River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1903-10-29


made to ssblossom like rose. .
Fathers Sierra and Peyri had bought
from the old Mexican churches gifts
of vestments, bells and ornaments
for their new churches here; also
much live stock-there were no do
mestic animals in California before
seeds, farming implements, etc.
These missions were not simply
churches, they were also schools for
~eligious, primary and industrial
education, and more, they were little
towns where two or three thousand
Indians at a time have been known
ITO have been lodged, kept, taught
and occupied in profitable work.
They were taught to read, write,
sing, play musical instruments, spin,
weave, make and wear clothing, live
decently in houses instead of brush
dens. In sixty-five years an aver
age of 10000 Indians are known to
have been thus cared for, taught all
the handicrafts and arts necessary
for self support and civilization, and
lifted from state little above the
animal to one of prosperity and
happiness. 1t was the intention of
the Spanish government that after
living ten years in the missions the
Indians were to become citizens, liv-
ing on lands secured to them, self
supporting and prosperous. AT the
height of prosperity the average an
nual income to the missions from
their various enterprises was over
two million dollars. Fifty years
after the founding of San Diego
Mission, it, alone, provided home
for over 1900 Indian converts. It
owned 1900 head of sheep, 5000
head of cattle, 1923 head of horses.
It's orchards-the oldest in the state
had three thousand olive trees,
orange, pear and other fruit trees,
and vineyards on similar scale.
To-day nothing is left but the olive
orchard from which have been
propagated all the olive orchards of
the state-and the two old palms,
pictures of which are so familiar.
Why to-day do we find nothing of
all this prosperity and noble work
but few crumbling adobe walls?
In the last fifty years what has be
come of the great numbers of Mis-
sion Indians? Read "Ramona."
Too great and rapid increase of
prosperity, as it often does, developed
arrogance, arbitrariness and extrava-
gance. Love of gain and ease and
luxurious living took possession of
the missionaries, the Indians to quite
a degree became the slave merely.
The love for saving souls departed
with those early Fathers.
In 1885 came the arrogant act of
the Mexican government snatching
without ceremony all the Missions
and everything belonging to them
from the jurisdiction of the Francis
cans, converting, the Missions into
Pueblas, setting the Indians adrift,
confscating, scattering and squander-
ing the Mission property to a
schocking degree. The Mission
system died!
And what became of the Indians
who had become submissive and
peaceable, but who had not become,
as race, strong and mature enough
in the new life to stand alone? They
were yet children, they still needed
the watchful, guiding, tender care of
such as Fathers Sierra and Peyri.
Without their patient, motherly
nursing, the Indian was too weak
to go on in the new way. And
then came the transfer of California
into the hands of our own govern
ment. Wrongs, such as should
make every American blush for
shame, were inflicted by powerful
and civilized nation upon these weak,
child-like people. They were mer-
cilessly driven from ancestral homes;
their villages and lands surveyed"
into ranches for the greed of the
white man, and often of the foreign
er on American soil, while the In
dian-the only true American-was
left friendless and alone. Little
wonder that they went back to their
wild freedom, back to the mountains
and the valleys, carrying the white
mans vices and only too few of his
virtues, doggedly muttering "May
the white man eat sand," or defect
eddy asking the visiting priests
"What kind of God is this you
ask US to worship who deserts us
when we need him mostP"
A doctor, called to visit sick
Indian boy, was asked if he thought
the child would recover He re-
piled, off he were white boy ]
would say yes, but these Indians die
when no one else would, they have
no stamina, no backbone, give up at
nothing" Disheartened, dispirited,
the Mission Indians are fast disap-
pearing. No stamina, no backbone.
He has lost faith in honor and JUS
tice, his hope is gone, and he does
not care to live any more than
would white man with all vivify-
ing impulses crushed from his heart.
On the banks of Santa Ysabel
creek an Indian village has existed
for more than century. A Gene
terry, full of rude wooden crosses,