 The Spanish settlement of Alta California was the last colonization project to expand Spain's vastly over-extended empire in North America, and they tried to do it with minimal cost and support.Approximately half the cost of settling Alta California was borne by donations and half by funds from the Spanish crown.Massive Indian revolts in New Mexico's Pueblo Revolt among the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande valley in the 1680s as well as Pima Indian Revolt in 1751 and the ongoing Seri conflicts in Sonora Mexico provided the Franciscan friars with arguments to establish missions with fewer colonial settlers.