MCGEE] SECOND CIRCUMNAVIGATION 1844 91 



The captives were imprisoned over night in the mint, the children 

 •weeping, the women chattering angrily or humbly, and the men sulk- 

 ing. Next day the Hermosillerios began distributing the children among 

 themselves, some families taking three and many two, while the adults 

 were transferred to Pueblo Seri, placed in charge of a single keeper, 

 and set to gathering fuel, etc. Naturally this unstable status did not 

 long persist; "within two months they began to disappear, fleeing to 

 their resi)eetive and native haunts, stealing and carrying with them 

 the children from whom they had been separated"; ' and, according to 

 Espence, they committed "many murders on the Pitic and Guaimas 

 roads'' as they returned to Tiburon.^ 



While the Tiburon captives were escaping, the campaigning con- 

 tinued; and, in November, 1844, several Seri families, comprising 63 

 men, women, and children, who had been scavengering Rancho del 

 Burro ("manteuiendose alii a nierccd de los desperdicios de dicho 

 rancho"),' were captured and transported to the mint at Hermosillo, 

 and soon afterward traiisferred to Pueblo Seri. During the same 

 month a report came from Rancho del Pocito, on the Guaymas road, 

 that Seri marauders (assumed to belong to the Ki families left on the 

 island ) had killed 10 head of stock ; and a detachment of 15 cavalry 

 was sent to inflict punishment. Early in December this i)arty met a 

 Seri force of over seventy warriors, including some of those captured 

 on Tiburon and escaped from Pueblo Seri ; after a battle of four hours 

 the troops found their ammunition exhausted, several of their carbines 

 out of order, and all but four or five of their horses winded; so that 

 they were driven to i^arley with the Indians and to procure their surren- 

 der by pacific means — especially promises of good treatment.'' Subse- 

 quently a municipal commission from Hermosillo reminded the defeated 

 Seri of their surrender, and "three, four, or eight" of them presented 

 themselves ("presentandose tres, cuatro I'l ocho hombres"), and were 

 probably added to the colony at Pueblo Seri. 



Espence's journal clearly indicates a complete circumnavigation of 

 Tiburon, the second in history (that of Ugarte in 1721 being the first); 

 and naturally some of his notes are of ethnologic value: 



The Ceris Indians are tall, well formed, not very corpulent; tlie women are 

 remarkal)l(^ for small breasts and feet and high insteps. At night they travel ill; 

 this is to he attributed to the reflection of the sun on the sand, which is quite white, 

 and as they all live on the shore where they gain sustenance, which is fish and plank- 

 ton [marisco], they are daily exposed to a glare which injures their vision. Their 

 favorite food is turtles and horses. . . . They are all in the most savage condi- 

 tion it is possible to conceive. Their language is guttural, and they are most liltliy 

 in their persons, as in their food, which is mostly eaten raw, or at the best half 



' Velasoo, Noticias Estadisticas, p. 127. 



'Ibid., p. 170. 



sibid., p. 128. 



*Ibid., p. 129. This naire recital i.s far I'roin unique among tlit) chronicles of couquest over the Seri. 

 All of the re(U)rd8 recount victories more or less brilliant, even when there are stron*; indications 

 between lines that the Caucasians were outuambered, outfought, forced from the field, and even 

 driven into tlie protection of the juieblos. Tlie Seri side of the story has never been told. 



