CALIFORNIA AND ITS INHABITANTS
We kept up a constant connection with the Presidio, and by the close of
the summer I had added much to my vocabulary, beside having made the
acquaintance of nearly everybody in the place, and acquired some
knowledge of the character and habits of the people, as well as of the
institutions under which they live.
California was first discovered in 1536, by Cortes, and was
subsequently visited by numerous other adventurers as well as
commissioned voyagers of the Spanish crown. It was found to be
inhabited by numerous tribes of Indians, and to be in many parts
extremely fertile; to which, of course, was added rumors of gold mines,
pearl fishery, etc. No sooner was the importance of the country known,
than the Jesuits obtained leave to establish themselves in it, to
Christianize and enlighten the Indians. They established missions in
various parts of the country toward the close of the seventeenth
century, and collected the natives about them, baptizing them into the
church, and teaching them the arts of civilized life. To protect the
Jesuits in their missions, and at the same time to support the power of
the crown over the civilized Indians, two forts were erected and
garrisoned, one at San Diego, and the other at Monterey. These were
called Presidios, and divided the command of the whole country between
them. Presidios have since been established at Santa Barbara and San
Francisco; thus dividing the country into four large districts, each
with its presidio, and governed by the commandant. The soldiers, for
the most part, married civilized Indians; and thus, in the vicinity of
each presidio, sprung up, gradually, small towns. In the course of
time, vessels began to come into the ports to trade with the missions,
and received hides in return; and thus began the great trade of
California. Nearly all the cattle in the country belonged to the
missions, and they employed their Indians, who became, in fact, their
slaves, in tending their vast herds. In the year 1793, when Vancouver
visited San Diego, the mission had obtained great wealth and power, and
are accused of having depreciated the country with the sovereign, that
they might be allowed to retain their possessions. On the expulsion of
the Jesuits from the Spanish dominions, the missions passed into the
hands of the Franciscans, though without any essential change in their
management. Ever since the independence of Mexico, the missions have
been going down; until, at last, a law was passed, stripping them of
all their possessions, and confining the priests to their spiritual
duties; and at the same time declaring all the Indians free and
independent Rancheros. The change in the condition of the Indians was,
as may be supposed, only nominal: they are virtually slaves, as much as
they ever were. But in the missions, the change was complete. The
priests have now no power, except in their religious character, and the
great possessions of the missions are given over to be preyed upon by
the harpies of the civil power, who are sent there in the capacity of
administradores, to settle up the concerns; and who usually end, in a
few years, by making themselves fortunes, and leaving their
stewardships worse than they found them. The dynasty of the priests
was much more acceptable to the people of the country, and indeed, to
every one concerned with the country, by trade or otherwise, than that
of the administradores. The priests were attached perpetually to one
mission, and felt the necessity of keeping up its credit. Accordingly,
their debts were regularly paid, and the people were, in the main, well
treated, and attached to those who had spent their whole lives among
them. But the administradores are strangers sent from Mexico, having no
interest in the country; not identified in any way with their charge,
and, for the most part, men of desperate fortunes--broken down
politicians and soldiers--whose only object is to retrieve their
condition in as short a time as possible. The change had been made but
a few years before our arrival upon the coast, yet, in that short time,
the trade was much diminished, credit impaired, and the venerable
missions going rapidly to decay. The external arrangements remain the
same. There are four presidios, having under their protection the
various missions, and pueblos, which are towns formed by the civil
power, and containing no mission or presidio. The most northerly
presidio is San Francisco; the next Monterey; the next Santa Barbara;
including the mission of the same, St. Louis Obispo, and St.
Buenaventura, which is the finest mission in the whole country, having
very fertile soil and rich vineyards. The last, and most southerly, is
San Diego, including the mission of the same, San Juan Campestrano, the
Pueblo de los Angelos, the largest town in California, with the
neighboring mission of San Gabriel. The priests in spiritual matters
are subject to the Archbishop of Mexico, and in temporal matters to the
governor-general, who is the great civil and military head of the
country.
The government of the country is an arbitrary democracy; having no
common law, and no judiciary. Their only laws are made and unmade at
the caprice of the legislature, and are as variable as the legislature
itself. They pass through the form of sending representatives to the
congress at Mexico, but as it takes several months to go and return,
and there is very little communication between the capital and this
distant province, a member usually stays there, as permanent member,
knowing very well that there will be revolutions at home before he can
write and receive an answer; if another member should be sent, he has
only to challenge him, and decide the contested election in that way.
Revolutions are matters of constant occurrence in California. They are
got up by men who are at the foot of the ladder and in desperate
circumstances, just as a new political party is started by such men in
our own country. The only object, of course, is the loaves and fishes;
and instead of caucusing, paragraphing, libelling, feasting, promising,
and lying, as with us, they take muskets and bayonets, and seizing upon
the presidio and custom-house, divide the spoils, and declare a new
dynasty. As for justice, they know no law but will and fear. A
Yankee, who had been naturalized, and become a Catholic, and had
married in the country, was sitting in his house at the Pueblo de los
Angelos, with his wife and children, when a Spaniard, with whom he had
had a difficulty, entered the house, and stabbed him to the heart
before them all. The murderer was seized by some Yankees who had
settled there, and kept in confinement until a statement of the whole
affair could be sent to the governor-general. He refused to do anything
about it, and the countrymen of the murdered man, seeing no prospect of
justice being administered, made known that if nothing was done, they
should try the man themselves. It chanced that, at this time, there
was a company of forty trappers and hunters from Kentucky, with their
rifles, who had made their head-quarters at the Pueblo; and these,
together with the Americans and Englishmen in the place, who were
between twenty and thirty in number, took possession of the town, and
waiting a reasonable time, proceeded to try the man according to the
forms in their own country. A judge and jury were appointed, and he
was tried, convicted, sentenced to be shot, and carried out before the
town, with his eyes blindfolded. The names of all the men were then
put into a hat and each one pledging himself to perform his duty,
twelve names were drawn out, and the men took their stations with their
rifles, and, firing at the word, laid him dead. He was decently
buried, and the place was restored quietly to the proper authorities.
A general, with titles enough for an hidalgo, was at San Gabriel, and
issued a proclamation as long as the fore-top-bowline, threatening
destruction to the rebels, but never stirred from his fort; for forty
Kentucky hunters, with their rifles, were a match for a whole regiment
of hungry, drawling, lazy half-breeds. This affair happened while we
were at San Pedro, (the port of the Pueblo,) and we had all the
particulars directly from those who were on the spot. A few months
afterwards, another man, whom we had often seen in San Diego, murdered
a man and his wife on the high road between the Pueblo and San Louis
Rey, and the foreigners not feeling themselves called upon to act in
this case, the parties being all natives, nothing was done about it;
and I frequently afterwards saw the murderer in San Diego, where he was
living with his wife and family.
When a crime has been committed by Indians, justice, or rather
vengeance, is not so tardy. One Sunday afternoon, while I was at San
Diego, an Indian was sitting on his horse, when another, with whom he
had had some difficulty, came up to him, drew a long knife, and plunged
it directly into the horse's heart. The Indian sprang from his falling
horse, drew out the knife, and plunged it into the other Indian's
breast, over his shoulder, and laid him dead. The poor fellow was
seized at once, clapped into the calabozo, and kept there until an
answer could be received from Monterey. A few weeks afterwards, I saw
the poor wretch, sitting on the bare ground, in front of the calabozo,
with his feet chained to a stake, and handcuffs about his wrists. I
knew there was very little hope for him. Although the deed was done in
hot blood, the horse on which he was sitting being his own, and a great
favorite, yet he was an Indian, and that was enough. In about a week
after I saw him, I heard that he had been shot. These few instances
will serve to give one a notion of the distribution of justice in
California.
In their domestic relations, these people are no better than in their
public. The men are thriftless, proud, and extravagant, and very much
given to gaming; and the women have but little education, and a good
deal of beauty, and their morality, of course, is none of the best; yet
the instances of infidelity are much less frequent than one would at
first suppose. In fact, one vice is set over against another; and
thus, something like a balance is obtained. The women have but little
virtue, but then the jealousy of their husbands is extreme, and their
revenge deadly and almost certain. A few inches of cold steel has been
the punishment of many an unwary man, who has been guilty, perhaps, of
nothing more than indiscretion of manner. The difficulties of the
attempt are numerous, and the consequences of discovery fatal. With
the unmarried women, too, great watchfulness is used. The main object
of the parents is to marry their daughters well, and to this, the
slightest slip would be fatal. The sharp eyes of a dueña, and the cold
steel of a father or brother, are a protection which the characters of
most of them--men and women--render by no means useless; for the very
men who would lay down their lives to avenge the dishonor of their own
family, would risk the same lives to complete the dishonor of another.
Of the poor Indians, very little care is taken. The priests, indeed,
at the missions, are said to keep them very strictly, and some rules
are usually made by the alcaldes to punish their misconduct; but it all
amounts to but little. Indeed, to show the entire want of any sense of
morality or domestic duty among them, I have frequently known an Indian
to bring his wife, to whom he was lawfully married in the church, down
to the beach, and carry her back again, dividing with her the money
which she had got from the sailors. If any of the girls were
discovered by the alcalde to be open evil-livers, they were whipped,
and kept at work sweeping the square of the presidio, and carrying mud
and bricks for the buildings; yet a few reáls would generally buy them
off. Intemperance, too, is a common vice among the Indians. The
Spaniards, on the contrary, are very abstemious, and I do not remember
ever having seen a Spaniard intoxicated.
Such are the people who inhabit a country embracing four or five
hundred miles of sea-coast, with several good harbors; with fine
forests in the north; the waters filled with fish, and the plains
covered with thousands of herds of cattle; blessed with a climate, than
which there can be no better in the world; free from all manner of
diseases, whether epidemic or endemic; and with a soil in which corn
yields from seventy to eighty fold. In the hands of an enterprising
people, what a country this might be! we are ready to say. Yet how
long would a people remain so, in such a country? The Americans (as
those from the United States are called) and Englishmen, who are fast
filling up the principal towns, and getting the trade into their hands,
are indeed more industrious and effective than the Spaniards; yet their
children are brought up Spaniards, in every respect, and if the
"California fever" (laziness) spares the first generation, it always
attacks the second.