Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/442

368 might be rendered valuable subjects of the Spanish crown. The government well knew that the Spaniards were neither sufficiently numerous nor adventurous in Mexico to throw large bodies of hardy men into so remote a province on the shores of the Pacific, and it was, therefore, imagined that the actual native population of the district might be tamed by religion to supply the place of Christian immigration.

All the explorers who visited Upper California reported favorably on the character of the country. It was known to possess inducements to a profitable trade. The golden east opened its gates in front of it; and the country was supposed to contain valuable metallic deposits which might be slowly and surely developed. But the labors of the clergy did not respond to the expectations of the government. The priests were contented with present comfort rather than anxious for future success. The mass of the Indians were brought into a state of comparative vassalage, as we have seen in the chapter on the church of Mexico, and all the most valuable or accessible lands were rapidly absorbed, to the exclusion of hardy, persevering, and thrifty white men.

Although the clergy were the virtual proprietors of the agricultural and cattle raising districts, the viceroyal government contrived to retain a loose and limited control over this district, until the period of the revolution. In 1824, on the adoption of the federal constitution, as the Californias did not possess sufficient population to become States of the federation, they were erected into Territories, with a right to send a member to the general congress, who, though suffered to participate in debate, was not allowed to vote in its decisions. As Territories they were under the government of an agent styled the Commandant-General, whose powers were very extensive.

After the revolution the first progressive step was made by the secularization of the missions. In 1833, under the vigorous lead of Gomez Farias, the salaries of the monks were suspended, the Indians were released from servitude, the pious fund was confiscated, the division of property among natives and settlers decreed, and an extensive plan proposed to fill the country by immigration. These blows fell heavily upon the monastic farmers and herdsmen of those trading churches. The missions were speedily deserted, their edifices and establishments decayed, and, near the period of their close, the whole result of this abortive ecclesiastical civilization, was summed up in the paltry numbers exhibited in the following statement: