Plumas County, CA History

Transcribed by Sally Kaleta Jul 2009

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Illustrated History of PLUMAS, LASSEN & SIERRA Counties
with CALIFORNIA from 1513 to 1850, Farriss & Smith , 1882, San Francisco.


CHAPTER II            
OCCUPATION OF LOWER CALIFORNIA BY THE JESUITS
 
 
                     Why a partial history of Lower California is given - Father 
Kino or Kuhn - His great undertaking - His plan - The means - The mode of 
applying the means - His exalted qualities - Cost to Spain of a failure to 
occupy - The difficulties that beset the enterprise - Father Kino joined by 
Salva Tierra and Ugarte - The order given permitting the Jesuits to enter upon 
the Conquest - The Expedition sails - It Lands and takes possession of the 
country - The Indians attack the mission - They are defeated and sue for peace - 
How the priests induced them to work - The plan of operations acted upon by the 
priests - It proved to be a success - They became the pioneers in manufacturing, 
ship-building, wine-culture, martyrdom and civilization before they were 
banished - The reason why a complete history of the peninsula is not given.
 
                    It may occur to the mind of the reader, that any part of a 
history of the settlement of Lower California, one of the states of Mexico, is 
not a pertinent subject to be reckoned properly among the events constituting 
the history of our California. Yet it would seem important, when one comes to 
understand that the peninsula was the door through which, in after time, 
civilization was to enter our golden land. It was the nursery where experience 
taught a religious sect how to enter, then exist, and finally subdue the land.
                   In the preceding chapter is noted the last expedition before 
the final abandonment by Spain of any further attempt to occupy a part of 
California. With that expedition was a monk who had voluntarily abandoned a 
lucrative and honorable position as a professor in Ingolstadt College. He had 
made a vow, while lying at the point of death, to his patron saint, Francis 
Xavier, that if he should recover, he would, in the remaining years of his life, 
follow the examples set in the lifetime of that patron. He did recover, resigned 
his professorship, and crossed the sea to Mexico, and eventually became the one 
who, as a missionary, accompanied that last expedition. He was a German by 
birth, and his name in his native land was Kuhn, but the Spaniards have recorded 
it as Father Eusebio Francisco Kino.
                   Father Kino had become strongly impressed in his visit  to 
the country with the feasibility of a plan by which the land might be taken  
possession of and held. His object was not the conquest of a kingdom, but the 
conversion of its inhabitants, and the saving of souls. His plan was to go into 
the country and teach the Indians the principles of the Catholic faith, educate 
them to support themselves by tilling the soil, and improvement through the 
experience of the advantages to be obtained by industry; the end of all being to 
raise up a Catholic province for the Spanish crown, and people paradise with the 
souls of converted heathen. The means to be employed in accomplishing this were 
the priests of the order of Jesuits, protected by a small garrison, a storehouse 
and church could be erected that would render the fathers' maintenance and life 
comparatively secure. This would give them an opportunity to win the confidence 
of the Indians, by a patient, long-continued, uniform system of affectionate 
intercourse and just dealing, and then use their appetites as the means by which 
to convert their souls.
                   It is difficult for us of the nineteenth century to 
appreciate the grand conception, to realize the magnitude of the task undertaken 
by that monastic Hercules. With a heart that loved humanity because it had a 
soul, with a charity that forgave all things except a death in sin, infolding 
with affection all the images of the Creator, with a tongue that made the hearer 
listen for the voice of angels, with a faith in success like one of the chosen 
twelve, he became an enthusiast, and was to California what John the Baptist was 
to Christianity, the forerunner of a change to come. And the end is not yet - it 
will never be, for eternity will swallow it up.
                   Spain had spent vast treasures in that century and a half of 
unsuccessful effort to survey and occupy the upper Pacific coast. The first 
colony, established in 1536 by Cortez, had cost $400,000; the last, by Otondo, 
1683, $225,400, to which add all the expensive efforts that occurred between 
those dates, and the total foots among the millions. So vast an outlay, followed 
by no favorable result, rendered the subject one of annoyance, and clothed with 
contempt any that were visionary enough to advocate a further prosecution of 
such an enterprise, so repeatedly demonstrated to be but a "delusion and a 
snare."
                  With such an outlook, uncheering, unfriendly, with no reward 
to urge into action, except beyond the grave, with a prospect of defeat, and a 
probability of martyrdom as a result, Father Kino started, on the twentieth of 
October, 1686, to travel over Mexico, and, by preaching, urge his views and 
hopes of the enterprise. He soon met on the way a congenial spirit, Father Juan 
Maria Salva Tierra; and then another, Father Juan Ugarte, added his great 
executive ability to the cause. Their united efforts resulted in obtaining 
sufficient funds by subscription. Then they procured a warrant from the king for 
the order of Jesuits to enter upon the conquest of California, and their own 
expense, for the benefit of the crown. The order was given February 5, 1697, and 
it had required eleven years of constant urging to procure it. October 10, of 
the same year, Salva Tierra sailed from the coast of Mexico to put in operation 
Kino's long-cherished scheme of conquest. The expedition consisted of one small 
vessel and a long-boat, in which were provisions, the necessary ornaments and 
furniture for fitting up a rude church, and Father Tierra, accompanied by six 
soldiers and three Indians. It was an unpretentious army, going forth to conquest, 
to achieve with the cross what the army, navy, and power of a kingdom had failed 
to do.
         On the nineteenth of October, 1679, they reached the point selected on the 
east coast of the peninsula, and says Venegas: --"The provisions and animals were 
landed, together with the baggage; the Father, though the head of the expedition, 
being the first to load his shoulders. The barracks for the little garrison were now 
built, and a line of circumvallation thrown up. In the center a tent was pitched for a 
temporary chapel; before it was erected a crucifix, with a garland of flowers.
The image of our Lady of Loretto, as patroness of the conquest, was brought in 
procession from the boat, and placed with proper solemnity."
         On the twenty-fifth of the same month, formal possession was taken of the 
country in "his majesty's name," and has never since been abandoned.
         Immediately the priest initiated the plan of conversion. He called together the 
Indians, explained to them the catechism, prayed over the rosary, and then distributed 
among them a half bushel of boiled corn. The corn was a success - they were very 
fond of it; but the prayers and catechism were "bad medicine." They wanted more corn 
and less prayers, and proceeded to steal it from the sacks. This was stopped by 
excluding them from the fort, and they were kindly informed that corn would be 
forthcoming only as a reward for attendance and attention at the devotions. This 
created immediate hostility, and the natives formed a conspiracy to murder the garrison 
and have a big corn-eat on the thirty-first day of October, only twelve days after the 
first landing of the expedition upon the coast.The design was discovered and happily 
frustrated, when a general league was entered into among several tribes, and a descent 
was made upon the fort by about five hundred Indians. The priest rushed upon the 
fortifications and warned them to desist, begging them to go away. telling them that 
they would be killed if they did not; but his solicitude for their safety was responded by 
a number of arrows from the natives, when he came down and the battle began in 
earnest. The assailants went down like grass before the scythe, as the little garrison 
opened with their firearms in volleys upon the unprotected mass, and they immediately 
beat a hasty retreat, where at a safe distance they sent in one of their number to beg 
for peace; who, says Venegas, "with tears assured our men that it was those of the 
neighboring rancheria under him who had first formed the plot, and on account of the 
paucity of their numbers, had spirited up the other nations; adding, that those being 
irritated by the death of their companions were for revenging them, but that both the 
one and the other sincerely repented of their attempt. A little while after came the 
women with their children, mediating a peace, as is the custom of the country. They 
sat down weeping at the gate of the camp, with a thousand promises of amendment, 
and offering to give up their children as hostages for the performance. Father Salva 
Tierra heard them with his usual mildness, showing them the wickedness of the procedure, 
and if their husbands would behave better, promised them peace, an amnesty, and 
forgetfulness of all that was past; he also distributed among them several little presents, 
and to remove any mistrust they might have, he took one of the children in hostage, and 
thus they returned in high spirits to the rancherias."
       Thus was the first contest brought to a termination eminently satisfactory to the 
colonists. The soldiers' guns had taught the Indians respect, and the sacks of corn allured 
them back for the priests to teach them the Catholic faith.
       We quote further from the Jesuit historian, Venegas, that the reader may get a 
correct understanding of the manner in which the fathers treated the aboriginal occupants 
of the country, and the way they conquered the ignorance, indolence and viciousness of 
those tribes. In speaking of Father Ugarte, the historian says: ---
       "In the morning, after saying mass, and at which he obliged them to attend with order 
and respect, he gave a breakfast of pozoli to those who were to work, set them about 
building the church and houses for himself and his Indians, clearing ground for cultivation, 
making trenches for conveyance of water, holes for planting trees, or digging and preparing 
the ground for sowing. In the building part Father Ugarte was master, overseer, carpenter, 
bricklayer, and laborer. For the Indians, though animated by his example, could neither gifts 
nor kind speeches be prevailed upon to shake off their innate sloth, first in fetching stones, 
treading the clay, mixing the sand, cutting, carrying and barking the timber; removing the 
earth and fixing materials. He was equally laborious in the other tasks, sometimes felling the 
trees with his axe, sometimes with his spade in his hand digging up the earth, sometimes 
with an iron crow splitting rocks, sometimes disposing the water-trenches, sometimes leading 
the beasts and cattle, which he had procured for his mission, to pasture and water; thus, 
by his own example, teaching the several kinds of labor. The Indians, whose narrow ideas and 
dullness could not at first enter into the utility of these fatigues, which at the same time 
deprived them of their customary freedom of roving among the forests, on a thousand 
occasions sufficiently tried his patience - coming late, not caring to stir, running away, 
jeering him, and sometimes even forming combinations, and threatening death and destruction; 
all this was to be borne with unwearied patience, having no other recourse than affability 
and kindness, sometimes intermixed with gravity to strike respect; also taking care not to tire 
them, and suit himself to their weakness. In the evening the father led them a second time in 
their devotions; in which the rosary was prayed over, and the catechism explained; and the
 service was followed by the distribution of some provisions. At first they were very 
troublesome all the time of the sermon, jesting and sneering at what he said. This the father 
bore with for a while, and then proceeded to reprove them; but finding they were not to be 
kept in order, he made a very dangerous experiment of what could be done by fear. Near him 
stood an Indian in high reputation for strength, and who, presuming on this advantage, the 
only quality esteemed by them, took upon himself to be more rude than the others. Father 
Ugarte, who was a large man, and of uncommon strength, observing the Indian to be in the 
height of his laughter, and making signs of mockery to the others, seized him by the hair and 
lifting him up swung him to and fro; at this the rest ran away in the utmost terror. They soon 
returned, one after another, and the father so far succeeded to intimidate them that they 
behaved more regularly for the future." In writing of the same priest and his labors in starting 
a mission in another place, this historian relates that: "He endeavored, by little presents and 
caresses, to gain the affections of his Indians; not so much that they should assist him in the 
building as that they might take a liking to the catechism, which he explained to them as well 
as he could, by the help of some Indians of Loretto, while he was perfecting himself in their 
language. But his kindness was lost on the adults, who, from their invincible sloth, could not 
be brought to help him in any one thing, though they partook of, and used to be very urgent 
with him for, pozoli and other eatables. He was now obliged to have recourse to the assistance 
of the boys, who, being allured by the father with sweetmeats and presents, accompanied him 
wherever he would have them; and to habituate these to any work it was necessary to make 
use of artifice. Sometimes he laid a wager with them who should soonest pluck up the 
mesquites and small trees; sometimes he offered reward to those who took away most earth; 
and it suffices to say that in forming the bricks he made himself a boy with boys, challenged 
them to play with the earth, and dance upon the clay. The father used to take off his sandals 
and tread it, in which he was followed by the boys skipping and dancing on the clay, and the 
father with them. The boys sang, and were highly delighted; the father also sang, and thus 
they continued dancing and treading the clay in different parts till meal-time. This enabled him 
to erect his poor dwelling and the church, at the dedication of which the other fathers assisted. 
He made use of several such contrivances in order to learn their language; first teaching the 
boys several Spanish words, that they might afterwards teach him their language. When, by 
the help of these masters, the interpreters of Loretto, and his own observation and discourse 
with the adults, he had attained a sufficient knowledge of it, he began to catechise these poor 
gentiles, using a thousand endearing ways, that they should come to the catechism. He likewise 
made use of his boys for carrying on their instruction. Thus, with invincible patience and firmness 
under excessive labors, he went on humanizing the savages who lived on the spot, those of the 
neighboring rancherias, and others, whom he sought among woods, breaches and caverns; going 
about everywhere, that he at length administered baptism to many adults, and brought this 
new settlement into some form."
          In this manner those devoted fathers struggled on through seventy years of ceaseless 
toil to plant the cross through that worthless peninsula of Lower California - a land that God 
seemed to have left unfinished at the eve of creation, intending it for solitude and the home of 
the cactus, the serpent, and the tarantula.
         The plan of subduing the savages will be readily seen from what Venegas records, and it 
proved to be successful. The missions, some of them always, all of them for a time, were 
supported by remittances from Mexico, until the Indians could be christianized and educated to 
work, and, with the aid of the fathers, make the missions self-supporting. Within the first eight 
years there were expended, in establishing six missions, fifty-eight thousand dollars, and one 
million two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in supporting the Indians that were subject 
to them.
         The after events that constituted the history of the peninsula are a continuous 
succession of strongly marked acts that would make an interesting book for one to peruse who 
is seeking the history of the Indians as a race; but not of sufficient importance as an adjunct 
to California history to warrant their relation in this work. Therefore they will be passed, enough 
having been given to show the reader how the Catholics became the conquerors of the country. 
In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish dominions, and forced to abandon their 
work in Lower California; but they left behind them a record of having paved the way and solved 
the problem of how to subdue and control the native tribes of the West. They have left behind 
them the record of having become the pioneers in the culture of the grape and in the making of 
wine on this coast, having sent to Mexico their vintage as early as 1706. They were the pioneer manufacturers, having taught the Indians the use of the loom in the manufacture of cloth as 
early as 1707. They built, in 1719, the first vessel ever launched from the soil of California, 
calling it the Triumph of the Cross. Two of their number suffered martyrdom at the hands of the 
Indians, and the living were rewarded for those years of toil, of privation, and of self-sacrifice, 
by banishment from the land they had subdued; leaving, for their successors, the Franciscans, 
sixteen flourishing missions, and thirty-six villages, as testimonials of the justice and wisdom of 
their rule.