Quarai Mission NM
Photos courtesy of Mike Sinnwell October 2014
A welcome site on a beautiful Saturday morning. The top of the mission pops out on the horizon as you drive slowly up the winding road. A quiet haunting place. I found it interesting that all the churches in the missions were shaped like a cross having only some flagstone or similar stones for floors.
This Church is over 40 feet tall and was built by Indian woman and children under the direction of the friars. Choir lofts with a stairway were built. I can only imagine the acoustics in these churches.
Drought, famine, conflicting cultures are what devastated the people of this region. The Spanish attempted to collect tribute and it failed. If you consider a conversion a success then the missionaries tried to convert the Indians with some success. The various Spanish expeditions into the territory concluded that New Mexico would never be profitable. The Spanish did however expand the agriculture and livestock enterprises with wheat, fruit, cattle, goats, and sheep.