The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-12-21
THE MISSION INDIANS.

The January number of the Overland
Monthly contains an interesting article
on the Mission Indians by E. p. Clarke.
The disappearance of this race is one of
the most curious problems in California
history. Bancroft says that at the be-
ginning of the century they numbered
$4,000; De MARIA estimated them in 1884
at lover 10000; another estimate Of
about the same date figured them at
10000. In 1852 Indian Agent Wilson re-
ported that they numbered 1000. In 1894
Indian Agent Rust took a census of them
which showed 1896 souls, and now those
who have to deal with them reckon that
there are not $500 of them left. What
caused the destruction of this people in
the absence of pestilence or war?
A key to the problem may be found in
the report which was made by Mr.. Hart
nell to Governor Alvarado a few years
after the seculariZation of the missions.
Mr.. Hartnell. who was not by any means
prepossessed in favor of the mission
padres. reports that seculariZation was
failure and that the Indians were dying
and disappearing under tho secular mana
gers of the missions from hunger, neglect
and drunkenness. The padres had been
careful to nculcate religious doctrine
aud religious observance, but they had
never successfully taught the aborigines
the duty of self-reliance or self-support.
They remained infants in law-gente sin
raz0n, as the old Spaniards called them
reluctant workers on the mission lands
under the spur of the lash, but utterly in
capable OF caring for themselves or OF
providing themselves with food in the
most fertile land in the world. Their
condition and their future did not interest
the laymen who succeeded tha padres in
charge OF the missions; their concern
was confined to making little money out
of their offices for themselves. Men like
AlvaradO and Hartnell were indignant al
the failure of the pueblo system. The
spectacle of a perishlng race exasperated
their humane minds. But California was
poor and thinly peopled; the native mites
were deficient in energy and enterprise;
the Indians were left to perish with few
empty sentimentalities.
The philOsophic writer sums up their
story in the phrase that inferior races dis
appear whenever they come into contact
with superior races. That does not seem
10 follow in all cases. The Indians of
Mexico and various South American States
compose the bulk of The population. 1t is
only north of the Rio Grande that the
Indian has disappeared before the white
man.
When California was settled by the
Spaniards it is supposed that it contained
some 10000 Indians, who lived on pine
nuts, roots and by the chase and by fish
ing; their natural increase was normal.
except when 1t was checked by war. The
Spaniards converted the hunting grounds
into pasture lands and ranches, but il was
a cardinal doctrine of their theory that the
ownership of the lands should belong to
the whites exclusively. In this plan no
worthy place was left for the Indian; he
drifted into the position OF slave.
The writer in the Overland makes the
point that the Indian was lifted out of a
position Of Ignorance. filth aud barbarism
and was taught religion. cleanliness and
the use of farm tools. These were doubt
less boons, but the whole policy of the
Spaniards was calculated to degrade them
in their own eyes; and when a race is con-
fessedly degraded it is not long for this
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