Eternity Street

by John Mack Faragher

  At almost the same moment, Antonio Garra was attempting to persuade Juan Antonio to join him in an attack on Los Angeles. He dispatched a runner to Captain Antonio’s ranchería with a written message. “If we lose this war, all will be lost,” he wrote, “the world if we gain this war—then it is forever, never will it stop—this war is for a whole life.” His syntax may have been awkward (at least in the Star’s literal translation of the Spanish original, which was not preserved), but Garra’s meaning was clear. For him and his followers, the war was a struggle for justice. To win, Indian peoples had to stand and fight together, and without the support of the Cahuillas, the uprising was doomed. If that were to happen, Garra would go down fighting. “I have a good strong hold here,” he declared in an angry challenge to the Americans, issued from his mountain redoubt. “Tell them that I have plenty of money, horses, mares, sheep. And tell them to come on.” A few days later Captain Antonio responded to Garra, proposing that the two of them meet to make joint plans at a ranchería in the Coachella Valley. That same day the Cahuilla leader dispatched a note to Los Angeles County judge Agustín Olvera, pledging that if Angelenos required his assistance, “he was ready to join them with his whole force.” As a token of his support, Captain Antonio provided a copy of the letter Garra had sent him. He was playing a treacherous game.

  When Captain Antonio arrived for the meeting with Garra, he found the Cupeño chief and a small delegation waiting. He immediately ordered Garra seized and bound, instructed his followers to return home and make no further mischief, and dispatched a messenger to summon General Bean and his men. When Bean arrived he spoke with Garra, whom he knew personally, and somehow persuaded him to call on his son and his other lieutenants to voluntarily surrender. There may have been promises of amnesty, compounding the treachery. When young Antonino and four of his associates arrived, they were immediately arrested.

  Juan Antonio taunted the young man for falling into the trap. “I am your prisoner,” Antonino declared, “but I will not permit you to insult me,” and pulling a knife from his sash, he lunged at Captain Antonio, but succeeded only in slightly wounding him. Cahuilla guards jumped the assailant, but Bean intervened, holding Captain Antonio to his promise to surrender his prisoners. His job, the Cahuilla headman acknowledged, was to “catch bad men, not to hurt them,” an obvious reference to the lesson learned from the Irving affair. Over the next day or two General Bean and Captain Antonio negotiated a treaty of friendship between the state of California and the Cahuilla nation. For so long as relations with the Cahuillas remained friendly and pacific, the state pledged to defend their right to their homeland. Bean then departed with the prisoners. The uprising was over. The executions were about to begin.

  THE SAN DIEGO VOLUNTEERS reached Cupa and the hot springs on December 1. After burying the bodies of the murdered American health seekers they torched the entire ranchería. William Marshall and a Mexican companion named Juan Verdugo, returning from Los Coyotes, were arrested on suspicion of collaborating with the enemy. Many Anglos, citing Garra’s letter to José Antonio Estudillo, believed that Californios had encouraged if not supported the uprising. But Don José was a wealthy ranchero as well as an elected county officer, and the Anglo establishment in San Diego did not feel strong enough to challenge him. Instead, the Anglos focused their rage on Marshall and Verdugo. “These prisoners are now hourly looked for,” a correspondent wrote from San Diego. “It will be short work after they are brought in.” A makeshift gallows was in place before they arrived, and their execution was a foregone conclusion. They were tried by vigilantes on charges of murder and treason. Verdugo acknowledged his support of the uprising, but Marshall insisted on his innocence. He had learned of the plan to murder the Americans at the hot springs, he admitted, and failed to warn them for fear of his own life. “It was not my intention to take any part in the war,” he said. “I say this as my dying declaration.” Both men were found guilty and hanged side by side before a large crowd.

  That same day, December 13, three volunteer companies of Americans from San Francisco arrived in San Diego on the steamer. “We shall soon number some four or five hundred strong, more than a match for all the Indians in California,” wrote Thomas Whaley. “We must exterminate them.” Under the command of Major Samuel P. Heintzelman of the U.S. Army, and guided by J. J. Warner, the volunteers marched into the mountains in severe winter weather and attacked the rebels at Los Coyotes. A short but bloody engagement ensued in which a large number of Cahuilla combatants were killed and four of their leaders captured. There were no American casualties. A drumhead court-martial convicted the leaders of murder, arson, and robbery, and on Christmas morning, blindfolded and kneeling before their open graves, they were executed by firing squad. “To have done less, after they knew we were aware of their guilt,” wrote one observer, “would have been fraught with evil.”

  Meanwhile, at Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, another military court found Garra’s son and two associates guilty of treason and murder. One of them, a mere boy, was sentenced to twenty-five lashes, but Antonino and the other Cupeño were executed by firing squad before a crowd of volunteers from Los Angeles. On December 30 General Bean and a small party departed for San Diego with the senior Garra in custody. He had been saved for public trial and execution.

  Antonio Garra’s court-martial on charges of treason, murder, and robbery was held in early January. Garra pled guilty to only one charge, the theft of sheep at the Colorado crossing. He testified in his own defense, and named several prominent Californios as co-conspirators, including Estudillo, who he said had promised to “join with us and help me drive the Americans from the country.” Major Justus McKinstry, assigned as Garra’s defense counsel, demanded that his client be allowed to confront Estudillo, but the court refused. McKinstry then raised a strong challenge to the charge of treason. Garra was the leader of an independent Indian nation and “owed no allegiance to the State of California,” he argued. “Therefore, under no circumstances could [he] be guilty of the crime of treason.” McKinstry moved that Garra be considered a prisoner of war, but the court denied his motion and the trial proceeded. None of the testimony directly connected Garra with the murder of the Americans, but that didn’t matter. On January 10 he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The charge of treason was quietly dropped.

  A few hours later Garra was led to the graveyard, where the execution by firing squad was to take place before a crowd of several hundred. “His whole deportment evinced the brave man prepared to meet his fate,” reported the San Diego Herald. The priest accompanying him urged Garra to pray, but he refused. “What’s the use?” he said. Reaching the place of execution, he was asked whether he wished to make a statement. No, he replied. The priest remonstrated with him, insisting that as a Christian he must make a public profession of his sins and his hope of forgiveness. Relenting, Garra finally lifted his eyes and looked directly at the crowd. “Gentlemen,” he said, a contemptuous smile breaking across his face, “I ask your pardon for all my offenses, and expect yours in return.” Blindfolded, he knelt at the head of his open grave, and the twelve-man squad fired on command. According to some observers, Garra died chuckling at his own joke.

  IN LATE DECEMBER, Oliver M. Wozencraft, one of the federal Indian commissioners appointed to make treaties with the California tribes, met with Juan Antonio and other Indian leaders at Temecula to negotiate compacts of peace and friendship with the United States. Captain Antonio was not happy about sitting down with Luiseño and Cupeño headmen, whom he considered mortal enemies, but he did as he was asked. In the Treaty of Temecula, signed January 5, 1852, the Indians agreed to acknowledge the sovereignty and protection of the United States, to preserve peace with their neighbors, and to conform to the regulations of the federal government. In exchange for their willingness to cede their aboriginal claims to land in southern California, a large inland territory would be set aside as a homeland in perpetuity. Several weeks later Captain Antonio paid a
visit to Los Angeles with a hundred of his men. “They came to collect presents for their conduct in the late war,” reported the Star. “Juan appears to be a prompt business man as well as a cunning chief, and a debt due by his white brethren is not soon forgotten.”

  In fact, they forgot quickly and completely. When the Treaty of Temecula was sent to the U.S. Senate for ratification, along with seventeen other treaties negotiated with California tribes, Anglos and Californios alike made clear their opposition. “To place upon our most fertile soil the most degraded race of aborigines upon the North American continent,” opined the Star, “to invest them with the rights of sovereignty and to teach them that they are to be treated as powerful and independent nations, is planting the seeds of future disaster and ruin.” The California senate appointed a committee to consider the matter, and they voted to scrap the treaties and demand that the federal government remove all Indians from the state. One member of the committee opposed that conclusion—J. J. Warner, who shortly after the uprising had been elected to represent San Diego County in the legislature. “Where will you locate them?” Warner asked.

  On the desert and sterile regions east of the Sierra Nevada, that they may die of starvation? . . . Better, far better, drive them at once into the ocean, or bury them in the land of their birth. . . . Is it not our duty to devise some measure, dictated by a policy which, while it may not be onerous on our citizens, may lean to the side of justice in favor of the Indian? . . . Will it be said that the land is not broad enough for them and us? Or that while our doors are open to the stranger from the uttermost parts of the earth, we have not spare room for the residence of the once sole inhabitants of our magnificent empire? Shall future generations seek in vain for one remaining descendant of the sons of the forest? Has the love of gold blotted from our minds all feelings of compassion or justice?

  Warner was no friend of the Cupeños. But unlike the other members of the committee, he actually knew what he was talking about.

  Vehemently opposed by California’s congressional delegation, the treaties were tabled by the U.S. Senate and never reconsidered. No one bothered to inform the Indians that they had no legally binding title to their homelands. Numerous times Captain Antonio complained to state and federal officials of Anglo squatters on Cahuilla territory. In 1856 he signed a letter of protest addressed to the commissioner of Indian affairs. “We have been encroached upon by the white settlers who have taken possession of a large portion of our best farming and grazing lands and by diverting the water from our lands depriving us to a great extent of the means of irrigation.” Captain Antonio met with Captain Henry S. Burton of the U.S. Army. The squatters were not breaking any laws, Burton told him, and there was nothing he could do about them. “You must remain quiet, and keep your people so,” he warned. “The government is watching you, and if you do wrong you will be punished.”

  In 1863 a smallpox epidemic swept through southern California, infecting thousands of people and killing hundreds. At the Cahuilla ranchería of Sahatapa, many were stricken, including Captain Antonio. Those who could fled, leaving their leader and other sufferers behind. According to Cahuilla legend, Juan Antonio died regretting he had not joined forces with Garra twelve years before.

  •

  CHAPTER 17 •

  LA LEY DE LINCH

  WHILE ANGELENOS OCCUPIED THEMSELVES with the threat of Indian violence, the number of lethal assaults occurring in their midst continued to rise. Five murders in 1849, ten in 1850, twelve in 1851 (not including the killing of Red Irving and ten members of his gang), and a staggering twenty-four in 1852. From 1850 to 1859 more than two hundred homicides took place in Los Angeles County, which counted five to ten thousand residents. Los Angeles was one of the most lethal places on the planet, with a murder rate comparable to that of Mexican border towns in the first decade of the twenty-first century, at the height of the violence between warring drug cartels. Calling attention to the huge number of murders, John A. Lewis, editor of the Star, asked the question that surely troubled many Angelenos. “Who today can name one instance in which a murderer has been punished?”

  In the summer of 1851, when Lewis posed that question, his paper was focusing on developments in San Francisco, where residents had organized a celebrated committee of vigilance in response to the ineffective enforcement of law and order. In June San Francisco vigilantes executed a man convicted of grand larceny in an extralegal trial. Lewis, a native of Boston who had edited a San Francisco paper before coming to Los Angeles, was highly critical.

  We are told that the members of the Committee are men of integrity, and that they were impelled to the course they took from a conviction that the criminal laws are totally inadequate to protect society. Yet we cannot perceive that their course has a tendency to gain for the Law any additional respect. On the contrary, the supporters of Law and Order have great cause to despond. Where is all this to end? It commenced with the hanging of criminals; it may end in the death of the innocent. The zeal of these men may lead them into some mistakes, or individuals of less integrity may find a place upon the Committee. The Days of Terror will then come upon us.

  If half the energy that went into the organization of the vigilance committee went instead into efforts to strengthen law enforcement, Lewis argued, “a result would have been obtained that they would never have occasion to regret.”

  Since 1850, when county government was organized, law enforcement in Los Angeles had consisted of the county sheriff, his undersheriff and deputy, as well as the city marshal and his two deputies. Both the sheriff and the marshal were frequently preoccupied with other duties—the sheriff with the collection of county taxes (out of which he took a share), the marshal with the roundup and auction of vagrant Indians (for which he received a commission). The suppression of criminal violence was a secondary concern. Left essentially unprotected, besieged by the ongoing disorder, Angelenos were drawn to vigilantism equally as much as San Franciscans.

  In response to calls from private citizens for the organization of a real police force, the common council of Los Angeles voted in July 1851 to establish a volunteer patrol “to watch over the security of the inhabitants and the preservation of peace, in conformity with the laws of the state.” Dr. Alexander W. Hope, medical doctor and veteran of the late war, was appointed chief, operating under the executive authority of the mayor. According to the Star, a total of eighty-three men, including twenty-six Californios, signed on immediately. Wearing ribbon badges inscribed “Police/Policia” provided by the city, the volunteers enjoyed semiofficial authority. But unlike the city marshal or the county sheriff, they were not officers of the court. As historian Hubert Bancroft put it, the Los Angeles volunteers “might be called a vigilance committee organized under the auspices of the law.” But, he added, “we may be sure that such a body would never let law stand greatly in their way.”

  Despite his previous warnings about the dangers of vigilantism, editor Lewis of the Star endorsed this proposal, which he considered “admirably calculated to preserve peace and good order.” His support provoked Manuel Clemente Rojo, editor of La Estrella, the Star’s Spanish-language section, to wonder in print whether Lewis had changed his opinion of vigilantism. Lewis responded in the same issue of the paper. “Our views upon the subject have not in the least degree changed,” he assured Rojo. What Lewis found attractive about the plan, he explained, was the creation of a police “without being at any expense for its maintenance.” Something for nothing—the sure sign of a devil’s bargain.

  THE FIRST TEST of the new law enforcement regime came in the summer of 1852 when two men—Benjamin Franklin McCoy, twenty-one, and his partner, a German identified only as Ludwig—went missing under suspicious circumstances. They had taken the steamer from San Francisco to San Diego, purchased saddle ponies, and set off across the countryside with several hundred dollars in gold, intending to purchase cattle to drive north and sell at inflated prices. They had last been seen in the company of a Cal
ifornio named Doroteo Zabaleta, who had recently escaped from the Los Angeles county jail, where he had been held awaiting trial on a charge of petty theft. Zabaleta later showed up at a cantina in San Gabriel, spending lavishly and exhibiting a buckskin purse full of gold coins. Sheriff Barton and his undersheriff left town looking for him.

  While Barton was absent, a group of Anglos from Santa Barbara arrived with Zabaleta and two other prisoners, Sonoreños Jesús Rivas and Francisco Carmello. The three had been arrested on suspicion of horse theft. But under intense examination, Carmello broke down and implicated the other two in the murder of the cattle buyers. Since the sheriff was unavailable, the prisoners were turned over to the volunteer patrol. There was intense public pressure for summary justice. “In accordance with the wishes of our citizens,” the Star reported, “it was deemed proper that a committee should be chosen to hear any statements that the prisoners might be inclined to make.” That committee operated outside the established procedures of the county’s justice system. The volunteers had become vigilantes.

  The committee counted both Californio and Anglo members, including editor Manuel Clemente Rojo of the Star, who acted as interpreter. The three suspects were examined separately. Carmello repeated his confession, and when it was read aloud to Zabaleta he broke down and made a confession of his own, blaming Rivas for the murders. When informed what his partner had said, Rivas insisted that Zabaleta had been the instigator. In fact, the question of who planned the murders mattered little to the vigilantes. Zabaleta led them to the scene of the crime at the lower crossing of the San Gabriel River, where they found what remained of the victims’ corpses after the coyotes and buzzards had finished their work.