Explain how and why the California mission system began in 1769, including the roles of Junipero Serra and Gaspar de Portola, and describe the mission chain.
In 1769, Spain finally acted on the worry from last week's lesson. An expedition led by military governor Gaspar de Portola and Franciscan priest Junipero Serra traveled north from Mexico and founded Mission San Diego de Alcala, the first of what would become 21 missions stretching up the California coast. Serra personally founded nine of these missions before his death in 1784, and other Franciscan priests continued the chain until it reached all the way to Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma by 1823.
The missions were built roughly one day's travel apart, connected by a dirt road called El Camino Real, "the royal road." Spain had two goals at once: convert Native Californians to Catholicism, and firmly hold the land against rival powers like Russia and England. Both goals meant the missions needed to grow quickly into large, self-sufficient communities -- which is exactly what daily life at a mission looked like, the subject of next week's lesson.
Mastery looks like: They can state the year and location of the first mission, name Serra and Portola's roles, and explain Spain's two goals for the mission system.
Common stumbles: Thinking the missions were only religious in purpose, missing the land-claiming goal; confusing Serra's role with Portola's.