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ance to hold their own against the Americans, whose wholesome self-conceit is proof against the darts of "too outrageous fortune." Americans naturally poured in rapidly, expecting that under existing laws they would be able soon to secure tracts of land, and loud were their complaints against the great and indefinite grants covering most of the fertile water-supplied country, all in the hands of the natives whom many of them looked upon as encumberers of the soil. To quote one of these land-hungry new arrivals, a man of prominence, "Let the settlers apply where they may, the result is invariably the same, they are repulsed with an indignant, 'This is all mine.'" Had the situation been more amicable, no doubt many friendly arrangements would have been made. Many rancheros did give land freely to Americans whom they fancied.

The indefiniteness of boundaries was an intense aggravation to the new comers, used to the exactness of English land laws. One native when questioned as to his domain answered, "That mountain at the east is the southeast corner of my rancho, the timbered country which you see in the distance is my northwest corner, the other corners of my land are rather indefinitely marked at present, but I shall have the rope applied to them also, as soon as the alcalde is at leisure."

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legislature that should declare the country in effect an unoccupied wilderness, where claims could be located without regard to native owners. Such an assembly was not convened, but many proceeded to act on the suggestion, and thus was the beginning of squatter sovereignty and land troubles innumerable, in which the original owners were genererally worsted.

By 1849 the southern part of the State where lived the majority of the Spanishspeaking people, showed signs of demoralization. Trade was at a stand still. The land owners had a too well founded dread as to the future of their property, which made them suspicious, sometimes actively hostile, toward their conquerors. The life of the Spanish American who would gain a livelihood in the mines was intolerable. At best all was turbulence in "the diggings"; the only law seemingly observed being "every man for himself and"- When the "hind

most" man happened to be of the conquered race his Satanic Majesty not only "caught" him, but was supposed to have possessed him from the first. Royce, in speaking of the Mexican grants, which he calls the "Complex spider web of land titles," says:

This delicate web that our strength could seemingly so easily have trampled out of existence soon became an iron web. The more we struggled, the more we became involved in its meshes. Infinitely more sorrow, not to speak of bloodshed, has it cost us to get rid of our obligations to the California land owners than it would have cost to grant them all their original claims, just or unjust. Misery, retarded progress, bloodshed, litigation without end, all these have resulted from the fact that we tried, as much as we did, to defraud the Californian of the rights we guaranteed to him at the moment of conquest.

When our government finally enacted a law for the settlement of the land difficulties, what was its nature? It provided that commissioners be appointed to ex

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amine all California land claims, these claims to be presented within a stated period; claims not presented to the Board within the time named, to be no longer regarded but the lands in question considered as belonging to the public domain; all claimants to appear before the Board as suitors against the United States, which, by its attorneys, was formally to resist their claims in every case. There was, indeed, the possibility of appeal to the United States District Court, or still further, the Supreme Court itself. land titles, whether in dispute or not, were regarded as called in question by the United States. The poor Californians-no business men, at best-were thus forced into the most uncertain and soul-harrassing business, fighting for what was their own, in courts the laws and language of which they did not understand. Their property, meantime, was rendered hard. to sell, and taxation fell most heavily upon them. Often, they could only pay their lawyers with promissory notes, which in the end meant the land itself. With squatters, too, they had continual troubles. The government had put them in the position of presumably fraudulent claimants. It was a "believing a man to be guilty till he is proved innocent," so foreign to our professed belief in the rights of humanity, in justice to all.

The result was a hopeless feeling of irritation, a sense of shame at ill treatment that could not be resented. It seems strange that so many of the old families hold the creditable positions they do, rather than that so many became demoralized and poverty stricken. Imagine our California of today under like conditions, such unjust laws given by a conquering foreign power, though where such invaders should come from, unless it be the Moon or Mars, it is hard to tell, as no civilized people of today would so treat a brother nation. How

many of our property owners would hold their own against such odds, and we are a nation of typical business men.

Our government's instructions to its agent here in 1845 were: "Assure these people, if they desire to unite their destinies to ours they will be received as brethren." If this was fraternal treatment they received it was that accorded to an Esau or an Ishmael.

The devices by which unprincipled men got the better of individual property owners would make a volume in the history of the land troubles. Guadalupe Vallejo in her "Ranch and Mission Life in Alta California," tells how a leading American squatter came to her father, J. J. Vallejo, and said: "There is a large piece of your land where the cattle run loose and your vaqueros are all gone to the mines. I will fence the field for you at my own expense if you will give me half of it." Vallejo agreed, but when the American had enclosed it he entered it as government land and kept it all.

One of the most exasperating features to the northern rancheros at the influx of Americans was the stealing of cattle. "Men who are now prosperous farmers and merchants," says Señorita Vallejo, "were guilty of selling Spanish beef without looking at the brand." J. J. Vallejo lost nearly one hundred thousand head in this manner, yet where some of the thieves were caught by vigilantes, and he was summoned to appear against them, he would not go, saying though he "wished them punished he did not want them hung," and they were set free. Long afterward one of them sent him conscience money from New York, where he was living in good circumstances.

William Heath Davis thought he saw a fine spot for a town where Oakland now stands. He proposed to the owner of the ranch, Don Vicente Peralta, to give him five thousand dollars cash for a

two thirds interest in the land, promising to build at his own expense a Catholic church, construct a wharf, and run a ferry boat from San Francisco to the spot. After some consideration Don Vicente decided that he could not bring himself to part with the land. Some years later, when nearly one hundred thousand of his cattle had been killed by rifles at night and sold in the San Francisco markets, and the best portion of his rancho was taken up by squatters, he deeply repented his short-sighted policy. Thus it often was the native Californian had little ambition to acquire a fortune, and a certain attachment to the land that made him reluctant to give up his possessions.

The Estudillos of San Leandro were sufferers in much the same way. Their land was taken up piece by piece, even the streams were fenced in from the owner's cattle. Suits of ejectment were of no avail until, by the advice of an American friend, they ceded an interest in the rancho to an alien, a Frenchman. This took the matter to the Circuit Court and decision was rendered in favor of the plaintiffs. So, in one instance by diplomacy, a native family held their own.

There is a story told of a smart ranchero who took advantage of a weak description of his land to add thousands of valuable acres to the tract. Three of his corners were clearly defined, on the fourth there stood an old hut that served as the junction of the south and west lines, each boundary being about three miles in length, the shape as well as extent not being well known to the authorities; so it occurred to the owner that it would be a very good plan to move the hut which served as so prominent a landmark to a point two miles farther to the southwest, which would include some fine grazing land that he desired and no one but the government claimed. He

made the change, added six square miles to his possessions, for all of which when the government survey was made, he received a patent. If this story be true it stands alone for such shrewdness and cunning on that side the land question. The beautiful San Pablo rancho1 near Berkeley has been in litigation for forty years. It was tied up by a dispute among the Californian heirs themselves and hinged in a measure on a mother's rights under Mexican laws, but involved many Americans who had purchased from various members of the Castro family. The chief native owner was the wife of Ex-Governor Alvarado. The contest is but recently settled and the land with its valuable water fronts, will no doubt build up rapidly.

By no means the least obstacle in the way of the advancement of the native Californian has been from the lack of fitting educational facilities. It was not until children born in California had themselves become parents, that anything was done to establish public schools, and that child was fortunate whose parents were willing and able to instruct him in reading and writing. From this time there were various attempts to start primary schools, generally under the charge of some retired sergeant whose trade of war did not fit him in the best manner for training the tender mind. Of these schools the following is a description:

A long, narrow, badly lighted room, no adornment save a huge green cross or picture of some saint which hung beside the master's table. The teacher, himself an old soldier, in fantastic dress, often with an ill-tempered visage. As the scholar reluctantly entered its chilling atmosphere he walked the length of the apartment, kneeled before the cross or saint, recited aloud the bendito, crossed himself, then tremblingly ap proached the master, saying "La Mano, Señor Maestro," when that grave functionary, with a "See story of the San Pablo Rancho," OVERLAND for November, 1894.

grunt, would extend his hand to be kissed. During the day the ferule, and that instrument of torture, the hempen scourge with its iron points, were in frequent use. Says General Vallejo of these schools:- "They were a heaping up of horrors, a torture for childhood. In my mind rises up such bitter remembrances of the sad consequences due to the education which our masters gave us that the recollection is absolutely painful. They were the chambers where were done to death the sentiment of dignity which perished amid a thousand tortures, physical and moral."

Later the boys' schools were somewhat improved but those for girls were still only primary. A Californian who was a student in Los Angeles in the sixties relates that not only were the boys so unruly that teachers were battered, frightened, and generally worsted, but there was a time when a committee had to be detailed to examine boys and take from them knives and other weapons, that there might be no deadly affrays. Yet these desperate lads many of them grew up to be intelligent and law-abiding citi

zens.

Thus the men of California received an education, though the road they traveled to reach it was a rough one and the end not commensurate with their abilities, but the women were left behind. Both the influence of the Church and the opportunities offered were discouraging to domestically inclined girls, and the majority of the mothers of the men and women of today, though fluent conversationalists, possessing a marked degree of intelligence, yet have little education.

It is said to take two generations, mothers and fathers having equal advantages, to make a literary atmosphere in

the home. Of this atmosphere the Spanish American as yet knows little, but the day is rapidly approaching when he will be no longer hampered by this drawback. Then, with his unparalleled health and perfect physique, with mental culture and attainments equal to his purely American brother, the Spanish American, or Anglo-Spaniard,- for the races are already so intermingled that they can not be treated separately,- has a future opening before him in this land where nature is at peace with man, too glorious for prophecy. Like the ancient Greeks, simple in tastes, athletic, healthy, living much in the open air, with chances, powers, appliances, the ancients dreamed not of, acknowledging only the one God whom "ignorantly" the Greeks worshiped, to what may they not attain ? In the words of General Mariano Vallejo in his centennial speech delivered in San Francisco, October 8, 1876:

What shall be the destiny which the Supreme Benefactor has prepared for this portion of our beautiful native land for the next coming hundred years? I entertain the full conviction that the hand of the Great Creator, by which is guided the progress and happiness of mankind, will carry us to the highest degree of excellence in all the branches of knowledge. Then, it is to be hoped, that those who will celebrate that day, taking a retrospective view of the present epoch, will remember with gratitude what this generation, by divine aid, has established for them to carry on until they reach moral, intellectual, and physical perfection.

Helen Elliott Bandini.

In the preparation of the above article I am indebted for aid to the works of H H. Bancroft, "The Spanish Institutions of the Southwest," by Blackmar, "California," by Josiah Royce, and the writings of Charles Lummis, W. H. Davis, and Alfred Robinson. H. E. B.

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THE BANDINI HOMESTEAD, COMMODORE STOCKTON'S HEADQUARTERS, SAN DIEGO.

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THE COEUR D'ALENE RIOTS, 1892.

THE STORY OF A GREAT STRIKE.

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THE mining district known familiarly as the "Coeur d'Alénes," Northern Idaho, is some thirty miles long, with an average width of three to four miles. The entire region is mountainous, covered with pine, cedar, and Streams rise in the eastern

portion, flow through narrow gorges westward, and uniting in the Coeur d'Aléne River, empty into Lake Coeur d'Aléne. There is only sufficient space for the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific railroads to run their branch lines through the cañon parallel to the water courses, from end to end of the district.

The three principal means of communication with the outside world are: eastward, via the Northern Pacific railroad through Mullan to De Smet, Montana, where connection is made with the main line of the Northern Pacific; westward, by the Union Pacific railway to Tekoa, Washington, where connections are made either south to Boise, the capital of Idaho, or westward to Spokane, the principal commercial and railway center of Eastern Washington; or by the narrow gauge line of the Northern Pacific to The Mission, where connection by steamboat is made down the Coeur d'Aléne river and lake to Coeur d'Aléne City, Idaho, thence by broad gauge Northern Pacific railroad to Hauser, at which junction the main line east or west can be taken. In addition to these modern means of travel, the old Mullan stage road from Spokane could be utilized in an emergency, and a trail from Burke through Thompson Pass to

Thompson Falls, Montana, on the main line of the Northern Pacific was possible for pack train, horse, and foot. Scattered through the district are extensive mines. of galena and silver. In the region about Murray, on Prichard Creek, are numerous gold properties.'

The greater part of the miners employed were members of the Coeur d'Aléne Miners' Union, a branch of the Butte, Montana, Miners' Union, probably the most powerful and wealthy labor organization in the Northwest,- and had been on a strike for nearly a year. Their causes of dissatisfaction may be classified under three heads :

First, reduction of wages;

Second, being obliged to trade at the company's store;

Third, the unmarried men being forced to board at the company's boarding house. The questions of trading at the company's store and boarding at the company's boarding house were local complaints, and pertained mainly to two localities, Wardner and Gem, and could not be considered as grievous. In fact, these adjuncts were established more to supply the wants of the men than as sources of profit, so the vital cause of the

1 The aggregate assessed value of the mills and concentrators in the district in 1892 was $1,350,000. The principal silver and lead mines were the Bunker Hill and Sullivan, value $2,000,000. The Emma and Last Chance, value $500,000; the Sierra Nevada, $300,000; the Stem Winder, $200,000,-about Wardner. The Consolidated, $200,000; the 'Frisco, $500,000; the Gem, $500,000; the Black Bear, $500,000; the Standard, $500,000; the Union, $500,000; the Granite, $500,000; the Custer, $500,000,- these mines were located in the cañons centering about Wallace, none more than seven miles distant. The Morning and Hunter, $500,000 each, near Mullan. The Poorman and Tiger, value $500,000 each, at Burke-where branch lines of the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific railroads terminated. The total estimated valuation of these properties was $10,050,000.

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