And Now to Work

     Having spent a couple of days hiking and seeing the state parks around Santa Cruz, we started the work portion of our trip.  We made a quick stop at the Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park.  This mission was the 12th of 21 missions founded by the Spanish in Old California.  The only original building remaining on the site is the old adobe building that housed up to 17 families of neophytes(native people brought to the mission to be converted and "civilized"). 

     The interior of the building offers a variety of exhibits which include a look at the lives of the native people of the area, the organization of the mission, the lives of the neophytes, and the industries of the mission.  Below is a representation of what neophyte housing looked like.  It was pointed out that beds, like the one pictured, were for the highest ranking neophytes.  The neophytes did all the work of the mission.

     Although technically not slaves they were not allowed to leave the mission.  If they did soldiers were sent out to find them and bring them back.  When the numbers of workers at the mission were insufficient to meet the work needs of the mission, soldiers were sent to California's central valley to look for new "converts". Sounds an awful lot like slavery to me - oh that's right they weren't "owned" by the mission.  This information was obtained from the pamphlets provided at the site.  The analysis is my own.

    From Santa Cruz we headed east through the central valley of California toward Sacramento.  Along the way we stopped off at San Juan Bautista State Historic Park.   This park consists of a number of buildings that attempt to show the life of a California town in the mid-to late 19th century.  The oldest structure is the park is the Mission founded in 1797.

      A number of other exhibits are contained in the Plaza Hotel, which was opened in 1859 by Angelo Zanetta. According to the information contained in the self-guiding tour brochure, Zanetta purchased an old adobe barracks, built a wooden second floor and opened an establishment that was noted for its good food and fine accommodations.

     Many of the exhibits inside the hotel have been set up to recreate the look and use of the particular room(as the Dining Room pictured below).

     Zanetta did well financially and was able to build Plaza Hall which he eventually used as his residence with the second floor serving as a meeting hall for public gatherings.  The rooms on the  first floor of this building have also been set up to show the way the Zanetta family lived in the 1800's.

      The site has several other interesting buildings and was valuable in giving us a feel for the life style of the people we are researching.