page_title: Mexican secularization act of 1833
section_title: Current status
hierarchical_section_title: Mexican secularization act of 1833 / Current status
caption_attribution_description: English: Mission San Juan Capistrano, April 2005. Photograph by Robert A. Estremo, copyright 2005.
context_page_description: The Mexican Secularization Act of 1833 was passed twelve years after Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. Mexico feared Spain would continue to have influence and power in California because most of the Spanish missions in California remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church in Spain. As the new Mexican republic matured, calls for the secularization of the missions increased. Once fully implemented, the secularization act, called the Decree for the Secularisation of the Missions of the Californias, took away much of the California Mission land and sold it or gave it away in large grants called ranchos.
context_section_description: Only two buildings survived intact in the chain of 21 Missions started by Father Serra. The chapel at Mission San Francisco de Asís, also called Mission Dolores, built in 1791, and the Mission San Juan Capistrano chapel, the oldest building in California still in use, built in 1782.
  The missions were restored using photos, painting, drawings and remains of building walls and foundations.
  Towns, (pueblos), sprang up around each of the 21 missions with the exception of one, Mission San Antonio de Padua. Mexican Governor Pío Pico declared all mission buildings in Alta California for sale, but no one bid for Mission San Antonio. The mission is currently surrounded by the Fort Hunter Liggett Military Reservation, which was acquired by the U.S. Army from the Hearst family during World War II to train troops. Additional land was acquired from the Army in 1950 to increase the mission area to over 85 acres (340,000 m²). The fort is still actively training troops today and surrounds the mission. This is the only mission where one can see some surrounding mission support artifacts.
caption: Mission San Juan Capistrano
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