The Other Slavery (67 page)

34. Turner,
Barbarous Mexico,
7–10.

35. Ibid., 10–15. For the Mayan community perspective of this era, see Paul K. Eiss,
In the Name of El Pueblo: Place, Community, and the Politics of History in Yucatán
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 50–54, 107–110.

36. Turner,
Barbarous Mexico,
6–8.

10. AMERICANS AND THE OTHER SLAVERY

1. On these demographics, see D. W. Meinig,
The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History,
vol. 2 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 222–223. As we have seen, although Indian slavery had existed in the East in colonial times, it had nearly disappeared or been eclipsed by African slavery by the nineteenth century. It is no wonder that easterners making their way across the continent experienced Indian slavery as something of a novelty.

2. Calhoun’s most relevant experience prior to his appointment as Indian agent was his tour of duty during the U.S.-Mexican War. He was captain of the Crawford Guards and Georgia Light Infantry of Muscogee County. Although the Georgia volunteers saw no military action (scores of volunteers died of dysentery but none by bullets), Calhoun traveled widely through Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León and as far as Veracruz. Wilbur G. Kurtz Jr., “The First Regiment of Georgia Volunteers in the Mexican War,”
Georgia Historical Quarterly
27:4 (December 1948), 307. The quotes are from Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Medill to Indian Agent Calhoun, Office of Indian Affairs, April 7, 1849, and Governor Charles Bent to Medill, Santa Fe, November 10, 1846, both in
The Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
3–4
and 6–9, respectively. According to the memorandum, all of these Indian groups were involved in human trafficking. The Utes had been at war with the New Mexicans for two years and had taken many captives; the Comanches were at peace with New Mexico but were waging an incessant war against Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila, “from which they have carried off and still hold as slaves a large number of women and children”; and the Navajos had in their possession “many New Mexicans whom they hold and treat as slaves.”

3. Calhoun to Medill, camp near Santa Fe, July 29, 1849; Calhoun to Medill, Santa Fe, August 15, 1849; and Calhoun to Medill, Santa Fe, October 1, 1849, all in
The Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
17–37. See also McNitt,
Navajo Wars,
136–154; and Brugge,
Navajos in the Catholic Church Records of New Mexico,
75–107.

4. The quotes are from Calhoun to Medill, October 1, 1849, 29–30.

5. Ibid., 26–29. For earlier treaties and agreements in which the Navajos surrendered or exchanged captives, see “Paz celebrada con los Navajos,” signed by Governor José Antonio Vizcarra, Santa Fe, February 14, 1824, MANM, reel 2, frame 558; “Tratado de paz con la nación Navajo,” Jemez, July 15, 1839, MANM, reel 26, frames 540–542; and “Manifiesto a los habitantes de la frontera de Jemez,” n.d. (circa March 10, 1841), n.p., MANM, reel 28, frames 1704–1707. For an excellent discussion of the Navajos and their captives, see Brooks,
Captives and Cousins,
241–250.

6. Calhoun to Orlando Brown, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Santa Fe, February 12, 1850, in
The Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
148–150.

7. Calhoun to Brown, Santa Fe, March 15, 1850, in
The Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
161–162.

8. The quote is from ibid., 162.

9. After all, this southern gentleman was not especially interested in upholding the rights of Indians or blacks. Among other things, Calhoun persuaded the Pueblo Indians to give up their citizenship rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and instead put themselves “under the protection of the laws regulating trade and intercourse with the various tribes of the United States,” a move that in effect resulted in their disenfranchisement. He also proposed “penning up” the Comanches and Apaches to solve the problem of Indian depredations in New Mexico. And after becoming territorial governor, Calhoun attempted to restrict the movement of “free negroes” into New Mexico. It is not surprising, then, that his attitude toward captivity/peonage was to allow it to thrive. He broached the subject of the rights of the Pueblo Indians in several letters, such as Calhoun to Brown, Santa Fe, November 16, 1849, and Calhoun to Brown, Santa Fe, February 2, 1850, both in
The Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
79–80 and 133–134, respectively. For a general discussion of this topic, see Anthony P. Mora
, Border Dilemmas: Racial and National Uncertainties in New Mexico, 1848–1912
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 60–63. On having the Comanches and Apaches “penned up,” see Calhoun to Medill, Santa Fe, October 15, 1849, in
The Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
55. For Calhoun’s attempts to exclude free blacks from New Mexico, see Brooks,
Captives and Cousins,
309–310. For his duty to return Mexican captives, see Calhoun to Brown, March 15, 1850, 162.

10. Already on September 13, 1813, the Spanish Cortes (an assembly consisting of representatives from all parts of the Spanish empire) had ordered the secularization of all missions in the New World, but the order was not carried out in California. During the Mexican era, the secularization of the California missions became a bone of contention between liberals and conservatives in Mexico. Finally, during a period when the notoriously liberal Valentín Gómez Farías ran the executive branch as the sitting vice president while President Antonio López de Santa Anna spent time at his haciendas in Veracruz, the order to secularize the California missions sailed through the Mexican Congress in August 1833. For an excellent discussion of this process, see Louise Pubols,
The Father of All: The de la Guerra Family, Power, and Patriarchy in Mexican California
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), chap. 4. For a full listing of the largest ranches in California in the 1830s and 1840s, see Martha Ortega Soto,
Alta California: Una frontera olvidada del noroeste de México, 1769–1846
(Mexico City: UAM, 2001), tables 56–58.

11. Numerous works on the life of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo or based on his extensive correspondence are preserved in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. For a flavor of life on the ranch, see Harry D. Hubbard,
Vallejo
(Boston: Meador, 1941), especially chap. 2. One Swedish visitor was G. M. Waseurtz af Sandels,
A Sojourn in California by the King’s Orphan
(San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1945), 37.

12. Zephyrin Engelhardt,
Upper California,
vol. 4 (San Francisco: James H. Barry, 1915), 136. In addition to the Vallejos, other prominent Mexican families adopted the custom of setting aside one servant for each child. James J. Rawls,
Indians of California: The Changing Image
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 71; Myrtle M. McKittrick, “Salvador Vallejo: Last of the Conquistadores” (manuscript, UCLA, n.d.). The quote is from Salvador Vallejo, “Notas Históricas sobre California,” Sonoma, 1874, Biographical Manuscripts, C-D 22, p. 46, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

13. Salvador Vallejo, “Notas Históricas,” p. 46. The most insightful recent study of life at Rancho Petaluma is Stephen W. Silliman,
Lost Laborers in Colonial California: Native Americans and the Archaeology of Rancho Petaluma
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004), especially chap. 3.

14. On the origins of the Native laborers at Rancho Petaluma, see Silliman,
Lost Laborers in Colonial California,
61–66. On Mexican Californians conducting raids on nearby Indian settlements, see Cook,
The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization,
197–251. Sandels reported the return of one of these expeditions led by Salvador Vallejo in 1843. Sandels,
A Sojourn in California by the King’s Orphan,
36.

15. On Vallejo’s Native Hawaiians, see Silliman,
Lost Laborers in Colonial California,
54. Sinclair’s Pacific Islanders are mentioned in Sandels,
A Sojourn in California by the King’s Orphan,
61. More generally, see Sucheng Chan,
This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860–1910
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 16–26. For a very stimulating discussion of the rise of debt peonage in a transnational framework, see Edward D. Melillo, “The First Green Revolution: Debt Peonage and the Making of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Trade, 1840–1930,”
American Historical Review
117:4 (2012), 1028–1060. I rely on Cook’s work for Indian population estimates. Sherburne F. Cook,
The Population of the California Indians, 1769–1970
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), passim.

16. Josiah Belden,
1841 California Overland Pioneer: His Memoir and Early Letters
; John Bidwell,
A Journey to California;
and John Marsh, “Letter of Dr. John Marsh to Hon. Lewis Cass,” all quoted in Rawls,
Indians of California,
60–61, 74–80.

17. Lansford W. Hastings,
The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California,
quoted in Rawls,
Indians of California,
74–80.

18. Rockwell D. Hunt knew Bidwell in his old age and wrote a sympathetic biography that nonetheless contains useful firsthand information. Hunt,
John Bidwell
(Caldwell, ID: Caxton, 1942), chap. 7. For a more scholarly treatment, see Michael J. Gillis and Michael F. Magliari,
John Bidwell and California: The Life and Writings of a Pioneer, 1841–1900
(Spokane, WA: Arthur H. Clark, 2003), passim.

19. According to Bidwell’s most recent biographers, his attitude toward the California Indians remained “a blend of curiosity, humanitarianism, and pragmatic self-interest.” Gillis and Magliari,
John Bidwell and California,
250.

20. This section is based entirely on Hunt,
John Bidwell,
140–142; Gillis and Magliari,
John Bidwell and California,
249–310; and Rawls,
Indians of California,
94–95, where the original quotes can also be found.

21. A rendition of the massacre of the Lewis children can be found in Theodora Kroeber,
Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), 70–71.

22. Hunt,
John Bidwell,
141, 142; Gillis and Magliari,
John Bidwell and California,
279–282.

23. I rely heavily on Albert Hurtado’s luminous biography of Sutter,
John Sutter: A Life on the North American Frontier
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006). The quotes are from Sandels,
A Sojourn in California by the King’s Orphan,
58.

24. Sandels,
A Sojourn in California by the King’s Orphan,
58.

25. For Sutter’s proclivity to take on debt and Bancroft’s quote, see Hurtado,
John Sutter,
98.

26. Ibid., 97–99.

27. Ibid., especially chap. 6 and pp. 152–153; Rawls,
Indians of California,
78–79.

28. William Joseph’s quote is from Hurtado,
John Sutter,
80.

29. Sutter, “Personal Reminiscences,” 1877, quoted in Cook,
The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization,
457. For the incident with the Indian traffickers, see Hurtado,
John Sutter,
74–75.

30. Sutter to Pierson B. Reading, May 8, 1845, quoted in Hurtado,
John Sutter,
154. See also Albert L. Hurtado,
Indian Survival on the California Frontier
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 59–61.

31. Sutter to Antonio Suñol, May 19, 1845, and John Marsh to Antonio Suñol, June 16, 1845, both quoted in Hurtado,
John Sutter,
154 and 115–116, respectively.

32. Ibid.; Hubert Howe Bancroft,
History of California,
vol. 4 (Santa Barbara, CA: Wallace Hibberd, 1883), 138, 344.

33. Not all the Kelseys settled in California immediately. Samuel and David Kelsey apparently spent two years in Oregon before rejoining Benjamin and Andrew in
California. On the Kelseys settling in Napa, see Minnie B. Heath, “Nancy Kelsey: The First Pioneer Woman to Cross the Plains,”
Grizzly Bear Magazine
40 (1937), 3–7.

34. On the Clear Lake Indians right before the arrival of whites, see Frederick John Simoons, “The Settlement of the Clear Lake Upland of California” (master’s thesis, University of California, Davis, 1949), especially chap. 5; and Lyman L. Palmer,
History of Napa and Lake Counties . 
.
 .
(San Francisco: Slocum, Bowen, 1881), 23–40. The latter source contains especially valuable information provided to the author by Augustine, a Pomo chief working as overseer of a cattle operation at Clear Lake, as well as other firsthand sources.

35. Palmer,
History of Napa and Lake Counties,
49. Again the information provided by Augustine is the most valuable and jibes well with other sources.

36. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo told this story to Major Edwin A. Sherman around 1851–1853, and it was confirmed by Salvador Vallejo. Sherman, “Clear Lake Expedition of 1850,”
Grizzly Bear Magazine
12:2 (December 1912), 15. Juan Bojorges, a member of the expedition, gave the same account in 1877 to historian Hubert Howe Bancroft, who was in the process of compiling information for a projected history of California. A transcription can be found in Robert F. Heizer,
The Collected Documents on the Causes and Events in the Bloody Island Massacre of 1850
(Berkeley: Archaeological Research Facility, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, 1973), 67–69.

37. For the wanton lashings and killings, see Palmer,
History of Napa and Lake Counties,
56. Thomas Knight gave a statement of these events to Bancroft in 1879. The original testimony remains in the Bancroft Library, but it was also published in Heizer,
The Collected Documents,
77–78. The statement about the partners’ “unbridled lusts” was made by George Yount, quoted in Benjamin Logan Madley, “American Genocide: The California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2009), 110.