piety
had so delighted the good Father, was eager to have missions started,
and constantly importuned the government to grant them. Garces,
therefore, went to Yuma again in 1779 to prepare the way, and in 1780
two of the hybrid affairs were inaugurated, one at what is now Fort
Yuma, called Puerto de la Purisima Concepcion, after the little canyon
hard by, so named by Garces previously, a canyon fifty feet deep and a
thousand feet long; the other, about eight miles down, called San Pedro
y San Pablo de Bicuner. There were four padres; Garces and Barraneche
at the upper station, and Diaz and Moreno at the lower. Each place
had eight or ten soldiers, a few colonists, and a few labourers. The
Spaniards were obliged to appropriate some of the best lands to till for
the support of the missions, and this, together with the general poverty
of the establishments when he had expected something fine, disgusted
Palma and exasperated him and the other Yumas. In June, 1781, Captain
Moncada, lieutenant-governor of Lower California, arrived with soldiers
and recruits en route for California settlements, and encamped opposite
Yuma. After some of these people had been sent forward or back as the
plans demanded, Moncada remained at the camp with a few of his soldiers.
No one suspected the tornado which was brewing. All the life of the
camp, of the missions, and of the Yumas went on with the same apparent
smoothness, but it was only a delusion suddenly and horribly dispelled
on the fateful 17th of July. Without a sign preliminary to the execution
of their wrath, Captain Palma and all his band threw piety to the winds,
and annihilated with clubs Moncada's camp and most of the men in the two
missions. Garces and his assistant, Barraneche, were at first spared.
Even the conscience of Talma hesitated to murder the good and amiable
Garces, who had never been to him and his people anything but a kind
and generous friend, but the rabble declared these two were the worst
of all, and under this pressure Palma yielded. It was the last terrible
scene of this act in the life-drama we are following. The lights were
out, the curtain down. Military expeditions were sent to avenge the
massacre, but they might as well have chased the stars. The missions on
the Colorado were ended. Never again was an attempt made to found one.
The desert relapsed into its former complete subjection to the native
tribes, and the indifferent Colorado swept on to the conflict wi