Spain established 21 missions along the California coast between 1769 and 1823, creating a colonial network that reshaped indigenous populations, land use, and settlement patterns across what is now the state. The mission system, administered by Franciscan friars and backed by Spanish military force, brought roughly 130,000 Native Californians into direct contact with European diseases, forced labor, religious conversion, and cultural displacement over a period of more than six decades. The consequences of that system