Like all the 21 California missions, the nearby Native Americans would have done the physical labor in the building of each mission. Here, at Mission San Miguel, it was the Salinan people. At founding in 1797, a wooden cross would have been planted to hold its first service. It was quickly followed by a temporary wooden structure with a small adobe church built in 1798. As the surrounding Salinan people were converted in Christianity (becoming neophytes), they were taught the skills to make the adobe bricks that would constuct its Mission buildings. When the neophyte population got large enough (outgrowing its original small adobe church), the current Mission San Miguel was built from 1816-1818. Native Americans who converted to the Catholic Faith, who became neophytes, became the labor force that allowed all California missions to exist and prosper.
The local indians
Call them
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