Chapter 2: Spanish San Diego

8. What evidence is there that the missions mistreated the Indians?

Consider the following table, drawn from historical records:

Crime and Punishment at Mission San Diego, 1778-1829
Year Offense Punishment
1778 Conspiracy to armed resistance Death (4 persons)
1782 Fugitivism Imprisonment and hard labor
1782 Stock stealing Flogging, 25 lashes
1800 Murder of non-neophytes Flogging, 25 lashes 27 times (3 persons)
1805 Striking a missionary Flogging, 25 lashes 9 times
1811 Assault on missionary Imprisonment and hard labor
1811 Robbery Imprisonment, 4 years hard labor and flogging 20 lashes 4 times (8 persons)
1815 Assault Imprisonment, 4 years hard labor
1815 Adultery Flogging, 25 lashes
1829 Conducting Medicine Dances Imprisonment, hard labor for one year and flogging,25 lashes

 

Taken from Sherburne F. Cook, The Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976. Table 5, pp.116-121.

As can be gathered by reading the offenses and punishments, life at the mission was not entirely idyllic and resentments over these and many unrecorded punishments served to make people want to run away. Large numbers of neophytes ran away from the restrictive controls of the padres. Usually they required that unmarried men and women in their charge be segregated at all times and that the single women be locked up at night. Attendance at mass and at work details was obligatory. Up to 1817 San Diego had 316 runaways, the second largest number in the system, topped only by Mission San Gabriel with 595. Running away was often provoked by hunger and by punishments that were regularly inflicted by the mayordomos under the direction of the padres.

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