An Indian woman named Delfina told the mayor-domo, Diego Olbera, and his wife: “One day, having crossed the rivers and traveled five days, soldiers and priests are encountered who give the Indians pieces of cotton cloth, blankets, axes and knives.” That there are [i.e., they had] wheels and, as she stated, the latter were from carts or wagons, giving the appearance that this was their mode of travel.
That the above is the news which he has been able to secure and which he is transmitting [to the Governor].
II. EXPEDITIONS, 1804-1805
In 1804, and probably in 1805, there were various penetrations of the valley. Chief of these was the visit of Father Fray Juan Martin to the village of Bubal. Since this trip was entirely unauthorized, it was not described until 1815. This silence for ten years is significant, since it opens up the possibility that many other such informal expeditions occurred—without having been written up afterward.
FATHER MARTIN’S VISIT TO CHOLAM, 1804
Father Martin’s trip to Cholam did not actually reach the valley, but attained its borders. It is worth recording as showing the type of activity characteristic of the period.
José de la Guerra, Commandant, to Governor Arrillaga
Monterey, January 29, 1804
(Prov. St. Pap., Benicia, Military, XXXIV: 266-267)
Communicates that Father Juan Martin, minister of San Miguel, protected by one soldier, went to a village called Cholam and asked the chief of all the villages thereabouts, named Guchapa, to give him some children to baptize. This was refused by the chief, who told the Father and the soldier to get out immediately or it would go badly with them, for he “was not afraid of the soldiers, who were cowards, and he knew with certainty that they would die like everyone else.”
Commandant Guerra sent a sergeant, a corporal, and thirteen soldiers to take the chief, Guchapa, prisoner. The expedition set out December 22. It returned January 10 bringing as captives Chief Guchapa, his son, two other chieftains, and two Christians. (The commandant says he includes the report of the sergeant, but it is not to be found. He talks of “the heroic struggle of Guchapa and the good passage provided them by the Indian Cojapa.”)
The commandant continues saying that Guchapa made the proposition that he would bring out all the Christian Indians there were in his villages. This was accepted and he left his son as hostage. “I dismissed him with some presents which I gave him as a reward for his good behavior with the troops and waited a little while for his return. This was in order to grant them forgiveness together with the warning that in the future they should hold in respect the troops and the Fathers. This was the least which it seems to me should be done and said.”[1]