american-holocaust

140 AMERICAN HOLOCAUSTsion visitor, they were guarded by men "with whips and goads to enforceorder and silence" and were surrounded by "soldiers with fixed bayonets"who were on hand in case any unruliness broke out. These were the samesoldiers, complained the officially celibate priests, who routinely raped youngIndian women. If any neophytes (as the Spanish called Indians who hadbeen baptized) were late for mass, they would have "a large leathern thong,at the end of a heavy whip-staff, applied to their naked backs." 153 Moreserious infractions brought more serious torture.And if ever some natives dared attempt an escape from the padres'efforts to lead them to salvation-as, according to the Franciscans' ownaccounts, the Indians constantly did-there would be little mercy shown.From the time of the missions' founding days, Junipero Serra traveled frompulpit to pulpit preaching fire and brimstone, scourging himself before hisincarcerated flock, pounding his chest with heavy rocks until it was fearedhe would fall down dead, burning his breast with candles and live coals inimitation of San Juan Capistrano. 154 After this sort of self-flagellating exertion,Father Serra had no patience for Indians who still preferred not toaccept his holy demands of them. Thus, on at least one occasion whensome of his Indian captives not only escaped, but stole some mission suppliesto support them on their journey home, "his Lordship was so angered,"recalled Father Pal6u, "that it was necessary for the fathers whowere there to restrain him in order to prevent him from hanging some ofthem. . . . He shouted that such a race of people deserved to be put tothe knife." 155It was not necessary for starving and desperate Indians to steal food orsupplies, however, to suffer the perverse punishments of the mission fathers.The padres also were concerned about the continuing catastrophicdecline in the number of babies born to their neophyte charges. At somemissions the priests decided the Indians intentionally were refraining fromsex, as the natives of the Caribbean supposedly had done, in an effort tospare their would-be offspring the tortures of life as a slave. Some of theIndians may indeed have been purposely avoiding sex, although by themselvesthe starvation-level diets, along with the disease and enormous stressof the Indians' mission existence, were more than sufficient to cause acollapse in the birth rate. 156 In either case, here is a first-hand account ofwhat happened at mission Santa Cruz when a holy and ascetic padre namedRamon Olbes came to the conclusion that one particular married couplewas behaving with excessive sexual inhibition, thereby depriving him ofanother child to enslave and another soul to offer up to Christ:He [Father Olbes] sent for the husband and he asked him why his wifehadn't borne children. The Indian pointed to the sky (he didn't know howto speak Spanish) to signify that only God knew the cause. They brought aninterpreter. This [one] repeated the question of the father to the Indian, who