USA > California > San Mateo County > History of San Mateo County, California, including its geography, topography, geology, climatography, and description, together with an historical sketch of California; a record of the Mexican grants; the early history and settlement, compiled from the most authentic sources; some of the names of Spanish and American pioneers; legislative history; a record of its cities and towns; biographical sketches of representative men; etc., etc > Part 3
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* Historical and descriptive sketch-book of Napa, Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino, comprising sketches of their topography, productions, history, scenery, and peculiar attractions, by C. 4. Menefee, Napa City, Reporter Publishing House, IS73.
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CALIFORNIA.
cases. This great sanitary institution, found in every rancheria, was a large circular excavation, covered with a roof of boughs, plastered with mud, hav- ing a hole on one side for an entrance, and another in the roof to serve as a chimney. A fire having been lighted in the centre, the sick were placed there to undergo a sweat-hath for many hours, to be succeeded by a plunge in cold water. This treatment was their cure-all, and whether it killed or relieved the patient depended upon the nature of his disease and the vigor of his constitu- tion. A gentleman who was tempted, some years ago, to enter one of the san- itary institutions, gives the following story of his experience :-
"'A sweat-house is of the shape of an inverted bowl. It is generally about forty feet in diameter at the bottom, and is built of strong poles and branches of trees, covered with carth to prevent the escape of heat. There is a small hole near the ground, large enough for the Diggers to creep in one at a time; and another at the top of the house, to give vent to the smoke. When a dance is to occur, a large fire is kindled in the centre of the edifice, the crowd assem- bles, the white spectators crawl in and seat themselves anywhere out of the way. The apertures, both above and below, are then closed, and the dancers take their position.
"'Four-and-twenty squaws, en dishabille, one side of the fire, and as many hombres in puris naturalibus on the other. Simultaneous with the com- mencement of the dancing, which is a kind of shuffling hobble-de-hoy, the music bursts forth. Yes, music fit to raise the dead. A whole legion of devils broke loose! Such screaming, shrieking, yelling and roaring was never before heard since the foundation of the world. A thousand cross-cut saws, filed by steam power-a multitude of tom-cats lashed together and flung over a clothes-line-innumerable pig's under the gate, all combined, would produce a heavenly melody compared with it. Yet this uproar, deafening as it is, might possibly be endured; but another sense soon comes to be saluted. Talk of the thousand stinks of the city of Cologne! Here are at least forty thousand combined in one grand overwhelming stench, and yet every particular odor distinctly definable. Round about the roaring fire the Indians go capering, jumping and screaming, with the perspiration starting from every pore. The spectators look on until the air grows thick and heavy, and a sense of oppress- ing suffocation overcomes them, when they make a simultaneous rush at the door, for self-protection. Judge of their astonishment, terror and dismay to find it fastened securely ; bolted and barred on the outside. They rush frantic- · ally around the walls in hope to discover some weak point through which they may find egress; but the house seems to have been constructed purposely to frustrate such attempts. More furious than caged lions, they rush bodily against the sides, but the stout poles resist every onset. Our army swore terribly in Flanders, but even my uncle Toby himself would stand aghast were he here now.
"'There is no alternative but to sit down in hopes that the troop of naked
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HISTORICAL, SKETCH OF CALIFORNIA.
fiends will soon cease from sheer exhaustion. Vain expectation ! The uproar but increases in fury, the fire waxes hotter and hotter, and they seem to be prepar- ing for fresh exhibitions of their powers. The combat deepens, on, ve brave! See that wild Indian, a newly-elected captain, as with glaring eyes, blazing face, and complexion like that of a boiled lobster, he tosses his arms wildly aloft, as in pursuit of imaginary devils, while rivers of perspiration roll down his naked frame. Was ever the human body thrown into such contortions before? Another effort of that kind and the whole vertebral column must certainly come down with a crash. Another such convulsion, and his limbs will assuredly be torn asunder, and the disjointed members fly to the four parts of the compass. Can the human frame endure this much longer? The heat is equal to that of a bake-oven. Temperature five hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Pressure of steam one thousand pounds to the square inch. The reeking atmosphere has become almost palpable, and the victimized audience are absolutely gasping for life. Millions for a cubic inch of fresh air, worlds for a drop of water to cool the parched tongue! This is terrible! To meet one's fate among the white- caps of the Lake, in a swamped canoe, or to sink down on the bald mountain's brow, worn out by famine, fatigue and exposure, were glorious; but to die here, suffocating in a solution of human perspiration, carbonic acid gas and charcoal smoke, is horrible. The idea is absolutely appalling. But there is no avail. Assistance might as well be sought from a legion of unchained imps, as from a troop of Indians maddened by excitement.
"'Death shows his visage, not more than five minutes distant. The fire glim- mers away, leagues off. The uproar dies into the subdued rumble of a remote cataract, and respiration becomes lower and more labored. The whole system is sinking into utter insensibility, and all hope of relief has departed, when suddenly a grand triumphal crash, similar to that with which the ghosts closed their orgies, when they doused the lights and started in pursuit of Tam O'Shanter and his old gray mare, the uproar ceases and the Indians vanish through an aperture, opened for the purpose. The half-dead victims to their own curiosity dash through it like an arrow, and in a moment more are draw- ing in whole bucketsfull of the cold, frosty air, every inhalation of which cuts the lungs like a knife, and thrills the system like an electric shock. They are in time to see the Indians plunge headlong into the ice-cold waters of a neigh- boring stream, and crawl out and sink down on the banks, utterly exhausted. This is the last act of the drama, the grand climax, and the fandango is over."
"The sweat-house also served as a council chamber and banquet hall. In it the bodies of the dead were sometimes burned, amid the howlings of the sur- vivors. Generally, however, the cremation of the dead took place in the open air. The body, before burning, was bound closely together, the legs and arm's folded, and forced, by binding, into as small a compass as possible. It was then placed upon a funeral pile of wood, which was set on fire by the mother, wife, or some near relative of the deceased, and the mourners, with their faces
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CALIFORNIA.
daubed with pitch, set up a fearful howling and weeping. accompanied with the most frantic gesticulations. The body being consumed, the ashes were carefully collected.
" A portion of these were mingled with pitch, with which they daubed their faces and went into mourning. During the progress of the cremation, the friends and relatives of the deceased thrust sharp sticks into the burning corpse, and cast into the fire the ornaments, feather head-dresses, weapons, and every- thing known to have belonged to the departed. They had a superstitious dread of the consequences of keeping back any article pertaining to the defunct. An old Indian woman, whose husband was sick, was recently asked what ailed him. Her reply was, 'he had kept some feathers belonging to a dead Indian that should have been burned with his body, and that he would be sick till he died.'
" The idea of a future state was universal among the California Indians, and they had a vague idea of rewards and punishments. As one expressed it, 'Good Indian go big hill; bad Indian go bad place.' Others thought if the deceased had been good in his life-time, his spirit would travel west to where the earth and sky meet, and become a star; if bad, he would be changed into a grizzly, or his spirit-wanderings would continue for an indefinite period. They expressed the idea of the change from this life to another by saying that 'as the moon died and came to life again, so man came to life after death;' and they believed that 'the hearts of good chiefs went up to the sky, and were changed into stars to keep watch over their tribes on earth.' Although exceedingly superstitious, they were evidently not destitute of some religious conceptions. Certain rocks and mountains were regarded as sacred. Uncle Sam, in Lake county, was one of these sacred mountains, and no one, except the priest or wizard of his tribe, dared to ascend it. Two huge bowlders, between Napa City and Capel Valley, were also sacred, and no Indian would approach them. They also held the grizzly in superstitious awe, and nothing could induce them to eat its flesh.
The Diggers too had their sorcerers, male and female, who had great influence over them. They pretended to foresee future events, and to exercise super- natural control over their bodies, and to cure diseases by curious incantations and ceremonies. They likewise believed in a Cucusuy, or mischief-maker, who took delight in their annoyance, and to him and his agent they attributed much of their sickness and other misfortunes. It may not be out of place here to relate the following legend :-
When the Spaniards were crossing the mountain called Bolgones, where an Indian spirit was supposed to dwell, having a cave for his haunt, he was disturbed by the approach of the soldiers, and, emerging from the gloom, arrayed in all his feathers and war-paint, and very little else by way of costume, motioned to them to depart, threatening, by gesticulation, to weave a spell around them; but the sturdy warriors were not to be thus easily awed. They
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beckoned him to approach; this invitation, however, the wizard declined, when one of the men secured him with a lasso to see if he were 'goblin damn'd' or ordinary mortal. Even now he would not speak, but continued his mumblings, when an extra tug caused him to shout and pray to be released. On the relation of this adventure the Indians pointed to Bolgones, calling it the mountain of the Cucusuy, which the Spaniards translated into Monte Diablo. Hence the name of the mountain which is the meridian of scientific exploration in California.
Four times a year each tribe united in a great dance, having some religious purpose and signification. One of these was held by night in Napa county in 1841, about the time of the vernal equinox, and was terminated by a strange inexplicable pantomime, accompanied with wild gestures and screams, the object of which the Indians said was 'to scare the devil away from their rancherias.' An old gentleman who witnessed the performance says he has no doubt that their object must have been attained, if the devil had the slightest ear for music. Superstition wrapped these savages like a cloud, from which they never emerged. The phenomena of nature on every hand, indeed, taught them that there was some unseen cause for all things-some power which they could neither comprehend nor resist. The volcano and the earthquake taught them this, and many accounts of these in past ages are preserved in their tradi- tions, but farther than this their minds could not penetrate.
It will readily be acknowledged that to catch, subdue and educate a race like this was a task of no mean difficulty, while to perfect it, even remotely, demanded all the elements of success. It was necessary to comingle both force and persuasion. The former was represented by the soldiers at the pre- sidio, and the latter by the Fathers at the mission. To keep them together was a task which required the most perfect skill, in short nothing but the at- tractiveness of new objects and strange ways, with the pleasant accessories of good diet and kind conduct, could have ever kept these roving spirits, even for a time. from straying to their original haunts.
Let us for a moment glance at the state of the missions in the early part of the present century. In the year 1767 the property possessed by the Jesuits, then known as the Pious Fund, was taken charge of by the government, and used for the benefit of the missions. At that time this possession yielded an annual revenue of fifty thousand dollars, twenty-four thousand of which were expended in the stipends of the Franciscan and Dominican missionaries, and the balance for the maintenance of the missions generally. Father Gleeson says: "The first inroad made on these pious donations was about the year 1806, when, to relieve the national wants of the parent country, caused by the wars of 1801 and 1804, between Portugal in the one instance and Great Britain in the other, his majesty's fiscal at Mexico scrupled not to confiscate and remit to the authorities in Spain as much as two hundred thousand dollars of the Pious Fund." By this means the missions were deprived of most substantial aid,
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CALIFORNIA.
and the fathers left upon their own resources; add to these difficulties the unsettled state of the country between the years 1811 and 1831, and still their work of civilization was never stayed.
To demonstrate this we reproduce the following tabular statement, which will at a glance show the state of the missions of Upper California, from 1802 to 1822 :-
TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF INDIANS BAPTIZED, MARRIED, - DIED AND EXISTING AT THE DIFFERENT MISSIONS IN UPPER CALIFORNIA, BETWEEN THE YEARS 1802 AND 1822:
NAME OF MISSION.
Baptized Married
Died
Existing
NAME OF MISSION.
Baptized Married
Died Existing
San Diego.
5.452
1,460
3,186
1,696
San Miguel.
2,205
632
1,336
926
San Luis Rey
4,024
922
1.597
2,663
San Antonio de Padua
4,119
1,037
317
834
San Juan Capistrano
3,879
1,026
2,531
1,052
Our Lady of Soledad.
1,932
581
1,333
532
Santa Catarina
6,906
1,638
4,635
1,593
San Carlos.
3.267
912
2,432
341
San Fernando
2,519
709
1,505
1,001
San Juan Bautista.
3,270
823
1,853
1,222
3,608
973
2,003
9.3
Santa Cruz.
2.136
718
1,541
499
Santa Barbara.
4,917
1,283
3.224
1,010
Santa Clara
7,324
2,050
6,565
1,394
1,195
33 )
896
582
San Jose.
4,573
1,376
2,933
1,620
Purissima Conception.
3,100
919
2,173
764
San Francisco
6,804
2,050
5,202
958
San Luis Obispo.
2,562
715
1,954
467
San Rafael
829
244
183
830
-
1
TOTALS .- Baptized, 74,621 ; Married, 20,112; Died, 47,925 ; Existing, 20,958,
It will thus be observed that by this, out of the seventy-four thousand six hundred and twenty-one converts received into the missions, the large number of twenty thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight had succumbed to disease. Of what nature was this plague it is hard to establish; the missionaries them- selves could assign no cause. Syphilis, measles and small-pox carried off num- bers, and these diseases were generated, in all probability, by a sudden change in their lives from a free, wandering existence, to a state of settled quietude.
Father Gleeson, in his valuable work, says : "In 1813, when the contest for national independence was being waged on Mexican territory, the cortes of Spain resolved upon dispensing with the services of the Fathers, by placing the missions in the hands of the secular clergy. The professed object of this secularization scheme was, indeed, the welfare of the Indians and colonists; but how little this accorded with the real intentions of the government, is seen from the seventh section of the decree passed by the cortes, wherein it is stated that one-half of the land was to be hypothecated for the payment of the the national debt. The decree ordering this commences as follows: 'The cortes general and extraordinary, considering that the reduction of common land to private property is one of the measures most imperiously demanded for the welfare of the pueblos, and the improvement of agriculture and industry, and wishing at the same time to derive from this class of land aid to relieve the public necessities, a reward to the worthy defenders of the country and relief to the citizens not proprietors, decree, etc.,* without prejudice to the fore- going provisions one-half of the vacant land and lands belonging to the royal
*History of California-Dwinelle.
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CALIFORNIA.
patrimony of the monarchy, except the suburbs of the pueblos, is hereby reserved. to be in whole or in part, as may be deemed necessary, hypothecated for the payment of the national debt,' etc.
"This decree of the Goverment was not carried out at the time, yet it had its effect on the state and well-being of the missions in general. It could not be expected that with such a resolution under their eyes, the fathers would be as zealous in developing the natural resources of the country as before see- ing that the result of their labors was at any moment liable to be seized on by government. and handed over to strangers. The insecurity thus created naturally acted upon the converts in turn, for when it became apparent that the authority of the missionaries was more nominal than real, a spirit of opposition and independence on the part of some of the people was the natural result. Even before this determination had been come to on the part of the goverment. there were not wanting evidences of an evil disposition on the part of the peo- ple; for as early as 1803 one of the mission> had become the scene of a revolt; and earlier still, as we learn from an unpublished correspondence of the fathers, it was not unusual for some of the converts to abandon the missions and return to their former wandering life. It was customary on those occasions to pursue *
* ** the deserters, and compel them to return.
" Meantime, the internal state of the missions was becoming more and more complex and disordered. The desertions were more frequent and numerous, the hostility of the unconverted more daring, and the general disposition of the people inclined to revolt. American traders and freebooters had entered the country, spread themselves all over the province, and sowed the seeds of dis- cord and revolt among the inhabitants. Many of the more reckless and evil minded readily listened to their suggestions, adopted their counsels, and broke out into open hostilities. Their hostile attack was first directed against the mission of Santa Cruz, which they captured and plundered, when they direct «dl their course to Monterey, and, in common with their American friends, attacked and plundered that place. From these and other like occurrences, it was clear that the conditions of the missions was one of the greatest peril. The spirit of discord had spread among the people. hostility to the authority of the Fathers had become common, while desertion from the villages was of frequent and almost constant occurrence. To remedy this unpleasant state of affairs, the military then in the country was entirely inadequate, and so matters continued, with little or no difference, till 1824, when by the action of the Mexican government, the missions began rapidly to decline.
"Two years after Mexico had been formed into a republic, the government authorities began to interfere with the rights of the Fathers and the existing state of affairs. In 1826 instructions were forwarded by the federal govern- ment to the authorities of California for the liberation of the Indians. This was followed a few years later by another act of the Legislature, ordering the whole of the missons to be secularized and the Religious to withdraw. The
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CALIFORNIA.
-
ostensible object assigned by the authors of this measure, was the execution of the original.plan formed by government. The missions, it was alleged, were never intended to be permanent establishments; they were to give way in the course of some years to the regular ecclesiastical system, when the people would be formed into parishes, attended by a secular clergy.
"Beneath these specious pretexts," says Dwinelle in his Colonial History, " was, undoubtedly, a perfect understanding between the government at Mexico and the leading men in California, and in such a condition of things the supreme government might absorb the pious fund, under the pretence that it was no longer necessary for missionary purposes, and thus had reverted to the State as a quasi escheat, while the co-actors in California should appropriate the local wealth of the missions, by the rapid and sure process of administering their temporalities." And again: " These laws (the secularization laws), whose ostensible purpose was to convert the missionary establishments into Indian pueblos, their churches into parish churches, and to elevate the chris- tianized Indians to the rank of citizens, were, after all, executed in such a manner that the so-called secularization of the missions resulted only in their plunder and complete ruin, and in the demoralization and dispersion of the christianized Indians."
Immediately on the receipt of the decree, the then acting Governor of Cali- fornia, Don Jose Figueroa, commenced the carrying out of its provisions, to which end he prepared certain provisional rules, and in accordance therewith the alteration in the missionary system was begun, to be immediately followed by the absolute ruin of both missions and country. Within a very few years the exertions of the Fathers were entirely destroyed; the lands which had hitherto teemed with abundance, were handed over to the Indians, to be by them neglected and permitted to return to their primitive wildness, and the thousands of cattle were divided among the people and the administrators for the personal benefit of either.
Let us now briefly follow Father Gleeson in his contrast of the state of the people before and after secularization. He says: "It has been stated already that in 1822 the entire number of Indians then inhabiting the different missions, amounted to twenty thousand and upwards. To these others were being constantly added, even during these years of political strife which immediately preceded the independence of Mexico, until, in 1836, the numbers amounted to thirty thousand and more. Provided with all the necessaries and comforts of life, instructed in everything requisite for their state in society, and devoutly trained in the duties and requirements of religion, these thirty thousand Cali- fornian converts led a peaceful, happy, contented life, strangers to those cares, troubles and anxieties common to higher and more civilized conditions of life. At the same time that their religious condition was one of thankfulness and grateful satisfaction to the Fathers, their worldly position was one of unri- valed abundance and prosperity. Divided between the different missions from
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CALIFORNIA.
San Lucas to San Francisco. close upon one million of live stock belonged to the people. Of these four hundred thousand were horned cattle, sixty thou- sand horses and more than three hundred thousand sheep, goats and swine. The united annual return of the cereals, consisting of wheat, maize, beans and the like, was upwards of one hundred and twenty thousand busheis; while at the same time throughout the different missions, the preparation and manufac- ture of soap, leather, wine, brandy, hides, wool, oil, cotton, hemp, linen, tobacco, salt and soda, was largely and extensively cultivated. And to such perfection were these articles brought, that some of them were eagerly sought for and purchased in the principal cities of Europe.
"The material prosperity of the country was further increased by an annual revenue of about one million of dollars, the net proceeds of the hides and tallow of one hundred thousand oxen slaughtered annually at the different missions. Another hundred thousand were slaughtered by the settlers for their own private advantage. The revenues on the articles of which there are no specific returns, is also supposed to have averaged another million dollars, which, when added to the foregoing, makes the annual revenue of the California Catholic missions, at the time of their supremacy, between two and three million dollars. Independent of these, there were the rich and extensive gardens and orchards attached to the missions, exquisitely ornamented and enriched, in many instances, with a great variety of European and tropical fruit trees, plums, bananas, oranges, olives and figs; added to which were the numerous and fertile vineyards, rivaling in the quantity and quality of the grape those of the old countries of Europe, and all used for the comfort and maintenance of the natives. In a word, the happy results, both spiritual and temporal. produced in Upper California by the spiritual children of St. Francis, during the sixty years of their missionary career, were such as have rarely been equaled and never surpassed in modern times. In a country naturally salubrious, and it must be admitted fertile beyond many parts of the world, yet presenting at the outset numerous obstacles to the labors of the missionary, the Fathers succeeded in establishing at regular distances along the coast as many as one- and-twenty missionary establishments. Into these holy retreats their zeal and ability enabled them to gather the whole of the indigenous race, with the exception of a few wandering tribes who, it is only reasonable to suppose, would also have followed the example of their brethren, had not the labors of the Fathers been dispensed with by the civil authorities. There, in those peaceful, happy abodes, abounding in more than the ordinary enjoyment of things, spiritual and temporal, thirty thousand faithful, simple-hearted Indians 'passed their days in the practice of virtue and the improvement of the country. From a wandering, savage, uncultivated race, unconscious as well of the God who created them as the end for which they were made, they became, after the advent of the Fathers, a civilized, dom estic, Christian people, whose morals were as pure as their lives were simple. Daily attendance at the holy sacrifice
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