The Journal of San Diego History - San Diego History Center

The Journal of San Diego History
that we were forced to give up our proposed thirty mile ride to San Felipe. 60 This is
a confined grant, our government covering the grant with a patent. Of course this
has not settled anything, for the patent only confirms whatever right the Grantee
had, and is conclusive only as between the Government and the Patentee, leaving
untouched the question of the Indians right of occupancy. There are here some
sixty Indians. The grant has just been sold; a large price was paid for and, though I
have not positive information on this point, it is said, with the understanding that
the title is to be cleared of the Indian rights. The grant is to be sold in small lots,
and the Indians are to go.
Our driver, Mr. Bergman, who has lived on his place for twenty-five years and
knows everybody, and every foot of land; was constantly pointing out places on
which Indians lived, from which they were either driven out-right, or bought off,
either for a sack of flour or a
bottle of whiskey. He took me
out of our way to show me a little
valley in which five families
are now living on government
land; and aggregate of fifteen
people. The old, man, father, or
father-in-law and grand-father
or most of them. Santiago Ju
a Bes, [Santiago Juan Bes] as
he, himself, wrote his name,
has quite a little vineyard and
orchard.
I have taken these names
and numbers of the sections
Leona Ardillo Kengish, Pechanga Reservation, October 1909,
©SDHS #OP 15362-57. Photo by E.H. Davis.
and hope I shall be able to secure
the land to them, and will,
on to-morrow, look up at the
land office, their claims, and those of some five or six others at Pala and Parema
[Pauma], which I afterwards found.
I believe that if Mr. Bergman could be employed by some one to go about and
hunt up the land, little cañons of ten, fifteen, and twenty acres could be found for a
very large number of Indians, and that it would be a good thing to do.
Our next points, Pachange [Pechanga], Pala, Pauma, La Peche, La Jolla, Rincon,
you know about. A new and threatening danger hangs over all these excepting
Pachange [Pechanga], which so far as I know, does not come under its darkening
shadow. 61
The Ocean Side Land and Water Company are purchasing and claiming water
rights all the way from Ocean Side, at the mouth of the San Louis [Luis] Rey
River, up to its head. They have bought Golsh’s land just back of Veal’s place,
beyond the old Messein house at Pala, and have forbidden Veal to open up a ditch
of his, through which he used to irrigate. When he reached this land of Golsh’s
they would not suffer him to cross it. They have bought for $60,000 the Major Utt
place, which you will remember up on the high Mesa, under the mountain. They
have commenced to dig for a dam, near the mill we pass, under these high bluffs,
between Pala and Pauma, they are digging in the Cañons above the Pauma village;
102