With reference to the Indians, I wish to say that great progress would be
made if there was anything to eat and the soldiers would set a good
example. We cannot give them anything to eat because what Don Pedro
has given is not enough to last half a year for the Indians from the
Californias who are here. Thus little progress will be made under present
conditions. As for the example to be set by the soldiers, no doubt some
of them are good exemplars and deserve to be treated accordingly, but
very many of them deserve to be hanged on account of the continuous
outrages which they are committing in seizing and raping the women.
There is not a single mission where all the gentiles have not been
scandalized, and even on the roads, so I have been told. Surely, as the
gentiles themselves state, they are committing a thousand evils,
particularly those of a sexual nature. The fathers have petitioned Don
Pedro concerning these points, but he has paid very little attention to
them. He has punished some, but as soon as they promised him that they
would work at the presidio, he turned them loose. That is what he did last
year, but now he does not even punish them or say anything to them on this
point. I suppose that some ministers will write you, each concerning his
own mission, and therefore I shall not tell you about the cases which have
occurred at other missions. I shall speak only of Mission San Diego.
At one of these Indian villages near this mission of San Diego, which
said village is very large, and which is on the road that goes to Monterey,
the gentiles therein many times have been on the point of coming here to
kill us all, and the reason for this is that some soldiers went there and raped
their women, and other soldiers who were carrying the mail to Monterey
turned their animals into their fields and they ate up their crops. Three
other Indian villages about a league or a league and a half from here
have reported the some thing to me several times. For this reason on
several occasions when Father Francisco Dumetz or I have gone to see
these Indian villages, as soon as they saw us they fled from their villages
and fled to the woods or other remote places, and the only ones who
remained in the villages were some men and some very old women. The
Christians here have told me that many of the gentiles of the aforesaid
villages leave their huts and the crops which they gather from the lands
around their villages, and go to the woods and experience hunger. They
do this so that the soldiers will not rape their women as they have already
done so many times in the past.
注：本栏目重在收集一些海外留学文书的题目，以便加加留学编辑深入了解海外教育方式与发展形势，从而拓展个人陈述、推荐信等文书的写作思路。
