Another beneficial service rendered was the securing of a deed from the squatter, whose story is told in another chapter, to the picturesque ruins and thus transfering them back to their rightful owners—the Catholic church, in trust for the Indians.
Unfortunately, soon after the Palatinguas came here, the resident priest, whom Bishop Conaty appointed to minister to them, did not understand Indians, their childlike devotion to the things hallowed by association with the past, and their desire to be consulted about everything that concerned their interests. Therefore, being suspicious, too, on account of their recent eviction, they were outraged to find the chapel interior freshly whitewashed so that all its ancient decorations were covered. This was another white man's affront which caused irritation and bitterness that it required months to assuage.
CHAPTER IX.
The Palatingua Exiles.
States and nations, even as individuals, are often tempted in diverse ways to forsake the path of rectitude, and, for material gain, territorial acquisition, 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, and California, as a sovereign state, cannot escape its individual responsibility for its utterly reprehensible treatment of its dusky "original inhabitants."
When the Spaniards seized the land their laws were clean-cut and clear in regard to the confiscation of the lands of the Indians. It was made the duty of certain officials, under direct penalties, to see that they were never, under any excuse, pretense, or even legal process, deprived of the lands they had held from time immemorial. The Mexicans, in the main, effectually carried out the same just and equitable laws. But when the United States took possession of California and the new state government was formally organized, a new idea was interjected. The California law proclaimed its intention 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 intention of using the branches of certain trees will be shot if they appear there, as pass laws requiring Indians, ignorant of our language, our methods of procedure, to appear and declare that they intend to continue to use lands they had had uninterrupted possession of for unknown centuries. In other words, the law fiction was a deliberate and definite scheme of dishonest men to make legal the dispossession of the Indians, whenever it was found desirable. Such a case in due time arose at Warner's Ranch. Other cases innumerable might be cited, but this is the one that particularly concerns Pala.
Warner's Ranch was named after Jonathan Trumbull Warner, popularly known to the Mexicans as Juan José Warner, who came from Lyme, Conn., by way of St. Louis, Santa Fe and the Gila River, to California, in 1831. In 1834 he settled down in Los Angeles, marrying, in 1837, at San Luis Rey Mission, Anita Gale, the daughter of Capt. W. A. Gale, of Boston. The maiden, however, had been in California ever since she was five years old, her father having placed her in the home of Doña 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 had had their village from time immemorial. According to Spanish and Mexican law, it must be remembered, their right to their homes and adjacent pasture lands was inalienable without their own consent. Hence under Warner's regime they lived content and happy, uninterfered with, and never worried that a grant—of which they knew nothing—had been made of their lands without any clause of exemption preserving to them their time-honored rights.
Then came Fremont, Sloat and Kearny. California became a state of the United States and among other laws passed the one referring to the lands of the Indians noted above. As he passed by Palatingua, Genl. Kearny, according to the oldest man of the village, Owlinguwush, who acted as his guide, solemnly pledged his government not to remove the Indians from their lands, provided they would be friends of the new people.
This the Indians were. The white people soon learned the value of the hot springs, and flocked thither in great numbers to drink and bathe in the 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, gained from their industries as cattle-men, hunters, farmers, basket and pottery-makers. They were happy, healthy, fairly prosperous and contented.
But in time Warner died. His grant was duly confirmed by the United States Land Courts, but no one cared enough to see that the rights of the Indians were guarded, hence the confirmation and deed of grant contained no exemption of the Indians' lands.