Comment on Anderson's Review of Nava and Berger
Homer Aschmann, University of California, Riverside

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ABSTRACT:

In his review of California: Five Centuries of Cultural Contrast by Julian Nava and Bob Berger (Journal of California Anthropology, Winter, 1976, pp. 100-103), E.N.Anderson makes some relevant points concerning their "whitewashing" of the Spanish missionaries' treatment of the Indians. The reasons for this whitewash perhaps do not need to be expressed. While I generally agree with and like the tone of the review, in his correction of Nava's and Berger's gross errors concerning mission history Dr. Anderson has introduced another set of errors concerning mission history that require comment. He notes: At a more remote level, why did the Colonial government give California to the harsh Franciscans rather than the more tolerant Dominicans and Jesuits, who had more success in keeping their charges alive? The Dominicans had been put out of (Lower) California, and the Jesuits out of all missionary activity, to a great extent because they were too successful at protecting their charges from Spanish land-grabbers.