The Franciscans founded their first mission in California at San Diego in 1769.  The Mission Dolores was founded on St. Francis’ Day, 1776.  To found a mission was a serious matter; yet one and twenty missions were in the full tide of success before the good work was abandoned.  The friars were the first fathers of the land:  they did whatever was done for it and for the people who originally inhabited it.  They explored the country lying between the coast range and the sea.  They set apart large tracts of land for cultivation and for the pasturing of flocks and herds.  For a long time Old and New Spain contributed liberally to what was known as the Pious Fund of California.  The fund was managed by the Convent of San Fernando and certain trustees in Mexico, and the proceeds transmitted from the city of Mexico to the friars in California.

The mission church was situated, as a rule, in the centre of the mission lands, or reservations.  The latter comprised several thousand acres of land.  With the money furnished by the Pious Fund of California the church was erected, and surrounded by the various buildings occupied by the Fathers, the retainers, and the employees who had been trained to agriculture and the simple branches of mechanics.  The presbytery, or the rectory, was the chief guest-house in the land.  There were no hotels in the California of that day, but the traveller, the prospector, the speculator, was ever welcome at the mission board; and it was a bountiful board until the rapacity of the Federal Government laid it waste.  Alexander Forbes, in his “History of Upper and Lower California” (London, 1839), states that the population of Upper California in 1831 was a little over 23,000; of these 18,683 were Indians.  It was for the conversion of these Indians that the missions were first established; for the bettering of their condition—­mental, moral and physical—­that they were trained in the useful and industrial arts.  That they labored not in vain is evident.  In less than fifty years from the day of its foundation the Mission of San Francisco Dolores—­that is in 1825—­is said to have possessed 76,000 head of cattle; 950 tame horses; 2,000 breeding mares; 84 stud of choice breed; 820 mules; 79,000 sheep; 2,000 hogs; 456 yoke of working oxen; 18,000 bushels of wheat and barley; besides $35,000 in merchandise and $25,000 in specie.

That was, indeed, the golden age of the California missions; everybody was prosperous and proportionately happy.  In 1826 the Mission of Soledad owned more than 36,000 head of cattle, and a larger number of horses and mares than any other mission in the country.  These animals increased so rapidly that they were given away in order to preserve the pasturage for cattle and sheep.  In 1822 the Spanish power in Mexico was overthrown; in 1824 a republican constitution was established.  California, not then having a population sufficient to admit it as one of the Federal States, was made a territory, and as such had a representative in the Mexican Congress; but he was not allowed a vote on any question, though he sat in the assembly and shared in the debates.