bajalera
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Location: Santa Maria CA
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Brown Skins/Black Robes, Part 2 [Serious]
Part 1 ended with a reference to Juan Maria Salvatierra's account of the widening of a trail from Loreto to San Javier mission.
Continuing:
Accompanied by Padre Piccolo and directed by a Spanish captain who had put roads through the rugged Barranca del Cobre on the mainland, nine soldiers
and some Mission Indians set to work with crowbars, picks, axes and shovels. The area was littered with so many sharp rocks that the men's shoes kept
wearing out and had to be resoled.
One day they came to a place where it was obvious that completing the project would take far longer than had been planned. The padre and the captain
were trying to figure out what to do, when an Indian from Vigge came and said it would be more practical to put the road on a hillside, instead of in
the arroyo where they were working.
Don Cristobal Guitierre and soldier Melchior de Luna accompanied the Indian for a short distance, and found a little trail. On seeing it, they
recognized the great advantage of opening the road through there in three days insted of three weeks.
Yes, Guitierrez and Luna "found a little trail" and "recognized the great advantage," all right. After it had been pointed out to them by an Indian
from Vigge.
Thie engineer-without-portfolio had watched the strangers at work, had visualized what they were trying to do, and was able to transfer their
objective to a site he recognized as being more suitable. As thought processes go, that was indeed remarkable.
So they baptized the Indian from Vigge, bestowing on him the Christian name they thought fitting--Angel. For the problem he had solved was so
difficult that no mere mortal could have achieved this on his own. Angel had obviously been sent to them via Divine Intervention.
[Although Padre Salvatierra would probably find it shocking that anyone would consider this racial prejudice, it seems fair to ask: if the problem had
been solved by a man with pale skin and blue eyes, would it have been necessary for God to butt in?]
The subtle debasing of peninsula Indians has persisted into modern times, as evidence in two accounts of a calamity that occurred in 1723. In a book
published some sixty years later, Padre Clavijero said that a church under construction at Mission Santiago, in the Cape Region, collapsed during a
severe hurricane, killing several Indians and injuring many others.
Writing in the 1950s, a historian implied that this tragedy came about because of the bad judgment of the Indians. They "foolishly sought the
protection of the walls against the rage of the wind."
Some twenty years later, another historian again laid the blame on the victims, who "not knowing any better, attempted to shield themselves from the
wind's rage by seeking shelter, which the walls of the church seemed to provide."
Let's pause just a minute here, to consider how WE would react if caught out-of-doors in a hurricane. You would probably take off for the most
substantial structure in sight--with me (a slow runner) trailing some distance behind. So why was it considered foolish and ignorant for the Indians
of the peninsula to do this?
Perhaps because describing them in this way has become a well-established tradition.
[Note: The rest of this chapter discusses the published histories of Venegas/Burriel, Baegert, Clavijero and Barco, which I can't put on the Internet
because that would prevent me from copyrighting it later.]
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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Baja Bernie
`Normal` Nomad Correspondent
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| Quote: | Originally posted by bajalera
Writing in the 1950s, a historian implied that this tragedy came about because of the bad judgment of the Indians. They "foolishly sought the
protection of the walls against the rage of the wind."
Some twenty years later, another historian again laid the blame on the victims, who "not knowing any better, attempted to shield themselves from the
wind's rage by seeking shelter, which the walls of the church seemed to provide."
Perhaps because describing them in this way has become a well-established tradition.
Yeah! Lee you hit the nail smack on the head!
[Edited on 3-11-2007 by Baja Bernie] |
My smidgen of a claim to fame is that I have had so many really good friends. By Bernie Swaim December 2007
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David K
Honored Nomad
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Thanks for Part two Lee!
The 'Santiago mission' that collapsed and killed so many was at the early site up at Santa Ana, yes? When they tried to build the mission the next
time, it was moved down to (near) today's Santiago...
Love the colorful history of Antigua California!
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