MCOEE] THE ENCINAS REGIME 1844-1894 100 



During' the half (century of historical silence from 1844 forward, and 

 pending the progress of the desultory reseai'ches, the Seri suffered a 

 succession of external shocks more serious in their internal effects than 

 any of those of the three centuries preceding; indeed it is just to say 

 that during this half century the Seri range was curtailed, the Seri 

 customs were modified, and the Seri population was diminished more 

 effectively than during the preceding sesquicentury of fairly deliuite 

 record. The chief factor in this transformation was an intrepid pioneer, 

 who pushed actual settlement toward the vSeri frontier more vigorously 

 than any predecessor — Sefior Pascual Encinas, a son of Sonora.' 



Born near Hermosillo in 1819, Don Pascual was in early maturity at 

 the time of Colonel Andrade's expedition, and was fully convei'sant 

 with the later history of the Seri. Of adventurous disposition, and 

 holding interests in Bacuachito, he was familiar with the Seri frontier; 

 and in hunting deer and other large game over the vast delta plain of 

 Rio Sonora he had perceived the agricultural possibilities of the region. 

 During the struggle of 1844 he became imjjressed with the idea that 

 the Seri miglit be controlled and gradually inducted into useful citizen- 

 ship through a judicious combination of industrial, educational, and 

 evangelical agencies; and before the end of the year he began the 

 establishment of a rancho (the present Bancho San Francisco de Costa 

 Rica) on the Seri borderland, with the double object of developing new 

 resources and regulating the relations between tiibesmen and settlers. 

 Enlisting the aid of a corps of vaqueros, mechanics, and farmeis, he 

 excavated a deep well, erected corrals and adobe houses, cleared away 

 the exceptionally luxuriant mesquite forests, fenced fields, and stocked 

 the ))lains with horses, burros, and cattle. At the same time he sought 

 Seri wanderers and treated them with such kindness and firmness as 

 to gain their confidence; and while most of the tribe held aloof, some 

 attached themselves to the rancho, and a few even were taught to labor, 

 albeit in desultory fashion. In this stage, as for some years after- 

 ward, he was materially aided by his contemporary, Kolusio, then in 

 his physical prime and still in good repute among his kinsmen. Mean- 

 time he obtained the assignment of two priests, who nuule it their chief 

 duty still further to placate the tribesmen and their families and to 

 induct them into religious observances and belief; ami as the confi- 

 dence of the Indians increased, he had two boys domiciled in the lancho 

 and educated in the Spanish as well as in the faith, in the hope that 

 they might pass into priesthood and so form a future bond with their 

 kin One of these neophytes disappeared in the troublous times of 

 a later decade, though tradition indicates that he became a tribal out- 

 cast (like Kolusio still later) and slunk away to Piticjuito and Altar, 

 and afterward to California; the other, christened Juan Estorga and 



' The follo%ving paragraphs are comlensed fi-om oral recitals by Seiior Encinas (a notably atraigbt- 

 forwiirtl and judicious authority), suiijdeiutnted and oorroborated in all essentia! details by Sefiores 

 Andres Noriega, Tgnacio Lozania, and several other habitues of the Seri borderland, as well as by 

 Kolusio and Mash^m, several Papajio infonuants. and various collateral documents. 



