Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

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.