The Chumash and the Presidio of Santa Barbara: Evolution of a Relationship, 1782-1823
Marie Christine Duggan, Ph.D.
 

This book is about the dynamics at and near Mission Santa Barbara in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries among the Native residents, priests who came from Europe by way of Mexico City, and New Spanish soldiers at forts known as presidios who were charged with securing the mission and the surrounding area. Native people were often caught in the middle, such as when priests asserted a monopoly over their labor, while soldiers were willing to pay higher wages. 
 

In California at the time, the military governor shared responsibility with the head of the Church missions for projecting Spanish influence on behalf of the King of Spain and his viceroy (vice king) in Mexico City. The local soldiers and priests experienced tensions similar to those between the Church and state in Spain and Mexico, and local people played these two sides off against one another to secure the best outcomes for themselves as times grew increasingly difficult and dangerous.  
 

The priests left Europe for Mexico City, where they sometimes spent many years before being posted to a mission. Most of them did not intend to return to Europe, and never did. They said farewell to their European families and let their former friendships go as they set out for a completely different life in what was, for them, an incredibly remote hinterland.
 

The military men accompanied the priests into California and manned the presidios. They would also devote their entire lives and careers in service to Spain and Mexico, but whereas the priests took vows of poverty and celibacy and preoccupied themselves with heaven and the afterlife, soldiers were encouraged to have families and put down roots in California. Many of them did.
 

Over time, salaries declined and were frequently paid late or not at all as officers entrusted with the pot dipped own their hands in before distributing shares to the rank and file, or gambled it away. Soldiers and their familiars also began to experience the effects of imperial over-extension and fatigue. Land grants were rare and went to the well connected, and in Mexico City there was growing resentment over how much land had fallen into the hands of the Church. The priests had never intended to hold the mission lands indefinitely, however many New Spanish families, including those of early soldiers, were in California for the long haul. Royal support for the missions waned, soldiers increasingly fended for themselves.
 

As such, when Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, secular authorities sought to rein in the Church and seize Church assets. The missions were "secularized," and many of the mission lands ostensibly held in trust by the Church for Native communities, fell into the hands of the few Californio families with connections to secure land grants.