Let us now give a brief glance at the work so nobly done by the immortal heroes which Catholic Spain sent to these shores. Many a time, winter blasts of misunderstanding and wrong have been cast upon them, and many a time have noble sympathizers fought just battles with prejudice in their behalf, with the blessed result that the thickest clouds of errors and "threadbare calumnies" have almost entirely disappeared, and with them the remaining mists of wrong are fast vanishing at the powerful approach of truth's sun, so that in relating the glories of that legion of splendid characters whose names are so tenderly clasped about the fondest memories of mission times, we shall not forget their friends and champions of later years.
But first let us see what the brave Spanish pioneers did for California. We will begin with the missionaries. To them we owe the conversion of the heathen and savage Indians, which work was super-human in itself, and which contrary to the statements of libelers, the fathers accomplished with heroic patience and charity, teaching the Indians besides religion, useful trades, civilizing them, and taking such conscientious care of them that they made a nightly round of their quarters, not with whip in hand to punish imaginary misdemeanor, but to see that the spiritual and temporal welfare of their converts and neophytes, was guarded, and so great was the attachment of the Indians to the fathers that if a father was called on business from one mission to another, the Indians would follow him a long distance weeping. Very few of the Indians were taught the art of reading, not because the fathers were in any way unwilling to teach it, but because for this one art most of the Indians showed no desire or willingness to learn, yet this has given the ever ready, unscrupulous writer food for saying that "the fathers endeavored to keep the Indians in ignorance" and the healthy rule of the fathers with its hours of prayer, labor, instruction and recreation for the Indian families in the mission quarters, has been distorted by erroneous histories, and statements have been made by some writers to the effect that "the Indians were treated harshly and oppressed." Whereas under what nation were Indians or unenlightened natives christianized, allowed to remain in their lands or treated with more humanity than under Spain or her missionaries, wherever they explored and wherever they went?