Written by Professor Judy Scott and illustrated by Lydia Gibson, When the Mission Bells Rang is an imagined fable created to depict the kinds of interactions the Amah Mutsun people had with the Spaniards, who colonized their lands.
To learn more about this book and purchase a hard copy, visit this website. You may also download a free pdf version here.
Illustration of Mission Santa Cruz
Listen to Veronica Martinez, an Amah Mutsun Tribal Band member, read When the Mission Bells Rang here. Visit this page to find initial ideas for using this book in elementary classrooms generated quickly by the ongoing Critical Missions Teacher Inquiry Group.
About the Critical Missions Project at UC Santa Cruz’s curriculum work
This Critical Missions Project sponsored by the UC Santa Cruz Humanities Lab aims to center Amah Mutsun stories and Indigenous perspectives in local school curricula and lessons addressing the California Missions. Part of the larger Critical Missions Studies initiative, this is a collaborative project led by Professors Judith Scott and Renya Ramirez and bringing together Amah Mutsun Tribal Band members, UCSC native scholars and researchers, the History & Civics Project, and regional teachers. We focus on multiple levers of change to challenge dominant colonial narratives and current practices in teaching missions and the mission era. One of those levers is learning from Amah Mutsun Tribal members.
Our goal is to explore Amah Mutsun perspectives on, and experiences at, Mission San Juan Bautista and Mission Santa Cruz. Drawing from these perspectives, we are developing curricula that will disrupt the familiar colonial narrative of the Mission period while highlighting that Native communities persist, that we care deeply about their stories, and that it’s important for all Californians to understand this history.
Our work is ongoing and includes creating lessons like this one that asks students to compare varied accounts about California Indians’ relationship to the land and question dominant stories, and also generating alternate projects to build out and use in the classroom. To find out more about our work and find additional resources, visit this blog post or watch this presentation from Spring 2021 at the Teaching History Conference. We are working on a more extensive website and set of curriculum resources that includes oral testimonies from Amah Mutsun Tribal Band members.
Please see this beta website that includes some of the resources on this page and more.
See here for more information about the Bell Removal Ceremony and more resources.
See here for more information about Critical Mission Studies and Rewriting the History of California’s Missions.
Check back soon for updates and resources as we continue this work! And please email Emily Howe, Program Manager at ejhowe@ucsc.edu for more information.