06.17.08
On San Antonio and the missions
I just got back from a lovely visit to my sister in San Antonio.
It was a good trip. I got to meet some of her friends, see her house (which is very nice, I like it), and do a little sight-seeing.
But I will tell you this; the missions in san antonio pissed me off.
The funding and the parks are a joint project of the National Park Service and the Arch-diocese of San Antonio. And apparently, the National Park service ceded nearly all decision making authority about the content of the informational signs to the catholic church.
Churches, and evangelical churches in particular (I count catholics as evangelical), are particularly bad about ever admitting any fault. So, since they cannot admit the fact that they were culpable in committing atrocities, we are treated to several hours worth of putrid crap about how “the missionaries helped the Indians learn modern technology, and gave them faith and hope” and blah, Blah, BLAH.
Except for one video which is completely removed from the actual mission grounds, there are no mentions that maybe the indians weren’t that interested in converting. There’s no mention of the roving bands of soldiers and priests capturing indians and bringing them to the missions by force, because they were killing indians so fast that death rates exceeded birth rates. No mention on the grounds themselves of the indians slipping out to worship their actual gods. No mention of the escapes that sometimes caused priests and soldiers to chase indians for hundreds of miles to bring them back to the missions by force.
No, all of that is glossed over. Only the happy stuff makes it on the informational signs.
It made me sick.
Other than that, though, from a purely historical standpoint, the missions were really cool. It’s worth the walk if you’re ever in San Antone. Just don’t read the signs if you’ve had anything to eat…you’re likely to puke it all back up.
