sites of San Diego and Monterey.
There was apparently no increase of knowledge thereafter for 150 years.
Most of this time California was generally supposed to be an island or a
group of islands. Jesuit missionaries entered Lower California as early
as 1697, maintaining themselves there until Charles III.'s expulsion in
1767 of all Jesuits from his dominions; but not until Russian
explorations in Alaska from 1745-1765 did the Spanish government show
interest in Upper California. Because of these explorations, and also
the long-felt need of a refitting point on the California coast for the
galleons from Manila, San Diego was occupied in 1769 and Monterey in
1770 as a result of urgent orders from Charles III. San Francisco Bay
was discovered in the former year. Meanwhile the Jesuit property in the
Peninsula had been turned over to Franciscan monks, but in 1772 the
Dominicans took over the missions, and the Franciscans not unwillingly
withdrew to Upper California, where they were to thrive remarkably for
some fifty years.

The rule of the missions.

This is the mission period--or from an economic standpoint, the
pastoral period--of Californian history. In all, twenty-one missions
were established between 1769 and 1823. The leader in this movement was
a really remarkable man, Miguel Jose Serra (known as Junipero Serra,
1713-1784), a friar of very great ability, purest piety, and tireless
zeal. He possessed great influence in Mexico and Madrid. "The theory of
the mission system," says H.H. Bancroft, "was to make the savages work
out their own salvation and that of the priests also." The last phrase
scarcely does justice to the truly humane and devout intentions of the
missionaries; but in truth the mission system was a complete failure
save in the accumulation of material wealth. Economically the missions
were the blood and life of the province. At them the neophytes worked up
wool, tanned hides, prepared tallow, cultivated hemp and wheat, raised a
few oranges, made soap, some iron and leather articles, mission
furniture, and a very little wine and olive oil. Such as it was, this
was about the only manufacturing or handicraft in California. Besides,
the hides and tallow yielded by the great herds of cattle at the
missions were the support of foreign trade and did much toward paying
the expenses of the government. The Franciscans had no sympathy for
profane knowledge, even among the Mexicans,--sometimes publicly burning