California as it is, and as it may be

by Felix Paul Wierzbicki

So far as we know, and we have taken considerable pains to ascertain the fact, we may assert that there is no better route for a railroad from the States to California. No other passage through the Sierra Nevada can be found but the one we have indicated. There is none to be found between the heads of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. We have rambled over that region, and the conformation of the country gives us confidence in saying that it is not at all favorable to such a passage; and besides, supposing that such a passage could be found, a single fact in relation to the subject will destroy all hopes of effecting the object; we mean that from the line where the auriferous region terminates, to the very ridge of the Sierra Nevada—the region of granite, occasional limestone, and Masses of sand-stone—snow lies for six months, accompanied with intense cold; the depressions of the mountains are filled up with it to such a degree that the tops of the highest trees only peep through it as if they were but so many insignificant bushes. In fine, the snow levels the tops of the mountains into a continuous plain, as it were, through which the melting sun alone, by degrees, can effect a passage towards the end of June or the beginning of July. This is the time when the Snowy Mountains can be traversed. The government a few weeks ago sent an expedition in search of such a passage through the Northern portion of the gold region about the head of the Sacramento river. We feel sure that the attempt will be fruitless.

It would be well, on the part of the government, to look for passages for military roads leading from the States to the Pacific, or to take advantage of those already discovered. There ought to be at least three such roads; one leading to Oregon, another to the north of California, striking at the head of the Bear Creek, and the third taking a southerly course to San Diego. These roads would offer great facilities to the emigrants from the States, who never should take the same track in large companies, on account of the scantiness of grass. The military posts thus established would keep in check the roving tribes of Indians, offering security to the emigrants. There is already, considering the character of the country through which it passes, a very good road made by the renowned mountaineer, Greenwood, leading by the head of Yuba and striking at the Bear Creek valley, till it reaches Johnson’s farm on the confines of the plains. This road may be made better and much shorter, if it should follow from the ridge at the head of Bear Creek valley, striking at the head of the north fork of the same creek, and following it along a little towards the Yuba side, then again turning towards the Bear Creek, and continuing so till the hills acquire a more confused outline, and finally striking Johnson’s farm. By this route the journey would be shortened several days, and the difficult descent at the junction of the North Fork of the Bear Creek with the same creek would be avoided.

The military roads thus disposed would give a security to the settlements from horse thieving Indians, who now frequently make incursions upon them, carrying away herds of horses and mules, and sometimes even pick up an unaware traveller on his journey. The present disposition of the troops is of no real service to the country. They are stationed in comfortable and quiet quarters in towns where they are the least wanted, and the thieving Indians are allowed to make nightly excursions into the settlements, and to infest the roads. Under the Spanish government there were different military posts established in the country, and the troops in detachments were made constantly to traverse the country in different directions from post to post, thus keeping always on the road, they kept in check the predatory Indians, who, by the way, are neither very brave nor formidable in numbers. According to our notions, soldiers are not kept for the purpose of meddling with politics and living always in towns; they should perform the service that the country may need at their hands, although that service may lead them into camp life.

Since the occupation of the country by the American forces, the inhabitants complained bitterly of the frequent depredations of the horse thieving Indians, but the powers that be listened with indifference to them, and offered no effective remedy for the evil, and it does not seem probable that the present military authorities will do any better for the country, judging from the disposition they have made of the forces. The inhabitants, if they can combine, will have to take the subject into their own hands, for it is even doubtful whether the highest authorities of the Union will deign to look into the wants of the benighted ranchero of California. However, we will not lay the faults of the past government at the door of the present one; we will hope still a while longer for the best at its hands.

It is of no small importance to those who wish to settle in California to know the state of landed property in the country; it will be but following their wishes if we offer a few pertinent remarks upon the subject, which we will do after a few preliminaries. A line drawn from the coast eastward that would pass at the southern edge of the Clear-lake valley; then another that would go north and south, intersecting the former, touching the western side of the auriferous region, and following it down to the frontier line south of San Diego, may be considered as enclosing the inhabited portions of the country. There is very little public land within the above described lines, as it is almost entirely occupied by proprietors or covered by titles.

The government, therefore, cannot expect to find much in the settled portion of the country that should come under its immediate control in the shape of public lands. The land on the north and east sides of the imaginary lines we drew, is either unoccupied or inhabited by rambling tribes of Indians. We may say that the whole auriferous region is occupied by Indians in its whole extent, and the oak is the frontier line of the Indian dominions; beyond that line the undisputed possessions of the pine and the bear commence. The wild Indians of California are probably the most inferior race of all the Aborigines of the continent; they lack energy and spirit; they live on roots, acorns, pine-nuts, insects, and occasionally on game, when they can catch it, or on horse or mule flesh when they can steal it. North of the Bay of San Francisco, and between the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, some of the Indians live in the families of the settlers, or near their farms, working for their subsistence and an occasional blanket. These are called in Spanish, very properly, Indios manzos—(tame Indians.) The others live in the woods, rambling frequently from spot to spot and sustaining themselves in the way we have already mentioned.

On the south side of the Bay of San Francisco and the San Joaquin rivers, the Indians are more numerous, and particularly as we go further south they are more spirited and enterprising in thieving than those of the north; and those particularly on the southern frontier of California are brave and formidable. The Indios manzos are sufficiently numerous in the settlements here, and some thousands of them were living at the Missions. The wild Indians in this portion of the country occupy the mountains back of the settlements; amongst them are now found in large numbers, those who, after the Mexican government succeeded in ruining the Missions, fled into the mountains and resumed their former life. In these mountains are found numerous beautiful valleys, well watered and full of game of every description; the climate is said to be very benign. It would be very difficult to estimate accurately the number of Indians, both tame and wild, in the country; we therefore will not offer any supposition of our own on the subject.

The government at Washington will find itself somewhat embarrassed in selecting a course of conduct with these Indians; they have been accustomed to a different system of management than that of the United States. They cannot be removed, in justice and humanity, from the country, for there is no place to remove them to where they could subsist; it would be dooming them to destruction; and it would be more humane to butcher them outright than expose them to a slow but sure extinction. The system that the Spanish government pursued with them seems to suit, at least the Indians of this country, better than the American way. It acknowledged no rights in them to the soil, but it sends out missionaries to gather them into the folds of the church, and to make settlements of them under the directions of the Priests. In our opinion, the only safe and humane mode of bringing them within the pale of civilization, would be by establishing Protestant Missions, if you like,—but modeled somewhat after the Spanish fashion,—in those mountains on the spots fit for agriculture and grazing, where they could be brought to an industrious and peaceable life by persuasion, which could be easily effected, as they are sufficiently docile, and in this manner their services might be secured for the country as heretofore; they are, when engaged with settlers, those who generally perform the labors of the field or about the house, without losing, however, their freedom. In these occupations they seem quite contented, if they have enough meat to eat, which of course never fails in California. There can be in California no other but free labor hereafter, as it has been heretofore. The new settlers, as well as the old ones, are extremely opposed to any other. It is in vain that the gentlemen from the Southern States of the Union, in their dreaming hours, try, or have tried, to introduce their black institutions through the legal doors, as they think, of Congress into the territory of California. Whether Congress may please, in its wisdom, to think that it has a right to introduce slavery into its new territories or not, it matters not for California; she cares very little what Congress may do in forgetfulness of its duty towards her, but she is resolved to resist any such measure; and whoever entertains the question for a moment, either in the legislative halls or before the public, shows his ignorance of the disposition and unanimous determination of the inhabitants of California. The slave-holder who would come here with his legalized chattles, would find his sojourn very uncomfortable, and would lose completely on his speculation. The inhabitants of this country feel already indignant at the intrigues of the Southern gentlemen who prevented, in the last Congress, the passage of necessary laws for California. We may state here once for all, that if Congress wish to govern this country, it must be just and paternal in its care of it; if it pass any laws it must not pass them in ignorance of the state of things in California; it must not imagine that this country is only inhabited by semi-barbarous tribes that can be co-erced into obedience. The inhabitants are very easily governed by justice, and there are no more loyal citizens in the whole Union than the California settlers; but they think they understand their rights, and would not be downtrodden by any legislative bodies. At this moment the larger portion of them are Europeans and Americans, and the rest are Mexicans either born in California or in other States of that Republic. It is the interest of the Union to keep them in good humor, and consolidate the new territories by just and liberal laws.

Judging from the specimens of the laws proposed in Congress for the benefit of California, and which, thanks to the knowledge, wisdom and eloquence of Hon. T. H. Benton, Senator from Missouri, failed to go into effect, we fear that that honorable body is in danger of running on shoals in its legislative measures relating to this country, and particularly in laws affecting landed property. The gentlemen in Congress apply their American ideas of the value of landed property to a country that has been, so to say, born and raised under Spanish system of laws, and is totally different from any of the States in its domestic and civil arrangements. It would be impossible by any legislative act to change suddenly the character of former civil institutions of the country without committing outrageous injustice to its inhabitants, and even running the risk of raising their opposition. California, as well as New Mexico, comes into the Union as a full-grown man, whose habits are already formed, connects himself by ties of matrimony with another family; his new relations, if they be wise, do not wish him to be like themselves in every particular, but gradually by gentle influences, try to assimilate him to themselves, in which, in the long run, they will succeed. This is precisely the position of the government of the Union in regard to these newly acquired territories. To assimilate them by degrees without doing violence or injustice to their habits and possessions, should be the rule of a wise legislation. They are not to be punished for what, in the eyes of American legislators, appears to be defective in the Spanish or Mexican laws; if so, it would be doing violence to justice, to the laws of nations, and to the very late treaty by which the American government bound itself to respect their rights of property precisely as the Mexican government would have done or did do. The plain meaning of this is that the government of the United States is bound to recognize and legalize after its fashion to suit its system of laws, the present possessions of the Californians as it finds them, and has no right to go behind the fact of actual possession and scrutinize and invalidate them. The Mexican government has left them so, as we find them, and if it had continued its sway in these countries, there is no possible doubt but it would not have disturbed them. These people who were brought up to tend their cattle on a large surface of land, as their grazing farms are, without any knowledge of any other mode of getting a living, if cut down to the American idea of a farm, of a hundred and eighty acres, or supposing even a section of 640 acres, would be reduced to beggary, nay, worse, to servitude. Would such a step be creditable to an enlightened, Christian nation like the United States? Tending cattle is their only occupation and only knowledge; it will take some time before they be trained to a different mode of life. The Spanish and Mexican law does not know a fee-simple title,—in the meaning of the U. S. laws it is a grant of perpetual lease, on some conditions. To suit its own practice, the American government should recognize the titles as it finds them in the country by giving the proprietors a fee-simple title, after its own fashion, on the top of the former one by which the land was held.

The Spanish and Mexican governments were liberal in giving facilities to acquire land, particularly in California. It was a common practice of the Mexican government that when a foreigner married a native he was recognized as a citizen, and by applying, could obtain a grant of land for a grazing farm of from a league to four leagues, or sometimes even more. As a general rule, the largest grazing farm that could have been granted under Mexican government, consisted of eleven leagues; there are, however, individuals that possess as many as thirty and forty leagues of land. Such large possessions are open to suspicion in regard to their being legal possessions, and into such the American government may inquire with more justice, as they are larger than even the necessities of California farmer’s life could require. But small proprietors cannot have more than is absolutely necessary to their maintenance.