MISSIONS AND MISSION INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA. 471 



dian might claim his liberty, provided a respectable settler would 

 become responsible for his good conduct. It was the clearly ex- 

 pressed idea of the Government that the Indians should be ren 

 dered self-supporting as rapidly as possible, and the missions were 

 looked upon as educational establishments to this end. Though 

 not openly antagonizing these provisions, the fathers never yield- 

 ed a hearty assent to the policy, and from the very first sought to 

 render the converts totally dependent and to establish between 

 themselves and their charges the relation of father and children, 

 in which policy they were only too successful. It was no part of 

 their plan to make the Indian self-supporting. The danger of 

 mission disestablishment disturbed the missionaries little, as they 

 openly said the Indians were incapable of self -maintenance. 



For its own support and the maintenance of its converts each 

 mission had allotted to it fifteen square miles of land. The build- 

 ings were laid out in various ways — sometimes in the form of a 

 square inclosed by a high wall, and sometimes in detached sections. 

 To each mission was allotted a well-built church ; and though ex- 

 ternally these presented a rather rude appearance, yet their inte- 

 riors were finished with considerable care, and lavishly decorated 

 as far as the circumstances permitted. Among the pictures that 



Fig. 3.— Modern Hut of Mission Indians, Coahuila Valley. Ramona and Children in 



Foreground. 



hung upon the church walls were always to be found two, repre- 

 senting respectively hell and paradise. The former depicted in 

 the most vivid way the future torments of the unregenerate, and 

 it proved a very effective means of conversion. 



The houses of the neophytes were usually a little distance 

 from the mission proper, and consisted of open rows of little huts. 

 The accompanying sketch (Fig. 3) affords as good an idea of these 



