ra, in 1786. For the general guardianship of these
missions a garrison, or presidio, was in each case provided. It was
responsible not only for the protection of the town thus created, but
for all the missions in the district. The presidio of San Diego, for
example, was in charge of the missions of San Diego, San Gabriel, San
Juan Capistrano, and San Luis Rey. So, likewise, there were garrisons
with extensive jurisdiction at Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San
Francisco.

The Indians in the immediate vicinity of a mission were attached
thereto by a sort of gentle enslavement. They were provided special
quarters, were carefully looked after by the priests, their religious
education fostered, and their innate laziness conquered by specific
requirements of labor in agriculture, cattle raising, and simple
handicrafts. It was an arrangement which worked well for both parties
concerned. The slavery of the Indians was not unlike the obligation of
children to their parents; they were comfortable, well behaved, and for
the most part contented with the rule of the friars, who, on their
side, began to accumulate considerable wealth from the well-directed
efforts of their charges.

The supposition was that in the course of years the Indians might
become so habituated to thrift and industry as to be released from
supervision and safely left to their own devices. But that happy
consummation had not occurred when, in 1826, Mexico succeeded in
separating herself from the mother country and began her career as an
independent republic, of which California was a part. Nevertheless,
the greed of politicians suddenly wrought the change which was to have
come as the slow development of years. By governmental decree, the
Indians were declared free of obligation to the friars; the latter were
stripped of their temporal powers, their funds seized under the guise
of a loan, and their establishments often subjected to what was little
short of pillage. This state of affairs had scarcely begun at the time
of the author's visit to California; still, as he points out in Chapter
XXI, the decline of the missions had already set in.

The final blow to their power and usefulness came, however, with the
upheaval accompanying the Mexican war and the acquisition of California
by the United States. Although this country returned all mission
buildings to the control of the Church, their reason for being had
vanished; they were sold, or destroyed, o