Earthen Estructures

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Earthen structures in the missions of Baja California (México)
Miguel Ángel Sorroche Cuerva
Universidad de Granada. Departamento de Historia del Arte.

ABSTRACT: The use of soil was common in the building of missions in the Mexican region of Baja California. Adobe was used in churches and additional buildings as a response to the urgent need of constructions and before it was substituted with stone. Not all the missions have been preserved until today. The missions built and occupied by Franciscans and Dominicans allow us to have a better idea of the architectural history of these buildings. On the other hand, just some remains of the Jesuit missions have been preserved. All of them constitute a significant Mexican heritage, representative of a period when consolidation of borderlands was as important as the evangelisation of indigenous population. The mission as an institution was equally useful to the purposes of both the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown.

1 FOREWORD In 1699, Padre Piccolo, the founder of the mission of San Francisco Javier de Biaundó, travelled from the Loreto mission to the opposite coast in the peninsula of Baja California with a view to finding a favourable spot for the docking of galleons coming from Manila that needed to obtain provisions after their long voyage across the Pacific. The expedition, described in a letter to Padre Juan María Salvatierra, served as a magnificent synopsis of the expedition and occupation of the territory, where the construction of mission churches was a fundamental item in the consolidation of the settlement and evangelisation of the population. This construction involved a process that went from the erection of an initial vegetable structure to the final stone building, with an intermediate stage in which an adobe structure filled the most urgent liturgical needs. This text aims to analyse this process in which earth is the main ingredient, as we can see in the series of missions built in the peninsula of Baja California between 1697 and 1832, constituting a Mexican heritage that deserves every effort to conserve and revalue it. All of this forms part of the research carried out in the R&D project funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, “The missions of Baja California between the 17th and 19th centuries. Cultural landscape and implementation of value,” developed between 2009 and 2012.

2 OCCUPATIOIN OF TERRITORY IN BAJA CALIFORNIA The peninsula of Baja California constituted a peripheral space in the colonial context, where steady settlement was sought from the very early 16th century although it was not until the end of the 17th that it was consolidated, an aspect magnificently documented by authors like Miguel Léon Portilla (2000). The arrival of the Company of Jesus marked the first important occupation phase during which a series of missions were erected scattered about the south of the territory. The expulsion of the members of the order between 1767 and 1768 was also a key moment: a watershed that led to the arrival of Franciscans and Dominicans and the definitive allotment of the south sector of the peninsula and, by extension, the whole coast of what was known at the time as Alta California, which underwent a similar occupation process from 1769 onwards, as described by Martha Ortega Soto (1999) and Iñigo Abbad y Sierra (1981). It was precisely the Jesuit order that turned the missions into an indispensable element to attain successfully both spiritual, material and territorial control of the native people and the Pacific coast, acting as an authentic advance party of a political system which had recourse to it at given moments, according to Eugene H. Bolton’s account (1990). In this context, it was the members of the Company of Je-

sus who defined a management model that determined what Ignacio del Río (2003) called the Jesuit Regime, insofar as it represented a way of understanding the spread of faith and in which the characteristics of the territory led to the fusion of religious and political tasks. These functions required suitable spaces in which to carry them out and which were determined, more than by the links with the peoples to be evangelised, by the political implications of the need to control a specific area like the Baja California coast, exposed to a great deal of external pressure. That would explain, like in the case of the Dominicans’ building programme, that a defensive element was included in their plans, an aspect that in the case of the Jesuit missions had been a component incorporated more as part of the decoration of the buildings than as a real element, as we can see in examples like the missions of San Francisco Javier de Biaundó or Santa Rosalía de Mulegé..

ing them hierarchically, where the centre would be the church and, by extension, the mission itself, a practice described to perfection by Nieser (1998) and appraised by Sorroche Cuerva (2011b).

Figure 1. Santo Domingo Mission. 1775.

3 FOUNDATION & CONSTRUCTION OF THE MISSIONS Many sources provide details about the foundation of the missions, and the first moments of the construction of their most essential components were no exception, as we have pointed out in other works (2007 & 2011a). A perfectly established work method is surprising, regarding both the location of the new settlements and the construction phases they employed in their primary architectures. These guidelines suggest a systematic procedure, going from the choice of place, clearly determined by the information provided by the natives, to the initial temporary vegetable structures, which gave way to stable adobe buildings, which allow us to identify the use of processes, materials and building methods at each stage before making the final stone building, as we are told by authors like Barco (1988), Baegert (1989), Clavijero (1970) or Palou (1994). In any case, these buildings are erected thanks to the experience of both the priests themselves in the case of Miguel del Barco and the building of the mission of San Francisco Javier de Biaundó in the 18th century and the soldiers, who participated in the construction of the preliminary adobe structure that served as a church until the definitive building was made, as described by Padre Piccolo and narrated by Ignacio del Río (2000). It was essential to train the native people in order to have plenty of manpower to build some components considered indispensable for the evangelisation and indoctrination process fast enough, using it as a good excuse to inculcate new habits that would contribute to the “civilisation” of the groups of natives, restructuring their familiar surroundings by arrang-

The structures that have lasted until our day provide us with some testimonies of this process, which would explain the reason for constructing with soil, for which they used adobes on top of stone foundations and in which other local materials were also used. So, although the Jesuits only have the remains of the mission of San Francisco de Borja as a clear example of a process that was common practice in the other foundations built until 1767; the mission of San Fernando de Velicatá, built in 1769 and the only one erected by the Franciscans, shows us the remains of what must have been the main building and whose structure barely remains standing, and is currently at the mercy of the inclemency of the weather. It is definitely the remains of the Dominican missions, despite their state of repair, that best reveal the typology of the missions made of earth in the area of Baja California. They are building units set around open spaces around which all the different areas were located, such as the sleeping quarters for the natives and monks, rooms for military use and defence structures, where, as we said above, soil is the undeniable protagonist from a structural point of view, the most trustworthy descriptions of which are provided by authors like Meigs, who visited them between 1926 and 1930 (1994). 4 SOIL AS A BUILDING MATERIAL If we visit all the missions, we can see the diversity of materials and building methods used. These are in some cases solutions of extraordinary structural quality, which, as far as earth is concerned, provide less important examples due to the poor condition of the remains that still exist. In this sense, that earth was a material used to erect these buildings is not only evident by examining these remains, but also thanks to the references we find in the

sources that speak of structures like churches, sleeping quarters and storerooms made out of adobe. Added to this we have inventories of tools and instruments to build and maintain them. It is interesting to note that when the Jesuits were expelled and the missions were taken over by the Franciscans, the latter made lists of the items contained in them in 1773, as part of the process involved in handing the management over to the Dominicans, and as a result of the agreement between both congregations, brought about by the readjustment of objectives carried out by the governor, Gaspar de Portolá, and the visitor, José de Gálvez (2003). In these inventories, studied by authors like Coronado (1994), there is a detailed description of each mission, especially of objects listed under the headings “masonry” and “carpentry”. In these sections, apart from references to the above mentioned departments and their building characteristics, setting apart those made of adobe, the mention of adoberas (adobe moulds), adoberas de horno (kiln moulds), ladrilleras (brickworks), escuadras (carpenter’s squares), cartabones (set squares), plomadas (plumbs), etc., is a token of the knowledge of the basic principles of adobe construction that the people who lived there possessed. Together with the sources, collections of documents and chronicles, examining the missions that were built in the peninsula of Baja California and visiting them gives us an idea of the dimension of the population and territorial control exerted from the end of the 17th century and allows us to reconstruct the building process and the use of materials and techniques in such an out-of-the-way territory, far from colonial decision-making centres and subject in many cases to a degree of self-supply that clearly required them to erect their own buildings, as is reflected to perfection in works such as that by Vernon (2002). Not all the religious sites share the same characteristics. We have mentioned in passing the features of the most important cases of each of the orders. In any case, all the remains of their adobe structures are not still standing, although we know they existed. What we do know is that the occupation process after the expulsion of the Jesuits was determined by haste to build the missions, which permitted the consolidation of settlements to stabilise the borderlands, apart from evangelisation. Thus, from 1769 onwards, the mission of San Fernando de Velicatá, at the centre of the peninsula, was the final point in the above mentioned territorial restructuring order dictated by Viceroy Gaspar de Portolá. This led to the arrival of the Dominicans in the eighteen seventies to close the itinerary designed as the Camino Real de las Misiones, which connected this mission with the first Franciscan mission in Alta California, San Diego, also founded on the same date. In this way, it was the responsibility of the Dominicans to close

this itinerary, which is currently the most complete set of earth structures that can be found in Baja California. 5 ADOBE MISSIONS IN BAJA CALIFORNIA Although in the existing descriptions we can see the variety of materials used and the many buildings that formed them, let us examine the most outstanding examples that have lasted till our days to understand the physiognomy and characteristics of their earth structures. As regards these missions, we have already pointed out that each of the three religious orders that went to Baja California left their adobe structures within an integral occupation process that forms part of a perfectly established general dynamic. In the case of the Jesuits, we have said that only one of them remains today, scantly protected by a metal structure: San Francisco de Borja, the remains of a spacious building in the shape of a Latin cross similar in size to those later built by the Dominicans. All the knowledge we have of the other Jesuit missions is indirect. In this sense, in the letter we mentioned above from Padre Piccolo to Juan María Salvatierra, he has the following to say about the adobe structure of San Francisco Javier Biaundó (2000): “Mientras se iba tomando lengua y noticia del camino y distancia que había desde este paraje a la mar de la contracosta quiso el capitán [Antonio García de] Mendoza con los soldados ocuparse en hacer unos adobes para la nueva capilla de San Francisco Javier. Divididos, pues, en dos cuadrillas de a siete soldados [cada una], hicieron en dos días dos mil y quinientos adobes. Y el capitán, que dio principio a la obra, con su compañero hizo quinientos adobes la primera mañana, y la otra cuadrilla, por la tarde, fizo seiscientos adobes”. The exact measurements of this building are given here (2000): “En fin, los compañeros en dos días levantaron la capilla de siete varas de largo y cuatro y media de ancho. En otros dos días quisieron levantar para mí, indigno de todo alivio, un aposento y un salita, y en otros dos días se techó la capilla que, aunque de zacate, quedó hermosa”. As we have said, the Dominicans had the most important group of missions. Rosario Mission is one of the most important, both because of the valley in which it was situated and which it controlled and because it is a mission made in two building stages, which meant that it was moved from the initial site, which was also the case of other foundations such as San Francisco Javier and Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, the first and the last missions founded by the Jesuits. In the case of the mission in Rosario, there are hardly any remains left of the two buildings, al-

though it is one of the best examples to allow us understand the mission in its geographic context, permitting us to see the reason why this location was chosen, away from the irregular flow of the rivers and streams of Baja California described by Meigs (1994). This same author (1994) explains that the basic structure of these missions was made around a courtyard in general terms, but it was not applied in all cases. In the first mission at Rosario. “…the main feature of the site was a spacious enclosure or courtyard, around three sides of which buildings were placed, while all the openings not closed by buildings were filled in with sections of wall […]. In the courtyard, activities could be performed without danger of robbery or attacks by wild Indians and at the same time the people would congregate in a place where it would be easy for one of the priests to watch them.” The church stood out among these buildings for its size and physiognomy, which usually meant it was the most clearly identifiable structure, as the author himself says: “In the north of the courtyard, standing out from it, was the largest building, the church, running all along the main entrance. This building can be identified by its size [44 x 9 metres]…” The very structure of the site denotes some of the features of these missions, which are very well described in the chronicles the priests wrote after their expulsion. As regards the sleeping quarters of part of the native population, Meigs says (1994): “The long row of rooms three and a half metres wide in the east of the courtyard was probably the dormitories for the Indians living at the mission …” This reference suggests that part of the floating population of natives that went to the missions stayed there for a given period of time to help with the building works and maintenance. Similarly, the role the military garrison played in these buildings can be seen from the space dedicated to their quarters, which leads us to believe that the number of soldiers was larger at this mission than at others, where the sources speak of two or three soldiers. As far as the techniques and materials used there are concerned, as Meigs also points out (1994): “Although the traces of walls make it possible to reconstruct partly the floor plan of the mission, there is no similar proof to give us an idea of its vertical outline. Besides, as far as the author knows, no sketch or other image of this or any other mission built by the Dominicans in Baja California before they were destroyed has been conserved (if it ever even existed). We know that the buildings at Rosario Mission had mud-covered girders in the roofs. This can be deduced from the fact that no fragments of roof tiles were found near the buildings. The walls were probably plastered like in other missions, because near the exterior embankment the remains of a kiln

that was probably used to fire lime were found. The lime could be extracted from the large numbers of shells at hand, or poorer quality lime from caliche. They are both used occasionally nowadays.” An interesting description, especially since no mention is made of the adobe structures that have lasted until our day, one of the features that best defines both types at the present time.

Figure 2. San Fernando de Velicatá Mission. 1769.

Figure 3. Mission of Nuestra Señora del Rosario. 1775.

As regards the second Rosario Mission, it is located in a more advantageous spot than the first and is believed to have been founded between 1799 and 1802. Its floor plan is less pretentious and unified than the former, without its multifunction courtyard Meigs (1994) describes how at the very edge of the terreplein where it was built, “…there stands a building a bit apart, which measured 4 by 17 metres (probably divided into rooms), which might have been a storeroom. Further up, completely on the terrace, was the main courtyard surrounded by walls, with one end forming a pen and a three-room building on the opposite side. The largest room in this building is believed to have been the church, for it is not only higher than the building mentioned above but seems to have been more painstakingly constructed. The adjacent room, which measures 6 by 10 metres, was probably the sacristy, and the little room that measures 2 by 3 metres a cell or a confessional box.”

As in the first case, the area of the military garrison is different from the mission itself: “Behind the main courtyard, as usual, was the military courtyard, at a corner of which, according to tradition, stood the soldiers’ living quarters” (1994). But what leaves no room for doubt is the fact that the building system used counted on the use of earth as a basic material, besides others to be found near the mission. (1994): “As a whole, the ruins of the second mission are less deteriorated than the first, as was to be expected, and allow us to have a clearer idea of the construction details. The foundations of the solid earthen walls are stones from the river bed, gently stuck with adobe mortar. The superstructure is adobe brick (made up of a mixture of earth and chipped organic residues), mostly 30 by 30 by 7 centimetres, laid out in rows and held together by twenty-five or twelve millimetres of mortar of the same material. The timber that could have been used in the mission for roofs, doorframes and similar things has disappeared entirely, either because it has rotted or because it was used as firewood. Timber could not have been an important element in the structure, because the only supply available was weak little willow branches.” Another important mission founded by the Dominicans is Santo Domingo. It is again an example of the selection process of the final site thanks to a first building. It is one of the most outstanding missions in Baja California to judge from the remains that still exist. The description given of it by Meigs (1994) provides quite a clear idea of what it was like in the early 20th century and of its conservation process until the present day: “The courtyard is a quadrangle, smaller than the one in the first Rosario mission, for it only measures. 58 by 53 metres. The church is small too, 15 by 8 metres. Along with other adjacent buildings, it occupies all the side of the quadrangle giving on to the stream. The building details worth noting are: foundations of cornerstones from the nearby hills, roughly connected to form a fairly smooth exterior surface; adobe walls one metre thick, containing large pieces of rock, plastered inside and out; heavy wooden lintels and built-in shelves; at least one of the buildings (next to the church) had an attic; and a buttress made of stones roughly joined together to prop up the attic in the west.” Furthermore, in this mission there are traces of the use of earth in infrastructures like: “…the solid adobe and stone terreplein two metres high and up to three metres thick that seems to have served as a dyke to divert waters flooding down from the hillside…” (1994). And we find the same system also in one of the diversion channels of the irrigation ditches (1994): “According to local tradition, there was a low adobe dyke across the stream near the current upper ends of the irrigation ditches.” This use is complemented by the presence of adobe in a kiln believed to have been used to burn lime, where the but-

tresses and some andirons were made by this technique. The San Vicente Mission, the largest of those founded by the Dominicans, is one of the most outstanding adobe buildings in the peninsula, always according to the Dominican model (1994): “The most remarkable feature of the layout of the San Vicente Mission was its size. San Vicente was the largest of the Dominican establishments, despite the fact that its population was not particularly numerous. The layout of the buildings according to the plans suggests a few reasons for this size. Within the surrounding wall, ‘three varas high (Spanish measure .84 m) with towers’ (Sales, report 3:70), which follows the irregularities of the boundaries of the natural platform of the buildings instead of all being gathered around a central courtyard, the buildings are grouped in two unconnected similar-sized quadrangles” (1994).

Figure 4. San Vicente Ferrer Mission. 1780.

“One of these quadrangles, which runs along the front edge of the south side of the platform, was undoubtedly the main religious centre, with a church measuring 22 by 6 3/8, the priests’ cells, sleeping quarters for the Indians and probably some warehouses. The second quadrangle, at the foot of the promontory, is not well conserved. It was probably the guards’ headquarters” (1994) In the case of San Miguel Mission, we find several aspects of interest (1994). Not only the technique used to build it, but its structure, which is laid out around a courtyard and reuses a Pre-Hispanic space as a referential element for reducing and indoctrinating the native people.. 6 CONCLUSIONS Today the series of adobe buildings in the Baja California missions constitute an important part of what their structures originally comprised. Although one of the factors that have most affected them is weathering, they have also suffered from acts of vandalism.

Immerse in a deterioration process from the very moment they were abandoned in the first half of the 19th century, the fact that they constituted a source of reusable materials, like the roofs, was the reason that their degradation started immediately. At the present time conservation works are being performed on them. Since the nineteen nineties, there have been attempts to stop the deterioration process by means of stabilising interventions. A preservation method created by the INAH, which consisted in covering the adobe structures with a paste made out of clays from the region with the addition of a natural adhesive of vegetable, animal or mineral origin, such as cochineal nopal sap, manure or lime. The small amount conserved, less than 40% in some cases, makes it impossible to reconstruct them in the literal sense of the word.

REFERENCES
Abbad y Sierra, I. 1981. Descripción de las costas de California. Madrid: CSIC. Baegert, J.J. 1989. Noticias de la península americana de California. La Paz: Gobierno del Estado de Baja California Sur. Barco. M. 1988. Historia natural y crónica de la Antigua California. México: UNAM. Bolton, E. H. 1990. La misión como institución de frontera en el septentrión de Nueva España. Francisco de Solano & Salvador Bernabéu Albert. Estudios (nuevos y viejos sobre la frontera). Anexo 4 de Revista de Indias: 45-60. Madrid: CSIC. Clavijero, F.J. 1970. Historia de la Antigua o Baja California. México: Porrúa.

Coronado, E. M. 1994. Descripción e inventarios de las misiones de Baja California, 1773. La Paz: Gobierno del Estado de Baja California Sur. León Portilla, M. 2000. La California mexicana. Ensayos acerca de su historia. México: UNAM-UABC. López Guzmán, R. & Ruiz Gutiérrez, A. & Sorroche Cuerva, M.A. 2007. Sistemas constructivos en la arquitectura religiosa del siglo XVIII en las misiones de Baja California del Sur (México). In M. ARENILAS & C. SEGURA & F. BUENO & S. HUERTA (eds.). Actas del Quinto Congreso Nacional de Historia de la Construcción, Burgos, 7- 9 Junio 2007: 577-586. Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera – SedHC – CICCP – CEHOPU. Meigs, P. 1994. La frontera misional dominica en Baja California. Tijuana: Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. Nieser, A. N. 1998. Las fundaciones misionales dominicas en Baja California. 1762-1822. Tijuana: Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. Ortega Soto, M. 1999. Colonización de Alta California. Primeros asentamientos españoles. Signos Históricos (1): 85-103. Palou, F. 1994. Cartas desde la península de California (17681773). México: Porrúa. Río, I. 2000. Crónicas jesuíticas de la Antigua California. México: UNAM. Río, I. 2003. El régimen jesuítico en la Antigua California. México: UNAM. Rodríguez-Sala, M. L. 2003. Los Gobernadores de las Californias. 1767-1804. Contribuciones a la expansión territorial y del conocimiento. México: UNAM/Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales. Sorroche Cuerva, M. A. 2011a. Baja California. El espacio patrimonial. In: Miguel Ángel Sorroche (ed.), El patrimonio cultural en las misiones de Baja California. Estado de la cuestión y perspectivas de futuro: 39-77. Granada: Atrio. Sorroche Cuerva, M. A. 2011b. El paisaje cultural como patrimonio en Baja California. Millars. Espai i Història. (34): 119-139. Vernon, E. W. 2002. Las misiones antiguas. The Spanish Missions of Baja California. Santa Barbara: California Mission Studies Association.

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