POSTCARD N.230 -  USA

Postcard sent on the 19th May; received on the 26th May 2026

Postcard image:  Old Mission Santa Barbara, California

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Ravi sent me another card from his US journey. This time from Santa Barbara., in the State of California. Bohomȧ  sthoothi, Ravi!

From 1769 to 1821 what is now the State of California was colonised by the Kingdom of Spain, a situation that come to an end when Mexico became independent and took control over the territory which it would cede to the United States in 1848 by the end of the Mexican-American war.

Spain established in what was then known as Alta California, a total of 21 Missions through which the European coloniser sought to convert Natives to Catholicism and to exploit them as workforce for the upholding of the Spanish colonial economy.

The tenth of these Missions was established on Santa Barbara's day, December the 4th, 1786, by a Franciscan priest, father Fermin Lasuén, occupying a rise overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Ynez Mountains,

Santa Barbara Mission, which would become known as the Queen of Missions, due to its architectural beauty  featuring a classic Roman Temple facade, framed by twin bell towers, and the fact that it served as the headquarters for the Franciscan order in Alta California, is to this day run by Franciscan friars and functions as a parish church of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Ravi used a "Forever Global" self-adhesive stamp issued on 24Jan2025, illustrated with a 1794 Compass Rose that was drawn in 1794 by "...Lucia Wadsworth — the aunt of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — in her school geography notebook...", according to Wikipedia.