Over the next 20 years, word spread throughout the Ohlone tribes, including the Zayante Indians, that the Santa Cruz Mission would provide a regular source of food, even through the winter, warm shelter in the winter, clothes made from woven fabrics (a miracle to the Native Americans), manufactured items (also miraculous) both useful (pots and pans) and curious (trinkets such as glass beads, etc.), and education, if they came to live at the mission. Unfortunately, once lured to the mission by these things, the Indians became virtual indentured servants. In fact, for the Mission system to work it required the services of large numbers of "workers" (to till the gardens, construct and maintain buildings, etc.), something which New Spain (Mexico) was unable to provide because few there were willing to relocate to what was considered the harsh and primitive environment of Alta (Upper) California. The missionaries truly believed they were benefiting what they considered barbaric people through teaching them the manual skills of carpentry, European farming techniques, etc., and through "civilizing" them to the Spanish / European religious and cultural beliefs and practices. This process shattered the ancient native culture wherever it was exposed to it. In addition, diseases which were mostly annoyances to their European hosts decimated the Indian populace, and only small groups remained after 1820. In 1821, Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, and California came under control of the Mexican government. In the 1830s, Mission Santa Cruz and other California missions were secularized by the Mexican government; only to seriously decline and, in some cases, fall into ruin. The very last of the Zayante people was a woman who lived for many years beside Zayante Creek. When she died in 1934, she was buried somewhere among the giant redwoods in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Her grave, like her people, is lost now.