Jackson starts to write	Jackson: (voice over) "If I can do one hundredth part for the Indian that Mrs. Stowe did for the Negro, I will be thankful."
217.	She writes	Narrator: She set a furious pace.
218.	She continues to write	Jackson: "As soon as I began, it seemed impossible to write fast enough.  I wrote faster than I would write a letter.  Two thousand to three thousand words in a morning and I cannot help it."
219.	The book Ramona	Narrator: The result, the novel Ramona, was completed in only three months and published in November of 1884.  It was an immediate success, selling over 15,000 copies in the first year.
220.	Jackson's grave	But Jackson never knew if the book had the impact she'd hoped.  She died ten months after it appeared.
221.	The Ramona pageant D W Griffith film	She would have been depressed to see that her love story about an orphaned Indian girl who witnesses white men murder her husband, didn't launch a reform movement.  Instead, it created a longing for a romanticized past that stimulated the tourist industry.
222.	A series of postcards	The vivid descriptions of locations prompted Southern California boosters to issue several series of postcards.  Hundreds of thousand of which were sent by visitors to friends around the world.
223.	Ramona pageant	Ramona fever launched a three-day, outdoor pageant held in Southern California since 1923 and more than three films.  And the book continues to sell in the internet age.  Amazon dot com, the on-line bookseller, has sold over 58-thousand copies of Ramona to its internet savvy customers.
224.	A painter sets up an easel near a dilapidated mission	In its day, Jackson's Ramona was at the forefront of a romantic movement of painters and authors who turned the crumbling missions into icons of a mythic past.
225.	Charles Fletcher Lummis walks across the continent He stops and admires a fading mission	Others would climb aboard the romantic movement.  One man, Charles Fletcher Lummis, took up the mission's cause, and the Indians', after he arrived in Los Angeles.  He would write about the current hunger and poverty and argue that the mission period was good for the Indians because they’d been productive.
226.	Lummis continues to walk	A Harvard graduate who felt stifled in his job as a newspaper editor in Ohio, Lummis decided to walk across the country in 1884.  He was transfixed by the beauty of the Southwest as he journeyed through Arizona and into California.
227.	Lummis is camped out He composes an article	While he traveled he sent articles about his sojourn to General Harrison Gray Otis, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times.  Otis was so impressed with Lummis that he offered him a job as the paper's first city editor.
228.	Lummis in his rock tower home, El Alisal	Lummis jumped in and became the city editor as well as a successful author and vocal advocate for the preservation of the missions.
229.	Work begins on rebuilding a mission	His enthusiastic support glossed over the plight of the Indians at the missions and helped to create the myths about the kindly padres and romantic California haciendas.
230.	Work continues on the mission	His Landmark Clubs raised millions of dollars to restore the missions and helped to turn them into one of the state's symbol and tourist attractions.
231.	John Harrington drives an old Model T Ford out to interview an old Chumash Indian	While Lummis romanticized the missions, an eccentric anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution, John Peabody Harrington, combed California recording the remembrances of surviving mission Indians.  He started work in 1915 and kept at it until Parkinson's disease forced him to retire in 1954.
232.	Harrington sets up an Edison wax cylinder recorder He asks Fernando Librado to speak into it	Harrington, believed his work was, "saving their culture from eternal oblivion at the very last hour."
233.	Harrington and Fernando build an Indian hut	For forty years he lugged his heavy equipment wherever he thought he might find an "old one" who could tell him about what they had seen.  He usually slept in his car and lived on next to nothing.  What little money he received from Washington he plowed into his research or gave to his informants.
234.	He sits with several Indians and learn how to play an Indian flute	His tireless research produced over two million pages of notes, 5-thousand sound recordings and hundreds of cartons of artifacts that are the legacy of Indians who once spoke over one hundred different languages.
235.	The rows of boxes in the Smithsonian archives containing Harrington's notes It is like the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark	But his lack of interest in publishing and a mania for secrecy kept the results of his work out of the mainstream.  The shocking stories he heard about life in the mission would remain hidden until a new generation of anthropologists and historians started to comb through the massive data Harrington had collected.
236.	An elementary school tour group is led through Mission Santa Barbara by a brown robed Franciscan priest	By this time though, the drive to create a romanticized version of life at the missions had taken hold.
237.	Pope John Paul visits Carmel in 1987	But other voices would one day be heard.  The visit of Pope John Paul to the Carmel mission in 1987 brought the world's spotlight on the efforts to canonize the missions' founder, Father Serra, and raised issues and questions that had long been buried.
238.	The Pope kneels in front of Serra's sarcophagus	Hardcore Catholics mounted a defense of Serra and the missions while a group of young historians, who'd come of age during the Vietnam era's protests, launched an all out assault on the Serra campaign
239.		These firebrands labeled the missions, "concentration camps" and accused the padres of the worst crimes imaginable.
240.		This was heresy to the defenders of the faith who mounted an exhaustive effort to repudiate the charges being leveled against Serra and by extension the church.
241.		They marshaled numerous arguments to show that no harm had been done to the natives by the padres.  One line of defense was that any evidence purporting to show an atrocity had been committed was part of a "Black Legend" conspiracy against Hispanics that stemmed from Protestant propagandists unhappy with Spain's role in the Inquisition.
242.		The charges and counter charges flew.  But the drive to canonize Serra stalled.
243.		While Serra's sainthood was in limbo, there was still no official recognition of what had happened to the Indians at the missions.
244.	Zoom out from single Native American woman to the crowd	A group started to work to correct this historical oversight.  They realized they would need the cooperation of the Church, the state government and the community.  It would take a great deal of effort to overcome the bitterness that had been sown over the last two-hundred years.    They started with the Sonoma Mission.
245.	Shot of Professor Edward Castillo delivering speech. Cut away: to footage of crowd.	Castillo: It seemed only right to me we should do something to bring us together since we’ve been arguing about interpreting history in the past.  And the thought came to me, that we should erect a monument honoring the men, women and children.  Over 80,000 Indians were buried in the 21 missions along Coastal California.
246.	Prof. Castillo and others in the crowd	Narrator: Edward Castillo, and others, raised over thirty-thousand dollars to build something that would honor the California Indians who died at the Sonoma Mission.
247.	Prof. Castillo	Castillo: My experience at the Vietnam Memorial Wall was the true inspiration for this.  As we all can remember, that War tore our country apart and tore our families apart.
248.	Boy's hand running over the memorial People gathered look at memorial	Castillo, cont.: The reconciliation that occurs at that wall, no matter where you stood on that damn War, brought us all together.
249.	Shot of Edward Castillo delivering speech. Crowd shot	Castillo: Everybody agreed it was a pretty good idea to honor these men, women and children with a simple memorial.
250.	Shot of crowd during the prayer song	Narrator: At last, California's first builders, farmers, vaqueros and laborers were being recognized and remembered.
251.	Lanny Pinola, Indian holy man delivering speech. Inter-cut:  child at ceremony	Pinola: Today unveils a historic moment.  The legacy lived long after we’re gone.  To be on the records in the books.  That my grandchildren can say, Grandpa I read your name.
252.	A woman reads the names	WOMAN: (READS NAMES)
253.	Shots of the unveiling. Inter cut with name readers. Singing of prayer song.	Narrator: For the first time in over 200-years, a spirit of unity prevailed at the Mission.
254.	Bishop B. Patrick Ziemann delivering speech.	Ziemann: If we are to learn anything from these names is that we are meant to be people together.  To come together with cultures and religion and motivations.  So, if we’re willing to say we’re sorry and if we’re willing to accept forgiveness we can build literally on the shoulders of those who lie beneath us.  We can build a community that is worthy of their legacy.
255.	Lanny Pinola delivering speech. Crowd at reception. Young dancers	Pinola: It was a historic day, a historic event.  And to be able to stand not only among you, but among my people and yet generations of my people to come.
256.	Lanny Pinola delivering speech. Valley at dusk	Pinola cont.: Now my ancestor is at home during the unveiling of this historic event. . . . Welcome to the land of my ancestors.
257.	Beauty shot of Valley	Narrator: The organizers hoped that this small effort could start a statewide campaign of remembrance.  They feel that memorials should be built at every mission as a way to begin the healing.
258.		It is a lofty goal and one that may succeed.  Even California's school books now talk about problems at the missions and ask students why the Indians wanted to revolt.
259.		As California becomes increasingly multi-cultural we must review the records of the past to look for better ways to live together.  A “truth commission” needs to shine the light on the atrocities that were committed and long covered up.  It’s time for the healing to begin but it won’t start until the truth is brought out into the open.
260.		We can no longer afford to live in a society with a, "Buried History." ###