2026/01/01 by Bernard Gordillo Brockmann
paper · doi:10.1525/phr.2026.95.3.317
This article is a longue durée history of bell sounds, symbols, and power in California. From 1769 to 1846, church bells characterized the soundscape of the twenty-one Franciscan missions. They accorded the medium of sound a vital role in the colonization of California Indian people and their land. The church bell with “sound and voice” served as a tool of discipline that shaped time, space, and movement. In the 1880s, mission history seized the U.S. popular imagination, inspiring “fantasy heritage” aesthetics and mission preservation. The mission bell then became a widespread public and private California symbol during the twentieth century. In 1906, the El Camino Real bell marker emerged as an emblem of the state highway system and mission tourism. Thousands of these markers, across the state, have marked the legacies of colonization for some California Indians. More than a memorial, the mission bell signifies changes in colonial power relations that echo into the present.