According to the 1834 secularization proclamation
of Governor José Figueroa, half the property of the California
missions was to be distributed to the former mission Indians.
Unfortunately
most Indians did not receive any of the mission lands; those who
did rarely kept them for long. Lorenzo Asisara, a former
neophyte at Mission Santa Cruz, later remembered that during secularization
his people were given some "old mares that were no longer
productive and very old rams." They also received a portion
of the mission lands, "but it did not do the Indians any good."
Between
1834 and 1836 each of the twenty-one California missions was secularized.
Governor Figueroa, who died in the midst of the
secularization proceedings, appointed administrators to supervise
the disposal of mission properties. The administrators sold off
the cattle, grain, and lands that rightly should have gone to the
former
neophytes. The vast bulk of the mission properties ended up in
the hands of a few prominent Californio families.
The final blow
to the missions came in 1845 when cash-strapped Governor Pío
Pico auctioned off the remaining mission properties--including the
crumbling mission churches. One dispirited padre lamented: "All
is destruction, all is misery, humiliation and despair."
