The Mission Bell and the People It Rang Over
By Margaret E. Callahan
Length4h 28m
About this audiobook
Junípero Serra reached San Diego on the first of July, 1769, on a leg so infected he could barely stand, and the expedition he had joined was in worse shape. Of the three hundred or so people who had set out from Baja California that spring, only about half were still alive. Scurvy had gutted the crew of the San Carlos, and the supply ship San José had vanished at sea. On the shore, the Kumeyaay fishermen of Kosoy mended their nets and watched the strangers come off the ships.
On July 16, on ground that belonged to Kosoy, Serra blessed a cross made of two timbers and founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first link in a chain that would reach as far north as Sonoma. Over the next half century the missions drew Kumeyaay, Tongva, Chumash, Ohlone and dozens of other peoples into a world of baptismal registers, rationed corn and compulsory labor, and soldiers went after the ones who ran.
That world outlasted the earthquakes of 1812 and the Chumash revolt that held La Purísima for nearly a month in 1824, but not secularization. After 1833, Mexican rancho grants handed mission land to settlers rather than to the people who had worked it. Later Californians turned the missions into a romance of gentle padres and red-tiled roofs. The descendants of the people who built them tell it differently.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length4 hrs 28 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 19, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The Harbor and the Strangers
2Chapter 2: A Chain of Bells
3Chapter 3: The Languages of the Land
4Chapter 4: Adobe and Ration
5Chapter 5: The Earth That Shook
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 6: La Purísima, 1824
7Chapter 7: The Mexican Years
8Chapter 8: The Rancho Grab
9Chapter 9: After the Padres
10Chapter 10: The Myth and the Memory
11Chapter 11: The People Who Stayed
12Chapter 12: The Bell on the Ridge
13About the Author
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Ghosts of HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino8h 59m4.5 (877)$23
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
You may also like
Crear en peligroEdwidge Danticat5h 53m4.3 (4.7K)$12 · $0.00
A History of the FutureJames Howard Kunstler11h 49m4.0 (2.3K)$20
A Kidnapped WestMilan Kundera1h 25m4.3 (2.1K)$16 · $0.00
GoliathMax Blumenthal22h 19m4.3 (1.6K)$30
Twenty-Two Years a Slave and Forty Years a FreemanAustin Steward8h 53m4.2 (255)$1 · $0.00
The Harrows of SpringJames Howard Kunstler10h 31m4.0 (2.4K)$23
Year ZeroIan Buruma14h 27m4.1 (2.9K)$23
The VortexScott Carney, Jason Miklian15h 26m4.4 (1K)$33 · $0.00
I Want to Burn this Place DownMaris Kreizman4h 40m3.5 (2.1K)$20 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
One Hundred And Four HorsesMandy Retzlaff10h4.3 (1.2K)$29 · $0.00
The MandiblesLionel Shriver13h 46m3.8 (13K)$33 · $0.00
WoolHugh Howey15h4.3 (336K)$23
We Want Our Bodies Backjessica Care moore2h 2m4.5 (899)$16 · $0.00
Daughters of Smoke and FireAva Homa11h 6m4.3 (3.5K)$20
The MomentBakari Sellers4h 33m4.3 (329)$20 · $0.00
The Survivors of the ClotildaHannah Durkin11h 20m4.1 (479)$29 · $0.00
Radio Free AfghanistanSaad Mohseni, Jenna Krajeski10h 27m4.4 (388)$29 · $0.00
Read DangerouslyAzar Nafisi8h 29m4.1 (2.8K)$26 · $0.00
It Wasn’t about SlaverySamuel W. Mitcham Jr.6h 21m4.4 (1.7K)$17