Religion
Misión San Estévan del Rey de Ácoma
Located in modern-day New Mexico, this church was founded in 1629 by Spanish priests in 1629. It belonged to the Spanish monarch’s larger project of converting the native peoples of the Americas to Christianity.
Misión San Elizario
Located in modern-day El Paso, Texas, the San Elizario Mission was originally established in 1789 by Spanish friars. The structure that stands today is considerably newer (1877) because a series of natural disasters destroyed previous buildings.
Misión Nuestra Señora del Refugio
The Nuestra Señora del Refugio Mission was a Spanish colonial church complex built in the late-eighteenth century. By this period, Spanish friars had established dozens of similar communities throughout the modern-day US Southwest.
Misión San Juan Capistrano
The Misión San Juan Capistrano was a Spanish colonial complex intended to evangelize the native peoples. Although Spain claimed vast stretches of territory throughout the Americas, it struggled to produce enough bureaucrats to staff local governments.
Misión San Agustin de Isleta
This church complex, located near Albuquerque, New Mexico, once belonged to a network of Spanish colonial missions.
Misión San Ildefonso
The San Ildefonso Mission, once operated as a Spanish colonial church near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Its adobe structure was built with indigenous labor under the supervision of Francsican friars.
Misión Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña
The Spanish Crown claimed possession of vast territories throughout North, Central, and South America between the late-fifteenth and early and nineteenth centuries.
Misión San Francisco de la Espada
The Misión San Francisco de la Espada is one of the many churches that Spanish friars founded along the modern-day Southwestern United States. This area was a frontier-zone, bordering indigneous communities and British and French territories.
Misión San José y San Miguel de Aguayo
The San Jose Mission in San Antonio, Texas is one of the most complete complexes in the southwest. It was built in the mid-eighteenth century to evangelize approximately 300 indigenous people.Their tiny, two-room living quarters lined the interior walls of the complex.
Misión Santa Cruz de San Sabá
The ruins of the Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá are located in Menard, Texas. It once operated as a Spanish colonial church and military outpost. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Spanish friars established many such structures across the Southwestern United States.