Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

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In 1877 it had been 107 years since Junípero Serra founded San Carlos Borromeo del río Carmelo. From a pre-missionization population estimated as high as one million, California Indians now numbered about twenty thousand. Few Indians, if any, owned land. Most of those who did would eventually lose it to American squatters, outright theft, taxes. Indians from San Carlos Mission lived in and around Carmel, Monterey, Big Sur, in whatever housing or refuge they could find—or they left, traveled far away, and did not return. Into this world, Tomás Santos Miranda was born to an Esselen Indian woman named María Severiana Ramírez Miranda and her husband, Tranquilino Miranda, near the ruins of Mission San Carlos Borromeo del río Carmelo and—somehow—lived. “I am the result of the love of thousands,” Linda Hogan, herself a survivor of genocide, wrote. And sometimes we are the result of the bitter survival of thousands, as well. Sometimes we get here any way we can. Sometimes our bodies are the bridges over which our descendants cross, spanning unimaginable landscapes of loss.
The Light from the Carrisa Plains: Reinvention 1900–1961 Tom’s Stories I inherited a bagful of cassette tapes featuring my paternal grandfather, Tom Miranda (1903–1988), a twentieth-century descendant of the Carmel Mission Indians born just sixty-nine years after the missions were secularized (although it took another ten to fifteen years for the missions to completely close down), and just one generation removed from legal slavery. Tom traveled all over the West Coast from the age of fourteen, curious and observant. He was born in the Monterey/Carmel area, close to the Carmel Mission, but these tapes tell of journeys as far north as Seattle and back down into Mexico, even into the Midwest. He also traveled extensively
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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
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sacred, and we have a right to spea
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Isabel Mar. [19]37 understands “j
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amongst the men, passed as just men
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seek every kind of way to feed them
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his plump arm, swung him around acr
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Bridges: Secularization Post- 1836-
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Wear their heavy aprons, high-necke
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Ularia’s Curse “Pero la maldici
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“Will you miss us, River?” she
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and Santa Clara, and as editor of t
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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 132 and 133: including my great-grandfather Tom
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 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
Page 182 and 183: play cards all the time, but I didn
Page 184 and 185: I says, “You’re Slavonian, aren
Page 186 and 187: One morning George came up to the h
Page 188 and 189: I thought, “All these bastards ha
Page 190 and 191: The government can do some funny th
Page 192 and 193: never heard anything, Dad. They had
Page 194 and 195: out behind the church instead of as
Page 196 and 197: flogging in silence; oh renowned Yo
Page 198 and 199: dark civilization we endure. Teach
Page 200 and 201: though. I have arranged to talk to
Page 202 and 203: 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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