Picture and Text / 1893

atingua

or other supposed good, to do dishonorable things. To my mind one of the chief blots on the escutcheon of the United States is its treatment of the Indians,

tention to protect the rights of the Indians, but it made it the duty of the Indians, within a certain specified time, to come before a duly authorized officer and declare what lands were theirs and that they intended to claim and use. Now while on the face of it this law seems reasonable and just, in actual practice it is as cruel, wicked, and surely confiscating as is the "stand and deliver!" of the highwayman. How were the Indians to know what was required of them? What did they know of the white man and his laws? As well pass a law that all the birds who do not declare their intentio

having placed her in the home of Do?a Eustaquia Pico, the widowed mother of Pio Pico, the last Mexican Governor of California. In due time he (Warner) was naturalized as a Mexican citizen and received from the Mexican Governor in 1844 the grant of an immense tract of land in San Diego County, long known as El Valle de San José. It was fine pasture land, but it was especially noted for its hot springs-Agua Caliente-near which the Indians h

nds of the Indians noted above. As he passed by Palatingua, Genl. Kearny, according to the oldest man of the village, Owlinguwush, who acte

e waters. The Indians charged them a small fee for the use of the bath-houses and tubs they had prepared. This added to their modest income, gai

rts, but no one cared enough to see that the rights of the Indians were guarded, he

eded the hot springs. There was a strongly expressed desire that a health and pleasure resort be established at this charming place, but, of course, it was impossible so long as the Indians were there. Each time removal was intimated to the Indians they laughed-as children laugh if you tell them you are going to buy them from their p

e papers were served in such manner that even the childlike aborigines were compelled to realize that something serious was goi

narchists and revolutionists of good and law-abiding men. Confident in the right of the Indians' cause their faithful friends took the case up to the United States Supreme Court, and again, this time pur

ight. Various people of various temperaments interfered, and each one denounced the others as trouble-makers and bre

certain societies and individuals, prompted by their interest in them and by their inherent sens

be. He reported favorably upon a site, which, however, better informed people in the state, considered altogether unsuitable. Protests immediately were lodged with the Indian Department and as the result a Commissi

irony of this decision. The land once had belonged to the Pala Indians. Less than a century before a thousand of them were regular attendants at the little Mission Chapel and devoted friends of Padre Antonio Peyri. Whence had these and t

could be added to the full purchased land as a reservation. The Commission claimed, and doubtless believed, there was plenty of water, but it was

ment, therefore, ordered the immediate transfer of the Indians from Palatingua, as well as small bands from Puerta de la Cruz, Puerta Chiquit

o the care of a special agent, as Dr. L. A. Wright, the regular Indian Agent, confessed his inability to cope with the situation. Mrs. Babbitt, for many years the teacher at Warner's Ranch, and other friends of the Indians counselled acquiescence to the law's demand. I was invi

round, a pathetic and forlorn group, to wail out their grief over the graves of their fathers. Then hastily loading a little food and a few valuables into such light wagons and surreys as they owned, about twenty-five families drove away for Pala, ahead of the wagon-train. The great

superannuated aboriginal bric-a-brac. In reply to a surprised query, she explained that now they hated the white people and their religion and their books. Dogged and dejected, Captain Cibemoat, with his wife Ramona, and little girl, was the l

to go through the gates. At night, at Oak Grove, they drew the first rations ever issued to the Cupe

anywhere else, asking surlily of the visiting priest, "What kind of a God is this you ask us to worship, who deserts us when we need him most?" Instead, thirty of

building now on the site of the projected village. An Indian girl played the organ, and a score of dusky children-who will compare favorably in intelligence with average w

panile After Restoratio

Pala Chapel as i

l Tower Afte

ally surrounded by mountains that seem to rise in huge overlapping rings, each circling the diminutive valley. The Pala River flows through the settlement. Almost every available foot of

e cluster the pine trees, the live oaks and other rich arboreal growths of Palomar, the Mountain of the Dove. Nearby the rich olive orchards of John Fry stretch out like silken flags of

nd bromine of kelp-beds and with the refreshing tang of the salt air, while from the other come the aseptic breezes of the desert, God's great purifying laboratory, where, after being completely purified, they

them as yet had a thing to do-either to make adobe brick and build their houses of them, or to buy lumber for the purpose from the nearest place of supply. Instead of that what was done by the dunder-headed officials at Washington? Even as I write it seems so incredible that I can scarce believe it. These incompetent men purchased, in New York, fifty flimsy, rickety, insecure, wretched "portable" houses, sent the

ter the government's ow

n cabins built on the spot would have been, and about four times the cost of adobes.... The houses

question arose. There was not enough for their needs. Eighteen thousand dollars was first expended, and then more was calle

r's Ranch. But in those trying early days when nerves were frayed, dispositions frazzled, and passions easily aroused, her earnest and determined efforts to

ful and happy service among her dusky wards, many of which have been spent here at Pala. With heart, mind and body attuned to her work she has truthfully and poetically been termed "the little mother of the Indians." Radiating brightness, sunshine, sympathy an