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Jose Panto, Captian of the Indian Pueblo of San Pascual (15 pages)
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Page: of 15
156 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY
were 50 acres of improved land worth $500,
$100 worth of tools, 30 horses, 4 milch cows,
10 other cattle, 1 sheep, and 6 swine valued at
$400, 150 (?) wheat, and 100 (?) barley. The
link with Mesa Grande is important because
when the people of San Pascual were forced out
of their homes, many of them apparently migrated to Mesa Grande.
An end of the fiscal year (June 30, 1869)
report submitted by B. C. Whiting (1869),
Superintendent of California’s Indian Bureau,
stated:
Since my last annual report, and since it
was known that I contemplated establishing a
reservation for the Mission Indians, all the best
lands claimed by the Indians at Pala and San
Pasqual, and especially the watering places,
have been taken up and occupied by settlers.
The immigration has crowded off the Indians
and left thousands without a home. By sharp
practices, and under various pretenses they have
also been deprived of their horses, working
oxen, their cows and stock cattle. Illicit traffic
in ardent spirits, unquestionably aided much in
the accomplishment of these wicked robberies.
Whiting (1869) also published a map of San
Pasqual showing the placement of the village
and fields (Fig. 2). There are both adobe buildings and brush structures illustrated on this map.
In a letter dated August 27, 1869, from
Major General J. B. McIntosh, Whiting’s successor as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in
San Francisco, to E. S. Parker, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C.,
another mention of Panto is made:
SIR: I have the honor to inclose [sic] to
you a translation of a paper, the original of
which is now held by an old Indian named José
Panto, who is the captain of the Indians at San
Pasqual, by which it will be seen that in consequence of the secularization of the missions
the valley of San Pasqual was set aside for the
Indians belonging to the mission of San Diego,
by order of the governor of Alta California; that
in 1846 [sic] this land was asked as a grant by
Don Dyonifario [sic] Lopez, from the Mexican
government, and that the answer to the petition
was, there was no vacant land, as it belonged to
the San Diego Indians of San Pasqual.
This original paper was given to José Panto
by San Antonio Aroicillo (sic), on January 2,
1856.’
Translation of the paper was made to me by
Mr. J.Q.A. Stanley, acting special agent for the
Mission Indians. I wrote it down as he translated it. . . . I should have sent this paper onwith my report of San Pasqual, made on the
25th instant, but in the hurry of business it was
overlooked. I think the paper is important, as
showing the government will take measures to
have the valley reserved for the Indians, and
have all the white settlers removed [Heizer_
1976:7 1-73].
This whole latter-day exchange seems to
point up a fundamental bureaucratic confusion,
since the letter of support in question had been
known to the Indian Bureau in Washington and
had even been published in the Executive Documents in 1857. Though McIntosh seemed unaware of the earlier correspondence, he was
proposing the same view as late as 1869; that
the Indians of San Pasqual had legal right to
their land.
In the 1870 U. S. Census, Panto’s age is
given as 65, aging him by five years, which is
not inconsistent with some of the age errors
common in this form of census taking. The
only other person shown in his household at the
time is a woman named Dolores, age 40, whose
occupation is listed as ‘‘keeps house.’’ His real
estate is shown to be valued at $250 at the time
and his personal property at $200. Both he and
Dolores are marked under the column ‘‘can’t
read, can’t write.”’
On July 15, 1873, Luther E. Sleigh, clerk
of the San Luis Rey Indian Agency, visited San
Pascual and provided the following report:
I reached San Pasqual on the 15th instant,
from Pawai, where you [Reverend John G.
Ames, Special Agent for the Mission Indians]
were yourself detained. I proceeded at once to
the house of Panto Lion,® captain of the village,
and requested him to summon his people together on the following morning for a conference, at the same time explaining to him that we
had been sent by the Government at Washington