Peralta went out a second time. Arguello, from San Francisco, on October 26, wrote again to Governor Arrillaga (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XVII, 358-359) that Peralta could not catch the killers of the Mission Indian Jorge, but he did catch 11 Christians, and after leaving the women and children at the mission, brought 32 "gandules" ("rogues," "rascals," a colloquial term for renegade Indians) to the Presidio. Since the "Sierra de San José" was the coast range behind the East Bay it is clear that the remnant of the people who originally inhabited the interior had taken to the hills in a last stand against the invader. After 1804 all mention of them ceases.
The Cuevas Affair.—In 1805 occurred what is called the "Cuevas Affair." This event has significance for the Alameda and Contra Costa natives, rather than those of the delta or lower San Joaquin Valley, only if the Indians concerned were bona fide aboriginal inhabitants of the inner coast ranges, as Cutter (1950) seems to assume. We must therefore review the evidence.
On January 16, 1805, José Antonio Sanchez wrote from San José to José Arguello (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XIX: 34-35) that Father Pedro Cuevas had asked for a guard to visit and confess invalids in a "rancheria of Christian Indians." The guard was granted. When the party arrived at the designated rancheria, they did not find the invalids. Whereupon they continued farther to another rancheria, where they were attacked and badly mauled. The most reliable account is probably that of Governor Arrillaga, contained in a letter dated March 11, 1805, at Loreto, to the Viceroy (Archivo General de la Nación, Ramo Californias, Vol. 9, MS pp. 452-453). According to him, Father Cuevas was intending to confess Indians at a "nearby" rancheria called Asiremes. José Arguello (January 31, 1805, San Francisco, letter to Governor Arrillaga, Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XIX: 36-37) calls it Asirenes and says it was in the "interior of the Sierra." No other mention of this rancheria occurs, to my knowledge, in the contemporary documents.
The Governor then recounts the casualties: the major domo and two Mission Indians killed, Father Cuevas and two Indians wounded, all the horses killed. He adds that Sergeant Luís Peralta immediately went out with a punitive expedition.
Peralta's story is told in a diary dated January 30, at San Francisco (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XIX: 33-34). He left San Francisco January 19 for Santa Clara to raise personnel. With 18 soldiers and some civilians he arrived on the 22nd "at the point where the evil doers made their attack." They found the body of the major domo, and "since, due to the rain, they could find no trace of the Indians, they camped in the Sierra." Very clearly there was no rancheria or other habitation at this point.
Peralta continues that he found two Gentiles who told them where the rancheria was. Early on January 23 they marched to the place designated. When the occupants began hostilities, the Spaniards fell upon them and killed five. The remainder "fired at us from some barrancas, part of them from a wood [bosque] which was located there. Soon all retreated to the wood." The whites then attacked the wood and cleared it out, capturing 25 persons, all women and children, and killing another five "Indios." At dark they retired for the night "to where the horses had been left," but the following day returned briefly to the wood, where they found no one. Then all hands returned to the mission.
Despite the fact that at least 40 Indians were encountered, there is no indication in the Peralta diary of any permanent habitation. The attack on Father Cuevas occurred at a point where no trace of natives could be found. The battle in which Peralta was engaged took place among barrancas and in a forested area—again, no suggestion of houses or of even a temporary settlement.
With regard to the name of the tribal group concerned there seems to be no question. In a letter of May 30, 1805, from San Francisco to Governor Arrillaga (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XIX: 42) José Arguello speaks of "the rancheria of the Luechas, where the attack against Father Cuevas took place." Much later, José Maria Amador, writing for H. H. Bancroft in 1877 (Bancroft Manuscript, Amador, Memorias, translated by Earl R. Hewitt), referred to "Cuevas, who was going to instruct in the Christian faith the heathen at the Lochis rancheria...." Here is a discrepancy, for the contemporary documents state that Father Cuevas intended to exercise his religious functions at the rancheria of the Asirenes. However, it is clear enough that the outrage itself was perpetrated by the Luechas.
The location of the people—wholly apart from the question of where the attack occurred—is equivocal. That the attack took place in the Sierra is beyond doubt, but that the home of the offenders was likewise in the hills is not so sure. Cutter (1950, p. 92) relies upon a statement of Amador (below) when he states: "The Indians had turned out to be the Luechas, residents of the hills between Livermore and the San Joaquin Valley"; and "this would place them at the foothills east of Mount Diablo at the entrance of the Valley." The pertinent sentence in Amador's Memorias (MS, p. 13) reads thus: "rancheria de Loechas, como 14 leguas al oriente de la mision, arriba del actual pueblo de Livermore a 4 o 5 leguas de dista."
Allowing, conservatively, 2.5 miles per league, the total distance from the mission, if Amador is correct, would be 35 miles. The rancheria would be from 10 to 12.5 miles from Livermore. The term "above" ("arriba de....") does not necessarily mean toward the geographical north, but the direction may be taken as in the quadrant from north to east. The arc of the circumference of a circle with center at Livermore and radius of 12 miles passes approximately from San Ramon in the northwest, well south of Mount Diablo, across the very rough lower spurs of the mountain massif to the mouth of Kellogg Creek near Byron to the northeast. From here it runs along beyond Altamont, close to Mountain House and Midway, as far as upper Corral Hollow to the southeast. This entire stretch is devoid of any indication of substantial aboriginal occupancy, either in the eighteenth-century documents or in modern archaeological research.