THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIANS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The discovery of the Peninsula of California, in 1 534, by an expedition 

 fitted out by Corte's, brought the Spaniards into contact with native tribes 

 that were in several respects unlike the nations they had already met and 

 partially conquered. The naked savages of this newly discovered land 

 maintained their lights to their home, and, probably in return for the usual 

 Spanish treatment of those days, killed Grijalva, the commander of the 

 expedition. The next year, it is stated, Corte's himself explored the penin- 

 sula (at that time thought to be an island), and in this expedition he was 

 accompanied by negro slaves and settlers, as well as by priests and soldiers. 

 The expedition under Ulloa followed in 1537, and from that date we receive 

 accounts of the inhabitants; but it was not until one hundred and sixty 

 years afterwards that the Jesuits began to establish their missions and take 

 possession of a country, the settlement of which had been abandoned, after 

 numerous disasters, by the leaders of the Spanish military expeditions. 



The heroic acts of the Jesuit Fathers in the fulfilment of their labors 

 of "christianizing" the savages are well known, and will not be recapitu- 

 lated here; but while all credit is due those worthy men for their disinterested 

 motives and benevolent intentions, it can hardly be questioned that it is in 

 great part owing to their misguided work in endeavoring to " save the souls 

 of the savages " regardless of the body, that the deluded Indians of por- 

 tions of the Californias owe their rapid and almost unresisted extermina- 

 tion. Naturally indolent, unclean, licentious, and thoughtless of the 

 morrow, under the missionary system they were reduced to slavery, con- 

 fined in towns, subdued in spirit, and treated, to use a phrase from Forbes, 

 1 c I 



