Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

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including my great-grandfather Tomás Santos Miranda. Caption: “Mission <strong>Indians</strong> of Southern California Making Baskets and Hair Ropes” He was born in 1877, the same year the article was published. When Tomás was growing up, the only way Americans knew how to conceptualize California “Mission” <strong>Indians</strong> was the way they are depicted in this Harper’s Weekly article: obedient, hardworking, unambitious mission drones whom the Spanish and Mexican padres had painstakingly trained to do
some of the lowest, most labor-intensive chores of the era. As early as 1792, the traveler Navarete had visited Carmel and noted that the Natives there were “the most stupid as well as the ugliest and filthiest of the natives of America.” What do I know about Tomás Santos? It’s a short list: Tomás’s father, Tranquilino Miranda, had been born in Mexico in 1837, the oldest of ten siblings, and had traveled to Carmel with his parents, Cruz and Cristina Miranda, around 1850. Cruz and Cristina were both Indigenous Mexicans, most likely missionized long before, perhaps drafted for the journey up the mission trail as part of a larger party traveling between missions. California had just become a state in 1850, and stories of gold abounded —Cruz Miranda, listed as forty-six years old in the 1860 census, may have thought there was some chance for his family to strike it rich, or perhaps he was simply fleeing the postwar chaos in Mexico. The fact that Cruz ended up at Carmel Mission, family in tow, and was listed as a “laborer,” immediately becoming a member of that community, indicates a scenario dictated more by church connections than by gold.
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© 2013 by Deborah A. Miranda All r
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P.O. Box 9145, Berkeley, CA 94709 (
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Table of Contents Title Page Copyri
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Chairwoman, Ohlone/Costanoan-Essele
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DeAnna Rivera, Wendy Teeters, Kimbe
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Introduction California Is a Story
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heels and tight dresses. She’d tr
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Theirs was the kind of desire that
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ut who are we, when we have survive
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the way Tonto spoke if you wanted t
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as a truth. As a whole. Even if the
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South while simultaneously requirin
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those giant dioramas behind glass),
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video project must have been a lot
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where voices can speak after long a
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Los Pájaros based on writings by J
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ut the women were caught with Spani
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When arrows were raining everywhere
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Deby Miranda, fourth grade picture
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Tell them to dig a big round basin
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Mission San Miguel campanario, circ
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lusty songs out beyond the padres
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Discipline Due to their animal-like
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customs.” Luckily, the Spaniards
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Also known in Spanish as azotes (st
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striking force. The whips might be
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Wooden club used to strike quickly;
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tuned-up souls. These reconditioned
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grandchildren, was never legally an
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Padre Figure 11. Franciscan mission
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we were his beloved and abused floc
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Dear Vicenta
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Well, I shouldn’t complain. Those
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Vicenta, I keep thinking of how you
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Mission to the chapel in Monterey,
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Not conquered. Nimasianexelpasaleki
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Meadows knew she was a valuable res
Page 82 and 83: sacred, and we have a right to spea
Page 84 and 85: Isabel Mar. [19]37 understands “j
Page 86 and 87: amongst the men, passed as just men
Page 88 and 89: seek every kind of way to feed them
Page 90 and 91: his plump arm, swung him around acr
Page 92 and 93: Bridges: Secularization Post- 1836-
Page 94 and 95: Wear their heavy aprons, high-necke
Page 96 and 97: Ularia’s Curse “Pero la maldici
Page 98 and 99: “Will you miss us, River?” she
Page 100 and 101: and Santa Clara, and as editor of t
Page 102 and 103: From The Argonauts of ’Forty-nine
Page 104 and 105: or near the goldfields in ’49, sh
Page 106 and 107: In 1857 the California State Legisl
Page 108 and 109: So when I see this woman’s image,
Page 110 and 111: Exorbitant amounts of money are mad
Page 112 and 113: Ms. Hawthorne shared that this phot
Page 114 and 115: have so many questions. What kind o
Page 116 and 117: as humiliating and opprobrious. It
Page 118 and 119: face. Oh let black smoke rise above
Page 120 and 121: ecognizable. Old News 1. It is diff
Page 122 and 123: with great desperation. 2. Sacramen
Page 124 and 125: 3. San Francisco Bulletin, January
Page 126 and 127: killed one Indian, wounded several
Page 128 and 129: Jacinta’s Medicine Jacinta Gonzal
Page 130 and 131: They pierce the body like knives, l
Page 134 and 135: If there was a connection to the mi
Page 136 and 137: in Monterey, was working to raise i
Page 138 and 139: Fr. Casanova’s Mass at Carmel, 18
Page 140 and 141: Mission register, baptism of Tomás
Page 142 and 143: María Inés García, probably on h
Page 144 and 145: Tomás Santos Miranda died in 1943.
Page 146 and 147: clearly were meant to keep rabbits
Page 148 and 149: a cookout. It reminds me of how my
Page 150 and 151: to turn tail and run for the hills.
Page 152 and 153: His hands—or rather, the one hand
Page 154 and 155: In 1877 it had been 107 years since
Page 156 and 157: through the infinite varieties of C
Page 158 and 159: yet still have an identity and comm
Page 160 and 161: Jr., circa 1981 I want Tom’s voic
Page 162 and 163: Also beneath the surface of this st
Page 164 and 165: a hell of a—he said, “I’m goi
Page 166 and 167: and of course, since he was old, hi
Page 168 and 169: stealing horses, drinking, and caro
Page 170 and 171: José Robles, circa 1879 Recently,
Page 172 and 173: would clear up and the air was clea
Page 174 and 175: “Well then, I can’t tell you ve
Page 176 and 177: two. I took my first drink when I l
Page 178 and 179: He Told Me, “Have You Ever Been i
Page 180 and 181: He says, “How high do you want to
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play cards all the time, but I didn
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I says, “You’re Slavonian, aren
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One morning George came up to the h
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I thought, “All these bastards ha
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The government can do some funny th
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never heard anything, Dad. They had
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out behind the church instead of as
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flogging in silence; oh renowned Yo
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dark civilization we endure. Teach
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though. I have arranged to talk to
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gangrene of the leg. I immediately
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ecord. 3. The ulcer on Juan’s leg
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John Peabody Harrington, April 29,
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Teheyapami Home Achiska: 1961-Prese
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luminous in the dark air, she is hu
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to me for that easy solution. My fa
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My lips are pressed so tightly toge
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But Buddy kisses my mama in a way t
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earth, bruised. And after my family
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What if it doesn’t kill him, what
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unwrapped, coming loose, unleashed
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kitchen knife—from my house, ride
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cost, but doesn’t transform. I fi
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want, though. Innocence; the almost
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calluses formed on my fingers from
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safe in Mommer’s kitchen. The pin
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In that cusp of time on the mountai
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disappearance at every turn. If I
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I am of the seventh generation sinc
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Eventually the woman who gave birth
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stalks were watered generously each
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around the gopher traps she’d wat
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asked, pointing to two girls runnin
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about the girl without a mother, th
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oom several times in an hour to wra
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After a second he asks, “Is this
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times” without success. I know he
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walked the woods and pastures toget
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ear-view mirror as he saw that conc
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where it floated around for decades
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of arms and legs, mind and humor, h
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design together, complement the sha
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uried their subversive tongues. Now
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I try to write all this down, but w
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And he saith unto them, Follow me,
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to apply that first year. After all
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of Life does not—cannot—teach C
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ut not over here, and secret techni
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Breath of Life tribe, located in th
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never occurred to any of us that Da
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want to use, the work of language r
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Mantuxite, mantuxite, It is true, i
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tourists, carry our ancestors out t
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Do you remember us? Do we look like
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of lumber, my father made bunk beds
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My father was pleased when I progre
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My father liked to cook. He was ver
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Sitting down to eat a meal cooked a
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steady carpentry jobs right from th
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uneven circles, slung them one by o
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lack coffee that he’ll let himsel
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My father, however, had one piece o
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Power: Al Miranda Jr. and Deborah M
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undemanding, gentle if withdrawn. B
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tolerate bed-wetting, for example,
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I remember Little Al trying to cove
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I knelt down and pulled the soaking
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kept moving. It was the drinking, i
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“Is Al Miranda there? Midge Miran
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Alcohol worked on him like an evil
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even changed her surname to Ramirez
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eucalyptus trees, dust, and sweat.
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leather belt from his waist, doubli
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That was the first time I really un
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very end, our father was alone. Al
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one, take a breath, swim to the nex
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I need a song with guts. I need a s
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“I have substantial evidence that
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pair of socks in Southern Californi
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green suitcase up and over curbs an
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are, hairy skin gaped. Ay! Well, ha
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He risked a quick glance up at her
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Just as he straightened fully, suit
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confused but very happy mojo. He st
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ought a bag of cookies from the Hos
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(see the sample report to learn the
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Mission Project Worksheet Name ____
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Please, parents, try to refrain fro
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Dear 4th Grade Students and Parents
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fun and I can’t wait to see what
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World” “Art and literature and
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drawn toward a mysterious light whi
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landmark is Pico Blanco or Mt. Diab
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constructions that surrounded it, t
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Places of power are not tread on li
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stocks, flogging, whatever the padr
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Hand-drawn map of El Potrero, as it
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In 1852, seven years after Fructuos
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died unexpectedly in 1893, at the a
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years were ended with drunkenness.
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Perhaps it seems strange to others,
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uglier alternative, suggested some
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looked at us, but it didn’t come
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(probably six feet tall at the most
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foot—pale cream, clean, nothing g
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from.” These are stories worth fo
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dandy; Al Miranda, Keta Miranda, an
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Smithsonian Institution, 1907-1957,
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most missions had two priests worki
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and Carmel: Eden by the Sea (Guilfo
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About the Author Deborah A. Miranda
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About Heyday Heyday is an independe
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Alice Guild; Walter & Elise Haas Fu
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