The establishment of Santa Cruz Mission in 1791 in northern Alta California introduced a tragic pattern of high mortality and low birth rates to the Indian community living in the region, which led to a dramatic decline in population levels. Epidemics, respiratory disease, and dysentery exacted a heavy mortality. Missionaries at Santa Cruz baptized 2,321 Indians between 1791 and 1846, but only 557 of these were natal baptisms (i.e., baptisms of children born at the mission), an average of 10 births per year (Santa Cruz Baptismal Register). Continual decline in the mission population forced the missionaries to recruit gentiles (non-Christian Indians) from the coastal mountains north and east of modern-day Watsonville and ultimately from the Central Valley in order to maintain a sufficiently large labor force. The basic pattern described above, the inability of the Indian population to stabilize in the face of high death rates, was not unique to Santa Cruz, but occurred in other mission groupings in northwestern New Spain. To understand the dynamics of Indian depopulation at Santa Cruz Mission, a number of demographic patterns can be examined that document high mortality and its manifestations. To calculate the degree of decline among the local population and population fluctuations, it is necessary to estimate a contact population size for the Santa Cruz area. Furthermore, a discussion of gentile recruitment as related to total mission population sheds further light on the process of demographic change.

Missionaries, Miners, & Indians: Spanish Contact with the Yaqui Nation of Northwestern New Spain, 1533- 1820. Evelyn Hu-DeHart. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1981, 152 pp., maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index, $19.95 (cloth). Yaqui Resistance and Survival: The Struggle for Land and Autonomy, 1821 - 1910. Evelyn Hu-DeHart. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984, 293 pp., maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index, $27.50 (cloth).

This report examines the degree of demographic collapse in the southern missions. A study of population change in the region, however, poses a number of problems of interpretation. The early Jesuit figures came after a number of epidemics had already attacked the population and after the 1734- 1737 rebellion, so there is little indication of mission population levels prior to 1734. Secondly, few sacramental registers survive, so the analysis is largely based on censuses. Nevertheless, the data summarized below adequately convey a sense of the demographic disaster which overcame the Guaycura, Pericu, and other ethnic-linguistic groups in southern Baja California. Finally, little quantitative information on the population of La Paz Mission (1720-1749) exists, so that mission is not discussed here.

In 1812, Ivan Aleksandovich Kuskov, representative of the Russian-American Company, established a fort north of the Slavianka [Russian] River. In the long run, the desire to establish a productive agricultural colony to supply Russian settlements in Alaska failed, but for 29 years (1812-1841) a unique experiment in acculturation occurred at the fort and surrounding settlements (Tikhmenev 1978: 133-142, 224-233).

A number of scholars have examined the cause of demographic collapse in the Californias, and have included stress, disease, and subsistence crises among their explanations. This essay does not attempt to explain in detail the causes of demographic change, but rather to document population movements in the seven missions in central Alta California, from Santa Cruz in the north to San Luis Obispo in the south. The basic premise entertained here is that the process of demographic change in the Californias can best be examined on the basis of detailed studies of discrete subregions which for cultural, geographical, or historical reasons manifested similarities in the development of mission communities and patterns of demographic change. This paper, then, explores demographic change in the seven mission communities, contributing to the growing literature on Indian demographic change in the Americas.

The analogy of the European city from 1500 to 1800 applies to the case of the missions of central Baja California. Unhealthy conditions in the cities contributed to high mortality rates, rates higher than birth rates. Immigration from the rural hinterland, however, maintained and continued to expand urban populations. Overcrowding, poor diet and sanitation, and epidemics of smallpox and measles all contributed to high mortality in the cities (Flinn 1981: 22-23).

The purpose of this essay is to examine basic demographic patterns in four missions in northern Baja California established after 1766 in order to formulate a model useful for explaining the dynamics of Indian depopulation in the Baja California missions and other mission groupings in northern New Spain. An examination of extant sacramental registers of baptisms and burials from San Fernando (est. 1769), Rosario (est. 1774), and Santo Domingo (est. 1775) missions shows the patterns of Indian conversion or incorporation into the mission system as related to the trend of a disappearing Indian population, and the inability of indigenous populations to reproduce in sufficient numbers to offset high mortality. The detailed 1813 census of San Vicente Mission (est. 1780) enables us to examine the demographic state of one mission at a specific point in time. This study in no way attempts to challenge the findings of Meigs (1935) and Aschmann (1959) in their monographs dealing with Baja California, but merely to reinterpret old data and introduce new materials.

The objective of this study is to test a number of Cook's conclusions on mission demography that previously had been questioned by scholars with little or no expertise in historical demography. The conclusions presented here contribute to a growing body of literature on the demographic collapse of the native peoples of the Americas after 1492, and on the specific subject of the Alta California missions and the fate of the Indian groups congregated into the missions.

The objective here is not to discuss the causes of high mortality in the missions, but rather to present in descriptive narrative form an outline of population movements as related to gentile recruitment. A regional approach makes sense for both geographical and historical reasons. Over a period of seventy years the Franciscans established four missions in the San Francisco Bay area, and a fifth, originally an asistencia, later attained mission status. San Francisco (1776) and Santa Clara (1777) were both established during the initial phase of the colonization of San Francisco Bay by Anza. San Jose (1797) was established to secure the conversion of Costanoans living in the east bay. San Rafael (1817) and San Francisco Solano (1823) resulted from the recruitment efforts of San Francisco missionaries in the north bay and, in the case of San Rafael, from the need to find a healthier spot for sick Indians from San Francisco mission.

In the years 1781 and 1782, the Indian population of Baja California experienced a virulent smallpox epidemic that originated in central Mexico and then spread to the northern frontier provinces. The disease entered the peninsula by way of a group of infected families from Sonora, members of the Rivera y Moncada expedition enroute to Alta California (Sales 1956:60).