income and management of the missions in california.
With the income out of which the missionaries and many Indians were nourished and clothed and likewise their churches maintained they were safe and sure from other accidents (the dangers of the sea excepted). This money provided them with necessaries which would otherwise have to be obtained by tilling the soil after much labor on the part of man and beast, upon which subject more will be said in the following fifth and sixth sections. Each mission had an endowment of one thousand florins each year, which was provided by those who had founded the same. This money was applied to the support of the missionaries.
By the wish, indeed by the command, of Philip V, there was ordered to be given to each of the Californian missionaries, and also to others who in the vineyard of the Lord under Spanish dominion in America worked as missionaries, six hundred florins yearly out of the royal treasury. These offers, however, were not accepted, partly because it was not sure that the money would be received, because for many years under like circumstances the King’s orders for money had not been paid; partly because it did not appear to be sufficient, considering the unproductiveness of the land in the Californias and its remoteness from Mexico, where the money that was donated had to be spent in obtaining everything needed for the support of the missions, such as food, clothing, etc., and partly, also, because there was always a number of benevolent people who would offer one thousand florins to establish missions, and probably, also, because it was foreseen that for some time to come California would contribute very little to the royal treasury, while on the other hand the expenses incurred on account of ships and soldiers were already very large, and in the future would undoubtedly grow larger.
[Page 359]Therefore it will be seen that all the missions in California from 1697 to 1768 were not supported by the Catholic King, but by donations from private individuals. These, nevertheless, gave for every new mission either twenty thousand florins cash or as much in property as would produce yearly an income of one thousand florins.