MISSIONS AND MISSION INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA. 48 1 



and women under their care than they could keep constantly- 

 employed the whole year, if labor were too much facilitated, they 

 are afraid of making them idle by the introduction of mills." 

 With the fathers the important question was, not how many con- 

 verts can be well instructed, and by what method can their prog- 

 ress to civilization be best facilitated, but how many can be got 

 together to be baptized and saved from the devil. Not improve- 

 ment but conversion was their guiding motive. 



There is no good reason to believe that the neophytes were not 

 well fed, though the contrary was asserted by officials inimical to 

 the mission policy. That their fare lacked variety is probable, 

 but there was enough of it, and it was served three times a day, 

 as Beechey tells us, adding that it consisted of " thick gruel made 

 of wheat, Indian corn, and sometimes acorns, to which at noon is 

 generally added meat." 



That the rule at the missions was not all work and no play is 

 evidenced by the fact that the neophytes were allowed to indulge 

 in their own habits and customs so far, says Langsdorff , as " they 

 are not inconsistent with their new religion. In their dances, 

 their amusements, their sports, their ornaments, they are freely 

 indulged." Like other Indians, they were great gamblers ; and, 

 whether by the tacit permission of the priests or not, they in- 

 dulged freely in the passion, chiefly by means of games of their 

 own invention. Drunkenness was more or less common among 

 them. 



The picture of the California neophyte under mission rule thus 

 presented, while having its dark side, is by no means a revolting 

 one, and at first sight it might be supposed that the Indians un- 

 der such a system should be better off and happier than in their 

 original condition. They were well fed, well clothed, if not well 

 housed ; their tasks were not heavy, a reasonable amount of amuse- 

 ment was allowed, and they needed to take no thought for the 

 morrow, for everything was provided. While it must be evident 

 at once that such a system could not but prove an absolute failure 

 as regards the true civilization of the Indian, it does not imme- 

 diately appear why he should not have been contented with his 

 lot. If he was not contented, the fault lay with the system or 

 the Indian, and certainly not with the personal character of the 

 priests ; for, while there were a few black sheep among them, as a 

 body they represented a high standard of benevolence and integ- 

 rity. All who visited the missions in the early days extol the 

 fathers for the unselfish spirit with which they devoted them- 

 selves to what they believed to be the welfare of their subjects 

 and their kind-heartedness. It is doubtful if a purer and more 

 devoted set of men ever labored for the good of the heathen than 

 the early missionaries of California. Having power the most 



VOL. XXXYII. — 35 



