The other day we visited Mission Santa Inez, located in the town of Solvang. It is one of the chain of 21 missions built by the Spanish up the coast of California. The mission is pure Spanish colonial: big, old (1804), reasonably well restored, and a working Roman Catholic Church.
Interestingly, it is the site of the first post-secondary education institution - a seminary - in California. I suppose that existed to train promising mestizo and Chumash lads to be priests. You can see photos of the old mission at the other DrC’s website.
The mission fathers were no dopes, the site has a gorgeous view up-valley. Sitting on the porch I saw amazing coastal CA scenery: rolling hills and evergreen oaks, and even the grass was green, something not true most of the year.
Most missions had a small garrison of Spanish troops in residence, basically a mounted squad, with laminated leather armor and shields, metal helmets, armed with swords and lances, and maybe a crossbow or two. Coastal Indians didn’t have horses so the mission’s light cavalry were a reasonably effective defensive force.
The troopers didn’t fight often, but were both a deterrent against attack and extra labor around the mission in the long quiet periods. Unlike the padres, they’d taken no vow of chastity; they probably fathered a bunch of mestizo kids and saw them baptized.
Ironically, the small community of Solvang adjacent to the mission was colonized in 1911 by a bunch of Danes who built Danish-style half-timber architecture. It was probably just to feel “at home” at first until they saw it drew dollar-flush tourists, after which they made it their very conscious goal.
Solvang has a copy of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen’s harbor on its main drag. Every third shop is a Danish bakery or restaurant. Many of the rest cater mostly to tourists too. The disconnect between the so-Spanish mission and the adjacent Danish-style town is fairly wild. Somehow it works.
