104 
The Colorado River 
is now Fort Yuma, called Puerto de la Purisima Concepcion, 
after the little canyon hard by, so named by Garces previously, 
a canyon fifty feet deep and a thousand feet long; the other, 
about eight miles down, called San Pedro y San Pablo de 
Bicuner. There were four padres; Garces and Barraneche 
at the upper station, and Diaz and Moreno at the lower. Each 
place had eight or ten soldiers, a few colonists, and a few 
labourers. The Spaniards were obliged to appropriate some 
of the best lands to till for the support of the missions, and 
this, together with the general poverty of the establishments 
when he had expected something fine, disgusted Palma and 
exasperated him and the other Yumas. In June, 1781, Cap¬ 
tain Moncada, lieutenant-governor of Lower California, arrived 
with soldiers and recruits en route for California settlements, 
and encamped opposite Yuma. After some of these people 
had been sent forward or back as the plans demanded, Mon¬ 
cada remained at the camp with a few of his soldiers. No one 
suspected the tornado which was brewing. All the life of the 
camp, of the missions, and of the Yumas went on with the 
same apparent smoothness, but it was only a delusion suddenly 
and horribly dispelled on the fateful 17th of July. Without a 
sign preliminary to the execution of their wrath, Captain 
Palma and all his band threw piety to the winds, and anni¬ 
hilated with clubs Moncada’s camp and most of the men in the 
two missions. Garces and his assistant, Barraneche, were at 
first spared. Even the conscience of Palma hesitated to mur¬ 
der the good and amiable Garces, who had never been to him 
and his people anything but a kind and generous friend, but 
the rabble declared these two were the worst of all, and under 
this pressure Palma yielded. It was the last terrible scene of 
this act in the life-drama we are following. The lights were 
out, the curtain down. Military expeditions were sent to 
avenge the massacre, but they might as well have chased the 
stars. The missions on the Colorado were ended. Never 
again was an attempt made to found one. The desert relapsed 
into its former complete subjection to the native tribes, and 
the indifferent Colorado swept on to the conflict with the sea- 
waves as if neither white man nor Amerind had ever touched 
