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.
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