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Volume 3 (1858-1859) (592 pages)
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Page: of 592
REMINISCENCES OF MENDOCINO. 157
suffering, the comfort or misery of this
mute community, as well as the preservation of the stations themselves, depend
entirely on the aptitude and trustworthiness of the Indian Agents ; and the fulfillment of so important a trust requires
a great capacity for business, a thorough
knowledge of details, untiring activity,
disregarding fatigue and danger, and,
above all, moderation and self-command,
the indispensable qualifications for managing the rude elements of a settlement
in the wilderness.
The doom of the red man is once for
all irrevocably sealed, as soon as the
white pioneer sets foot upon his. hunting grounds. And it is difficult to say,
with regard to California, whether more
victims have fallen to the barbarous,
half-fanatic, half-military expeditions of
the Californians during the Mexican
times, (to subdue certain tribes, and capture their women and’children for menial
service, under the pretext of Christianization,) or to the irresistible wedge of
the American settler who, impatient of
restraint, in his contempt for other races,
remorselessly scatters all that stands in
his way; or, lastly, whether deeper injury has not resulted from apparently
friendly intercourse, which has introduced to the tribes the evils of intoxication, small pox, and many other diseases
previously unknown tothem. Compared
with the misery and abjection into which
most of them have sunk, by being deprived of or disturbed in their hunting
and fishing grounds, and even made dependent upon their ruthless intruders, by
wants they have introduced and accustomed them to, their removal to the protection and discipline of the Reservations
is to be considered a great blessing!
The system is not one of compulsory
labor, nor forcible conversion ; and there
is little if any restraint as to the exercise
of their primitive rites; but the most
stringent measures are taken against intoxication. The able-bodied men are
kept to regular employment, while provision is made for instructing the rising
generation. A small military force, to
represent the mighty arm of the Federal
Government, is sufficient to protect the
establishment and to avoid conflicts,
which, left to the workings of human
passions, would, as they haye done in
other parts, involve whole districts in devastating warfare,
The institution of the Reservations
seems to be the best mitigation under
existing evils. It provides a refuge for
the hunted-down sons of the wilderness ;
and if a prosperous future cannot be
built up for them, their actual wants are
at least provided for. But, within half a
century, the existence of the red race-will
be reduced to an object of historical retrospect !
THE MENDOCINO RESERVATION.
This Indian Reservation, the largest of
California, fully deserves a circumstantial description. Its principal station is
on the sea-coast, near the river Noyo,
which, for the first few miles from its
mouth, is navigable for small craft. The
outlet of this river presents a double harbor. The outer one is sufficiently sheltered, during the greater part of the year,
by almost parallel promontories, projecting on both sides. Above it, a sandy
spit of land, qeons from the north
bank nearly to the opposite shore, leaves
a narrow entrance to the inner harbor,
which is the usual place of anchorage for
the little schooner belonging to the station. This schooner serves for fishing,
and for communication with the harbor
of Big River, situated about ten miles to
the south.
The buildings of the station stand on
a slightly elevated plain, about a mile
from the sea, and nearly the same distance from the mouth of the Noyo; they
consist of a spacious store-house, offices