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 discovered in 1534 by Ximenes, or in 1536 by
Cortes, I cannot settle which, and was subsequently visited by
many 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, were added rumors of gold mines, pearl fishery, &c. 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, San Francisco, and other places,
dividing the country into large districts, each with its presidio,
and governed by a commandante. 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 serfs, in tending their vast herds. In the year 1793,
when Vancouver visited San Diego, the missions 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
had been going down; until, at last, a law was passed, stripping
them of all their possessions, and confining the priests to their
spiritual duties, 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
serfs, 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 connected permanently to one
mission, and felt the necessity of keeping up its credit.
Accordingly the debts of the missions 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 were going rapidly to decay.
The external political arrangements remain the same. There are
four or more presidios, having under their protection the various
missions, and the 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, San Luis Obispo, and
Santa Buenaventura, which is said to be the best mission in the
whole country, having fertile soil and rich vineyards. The last,
and most southerly, is San Diego, including the mission of the
same, San Juan Capistrano, the Pueblo de los Angeles, 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 nothing that we should call a 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; and if another member should be
sent, he has only to challenge him, and decide the contested
election in that way.
Revolutions are matters of frequent 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 organization may
be 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, 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 little 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 Angeles,
with his wife and children, when a Mexican, 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. The governor-general
refused to do anything about it, and the countrymen of the
murdered man, seeing no prospect of justice being administered,
gave notice that, if nothing was done, they should try the man
themselves. It chanced that, at this time, there was a company of
some thirty or forty trappers and hunters from the Western States,
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 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, and a dozen of Yankees
and Englishmen, 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 the particulars
from those who were on the spot. A few months afterwards, another
man was murdered on the high-road between the Pueblo and San Luis
Rey by his own wife and a man with whom she ran off. The
foreigners pursued and shot them both, according to one story.
According to another version, nothing was done about it, as the
parties were natives, and a man whom I frequently saw in San Diego
was pointed out as the murderer. Perhaps they were two cases, that
had got mixed.
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 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 favorite with
him, 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 not better than in
their public. The men are thriftless, proud, 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. If
the women have but little virtue, 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. The difficulties of the attempt are numerous, and
the consequences of discovery fatal, in the better classes. With
the unmarried women, too, great watchfulness is used. The main
object of the parents is to marry their daughters well, and to
this a fair name is necessary. The sharp eyes of a dueña, and the
ready weapons 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; yet 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 reals would generally buy them off.
Intemperance, too, is a common vice among the Indians. The
Mexicans, on the contrary, are abstemious, and I do not remember
ever having seen a Mexican 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 Mexicans; yet their children are brought up
Mexicans in most respects, and if the ``California fever''
(laziness) spares the first generation, it is likely to attack the
second.