The Old Franciscan Missions Of California Part 18

One of the ranches of San Luis Obispo was that of Santa Margarita on the north side of the Sierra Santa Lucia. As far as I know there is no record of the date when the chapel was built, yet it was a most interesting and important structure.

In May, 1904, its ident.i.ty was completely destroyed, its interior walls being dynamited and removed and the whole structure roofed over to be used as a barn.

It originally consisted of a chapel about 40 feet long and 30 feet wide, and eight rooms. The chapel was at the southwest end. The whole building was 120 feet long and 20 feet wide. The walls were about three feet thick, and built of large pieces of rough sandstone and red bricks, all cemented strongly together with a white cement that is still hard and tenacious. It is possible there was no _fachada_ to the chapel at the southwest end, for a well-built elliptical arched doorway, on the southeast side, most probably was the main entrance.

It has long been believed that this was not the only Mission building at Santa Margarita. Near by are three old adobe houses, all recently renovated out of all resemblance to their original condition, and all roofed with red Mission tiles. These were built in the early days. The oldest Mexican inhabitants of the present-day Santa Margarita remember them as a part of the Mission building.

Here, then, is explanation enough for the a.s.sumption of a large Indian population on this ranch, which led the neighboring padres to establish a chapel for their Christianization and civilization. Undoubtedly in its aboriginal days there was a large Indian population, for there were all the essentials in abundance. Game of every kind--deer, antelope, rabbits, squirrels, bear, ducks, geese, doves, and quail--yet abound; also roots of every edible kind, and more acorns than in any other equal area in the State. There is a never failing flow of mountain water and innumerable springs, as well as a climate at once warm and yet bracing, for here on the northern slopes of the Santa Lucia, frost is not uncommon.

CHAPEL OF SANTA ISABEL (SAN MIGUEL)

I have elsewhere referred to the water supply of Santa Isabel as being used for irrigation connected with San Miguel Mission. There is every evidence that a large rancheria existed at Santa Isabel, and that for many years it was one of the valued rancheros of the Mission. Below the Hot Springs the remains of a large dam still exist, which we now know was built by the padres for irrigation purposes. A large tract of land below was watered by it, and we have a number of reports of the annual yield of grain, showing great fertility and productivity. Near the present ranch house at Santa Isabel are large adobe ruins, evidently used as a house for the majordomo and for the padre on his regular visitations to the rancheria. One of the larger rooms was doubtless a chapel where ma.s.s was said for the neophytes who cultivated the soil in this region.

CHAPEL OF SAN ANTONIO DE PALA

The chapel at Pala is perhaps the best known of all the asistencias on account of its picturesque campanile. It was built by the indefatigable Padre Peyri, in 1816, and is about twenty miles from San Luis Rey, to which it belonged. Within a year or two, by means of a resident padre, over a thousand converts were gathered, reciting their prayers and tilling the soil. A few buildings, beside the chapel, were erected, and the community, far removed from all political strife, must have been happy and contented in its mountain-valley home. The chapel is a long, narrow adobe structure, 144 by 27 feet, roofed with red tiles. The walls within were decorated in the primitive and singular fashion found at others of the Missions, and upon the altar were several statues which the Indians valued highly.

Pala is made peculiarly interesting as the present home of the evicted Palatingwa (Hot Springs) Indians of Warner's Ranch. Here these wretchedly treated "wards of the nation" are now struggling with the problem of life, with the fact ever before them, when they think, (as they often do, for several of them called my attention to the fact) that the former Indian population of Pala has totally disappeared. At the time of the secularization of San Luis Rey, Pala suffered with the rest; and when the Americans finally took possession it was abandoned to the tender mercies of the straying, seeking, searching, devouring homesteader. In due time it was "home-steaded" The chapel and graveyard were ultimately deeded back; and when the Landmarks Club took hold it was agreed that the ruins "revert to their proper ownership, the church."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAMPANILE AND CHAPEL, SAN ANTONIO DE PALA.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE CAMPANILE AND CHAPEL, SAN ANTONIO DE PALA.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN DOORWAY AT SANTA MARGARITA CHAPEL.]

Though all the original Indians were ousted long ago from their lands at Pala, those who lived anywhere within a dozen or a score miles still took great interest in the old buildings, the decorations of the church, and the statues of the saints. Whenever a priest came and held services a goodly congregation a.s.sembled, for a number of Mexicans, as well as Indians, live in the neighborhood.

That they loved the dear old asistencia was manifested by Americans, Mexicans, and Indians alike, for when the Landmarks Club visited it in December, 1901, and asked for a.s.sistance to put it in order, help was immediately volunteered to the extent of $217, if the work were paid for at the rate of $1.75 per day.

With a desire to promote the good feeling aimed at in recent dealings with the evicted Indians of Warner's Ranch, now located at Pala, the bishop of the diocese sent them a priest. He, however, was of an alien race, and unfamiliar with either the history of the chapel, its memories, or the feelings of the Indians; and to their intense indignation, they found that without consulting them, or his own superiors, he had destroyed nearly all the interior decorations by covering them with a coating of whitewash.

The building now is in fairly good condition and the Indians have a pastor who holds regular services for them. In the main they express themselves as highly contented with their present condition, and on a visit paid them in April, 1913, I found them happy and prosperous.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE MISSION INDIANS

The disastrous effect of the order of secularization upon the Indians, as well as the Missions themselves, has been referred to in a special chapter. Here I wish to give, in brief, a clearer idea of the present condition of the Indians than was there possible. In the years 1833-1837 secularization actually was accomplished. The knowledge that it was coming had already done much injury. The Pious Fund, which then amounted to upwards of a half-million dollars, was confiscated by the Mexican government. The officials said it was merely "borrowed." This practically left the Indians to their own resources. A certain amount of land and stock were to be given to each head of a family, and tools were to be provided. Owing to the long distance between California and the City of Mexico, there was much confusion as to how the changes should be brought about. There have been many charges made, alleging that the padres wilfully allowed the Mission property to go to ruin, when they were deprived of its control. This ruin would better be attributed to the general demoralization of the times than to any definite policy.

For it must be remembered that the political conditions of Mexico at that time were most unsettled. None knew what a day or an hour might bring forth. All was confusion, uncertainty, irresponsibility. And in the _melee_ Mission property and Mission Indians suffered.

What was to become of the Indians? Imagine the father of a family--that had no mother--suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed away, and all the property, garden, granary, mill, storehouse, orchards, cattle, placed in other hands. What would the children do?

So now the Indians, like bereft children, knew not what to do, and, naturally, they did what our own children would do. Led by want and hunger, some sought and found work and food, and others, alas, became thieves. The Mission establishment was the organized inst.i.tution that had cared for them, and had provided the work that supported them. No longer able to go and live "wildly" as of old, they were driven to evil methods by necessity unless the new government directed their energies into right channels. Few attempted to do this; hence the results that were foreseen by the padres followed.

July 7, 1846, saw the Mexican flag in California hauled down, and the Stars and Stripes raised in its place; but as far as the Indian was concerned, the change was for the worse instead of the better. Indeed, it may truthfully be said that the policies of the three governments, Spanish, Mexican, and American, have shown three distinct phases, and that the last is by far the worst.

Our treatment of these Indians reads like a hideous nightmare.

Absolutely no forceful and effective protest seems to have been made against the indescribable wrongs perpetrated. The gold discoveries of 1849 brought into the country a cla.s.s of adventurers, gamblers, liquor sellers, and camp followers of the vilest description. The Indians became helpless victims in the hands of these infamous wretches, and even the authorities aided to make these Indians "good."

Bartlett, who visited the country in 1850 to 1853, tells of meeting with an old Indian at San Luis Rey who spoke glowingly of the good times they had when the padres were there, but "now," he said, "they were scattered about, he knew not where, without a home or protectors, and were in a miserable, starving condition." Of the San Francisco Indians he says:

"They are a miserable, squalid-looking set, squatting or lying about the corners of the streets, without occupation.

They have now no means of obtaining a living, as their lands are all taken from them; and the Missions for which they labored, and which provided after a sort for many thousands of them, are abolished. No care seems to be taken of them by the Americans; on the contrary, the effort seems to be to exterminate them as soon as possible."

According to the most conservative estimates there were over thirty thousand Indians under the control of the Missions at the time of secularization in 1833. To-day, how many are there? I have spent long days in the different Mission localities, arduously searching for Indians, but oftentimes only to fail of my purpose. In and about San Francisco, there is not one to be found. At San Carlos Borromeo, in both Monterey and the Carmelo Valley, except for a few half-breeds, no one of Indian blood can be discovered. It is the same at San Miguel, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara. At Pala, that romantic chapel, where once the visiting priest from San Luis Rey found a congregation of several hundreds awaiting his ministrations, the land was recently purchased from white men, by the United States Indian Commission, as a new home for the evicted Palatingwa Indians of Warner's Ranch. These latter Indians, in recent interviews with me, have pertinently asked: "Where did the white men get this land, so they could sell it to the government for us? Indians lived here many centuries before a white man had ever seen the 'land of the sundown sea.' When the 'long-gowns' first came here, there were many Indians at Pala. Now they are all gone. Where? And how do we know that before long we shall not be driven out, and be gone, as they were driven out and are gone?"

At San Luis Rey and San Diego, there are a few scattered families, but very few, and most of these have fled far back into the desert, or to the high mountains, as far as possible out of reach of the civilization that demoralizes and exterminates them.

A few scattered remnants are all that remain.

Let us seek for the real reason why.

The system of the padres was patriarchal, paternal. Certain it is that the Indians were largely treated as if they were children. No one questions or denies this statement. Few question that the Indians were happy under this system, and all will concede that they made wonderful progress in the so-called arts of civilization. From crude savagery they were lifted by the training of the fathers into usefulness and productiveness. They retained their health, vigor, and virility. They were, by necessity perhaps, but still undeniably, chaste, virtuous, temperate, honest, and reasonably truthful. They were good fathers and mothers, obedient sons and daughters, amenable to authority, and respectful to the counsels of old age.

All this and more may unreservedly be said for the Indians while they were under the control of the fathers. That there were occasionally individual cases of harsh treatment is possible. The most loving and indulgent parents are now and again ill-tempered, fretful, or nervous.

The fathers were men subject to all the limitations of other men.

Granting these limitations and making due allowance for human imperfection, the rule of the fathers must still be admired for its wisdom and commended for its immediate results.

Now comes the order of secularization, and a little later the domination of the Americans. Those opposed to the control of the fathers are to set the Indians free. They are to be "removed from under the irksome restraint of cold-blooded priests who have held them in bondage not far removed from slavery"!! They are to have unrestrained liberty, the broadest and fullest intercourse with the great American people, the white, Caucasian American, not the dark-skinned Mexican!!!

What was the result. Let an eye-witness testify:

"These thousands of Indians had been held in the most rigid discipline by the Mission Fathers, and after their emanc.i.p.ation by the Supreme Government of Mexico, had been reasonably well governed by the local authorities, who found in them indispensable auxiliaries as farmers and harvesters, hewers of wood and drawers of water, and besides, the best horse-breakers and herders in the world, necessary to the management of the great herds of the country. These Indians were Christians, docile even to servility, and excellent laborers. Then came the Americans, followed soon after by the discovery of, and the wild rush for, gold, and the relaxation for the time being of a healthy administration of the laws.

The ruin of this once happy and useful people commenced. The cultivators of vineyards began to pay their Indian _peons_ with _aguardiente_, a real 'firewater.' The consequence was that on receiving their wages on Sat.u.r.day evening, the laborers habitually met in great gatherings and pa.s.sed the night in gambling, drunkenness, and debauchery. On Sunday the streets were crowded from morning until night with Indians,--males and females of all ages, from the girl of ten or twelve to the old man and woman of seventy or eighty.

"By four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, Los Angeles Street, from Commercial to n.i.g.g.e.r Alley, Aliso Street from Los Angeles to Alameda, and n.i.g.g.e.r Alley, were crowded with a ma.s.s of drunken Indians, yelling and fighting: men and women, boys and girls using tooth and nail, and frequently knives, but always in a manner to strike the spectator with horror.

"At sundown, the pompous marshal, with his Indian special deputies, who had been confined in jail all day to keep them sober, would drive and drag the combatants to a great corral in the rear of the Downey Block, where they slept away their intoxication. The following morning they would be exposed for sale, as slaves for the week. Los Angeles had its slave-mart as well as New Orleans and Constantinople,--only the slaves at Los Angeles were sold fifty-two times a year, as long as they lived, a period which did not generally exceed one, two, or three years under the new dispensation. They were sold for a week, and bought up by vineyard men and others at prices ranging from one to three dollars, one-third of which was to be paid to the _peon_ at the end of the week, which debt, due for well-performed labor, was invariably paid in _aguardiente,_ and the Indian made happy, until the following Monday morning, he having pa.s.sed through another Sat.u.r.day night and Sunday's saturnalia of debauchery and b.e.s.t.i.a.lity.

Those thousands of honest, useful people were absolutely destroyed in this way."

In reference to these statements of the sale of the Indians as slaves, it should be noted that the act was done under the cover of the law. The Indian was "fined" a certain sum for his drunkenness, and was then turned over to the tender mercies of the employer, who paid the fine.

Thus "justice" was perverted to the vile ends of the conscienceless scoundrels who posed as "officers of the law."

Charles Warren Stoddard, one of California's sweetest poets, realized to the full the mercenary treatment the Missions and the Indians had received, and one of the latest and also most powerful poems he ever wrote, "The Bells of San Gabriel," deals with this spoliation as a theme. The poem first appeared in _Sunset Magazine, the Pacific Monthly,_ and with the kind consent of the editor I give the last stanza.

"Where are they now, O tower!

The locusts and wild honey?

Where is the sacred dower That the Bride of Christ was given?

Gone to the wielders of power, The misers and minters of money; Gone for the greed that is their creed-- And these in the land have thriven.

What then wert thou, and what art now, And wherefore hast thou striven?

REFRAIN

And every note of every bell Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!

In the tower that is left the tale to tell Of Gabriel, the Archangel."