doc241 - Schoenherr Home Page in Sunny Chula Vista

Dana has also left his opinion on record, which is worth reproducing: "The language
of these people . . . is the most brutish, without any exception, that I ever heard,
or that could be conceived of. It is a complete slabber. The words fall off at the ends of
their tongues, and a continual slabbering; sound is made in the cheeks outside the
teeth."
Not only had they no written language of their own, but they were provided with
no facilities for acquiring one from their new masters. The friars were not merely indifferent
to the education of the Indians--they were inflexibly opposed to it. Not even their
favorite neophytes were permitted to learn to read, and their servants learned only such
things as would aid them in providing for their masters' comfort. At a time when the territorial
governors were utterly unable to provide for the education of the gente de razon, it
was scarcely to be expected that they could do anything for the Indians, who were under
the especial care and jurisdiction of the missionaries. To the soldiers, the Indians
were despised foes; to the citizens, they were inefficient and troublesome servants.
The employment of Indians as house servants was general, for they were very
cheap. They were held under a strict discipline and not infrequently thrashed, as it was
claimed that in many cases they would not work without their regular castigation. While
Wm. H. Davis and Captain Paty were dining with Captain Thomas W. Robbins at Santa
Barbara in 1842, he
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told them about an Indian cook whom he had had in his employ for years, but who had
to be soundly thrashed about twice a year to keep him in order the rest of the time. To
prove this to his incredulous guests, he called the cook, a man weighing 200 pounds or
more, who laughingly confessed the truth of the statement. It is related that Philip
Crosthwaite had a number of Indians working for him, and sometimes they grew lazy
and refused to work. Then he tied them up one at a time, and gave them a good whipping,
whereupon they went to work again. They did not appear to resent such treatment,
but acquiesced in its necessity. It seems to have been the custom to beat them
for other causes, without "due process of law," in earlier days. In 1843, a San Diego
man was fined fifty dollars because his wife had severely beaten an Indian servant. The
missionaries did not hesitate to punish them for a variety of trivial offenses. Solitary
confinement was a favorite form of discipline, but sometimes the good fathers would
take them across their knees and administer the sort of castigation that is supposed to
be the exclusive perquisite of small boys. In a few instances, the mission discipline was
so severe as to lead to bloody rebellions, but nothing of this kind occurred at San Diego.
The story of the Indian, since known to white men, is largely a story of insurrections,
crimes and executions. There were men of good character among them, but they
were "as two grains of wheat hid in a bushel of chaff." The story of these early troubles
can only be briefly sketched.
Their first raid on the Mission seems to have been inspired by a desire to plunder,
coupled with profound ignorance of the white man's methods of warfare.
The destruction of the first mission, in 1775, was followed by an aftermath of
troubles of various kinds. An Indian called Cárlos, who had been a leader in the revolt,
professed repentance and took refuge in the Presidio church. General Rivera ordered
Father Fuster to deny the fugitive the right of asylum, and upon his refusal, forcibly entered
the church and carried the Indian off. Fuster thereupon excommunicated Rivera