Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
Kentucky hunters, with their rifles, were a match for a whole regiment
of hungry, drawling, lazy half-breeds. This affair happened while we
were at San Pedro, (the port of the Pueblo,) and we had all the
particulars directly from those who were on the spot. A few months
afterwards, another man, whom we had often seen in San Diego, murdered
a man and his wife on the high road between the Pueblo and San Louis
Rey, and the foreigners not feeling themselves called upon to act in
this case, the parties being all natives, nothing was done about it;
and I frequently afterwards saw the murderer in San Diego, where he was
living with his wife and family.
When a crime has been committed by Indians, justice, or rather
vengeance, is not so tardy. One Sunday afternoon, while I was at San
Diego, an Indian was sitting on his horse, when another, with whom he
had had some difficulty, came up to him, drew a long knife, and plunged
it directly into the horse's heart. The Indian sprang from his falling
horse, drew out the knife, and plunged it into the other Indian's
breast, over his shoulder, and laid him dead. The poor fellow was
seized at once, clapped into the calabozo, and kept there until an
answer could be received from Monterey. A few weeks afterwards, I saw
the poor wretch, sitting on the bare ground, in front of the calabozo,
with his feet chained to a stake, and handcuffs about his wrists. I
knew there was very little hope for him. Although the deed was done in
hot blood, the horse on which he was sitting being his own, and a great
favorite, yet he was an Indian, and that was enough. In about a week
after I saw him, I heard that he had been shot. These few instances
will serve to give one a notion of the distribution of justice in
California.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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