| THE CALIFORNIAN PENINSULA. 399 
i 
parentage, resided, with two soldiers; and Sz. Joseph del Cabo, under Father 
Nicolas Tamaral, from Sevilla, in Spain, without any guard. 
The motives leading to this insurrection, which were afterwards freely divulged 
by the natives, consisted in their unwillingness to content themselves with one 
wife, although they had promised to renounce polygamy, and their displeasure 
at being reprimanded for certain transgressions deserving the censure of their 
spiritual advisers. The ringleaders and principal movers of the rebellion were 
two individuals, Botén and Chicéri by name, who exerted a great influence 
among the natives, and prepared everything in secret for the outbreak. Their 
object was to kill the three priests, to exterminate all traces of Christianity, 
which most of them had adopted ten years before, and to resume their former 
loose and independent manner of living. Their design became, however, known, 
and the fire was’ extinguished before it could blaze up in full flames. The In- 
dians feigned a friendly disposition, and a kind of peace was established towards 
the beginning of the year 1734. But as this peace was not concluded with 
sincerity, it could not be of a long duration. The treacherous rebels soon again 
made attempts to carry out at all hazards the objects they had in view, and 
really succeeded in the following October, though not so completely as they 
wished, since Father 'Taraval found the means to escape their murderous hands. 
The six soldiers were their principal obstacle. Meeting in the field with one 
of them of the mission of St. Rosa, they assassinated him, and sent word to the 
mission that he was very ill, requesting the priest either to come to the place in 
order to confess him, or to order the two remaining soldiers to transport the 
patient to the station, their inténtion being to decoy the one or the others, and 
to take their lives. But fortunately the messenger delivered his commission in 
such an awkward manner that the crime they had already perpetrated, as well 
a3 their further designs, could be easily divined, for which reason neither the 
priest nor the soldiers complied with their request. A few days afterward they 
killed also the only soldier belonging to the mission de la Paz. 
The rumor of these two murders, and other indubitable signs of an impending 
mutiny and general uprising in the south, were spread abroad, and soon reached 
the ears of the Superior of the missions, who was then at that of the Seven 
Dolors, nearly ninety leagues from the place where these events had occurred. 
He sent orders immediately to the three priests whose lives were endangered to 
save themselves by flight, but the letters fell into the hands of the mutineers, 
and would, besides, at any rate have arrived too late to avert the peril. 
It was the intention of the conspirators to strike the first blow against the 
mission of St. Joseph and Father Tamaral; but learning that Father Carranco 
had already received intelligence of their plans, they rushed with all speed 
upon his mission before he could make any preparations for defence, or effect 
his escape from the place. It was on a Saturday, and the 2d of October, when 
they arrived at the mission of St. Yago. The father had just said mass, and 
had locked himself in his room to perform his private devotions. Most unfor- 
tunately the two soldiers, who formed his whole body-guard, had left the place 
on horseback in order to bring in some head of cattle for the catechumens and 
other people of the mission. After a while the returned messengers, whom 
Father Carranco had despatched to the mission of St. Joseph to warn lather 
Tamaral of the danger to which he was exposed, entered the room. Father 
Carranco was reading his answer, when the murderers entered the house and 
fell upon him. Some threw him on the ground and dragged him by his feet to 
the front of the church, while others pierced his body with many arrows, and 
beat him with stones and clubs till he expired. 
A little native boy, who used to wait upon the father when he took his meals, 
was a witness to the act, and shed tears when he beheld his benefactor’s 
mournful fate; upon which one of the barbarians seized the boy by the legs 
and smashed his head against the wall, saying, that since he showed so much 
al 
