Late in the following year, 1794, trouble began with the natives of the Contra Costa. The immediate cause appears to have been the zeal of the missionaries to push conversion in the area. On November 30, 1794, the military commander at San Francisco, Perez-Fernandez, wrote to Governor Borica (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XII: 29-30) that "the missionaries of San Francisco have requested an additional two or three men for the guard in order to go from Santa Clara to the other shore, in a northerly direction, as far as opposite the port [of San Francisco] to make conquests of the heathen...." The request was refused for reasons which in themselves throw light on the status of the East Bay natives:
1st. Because it is almost unknown country: there are indications that the heathen who occupy it are uncooperative.
2nd. He [the Commandant] does not believe that a priest, with two or three soldiers and some Christian Indians, constitutes a party sufficiently strong to cross and camp overnight in strange territory.
3rd. Although the Fathers believe this to be a favorable opportunity, because the heathen lack food, having lost their crop due to the severity of the drouth, and this will facilitate catching them, he does not have the means at his disposal for expeditions of this type.
Nevertheless, such forays were already in progress, for Perez-Fernandez reported that the Fathers at San Francisco "sent by sea to the islands and other shore opposite the mouth of the port some Mission Indians in rafts of tule on the 4th of this month to capture heathen." One of the rafts was carried as far out to sea as the Farallones, and two men were lost.
On March 3, 1795, Perez-Fernandez again wrote to Governor Borica from San Francisco (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XIII: 455-456.). (This, and many other letters cited here, are also to be found in the Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City, Ramo Californias, Vol. 65, Expediente no. 3, entitled "Sobre la Muerte que dieron los Indios Gentiles a siete Indios cristianos de la Mission de San Franco.") He now announced the murder by the heathen of seven Christian Indians sent across the bay by Fray Antonio Danti to hunt for runaway neophytes. The culprits belonged to the rancheria of the Chaclanes, and, says Perez-Fernandez, "these rancherias of the Chaclanes are in the country where the said Father Danti wanted to go, and whom I prevented from going, as I told your Excellency under date of November 29 last."
A lively correspondence ensued, reference to most of which may be omitted. An investigation was inaugurated and some type of scouting party was sent out. At least, we have record of a letter dated at Monterey, June 2, 1795, from Governor Borica to José Perez (Bancroft Trans., Prov. Rec., V: 56) in which the Governor orders Perez "to tell Sergeant Amador that he has received the report he sent concerning the reconnaissance to the Alameda, and that he shall continue this with the others who went with him." This is no doubt the expedition by Amador referred to by Danti in his diary (see below).
On June 23, 1795, from Monterey, Governor Borica rendered a full and final account of the affair to Viceroy Branciforte (Archivo General de la Nación, Californias, Vol. 65, Expediente no. 3, "Sobra la muerte ..." etc. Doc. no. 122, MS p. 79). Parts of this document are worth quoting. One of the survivors was a neophyte named Othon, whose story follows.
Five old Christian Indians set out from the San Francisco Mission, including the alcaldes Pasqual and Rogerio, together with nine new Christians of the rancherias from the other shore of the bay, with orders from Father Missionary Fray Antonio Danti to bring back all the Christians who had run away. On the first day they crossed the bay in their boats and slept on the beach. On the second day at dawn they set out for the rancheria of the Chaclanes where they arrived at noon, and not having found any people in it, they kept on all that day and all night, travelling without sleep or rest, in spite of the rain, and reached the rancheria of the Chimenes at about two o'clock in the afternoon. They encountered there a great multitude, as many as there are in the mission [perhaps 900, according to Borica]. The men, armed with bows and arrows, came out of a big temascal with such a rush that they broke it to pieces, immediately beginning to shoot arrows, shouting, "Kill our enemies." The alcaldes, seeing this violence, tried to persuade the natives that we had not come to fight or to do harm, but the others took no heed and kept on shooting until they killed as many as seven....
Governor Borica goes on to say:
This Othon and others told me that these Chimenes Indians are of a rough and valiant nature. They are at continual war with the neighboring villages, and particularly with the Tegunes. They live toward the north coast in the vicinity of the Port of Bodega. Their food is amole, bellota and pinole and their chiefs are called Mule and Yuma.
The identity of these Chimenes is something of a mystery. Certainly the Christian Indians, after leaving the rancheria of the Chaclanes (i.e., Saclanes), somewhere behind the Oakland hills, could not have even approached the port of Bodega, for they could not have crossed the Bay and the rivers on foot. Yet they traveled twenty-four hours, if Othon's account is even approximately correct. Hence they must have covered fully twenty-five or thirty miles, a distance which would have brought them to some point on the south shore of Carquinez Strait or Suisun Bay. If this is true, then they encountered representatives of the Huchiunes, the Karkines, or the Chupunes, the only tribal groups known definitely to have inhabited the area. The statements of Othon, as transmitted by the Governor, regarding the number of Chimenes, as well as their ferocity, must be heavily discounted (although the smashing of the temescal is a touch which would hardly be supplied by imagination alone). One hundred, or even fifty, infuriated warriors would no doubt have appeared to be thousands to the fourteen terrified Christians, and the Governor would hardly want to report to the viceroy that his Mission Indians had been routed by a handful of wild natives. On the other hand, the incident proves the existence of a sizable rancheria somewhere in northern Contra Costa County in 1795.