The good fathers took a more sensible view of the case. Having once obtained the consent of an Indian to receive Christian baptism, they took good care that he should not fall back from his profession, but retained him a prisoner of the cross. They used as much mildness as is compatible with their system, and only compelled their converts to labor as much as was necessary to the success of the mission, the rest of the time being devoted to their spiritual edification; that is, they were employed in repeating Latin prayers and a Spanish catechism, after an old Indian who acted as prompter. Sometimes it was necessary to allow the Indians to go abroad for a time, but then their return was provided for by retaining the squaws and papooses as hostages, in the same manner as they provided for the return of the plantation bulls, by shutting up the cows and calves in the corral.
The system pursued by the Jesuits, and, after their expulsion, by the Dominicans, was to treat the Indians as though they were half human and the other half bestial. Abstractly considered, this was very wrong; but it was practically the only system of treatment that gave any promise of improving their condition. Though in many respects they were treated as slaves, yet the missionaries had generally at heart the best interests of the Indians. With them it was a settled rule, that when an Indian was to be married, his kindred should be carefully inquired after, and that among them he was to marry, or not at all; for long experience had taught the fathers that certain diseases, hereditary among them, were checked by each marrying into his own clan, while they were aggravated by intermarriage with a stranger.
We may sum up the whole story of the combined missionary and governmental efforts at colonization in Lower Peninsular California, during a period of two hundred and fifty years, by saying that they jointly succeeded in establishing a poverty-stricken village of mud huts, called San Josef, at Cape San Lucas, where the Manilla galleon, on its voyage to Acapulco, could procure a supply of fresh vegetables to stay