Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/239

The Mission Indians "This San Pasqual village was a regularly organized Indian pueblo, formed by about one hundred neophytes of the San Luis Rey Mission, under and in accordance with the provisions of the Secularization Act in 1834. The record of its founding is preserved in the Mexican archives at San Francisco. . . . There is now, on the site of that old Indian pueblo, a white settlement numbering thirty-five voters. The Indians are all gone,—some to other villages; some living near by in canyons and nooks in the hills, from which, on the occasional visits of the priest, they gather and hold services in the half-ruined adobe chapel built by them in the days of their prosperity."

Vale, San Pasqual!

From a superficial point of view one might be led to think that the Government delighted to witness the slow extinction of Indians at the hands of the Faithful. It is really not so. The officials of the Government have never been disposed to inflict unnecessary torture on the receding Indian. But their very official existence depends upon the pleasure, not of the whole people whom they are supposed to represent, but of the few who are sufficiently interested in legislation to express their pleasure or displeasure. There is no virtue, in the official mind, in the unexpressed sentiment of a great order- and justice-loving people, so long as they continue to live under the delusion that the public servants are 219