Carmel Mission un-named Indians burial site - Carmel, California
Posted by: 
hotshoe
N 36° 32.580 W 121° 55.213
10S E 596648 N 4044720
A rustic cross marks the burial site of hundreds or perhaps thousands of Indians who died at the mission between 1771 and 1833.
Waymark Code: WM4R2B
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 09/22/2008
Views: 32
When Spanish Catholics led by Father Junipero Serra founded a chain of 21 missions along the California coast, they naturally intended to convert the pagan native Americans to Catholicism. WIth varying degrees of benevolence or harsh authority, they put the Indians to work, first in constructing mission buildings, then in the fields that made the mission self-sufficient. Indians who converted were discouraged or absolutely prohibited from returning to their home villages. Beset by white men's diseases, sometimes malnourished, and homesick, many died within the mission walls. In 1823, the Indian population of Carmel Mission had shrunk to only a few hundred. The Mission was gradually losing its dominant position in Spanish-American life in the village community surrounding it. In 1833 the mission was demoted to a normal parish church, the mission lands were divided up, and the mission community was disbanded.
The markers in the campo santo (sacred ground, or churchyard) were placed in one of the Mission restoration programs in the 1980's. A rough translation of the Spanish on the tile marker is "praise god's saints who exist and who are what we will be"
Burial Location: Carmel Mission campo santo, Carmel, California
Available Times for Viewing: Monday through Saturday from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM and on Sunday from 10:30 AM to 5:00 PM
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Visit Instructions:
Take a picture of the headstone. A waymarker and/or GPSr is not required to be in the image.