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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 134 of 324
Words from 69477 to 69985
of 170236
