VISUAL ACTIVITY Mission Santa Clara This 1880 painting of the Santa Clara Mission in California features a bucolic scene of farm labor that does not hint at the forced labor of Native Americans, who performed much of the manual labor at the missions. After the gold rush, when California became a state, the Jesuit order gained control of the mission and it became the University of Santa Clara, California’s first college. The Granger Collection, New York. READING THE IMAGE: What variety of peoples and occupations are portrayed in this image? CONNECTIONS: How did American rule affect the life of Californios in the second half of the nineteenth century?