notes on Duhaut-Cilly's A Voyage to California
p. xxiv: "But if the Indians were slaves, what were the padres?"
p. 31: In Baja, "there are no longer any free Indians; they are all in the service of the missions or of private individuals. In spite of the changes brought about in Mexico by the revolution and the establishment of independence, they are still looked upon and treated as slaves, called neophytes by the missionaries and domestics by the others....But at the end of the ten years no move was made to free them, and thus there has been perpetuated for more than a century this kind of servitude."
Indians' birth rate reduced by servitude.
p. 63: Duhaut-Cilly asked to convey three Indians to San Diego who were thieves. D-C says. "In spite of my reluctance to support slavery, I consented to the commandant's request."
p. 85" Pushed to the limit, the missionaries had only to give freedom to the Indians, and at once the missions would have been abandoned and given up to the flames. These people would have gone back to their savage ways, and Mexico would have lost the province, because the creole population, too lazy and too proud to devote itself to agriculture, would have fallen into total misery. It is only the work of the Indians that supports them."
p. 91: "Freedom! Freedom! ...There is a kind of freedom understood not only by all men but by all living creatures, the one demanded imperiously by our nature, the one which, indeed, society must take from the criminal. But it is also the one that injustice and force tear away from the unhappy slave, and that had been lost by the poor Indians that Don Ignacio Martinez entrusted to me to carry to San Diego. For six weeks they had been on board a French ship and thus on the soil of France, where there is no slavery." They escape and D-C is happy.
"Among the Indians, most of whom seem to be quite submissive, there are some who put a great value on freedom and seek to get it by fleeing. They get away easily enough but are often recaptured by the parties sent after them by the missionaries and the military commandants."
Tale of Pomponio, who cut off his own heels to avoid dying in irons. Hideous.
"Two months before we came to Santa Barbara there was played out a scene that seemed to show that republicans of all times and all countries, not to speak of Rome and Sparta, have always needed helots, that is to say, wretches, who can be reduced to a brutish condition and killed for sport."
-Tale of escaped neophyte Valerio, who was tracked and slain.
p. 102: Indians armed with macanas, Aztec clubs or rabbit sticks.
p. 115: But why seek in the style of the house the cause of Indian mortality? This lies entirely in slavery, which withers the faculties and weakens the body.
p. 118: Mohave Indians described in:
http://www.amazon.com/Diary-Journey-Mississippi-Coasts-Pacific/dp/1120189055/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406745345&sr=8-1&keywords=diary+of+a+Journey+from+the+Mississippi+to+the+coasts+of+the+Pacific
p. 130: San Jose had "eighty houses and eight hundred people, of whom one-sixth are Indian servants."
138: D-C sees the same slave raid seen by Beechey in north San Francisco Bay
p. 139: At harvest gentiles "help bring in the grain" for pay.
p. 158: Soldiers' pay 20 years in arrears
p. 159: "The Christians themselves do not work the fields; for this they obtain Indians and pay wages to the missionaries. Igt is a pity that this labor is turned over to a kind of slave while the men and hearty youths pass their time racing horses and gambling away the little they own."
IMPORTANT
p. 167: "Slavery may wrap itself in the cloak of benevolence or of betterment of man's condition, but it is still slavery, a state incompatible with the inner intelligence that animates us....What do the padres require of the Indians of Alta California? A little work in return for plentiful nourishment, good clothing, and the benefits of civilization. In spite of these evident advantages, the instinct for freedom is there crying out against this tranquil but monotonous existence and urging them to prefer the poor and uncertain life of their forests and swamps."