Whitman Mission National Historic Site: see National Parks and Monuments (table); Whitman, Marcus.

Mission Trail: see Camino Real, El.

Mission Indians, Native Americans of S and central California; so called because they were under the jurisdiction of some 21 Spanish missions that were established between 1769 and 1823. The major groups were the Chumash, Costanoan, Diegueño, Gabrieleno, Juaneño, and Luiseño. The first mission was established at San Diego. The native population was taught and forced to work at agriculture. The land and the herds of sheep were theoretically owned by the Native Americans themselves, but were held in trust by the Franciscan fathers. The Mission Indians now live on reservations in California. In the 1990 U.S. census there were over 2,000 Native Americans identifying themselves as Mission Indians in the United States, as well as some 3,000 Chumash, 1,000 Costanoan, 2,200 Diegueño, 500 Gabrieleno, 1,500 Juaneño, and 2,800 Luiseño.

Mission, city (1990 pop. 28,653), Hidalgo co., extreme S Tex.; inc. 1910. It is a processing and canning center for citrus fruits (especially grapefruit) and vegetables grown in the irrigated lower Rio Grande valley. Consumer goods and concrete are manufactured, and oil wells are also in Mission. The city was founded on property that had belonged to the Oblate Fathers; their chapel still stands by the Rio Grande.

American Muslim Mission: see Black Muslims.

Organized effort to spread the Christian faith. St. Paul evangelized much of Asia Minor and Greece, and the new religion spread rapidly along the trade routes of the Roman Empire. The advance of Christianity slowed with the disintegration of the Roman Empire after AD 500 and the growth of Arab power in the 7th–8th century, but Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries continued to spread the faith in western and northern Europe, while missionaries of the Greek church in Constantinople worked in eastern Europe and Russia. Missions to Islamic areas and Asia began in the medieval period, and when Spain, Portugal, and France established overseas empires in the 16th century, the Roman Catholic church sent missionaries to the Americas and the Philippines. A renewed wave of Roman Catholic missionary work in the 19th century focused on Africa and Asia. Protestant churches were slower to undertake foreign missions, but in the 19th and early 20th century there was a great upsurge in Protestant missionary activity. Missionary work continues today, though it is often discouraged by the governments of former European colonies that have won independence.

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or Black Muslims

African American religious movement that mingles elements of Islam and black nationalism. It was founded in 1931 by Wallace D. Fard, who established its first mosque in Detroit, Mich. Fard retired into obscurity and his assistant Elijah Muhammad, who founded a second temple in Chicago, took over in 1934. He asserted the moral and cultural superiority of Africans over whites and urged African Americans to renounce Christianity as a tool of the oppressors. His teachings also included the traditional Islamic tenets of monotheism, submission to God, and strong family life. The Nation of Islam grew quickly after World War II, and in the early 1960s it achieved national prominence through the work of Malcolm X. Leadership disputes led Malcolm to form a separate organization and finally to his assassination in 1965. In the 1970s Elijah Muhammad was succeeded by his son, Wallace D. Muhammad (b. 1933), who renamed the organization the American Muslim Mission. In 1985 he dissolved the Mission, urging its members to become orthodox Muslims. A splinter group headed by Louis Farrakhan retains the movement's original name and principles. In the early 21st century there were approximately 10,000 members of the Nation of Islam.

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