Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/127

Rh arrival of the deputy from California; and finally the minister of relations approved Echeandía's plan and recommended it with the report of the junta to congress at the beginning of 1831.

There are a few items of Indian affairs in the annals of these years that may as well be recorded here as elsewhere, none of them requiring more than a brief notice. In April 1826 Alférez Ibarra had apparently two fights at or near Santa Isabel, in the San Diego district, perhaps with Indians who came from the Colorado region. In one case eighteen, and in the other twenty, pairs of ears taken from the slain—a new kind of trophy for California warfare—were sent to the comandante general. Three soldiers of the Mazatlan squadron had been murdered just before, which deed was probably the provocation for the slaughter, but the records are unsatisfactory.

Another event of the same year was an expedition under Alférez Sanchez, in November, against the Cosemenes, or Cosumnes, across the San Joaquin Valley. These Indians had either attacked or been attacked by a party of neophytes from Mission San José, who were making a holiday trip with their alcalde, and twenty or thirty of whom were killed, or at least never returned. Sanchez was absent a week, and though he had to retreat and leave the gentiles masters of the field, he had destroyed a ranchería, killed about forty Indians, and brought in as many captives.